Petaluma High School - Trojans Yearbook (Petaluma, CA)

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T H E E N T E R P R I S E ’18 I rather expected that Jane and I would stay awake most of the night talking over the past and planning for poor little Jane’s future and what Jane ought to do with the insurance money. But Jane is so practical! She brought me a drink, of water and tucked me in and gave me a good-night kiss and said that we must both get a good rest so that I would be in the best possible condition in the morning. Jane has such a blind faith in doctors and acted so calmly about it that I didn’t want to appear weak and emotional. So I turned over and went to sleep. However, I wonder if we, as a people, aren’t a little too flip¬ pant in these matters of life and death — particularly in a case like mine. When I woke up I found that Jane had already been up two hours and had Jane the Second all fixed for the day and had made arrange¬ ments with Mrs. Baldwin, the woman who takes care of Jane the Sec¬ ond once in a ' while when we go out anywhere in the evening, to stay with her while I was in the hospital. When the ambulance came, they took me downstairs on a stretcher that looked like a wicker-work coffin with low sides. I am not at all superstitious, but it seemed to me at tbe time that the hospital author¬ ities might have had their coffin a litle more cheerful — and they are absolutely careless of their employees. In going down stairs I slid down the coffin and nearly knocked the front bearer’s head off with my feet. Tf they don’t furnish straps, the thing at least ought to have had a lid. Dr. Johnson was waiting for me at the hospital. He acted real bright, and cheerful and I tried to be cheery too for Jane’s sake—until l)r. Johnson said it was the six hundredth time he had been called “a little cut-up.” They let Jane stay in the room with me until the ether began to work, and I guess that it is just as well she went, for Dr. Johnson told me afterwards that some way or other I got the impression that I was a merry May-pole and kept singing, “Gather Round Me, Girls,” and then insisted on being crowned. Jane was in too nervous a condition to understand the spring-time spirit of a purely playful May-pole. The next thing I remember was that it was almost morning — just getting light — and I thought I’d slip down and warm Jane the Second’s milk before she or Jane woke up. But I had such a pain in my stomach and such a mixed-up variety of ta stes in my mouth that I knew right off I was in for another of my attacks of indigestion. I had warned Jane of it only a few nights before when we had a hard-boiled egg salad for supper. I decided that I’d feel better if I got a drink of water but right there beside me was a strange woman with a cauliflower on her head reading a book! I couldn’t see her face and every time I tried to get up she pushed me down again. I knew Jane wouldn’t approve having strangers around like that, and I thought that I wasn’t in any was responsible and that she needn’t blame me. I realized that I had — 29 —

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THE ENTERPRISE T8 After making her livestock, display, Jane the Second’s next move is to demand a little reciprocal entertainment from me. Her favorite game is “Ride a Cockhorse to Bambury Cross”, in which I am the cockhorse. I liked the game myself. I read of a man living to be a hundred by taking physical culture exercises in bed, and Bambury Cross fills all the requirements. One morning about three weeks ago when Jane the Second had finished her pre-breakfast caper, I felt so invigorated I told Jane I’d show her a trick I’d once seen a vaudeville actor do. Jane advised me not to try it, but I insisted, and it would have been all right if Jane the Second had only kept her back stiff and her foot hadn’t slipped off my knee. She struck feet first, right into the pit of my whole digestive organism. It makes me shiver yet when I think wliat would have hap¬ pened if she had been big enough to wear high-heeled shoes. I was able to eat a little dry toast and a cup of weak, tea for break¬ fast, but by supper time food didn’t interest me. Jane sent for old Dr. Hayden. He poked and pushed me around the bed with no apparent consideration for my feelings, and guessed appendicitis. Appendicitis! If I hadn’t been a mighty sick man, that would have made me angry. I didn’t know a thing about appendicitis and I didn’t want to, but I knew well enough that appendicitis wouldn’t have had the vogue it had a few years ago if it were as bad as my affliction. I suggested that it might be an internal injury and advised an X-ray examination but Doctor is opinionated and said he didn’t interfere with my law and invited me to be as considerate of his profession. Of course I couldn’t absolutely prove that he was wrong, so he went a step further and said that I’d have to have an operation. To satisfy me he sent up a friend of his, especially skilled in the art of surgery, to back him up. Dr. Johnson was a positive sort of an individual and not the sort of a man to go back on a friend, so be poked and pushed and listened, blood tested, and guessed appendicitis too. He advised Jane to keep me flat and take me to the hospital the next morning in an ambulance. I balked at the ambulance. It’s too suggestive. Dr. Johnson said that many of his best patients rode in the ambulance and thought nothing of it. He assured Jane too that there was nothing to worry about as far as I was concerned, because less than one man in a thousand died of appen¬ dicitis anyway. But I’d like to know why she needn’t worry! It would have been just my luck to have been the one! I was getting so I didn’t like him at all, but when Jane the Second woke up just then and stuck her head up over the side of the crib to see what was going on, he was so appreciative and his remarks about her brightness showed so much good common sense that I began to feel better toward him. That and the way I felt where Jane the Second had landed, decided me, and I agreed to let him get at me the next morning. ■ 28 —

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THE ENTERPRISE M 8 to wake Jane up in some way or other if I was ever going to get rid of that cauliflour person, so I lay back quietly and drew two or three deep breaths on the sly and then yelled! That woman screamed and dropped her book right on the same spot that Jane the Second had selected to kick. I knew where I was then. No nurse could fool me after that. And that’s another way 1 would improve their hospital. I wouldn’t allow a single nurse with nervous tendencies on the place. “ Do you know where you are?” she asked me. “Of course I do.” I replied gasping with pain. “I’m in the Mercy Hospital and it’s all I ask for.” “What are you here for?” she continued. “It was appendicitis, but after that book you can expect compli¬ cations.” ‘ 1 What’s your name ? ’ ’ This cross-examination was getting monotonous, and it struck me that nurses were an unduly curious lot, when the awful thought came to me that it might be for an obituary notice. “I’m William II. Smith,” I dictated, “ Attorney-at-law, office in the Blake building. Residence 1114 Malden Avenue, ’phone number 1072-E Age thirty-seven. Affiliations, Odd Fellows and First M. E. Church. And isn’t there any hope?” “You’ve come to,” she decided with a queer look on her face and went out without even stopping to answer my question. How people can be so care-free in the midst of so many beds of pain I’m sure don’t know. And then Jane came in, and she was smiling too. I felt that she ought to act a little less facetiously at a time like this when I couldn’t taste anything but stale ether and when she might be a widow any minute. I realized that she little understood the real situation and I choked back two or three sobs before I could speak. “Jane dear,” I began, “it’s hard after all these years, but-” “I know, William, but I am so happy-” “What for?” I demanded. “Dr. Johnson said that it was the simplest case he’d ever operated on and that you would be out in record time.” “Of course, Jane, I’m glad you’re glad,” I replied just a little test¬ ily, and I couldn’t help it, “but I guess I know a serious case when I have it myself.” Then the nurse came in and said that Jane would have to go out so I could go to sleep. In the middle of the night I awoke with a start and realized that I was sinking fast. I pushed the button and told the night nurse to send for Jane, and anyone else who ought to be present. “I’m dying,” I explained as composedly as I could. I had heard that they put the new nurses on the night shift and I didn’t want to tmduly alarm her if she wasn’t used to it. — 30 —