The Rough Rider (2 page)

“Oh, thank you, Doctor,” said the young girl, her large eyes wide with appreciation.

Burns moved to the room set apart for the few conveniences provided for the doctors, sat down, and made his final notes for the day. When he finished, he rose and put on the heavy brown overcoat and a rounded bowler, which he set squarely on his head. Stepping back into the hall, Burns closed the door behind him, then turned and said, “Now, what’s your name, girl?”

“Gail—Gail Summers.”

“Well, Gail Summers, let’s be on our way. How far do ye live from here?”

“On Water Street. It ain’t too far,” the girl said quickly, as if in apology. She wore a thin black coat that she pulled together, as it had long since lost its buttons somewhere.

“We’d better take a cab since it’s raining.” As they stepped outside, Burns noticed the girl was trembling with cold. A
harsh February wind whistled and howled through the streets. Glancing down the street, he saw a cab, then lifted his fingers and uttered a piercing whistle.

The girl was startled at the shrill sound and turned to stare at him with alarm. “It’s all right,” Burns smiled. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” When the carriage pulled up, Burns opened the door and nodded to her. “In ye go.” He reached out and took the girl’s arm, helping her get inside, noticing that she was almost as tall as he. When he sat down across from her, he asked, “What’s the address?”

“I don’t know the number, but it’s right down the street from the mission across from Sixth Avenue.”

“Go to Sixth Avenue on Water Street,” Burns called out. The coach lurched forward as the horses moved against their harness.

“How long has your mother been sick?” Burns asked. He sat there listening as the young girl spoke of her mother’s illness. Her face was drawn with fatigue, Burns noticed, and underneath her eyes were faint shadows—the marks of one who had worked too long and too hard for her age. She had a gauntness about her, too. She was older, he decided, than he had thought at first, somewhere between that age where girlhood ends and the age where womanhood begins. Looking down, he saw her hands held open on her lap. They were reddened with the cold, but when he saw the palms, he leaned forward.

“What’s wrong with your hands?”

“Oh—nothing, sir!”

“Let me see.” In puzzlement, Burns reached forward, picked up one of the girl’s hands, and though she resisted, he gently spread it open. The hand was firm and strong, but the palm was red and swollen, laced with fine lines that seemed to be infected. “What have ye done to yer hands, girl?” he asked in concern.

“Nothing, Doctor. It’s just—” Gail Summers was not accustomed to speaking with fine gentlemen, and the fact that
he was holding her hand made it even more difficult for her to talk. She looked shyly into his warm bright blue eyes, swallowed hard, then whispered, “It’s just from the work.”

“The work? What work is that?” he asked, his voice thick with his native burr.

“I work at the rope factory. It’s handling the fiber that does it. I don’t mind it no more,” she said.

Burns knew that the city of New York ran partially, at least, on child labor. Youngsters of no more than six or seven had been discovered working long hours in many of the city’s factories. And now as he looked at the reddened palm of the girl in front of him, an intense anger rose in him. He had a temper, this young Scotsman, that he normally kept under firm control. But when he saw wanton abuse like this, he became deeply troubled. He shook his head, touching the scars, and said, “Ye should wear gloves, lass. I’ll see that ye get some ointment to put on them. That will help them heal.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Gail sat back against the seat, clasping her hands together to keep the palms hidden. She had never ridden in a carriage before, and the very act of coming to the hospital seeking help for her mother had been a test of her courage. She had watched her mother get sicker with each passing day. The women of the neighborhood had offered to help, but none of their remedies had been effective. Finally, in desperation, Gail had informed her mother, “I’m going to get you a doctor, Ma.” Now as she rode along through the streets, she felt both elated and frightened. Clearing her throat, she said, “Doctor . . . ?”

“Yes. What is it, Gail?”

“I . . . I ain’t got no money to pay you with.”

Burns smiled at the girl. “I didn’t expect ye had,” he said. “We won’t worry about that.” He saw the tenseness of the girl’s body relax somewhat, and smiled. “Tell me a little about yourself. Do ye have a large family?” As the carriage moved along, he discovered that the girl had one brother named Jeb, apparently named after a Civil War general. She also had
two stepbrothers and one stepsister. Burns was very quick-witted, and as the girl spoke haltingly with bad grammar, he understood that she loved her mother and brother more than anything else. He also discovered from the manner in which she spoke of her stepfather, Harry Lawson, that the girl was deathly afraid of him.

