A NEW MEDICINE by Genevieve Myrdock

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 20, 1901

A NEW MEDICINE.

By Genevieve Myrdock

[Genevieve Myrdock, in Galveston News.]

It had rained, rained, rained for nearly a week, and as a natural consequence the Marley household had reached a state of almost unbearable irritability. The four children were as cross as four little bears could have possibly been, and fretted and quarreled on the slightest pretense, or without any pretense at all.

The “good man of the house” was quite sure his corn crop would have to be planted over, and he was almost as sure he wouldn’t make a living this year. He wondered a thousand times “why it could never rain without flooding the earth,” and at last ordered the children from his presence because he couldn’t endure their growling, failing to see wherein he was like them.

Poor little Mrs. Marley had done what the majority of farmers’ wives do under the same circumstances: she had taken advantage of the weather, which made it almost impossible to do anything else, to finish a lot of extra patching; she had quieted the children as best she could, moved the bed from under the leak in the roof she had tried to get Jim to fix the week before, tacked a piece of pasteboard over the broken window-pane, waded to the henhouse after every hard shower to see about the young chicks, and reminded Jim between times that “into each life some rain must fall,” and that if the rain wasn’t so good for the corn, it would insure them a plentiful supply of water in the cistern.

But at last the sun came out in all its splendor, and Jim was whistling gaily as he hitched his team to the wagon, preparatory to going to the woods for some gate-posts he was needing. The mocking-bird in the cedar tree by the window was pouring forth his sweetest melody. The children were scampering in and out of the house, regardless of the mud they tracked over the floors.

Mrs. Marley alone seemed discontented. The smile she had forced herself to wear for the past few days had given place to a disagreeable frown.

“The sunshine brings with it so much to do,” she murmured to herself, “and I’m so worn out I scarcely know where to begin. The galleries must be washed off—what a sight they are! And I must wash out some clothes for the children. Besides, there’s the whole house to sweep and dust. It hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned this week. Jim does hate for me to raise a dust when he’s in the house.”

She dragged herself wearily from the rocker, drew a bucket of water, and with broom in hand, was beginning the day’s labor.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Marley. Good-morning,” called a pleasant voice from the gate.

“Why, good-morning, Dr. Brown,” she replied, as she caught sight of the village doctor’s cheery face. “Won’t you come in?”

“No,” said he, “I just stopped as I was passing to see if you could tell me just when you’d break yourself down with your extra work.”

Mrs. Marley looked at him with a puzzled expression, which quickly changed as she caught the sly twinkle of his eye as he added, “Jim will be busy, you see, and if I knew just when you’d need my services ’twould save him a trip.”

She laughingly furthered the joke: “Perhaps you might as well leave me some medicine now. I don’t feel a bit like—”

Just here the children interrupted. Four little voices were eagerly calling, “Mama, mama, can’t we go to the woods with papa?”

“Yes, yes, let ’em go,” said the doctor, answering the inquiring look on the mother’s face. “It’ll do ’em good; they’ll get their feet wet, of course, but that’ll not hurt ’em while they’re frolicking, and you can change their shoes when they come back.”

“By the way,” he went on, “how would you like trying my new medicine, which instead of curing sickness prevents it, and is moreover most delightful to take?”

“Who wouldn’t like that?” replied the housewife wonderingly.

“Well, here it is, without money and without price. Leave every care behind; tie your bonnet on, pile into the wagon, and go with your husband and children to the woods.”

“Leaving all this work?” interrupted Mrs. Marley in tones of astonishment.

“You can’t very well carry it with you,” chuckled the doctor, “and,” he called back as he drove off, “if you don’t take the medicine the doctor leaves for you, what do you expect will become of you?”

Jim was helping the children into the wagon as she turned to look. A dazzling prospect of green fields, budding trees, and odorous wild plum blossoms flashed before her eyes, and almost before she realized what she was doing, she had called, “Jim, can’t you wait till I shut up the house, and let me go with you, too?”

“Of course,” he called back; “but hurry, I’m ready to start.”

In a few moments they were driving across the green meadows. How fresh and sweet was the smell! How blue the sky looked! Droves of plovers flew along before them, and the yellow-breasted larks looked up inquisitively. The children began singing, “He-he-he! a merry band are we!” and the mother threw off her dignity and joined in with the rollicking chorus.

But here were the woods, and soon Jim’s ax was merrily swinging. Yonder went a “molly cotton-tail,” frightened from its haunts by the unwonted noise. Mrs. Marley couldn’t resist pulling a generous supply of the sweet plum blooms, tho she realized that she might be depriving herself of several glasses of delicious jelly by so doing.

There, the first tree was down, and Tige was running thru its branches as if he expected to find no telling what. And here were the children, their stockings wet and their hands full of wild flowers. How quickly the hours flew!

“Is it really time to go to dinner?” said Mrs. Marley. “I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t so hungry.”

That night she seated herself in her rocker once more, tired with her afternoon’s labor, but with her usual sunny smile on her face. Why, she could smell those plum blossoms yet, and in her mind’s eye, instead of muddy floors, there was a bright picture of green grass, singing children, and a smiling “good man.”

“Jim,” she remarked, “I guess Dr. Brown’s new medicine was made from the old prescription, ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’”

But Jim vouchsafed no reply. Tired with his day’s work, he had fallen asleep in his chair.