“I'll see the chief and have him issue a general order to his men to
watch for her, but if I were you I'd select a half dozen in the down
town district, and give them a little tip with a big promise!”
“Good Lord! How I hate this,” groaned the Harvester.
“Want to find her by yourself?” questioned his friend.
“Yes,” said the Harvester, “I do! And I would, if it hadn't been for
her ghastly face. That drives me to resort to any measures. The
probabilities are that she is lying sick somewhere, and if her comfort
depends on the purse that dressed her, she will suffer. Doc, do you know
how awful this is?”
“I know that you've got a great imagination. If the woods make all men
as sensitive as you are, those who have business to transact should stay
out of them. Take a common-sense view. Look at this as I do. If she was
strong enough to travel in a day coach from Chicago; she can't be so
very ill to-day. Leaving life by the inch isn't that easy. She will be
alive this time next year, whether you find her or not. The chances are
that her stress was mental anyway, and trouble almost never overcomes
any one.”
“You, a doctor and say that!”
“Oh, I mean instantaneously----in a day! Of course if it grinds away
for years! But youth doesn't allow it to do that. It throws it off, and
grows hopeful and happy again. She won't die; put that out of your
mind. If I were you I would go home now and go straight on with my work,
trusting to the machinery you have set in motion. I know most of the
men with whom we have talked. They will locate her in a week or less.
It's their business. It isn't yours. It's your job to be ready for her,
and have enough ahead to support her when they find her. Try to realize
that there are now a dozen men on hunt for her, and trust them. Go back
to your work, and I will come full speed in the motor when the first man
sights her. That ought to satisfy you. I've told all of them to call me
at the hospital, and I will tell my assistant what to do in case a call
comes while I am away. Straighten your face! Go back to Medicine Woods
and harvest your crops, and before you know it she will be located. Then
you can put on your Sunday clothes and show yourself, and see if you can
make her take notice.”
“Idiot!” exclaimed the Harvester, but he started home. When he arrived
he attended to his work and then sat down to think.
“Doc is right,” was his ultimate conclusion. “She can't leave the city,
she can't move around in it, she can't go anywhere, without being seen.
There's one more point: I must tell Carey to post all the doctors to
report if they have such a call. That's all I can think of. I'll
go to-night, and then I'll look over the ginseng for parasites, and
to-morrow I'll dive into the late spring growth and work until I haven't
time to think. I've let cranesbill get a week past me now, and it can't
be dispensed with.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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