As the carriage turned and made its way through the fast-falling darkness, Burns glanced out at Water Street. This infamous avenue traced its way along the East River on the southern bank of Manhattan Island, and was perhaps the most notorious of any part of the great city.

Burns, who practically possessed a photographic memory, recalled a recent article he’d read concerning the vice and crime plaguing New York. An entire paragraph now leaped into the young physician’s mind as the carriage rattled over the roughness of the streets. “If you put all the grog shops, all the houses of ill-fame, and all the billiard saloons into one continuous street, it would reach from City Hall to White Plains, a town twenty miles north, in Westchester County. Every night there would be a murder every half a mile, a robbery every one hundred sixty-five yards, six outcasts at every door, and at frequent intervals men dividing loot, eight preachers trying to convert the criminals, and thirty news-papermen to report on it all.”

“That’s it—that’s our place,” Gail blurted out suddenly.

“Here we are, driver,” Burns called out. When the carriage pulled up to the curb, he stepped out, followed by the girl. He paid the cab driver, then turned, saying, “Now, let’s see aboot your mother.”

The sidewalks, even at this hour, were busy with men and women talking, shouting; and a vile, rank odor hung in the air. A few street vendors moved toward them selling bandannas, tin cups, peaches, and damaged eggs. The garbage-strewn street was full of noisy children who had gathered to watch, squeezing through the crowded streets like slippery eels. For
some, as Burns well knew, the street was their only home—the gang that thrived on petty thievery and pick-pocketing.

“This way, Doctor.”

Burns followed the girl inside a narrow doorway and up three rickety flights of wooden stairs that vibrated under his feet. His nose wrinkled at the pungent smells of cooked cabbage, sweat, dirty clothes, and sewage as they made their way upward. There was little light, and the darkness was falling quickly outside. When they reached the third flight, the girl led him down the narrow hallway. Stopping at a door, she opened it and turned to him, her face gleaming palely in the murky light admitted by the single window at the end of the hall. “Come in, please.”

Burns entered and suddenly felt rather crowded by the smallness of the place. The room evidently served as kitchen, dining room, and living room for the entire family. There was a large iron stove off to the side, serving both for heat and cooking. On the other side of the room, Burns saw four young people staring at him.

“This is my brother, Jeb,” Gail said quickly. Jeb was a small, thin boy of ten, with the same light hair and blue eyes as his sister. He was sitting on the floor reading a tattered book, but when he looked up and saw the doctor, he scrambled to his feet.

“Are you going to make my ma well?” he whispered. “I’m going to try, son,” Burns said in a kindly fashion. The other young people he saw were of a different heritage, having black hair and black eyes.
Must be the stepbrothers and stepsister,
he thought. But he had no time to consider them, for a large, hulking man had emerged through the door leading from the living area.

“Wot’s this?” he rumbled. His black hair hung down in his face, and he had a pair of oddly colored eyes, hazel as it were. His manner and large size made him look threatening, but Burns was not a man easily intimidated.

“This is Mr. Lawson?” he asked. “I’m Dr. Burns. Your daughter here tells me your wife is very ill.”

“I ain’t sent for no doctor.” Harry Lawson stood there, a hulking man, blunt featured and loose-lipped. He was weaving from side to side, obviously half-drunk. “Ain’t no money for doctors. Be on your way!”

Burns sensed the tension in the girl, who had gone to stand beside her brother. He faced the big man firmly, saying, “No charge. Let’s see what we can do for her.”

Harry Lawson stood glowering at him, and Burns could tell the man was about to order him out of the house. But when Gail whispered, “It won’t cost anything. Let him see her, please,” he hesitated, then shrugged.

“You won’t get no money for this,” he snapped, then lurched across the room, leaving and slamming the door behind him.

Burns at once moved into the sickroom, where he found a thin woman lying in bed covered by tattered quilts. She stared up at him with feverish eyes, set in a pale and gaunt face. He saw the resemblance to the daughter at once. “I’m Dr. Burns,” he said.

Gail slipped by the doctor and leaned over the frail figure, saying, “Ma, I brought the doctor.”

Martha Summers Lawson turned a pair of faded blue eyes on the doctor, and when she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. “You shouldn’t have done that. We can’t pay.”

