The Heart Line: A Drama of San FranciscoBurgess, Gelett
General
The Heart Line: A Drama of San Francisco
Burgess, Gelett
Bohemianism -- Fiction; Fortune-tellers -- Fiction; San Francisco (Calif.) -- Fiction
"Did she, now? Well, what did I tell you! Seems to me you _do_ look
peaked and pale, like you was enjoying poor health. I noticed it when
you first come in. I don’t believe your blood’s good. Luella don’t
prescribe ordinarily, but she can diagnose cases something wonderful.
If I should tell you how many doctors in this town send their patients
to me to be diagnosed before they dare to treat them themselves, you’d
be surprised. Why, only the other day a lady come in here that was give
up by four doctors for cancer, and Luella found it was only a boil in
her kidney. She went to a magnetic healer and was cured in a week. Now
she’s doing her own work and taking care of her babies, keeping boarders
and plans to go camping this very month."
"Who was the doctor?" Mr. Payson asked, much impressed.
"Doctor Masterson. He’s up on Market Street somewhere. Perhaps I’ve
got a card of his around. I’ll see if I can find it."
She walked over to the mantel and fussed among its dusty ornaments,
saying, with apparent concern, as she rummaged:
"I don’t know as I ought to send you to Doctor Masterson, after all.
You see, he ain’t a man I like very much, and few do, I find. He don’t
stand very well with the Spiritual Society, nor with anybody else that I
know of. He ain’t quite on the square, do you understand what I mean?
To be perfectly frank, I think he’s a rascal. He has a bad reputation
as a man, but all the same, he’s a good medium, nobody denies _that_,
and he does accomplish some marvelous cures! If Luella said your
complaint was serious, she knows, and it looks to me like you must go to
Doctor Masterson or die of it, for if he can’t cure you, nobody can.
He’s certainly a marvelous healer."
She found the card at last, and brought it over to Mr. Payson.
"Here it is, but you better not tell him I give it to you, for we ain’t
on very good terms, and I wouldn’t want him to know that I was sending
him business."
As Mr. Payson rose to go, the medium stopped him with a gesture.
"Wait a minute," she said, passing her hand across her forehead. "Grace
is here again and she says: Tell him that we’re doing all we can on the
spirit plane to help him and we want him to cheer up, for conditions are
going to be more favorable in a little while, say, by the end of
September.’"
She paused a moment and then added:
"Who’s Clytie? Would that be the gray-haired lady?"
"What about Clytie?" He was instantly aroused.
"It don’t seem to me like she’s in the spirit, exactly. She’s on the
material plane. Let’s see if I can get it more definite. Oh, Grace
says she’s your daughter."
"That’s true."
"What do you think of that? I get it very plain now. Grace says she’s
watching over Clytie and will help her all she can."
"Can’t she tell me anything more?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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