Doc Torrey's Son
F. E. Burnham, The Youth's Instructor

This story has been one of my favorites for years. It will make you long for the days when doctors made house calls and were an integral part of small-town life.
For a time after old Dr. Torrey died, Westford was minus a physician, but finally the late doctor’s only son was graduated from a medical school, and returned to his native town to hang out his shingle. Westford had seen little of the son for the past eight years while he was securing his education, and Westford folk in general recalled him mainly as an awkward country boy. It was a distinct surprise, therefore, when Dr. William Torrey, well groomed, polished, and entirely at his ease, took over his father’s practice. To be sure, there were few who had not seen him when the old doctor was borne to his final resting place, but it was not until the son returned as a full-fledged physician that he was really “sized up” from the soles of his shoes to the crown of his head.

Late of a summer’s afternoon, three days after Dr. William Torrey replaced his father’s weather-beaten sign with a very handsome one of gilt letters, the young doctor whizzed by the Westford general store in his high-powered automobile. At the time half a dozen or more of the usual store loungers were seated upon the store steps.

“Wall, Seth, what do ye think o’ the new doctor?” queried Oliver Marston, the blacksmith, speaking to old Seth Cunningham, a retired farmer.

“I dunno jest what to think, Oliver,” replied Cunningham. “I’ll say this—if the boy be as much better’n his father as that automobile o’ hisn be better’n old Doc Torrey’s horse and gig, he ought to charge ’bout a $100 a visit, compared with the dollar and ha’f his father charged.”

“He sure drives a fine machine, Seth,” remarked the blacksmith. “Thet car didn’t cost no less’n $3,000.”

“Yes, an’ old Doc’s hard-earned money paid for it,” grunted Cunningham. “Many is the time old Doc Torrey pushed on when his horse give out. I ain’t saying as how the boy won’t do the same when the time comes that that contraption o’ hisn gets stuck in a snowdrift an’ he can’t budge it, but, well, time’ill tell. I have my doubt ’bout it.”

“He looks like he stepped out of a bandbox,” remarked the blacksmith. “I dunno but ye could use the creases in his trousers to cut the leaves on a book.”

“Old Doc Torrey’s trousers looked like he never pulled ’em up when he got down on his knees to pray,” chuckled Bill Wade, Westford’s odd-jobs man, who was seated beside Marston.

“That’s true, Billy,” assented the blacksmith, “an’ I want to tell you, Billy, that many is the time that old Doc Torrey got down on his knees and prayed ’longside o’ the sick bed when he found the battle goin’ against him, an’ I want to tell you as how there be them in this here town who can testify to them same prayers bein' answered. Old Doc Torrey was a man, ev’ry inch on him—a doctor o’ the old school. If the boy turns out to be half the man that his father was, I won’t have a word to say against him.”

During the ensuing few months Dr. William Torrey demonstrated the fact that he was possessed of not a little skill as a physician, and, indeed, as a surgeon. He successfully handled numerous cases, which would have baffled many a young physician of his limited experience. While there were those who resented his important bearing, the same being highly in contrast to the simplicity of his late father, he was consulted freely and was well on the road to a lucrative practice when an incident occurred which set tongues to wagging. On a stormy night in the fall the call came for the doctor to drive over to South Westford. His reply over the wire was very brief, —“I cannot come; I am too busy. Try Dr. Wilkins over at Smithville.”

In a roundabout way it finally reached Daniel Earl, the yo9ung farmer who had called Dr. Torrey that night of the storm, that the doctor spent the evening playing dominoes at the Westford Inn with Alvin King, the local attorney. Earl promptly broadcast the facts.

“It looks to me, Seth, as if Dr. Torrey was slippin’ a mite here o’ late,” remarked Oliver Marston one evening a fortnight or thereabouts after Daniel Earl’s ire was thus aroused, speaking to Seth Cunningham while they were seated behind the big salamander stand in the general store. “I see Dr. Wilkins over this way quite a deal the past ten days.”

"That’s the way it looks to me,” declared Cunningham. “I’m afeared that game o’ dominoes he played over to the inn with Alvin King the night Dan Earl wanted him ’ill be pretty costly. Huh! I can’t help thinkin’ how different he be ’n old Doc Torrey. I’ll never forget the night that Billy Martin’s boy was took sick. Doc and me was a-sittin’ visitin’ right ’bout where we’re sittin’ now. It was snowin’ an’ the wind blowin’ a gale. Doc’s wife called up the store an’ said as how the Martin youngster had the croup. Huh! Doc jumped like somebody had rammed a pin into him, an’ was gone instanter.”