“Now don’t ye be worrying about that,” Burns said cheerfully. He came over to the bed and sat down in the chair next to it and began to examine the woman. He saw at once that she was very ill indeed. He also saw that Martha Summers, though now thin and frail from her illness, had once been a very attractive woman. But hard work and the cruel poverty that left none untouched in Five Points had managed to drain most of that former beauty from her. Her hair was still the same honey blond as that of her daughter, and there were traces of beauty in the defined bones of her gaunt face. Burns
worked quickly, then straightened up and said, “Well, ye’re going to be all right, Mrs. Lawson. Ye’ll just need some good nursing.”

The woman reached out and took Gail’s hand, smiling faintly. “Gail is better than any nurse you’ve got in your hospital, Dr. Burns,” she said quietly.

“I’ll wager she is that.” Burns nodded and then said, “Ye’ll be needing some medicine.” Sensing the tension his words brought, he said at once, “I’ll take care of that. No charge. Would ye be able to go get it with me, Gail?”

“Oh yes, Doctor,” she said, her large blue eyes elated at the doctor’s word.

“Fine.” Burns gave a few more instructions to the sick woman, then closed his bag and left the room.

Gail turned back to the bed and said, “I’ll be right back, Ma. I’m going with the doctor to get some medicine.”

“Can I go with you, Gail?” the younger boy asked at once.

“Can Jeb come with us?” Gail asked the doctor when she stepped back into the other room.

“Of course. Bring him along. But it’s cold and damp outside.”

“I’ve got me a good coat,” Jeb said. He rose and put on a coat that was designed for a full-size man. His hands were swallowed by the long sleeves, and the coat itself hung down below his knees. Gail went over and buttoned it, then pulled a black cap over his head.

As they made their way down the stairs, Jeb tripped over the long coat. He would have gone sprawling down, but the doctor was quick to reach out and grab him. Burns was touched by the warm grin of thanks the boy beamed back at him.

When the three finally reached the street again, Burns asked, “Would there be a place to buy medicine close by, Gail?”

“Yes, sir. Down on Seventh Street. I’ll show you.”

The wind whistled down the street, numbing Burns’s face. He noticed that the other two seemed inured to the biting
cold. A taste of snow hung in the air, and the dull smoke rising from the tenements almost shut out the sky completely. They passed several saloons along the way, and the rank odor of alcohol and cigarette smoke wafted out of the dark interiors. The men’s voices that carried through the constantly swinging doors were loud and raucous, and more than once, the physician felt the eyes of hulking men fall upon him. But he gave no sign that he was aware of the dangers that lurked all along Water Street.

“Here it is, sir.” Gail opened the door, and Burns and the boy entered.

When a man wearing a short white jacket approached, Burns said briskly, “I’m Dr. Burns from Baxter. I need a bit of medicine.” He gave his order to the man, and when it was filled, Burns reached inside his coat and pulled out his money and paid for it. Turning, he handed the small package to Gail and carefully explained when to give the medicine, then said, “Be sure and take good care of your mother.”

“Yes, I
will,
Dr. Burns—and thank you!”

Burns put his hand on the boy’s head and said, “And you take care of your sister, Jeb. All right?”

“Sure,” Jeb said sturdily.

Burns stepped outside and watched as the young people made their way quickly back down the street. “Let me hear how she is doing in a few days,” he called out.

Gail’s voice came to him over the whistling wind. “Yes, sir. I will.”

****

Chief Nurse Agnes Smith stared across the small table at the young physician, slipping her shoes off her aching feet. The small room was filled with the aromatic smell of tea. David Burns had formed a habit of taking a break with the chief nurse just before leaving in the afternoon. Now, Smith wiggled her toes and sighed. “It’s been a busy day. If I had to see one more patient, I think I’d scream.”

“You’re a good nurse, Agnes,” Burns said. “I never saw better.”

The face of the nurse flushed with pleasure. Unaccustomed to compliments, she took a quick swallow of tea to hide her embarrassment. She glanced across at the young doctor, searching for the telltale signs of fatigue. His constant encouragement and kind words had endeared him to her. In fact, he’d become almost like a son to her. Looking over the cup of tea she held, she muttered, “Well, I don’t think much of doctors as a breed—but I’ll have to say that you’ve come a long way since you came to Baxter.”