General stores -- Fiction; Married people -- Fiction; West (U.S.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
GRACE'S malarial attack was soon repulsed, but the memory of
that Sunday chill remained vivid. So Grace followed the Doctor's
instructions as carefully as if she were an invalid on the brink of the
grave, and she compelled Philip also to heed the counsel of precaution
which Doctor Taggess had given to both. From that time forward she
took personal sympathetic interest in all malarial victims of whom
she heard, especially in those who purchased from the great stock of
proprietary medicines in Somerton's store. Not infrequently a farmer
or villager would be seized by a chill while talking or transacting
business in the store, and Grace, despite her own experience in a warm
room and under many woollen coverings, could scarcely help begging him
to accept the loan of heavy shawls from the store's stock, and to sit
undisturbed by the fire in the back room. When she planned a Sunday
dinner, at which Doctor Taggess and his wife were to be guests, it
was partly for the purpose of questioning the Doctor about the origin
of malaria, and of its peculiarities, which seemed almost as numerous
as cases; but Philip assured her that busy doctors, like other men of
affairs, hated nothing so much as to "talk shop" out of business hours.
Fortunately she gradually became too busy to have time in which to
become a monomaniac on malaria. The specimen organ arrived, and
was placed in the church, to the great edification of the people.
Grace was for a time the only performer, but to prepare relief for
herself, improve the quality of the congregational singing, and not
without an eye to business, she organized an evening music class,
and quickly trained several young women to play some of the simpler
hymn-tunes,--and also to purchase organs on the instalment plan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account