When Doctor Santos changed his habits of living, his character also changed. Formerly, he had been cheerful and lively, fond of an occasional visit to the theatre, and especially fond of a good table. But when he might have had all this he became gloomy and moody, and reduced his personal expenses, in spite of his large earnings, to an extent almost miserly.
The years rolled by, the doctor’s hair was snowy white, and he scarcely spoke. As he was no longer young and paid so little attention to his own comfort, his health began to fail. The cold was intense that winter and Doctor Santos, in spite of himself, had to keep his bed many a day.
His medical confrères visited him, and one, in particular, earnestly urged him to go to a warm climate.
“Must I go away, leave my work and occupations to die, not of sickness, but of ennui?” “But,” argued his friend, “no one likes better than you to send people off for a change of air during the winter.”
The doctor did not reply, but he remained in Madrid, passing sleepless nights and coughing ceaselessly.
His friends, the only family he possessed, took turns, for a long time in caring for him, but, as the days lengthened into weeks, the weeks into months and each one gradually began to find that his own cares absorbed his time, it was agreed upon that the best thing to do was to have a sister of charity come and nurse the doctor.
Henceforth, his friends’ visits grew less frequent, and there were days at a time when his door bell did not ring once.
Sor Luz, as the sister of charity was called, proved to be a perfect substitute for all his other attendants. Although the doctor had never cared for women’s society, he found Sor Luz such a charming companion that he refused to receive other people, if it were possible.
Her white head-dress and the undulations of her soft gown, seemed to him like the motions of a dove’s wings.
Doctor Santos followed her with an affectionate and grateful glance, thus repaying the tender and solicitous care which only maternal and Christian love could give with such absolute abnegation and perseverance.
About the last of November, that harvest time of death, when a few golden leaves still clung to the trees, when the mountain tops were covered with silver and the cold, northerly wind penetrated the crevices of doors and windows, Doctor Santos began to grow worse.
He declared in his will, dated years before, that he had no property and that whatever was found in the house belonged, by right, to the poor. That he wished to have a humble funeral and be buried in the public cemetery.
In looking over his papers and effects, a tin box was found containing forty banknotes of one thousand pésétas each.
His friends declared that he had died of avarice. Sor Luz said that she had never known any one who had passed away with more tranquil, resigned Christian spirit than Doctor Santos.
Nevertheless, she often spoke of some phrases of the doctor’s which were utterly incomprehensible to her and for which she could not account.
“When there was yet time,” he said, “I had the means to cure myself. It would have been so easy, that if it had been any one else I should have done so. I did not do it because I wished to preserve my own self-respect and to have some merit when God called me to a better life.”
—From the Spanish of Gustavo Morales, by
Jean Raymond Bidwell.
IV.
c42
THE CURING OF KATE NEGLEY.
“I TOLD you once,” said Mrs. Melissa Allgood, “about the time Kate Negley took that leading on the lodge line, and locked the doctor out of the house one night when he was meeting with the Masons, and hollered at him scornful-like, when he come home, to ‘get in with his lodge-key;’ and how the doctor smashed up her fine front door with an ax. Well, all the Station thought that might be the end of Kate’s foolishness, and that maybe she would take her religion and sanctification comfortable after that, same as other folks. And everybody was glad Dr. Negley broke that door in, because it ain’t good for Kate Negley or any other human to have their own way all the time.
“So Kate went along quiet and peaceable after that for two or three months, and never had no new leadings to tell about in meeting, and never did a thing to show she had heartfelt religion except to wear her hair straight down her back, according to Paul. And ma she said to me one day she believed Kate had come to the end of her line, and was going to act like sensible folks the rest of her days. But I told ma not to waste her breath in vain babblings; that I bet Kate Negley was just setting on a new nest, and for ma to wait for the hatching.
“I hadn’t hardly spoke the words before it come. The very next Sunday, when Brother Cheatham got through preaching and called for experiences and testimonies, Kate she rose and said she was mightily moved to rebuke a faithless and perverse generation, puffed up in its fleshly mind, loving unrighteousness, and abominable in wickedness. She said she had been wandering in the way of destruction like the rest, and putting her faith in lies, till the last few weeks, when light begun to dawn on her, and she commenced to search the Scriptures more. She said she was fully persuaded now, halleluiah! and wanted all them that desired to be wholly sanctified to enter the strait and narrow path with her. She said the gospel she had to preach to them that morning was the gospel of healing by prayer and faith, and not by medicines or doctors; that though she had lain among the pots, like the rest of them, yet now was her soul like the wings of a dove, and forever risen above all such works of the devil as ipecac and quinine and calomel; that only in the Great Physician did she place her trust; that as for earthly doctors, she could only say to them, in the words of Job: ‘Ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.’ She said yea, verily, all they was good for was to ‘beguile unstable souls, and bewitch the people with sorceries;’ and not only that, but, like Jeremiah says, ‘They help forward the affliction.’ She said she never meant to say anything against doctors as men, but as doctors they was vessels of wrath, corrupters of souls, firebrands of the devil, and the liveliest stumble-stones in the path of righteousness. She said for them benighted folks that put their faith in physic to listen to Jeremiah’s point-blank words, ‘Thou hast no healing medicines,’ and again, ‘In vain shalt thou use many medicines; for thou shalt not be healed.’ She said from lid to lid of the Bible there wasn’t a single case of anybody being cured of anything by either doctors or medicine; and that ought to be enough for the earnest Christian, without looking any farther. But, she said, knowing their hard-heartedness, she had studied every verse of the Scriptures before she got up to speak.
“She said when the disciples was sent out, they was told to preach the gospel, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, and cast out devils; and they did it. She said she’d like to know how many that called themselves disciples nowadays so bigotty, and claimed the in-dwelling of holiness, ever even tried to do any of them things, except talk, let alone do them. She said it was because they were so poor-spirited they didn’t have faith to lay hold of the promise, though there it was in plain words: ‘Ask, and ye shall receive;’ ‘According to your faith be it unto you;’ ‘For I will restore health to thee, saith the Lord;’ ‘I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal.’ She said, bless the Lord, her spiritual eyes was open now, and the only medicines she would ever take was prayer and faith. She said James’s prescription was good enough for her: ‘Pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much;’ and that she wanted every soul in the Station to get to the same point. But, she said, until they did, she wanted it known that there was one righteous soul in Sodom, that was going to start out on the war-path against the devil and all his doctors. She said she was going to lay hold