“Folks want a doctor they can depend on,” observed the blacksmith. “That’s how it come ’bout that old Doc Torrey was thought so much on. If ye sent for him, he’d come any hour o’ day or night, if it was possible for a human being to come. I’ve made up my mind that if any my folks is took sick I’ll telephone for Dr. Wilkins first, an’ I’ve a notion that there’s lots o’ other folks in this here town who feel ’bout the same way.”

“Yes, I guess likely there be,” assented Cunningham.

Two days later old Seth Cunningham was driving along the river road, some three miles out from the village, when he overtook Dr. Torrey, who was on foot.

“I ran out of gasoline and this is the result,” laughed the doctor as the old man reined his plodding horse and edged over on the seat of the light farm wagon.

“I ain’t never had no experience ’long that line,” chuckled Seth, “but once in a while I forget my whip, an’ then I’m pretty nigh as bad off with this old horse o’ mine. I don’t use it much, but it’s a purty good idea to let the critter know I’ve got it handy.”

“The scenery is splendid along here, Mr. Cunningham,” remarked the doctor presently.

“It sure be, Doctor,” affirmed Seth. “Um. I was jest looking at Peter Clark’s place ’cross the river yonder. That’s a fine farm o’ hisn.”

“Yes, and he has a fine wife and family,” said the doctor. “It is too bad that her face bears such a scar. It looks as though it were the result of a burn.”

“So ye never heard ’bout how Car’line come by that scar, Doctor?” queried Seth.

“Well, in a way I ain’t surprised, for you father wasn’t the hand to talk ’bout anything he ever done. If ye ain’t in a special hurry, Doctor, I’ll pull in the horse and tell ye what come to pass ’long ’bout six year ’go this comin’ November.”

“No hurry,” replied the doctor. “I am always glad to hear any story connected with my father.”

“Well, it was ’bout the last o’ November that your father was drivin’ down this here road on his way to the village,” declared the old man as he reined his horse. “It was ’bout as mean a feelin’ a November day as ye ever see. Forty-eight hours o’ steady rain was taperin’ off with sleet. I remember the day just as well as though it was yesterday. The river was high, tremenjous high. It had carried ’way the bridge the night before. Well, just as your father, old Doc Torrey, was roundin’ the bend in the road that we just driv’ ’round, he heared terrible screechin’ from ’cross the river. He hadn’t much more’n made the turn when he see some thirty or forty men an’ women ’head on him, who was shoutin’ an’ cryin’. Old Doc put the whip to his horse an’ ha’f a minute later he was askin’ the folks what the trouble was. It so happened that I was one o’ them that was standin’ there, an’ I told him.

“The facts of the case was that Peter’s wife had ketched her clothes ’fire as the result o’ pourin’ kerosene into the stove, though o’ course there wasn’t none on us that knew the particulars at that time. All that we knowed was that Peter had yelled ’cross the river as how his wife was pretty nigh burned to death. The word had been carried ’long an’ the crowd collected.

“But old Doc didn’t say nothin’. Um. I can see him this minute. He just reached down an’ picked up his medicine case an’ opened it. Um. I—I guess ye’ll have to wait a minute, Doctor. I kinda’ choke up when I think on’t.”

For a few moments the old man was silent, but finally he resumed, though his voice was husky. “Old Doc took out a little vial an’ held it up to the light, an’ a second later put it back in his case. Then, without saying a word to nobody, he driv’ on, an’ if ever a horse got a larrupin’ it was that horse o’ hisn. There was some o’ us as thought old Doc had gone crazy, for we knowed the bridge was gone.

Ha’f a mile up the river we see him turn an’ drive down the bank, an’ the next minute we see him tryin’ to force his horse into the water. It wasn’t no use, though, for the critter figgered he knowed more’n his master. The horse just r’ared an’ backed, not even a foot ’ould he put in the water. All the time we could hear that terrible screechin’ comin’ from Peter’s house. The door and winders was shut, but ye could hear it just the same.

“The first thing we knowed old Doc was in the water an’ swimmin’ for t’other shore. Some o’ the men just busted right out cryin’ when they see that. There wasn’t one on us as figgered he had a chance o’ making it. Meanwhile other folks was showin’ up down where we was standin’. Some was callin’ old Doc a fool an’ others was callin’ him a hero. The hull on us was ’bout as nigh bein’ crazy as we could be.

“It beats all how fast old Doc made out into the current, thought all the time he was bein’ carried downstream. When he was a mite more’n ha’fway ’cross we begun to cheer, thinkin’ as how maybe it might help some to keep up his courage. Them cheers, though was pretty cracked. When he was pretty nigh opposite us we could see that medicine case o’ hisn floatin’ right back o’ his head, and we knowed he’d tied it ’round his neck.

“Well, to make a long story short, Doctor, your father finally touched bottom on t’other side an’ staggered up the bank. There wasn’t nobody there to give him a helpin’ hand, for Peter was so took up lookin’ after his wife that he didn’t know nothin’ ’bout what was going on outside. Anyhow, old Doc clim’ the bank, an’ ’bout a minute later we see him go into the house. It wasn’t long afore that terrible screechin’ died down to nothin’. ’Bout that time Jim Paige, who had been standin’ nigh old Doc’s gig, said as how he see the label on that little vial that your father held up to the light, and that it said ‘morphine,’ an’ o’ course we knowed how it come ’bout that Car’line’s screamin’ died down. Some on us, though, thought maybe she’d died.

“Well, afore long out come Peter, an’ pickin’ up the ax, he driv’ it into a big oak that stood down night the river. I never see nobody swing the ax harder’n he did for nigh an hour. At the time we couldn’t make head nor tail out on’t, him out choppin’ wood when his wife was in such a bad way, but later on he told us as how old Doc had driv’ him out o’ the house, an’ told him not to let up with the ax until he called him.”

For a moment or two Seth was unable to proceed, but finally he mastered his voice and resumed. “That was old Doc all over—didn’t want Peter to see how bad his wife was burned. While Peter was choppin’ three or four on us walked up the river to where old Doc’s horse was standin’ and throwed a blanked over the critter. Later on Jim Paige driv’ the horse to the village an’ put him in his stall.

“Finally we got holt on a dory up to the landin’, an’ John Flanders an’ me pulled ’cross the river to see if there was anythin’ that we could o. When we got to where Peter was choppin’, John spoke to him, but Peter didn’t let on as how he heared a word. I never saw such a look as there was on Peter’s face afore or since. Well, we pushed on to the house, an’ just as we was passin’ the kitchen winder, we see old doc down on his knees prayin’. The both of us backed ’way an’ John busted out cryin’. It wasn’t long, though, afore the door opened an’ old doc called to Peter, an’ Peter came on the run. There on the stoop old Doc put his arms ’bout Peter an’ up an’ kissed him just like Peter was his boy. ‘Peter,’ says he, ‘Peter, it looks to me like ye ain’t goin’ to lose Car’line. Don’t ye cry, Peter, for with the good Lord’s help I b’lieve she’s goin’ to pull through.’

“There, Doctor, that’s the whole story o’ how that scar come on Car’line’s face,” concluded Seth as he gave rein to his old horse. “Now we’ll drive on.”

Dr. Torrey made no comment. He just sat there on the wagon seat staring off across the river.

“Well, here we be at the gas’line station, Doctor,” remarked Seth presently. “While ye’re gettin’ some I’ll be turnin’ ’round so’s to take ye back.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cunningham, but, well, I prefer to talk,” replied the doctor. “A little exercise will do me no harm, and, well, what you have told me about father has stirred me deeply I—I wish to think.”

It was just a week later that old Seth Cunningham and several of his townsmen were gathered about the stove in the general store. Presently Oliver Marston, the blacksmith, who had worked a deal later in his shop that day than usual, joined them. “Bill Pratt came pretty nigh losin’ his boy last night,” remarked Marston.

“That so?” queried Cunningham.

“Fact. He ’ould have lost him sure if it hadn’t been for Dr. Torrey. Bill called the doctor at three ’clock in the mornin’ an’ told him as how he thought the boy had pneumony. You know where Bill lives— full three miles out, on one o’ the meanest roads anywhere ’bout. Huh! The doctor was there inside o’ fifteen minutes, an’ come just ’bout ha’f dressed, ’cordin’ to Bill. He didn’t leave Bill’s house until long after noon. Bill says as how old Doc Torrey couldn’t have work no harder ’n the young doctor did. It looks now as if the boy was goin’ to pull through all right.”

“Speakin’ o’ the doctor reminds me,” said Billy Wade, the odd-jobs man, who was seated beside Cunningham. “It was just a week ’go tonight that I was walkin’ home from Smithville. I missed the six ’clock train, so had to foot it. Just as I was comin’ by the cemetery I see the doctor’s car standin’ side o’ the road. The moon was nearin’ the full, so I could see pretty well. You know where old Doc Torrey is buried, right close to the gate? Well, that’s where the doctor’s car was standin’. I was just wonderin’ how the car came to be standin’ there with nobody in, for there ain’t a house within ha’f a mile, when I see old Doc’s boy down on his knees ’side his father’s grave. He took off his hat, an’ I didn’t need nobody to tell me as how he was prayin’. I walked ’long quiet, an’ the doctor never knowed I see him at all.”

“It looks to me as if something had set old Doc’s boy to thinkin’,” remarked the blacksmith.

“Well, maybe there has, Oliver,” vouchsafed old Seth Cunningham. “Um. I guess I’ll be pushin’ on toward home. Um. It looks like we’ve got a doctor here that we can depend on after all.”

Old Seth was not mistaken.

--F. E. Burnham