The Doctor's Undoing. Allie Pleiter

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      Daniel believed it. “Really?”

      “If I can give each girl socks in as many colors as I can, provided they all get the same number of socks, do I have your permission to do so?”

      He didn’t see how this would help, but then again he didn’t see how he could say no. “Yes. But only if your regular duties do not suffer and only if the gifts are equal for all.”

      Miss Landway stuck out her hand. “Dr. Parker, you have a deal.”

      He found himself shaking her hand. The odd feeling in the pit of his stomach forced him to add, “Miss Landway, what will you do if the boys want socks, as well?”

      It was a joke, but she didn’t take it as such. She gave his hand a comically forceful shake. “I’ll just knit faster, Dr. Parker.”

      Land sakes if he didn’t believe her.

      * * *

      Dr. Parker had been right—a weekend started with such discontent quickly dissolved into a marathon of unpleasantness. Ida prayed hard during the Home’s simple Sunday church service that her impulsive gift wouldn’t do much harm, but the lack of classes seemed to allow the children extra time to acquire cuts and scrapes, sore stomachs and aching heads. This was an altogether different kind of nursing care. While the army had been a flood of dire needs, Ida found her current post to be a wearyingly steady drip of little grievances. It required a particular sort of endurance—and a mountain of grace.

      She was just cleaning up after the third queasy tummy of the afternoon—a particular torment in this heat—when Ida heard a rap on her door. Mr. Grimshaw towered over a feisty-looking boy of about eight, clutching him by the elbow so hard the lad looked like a marionette strung up by a puppeteer. It wasn’t until Ida let her gaze fall from the dizzying height of Mr. Grimshaw’s face that she noticed the boy’s bloody knuckles.

      “Oh my,” she said, reaching for a basin and cloth. “Only one way to get those.”

      “I imagine you’ve dealt with a badly thrown punch or two in the army.” Mr. Grimshaw nearly hoisted the boy onto the examining table.

      “Usually they come in pairs,” Ida replied, peering at the boy’s angry scowl. “Where’s the other one?”

      “Jake Multon is down the hall with Dr. Parker,” Grimshaw replied.

      “He’s hurt worse,” crowed the boy, obviously seeing himself as the victor in the scuffle. “I hope he has the shiner for a...ouch!”

      Mr. Grimshaw had pinned the boy’s good arm with his spindly fingers. “That’s enough of that. You’ll both be sweating it out in the laundry room for a week if I have my say.”

      Ida couldn’t help but groan right along with the boy. In this weather, she couldn’t think of a worse punishment than standing over enormous vats of hot water washing the orphanage’s endless stream of dirty linens. “Maybe not.”

      That raised one of Grimshaw’s bushy dark eyebrows. “And why not?”

      Ida poured water into the basin and pointed downward, instructing the boy to submerge his bloody knuckles. The resulting yelp answered Grimshaw’s inquiry more effectively than any explanation Ida could offer. “Pain aside, young Mr....”

      “Loeman. Tony Loeman.” The boy hissed his name through gritted teeth.

      “Young Mr. Loeman here will run the risk of infection until the broken skin heals. So unless he can man the laundry vats with one hand, you’ll need to find another way for him to pay his debt to society.” She handed a cake of soap to the boy. “Scrub when you can stand it. While you’re at it, how about you explain what brought this on. Or does Mr. Grimshaw already know?”

      To Ida’s surprise, both teacher and student gained a look of embarrassed reluctance at the question. Their expressions connected the boy’s name in Ida’s memory, and she stepped back to park a hand on one hip. “No.”

      “Jake was making fun of Merrie’s socks.”

      “While I admire your efforts to defend your baby sister’s honor,” Grimshaw chided, “slugging Jake Multon was a poor way to go about it.”

      Ida felt as if the world had spun into ridiculous cyclones around one small act of kindness. “It was just a pair of socks!” she declared, more to the whole world than to her present company. She frowned at the boy. “You threw a punch over a pair of baby booties?”

      “He started it.”

      Ida looked up at Mr. Grimshaw. “How do y’all survive Christmas?”

      “It ain’t much fun, but...”

      “Scrub!” Ida cut Tony off with the command. She was beginning to see why the Parker Home for Orphans had run through its share of nurses. At this rate, she’d be apologizing clear through to Easter. “Mr. Grimshaw, would you step outside with me for a moment?”

      Grimshaw gave Loeman a look that would pin a tiger in its place and then reached clear across the room to open the infirmary door with ease. “Of course, Nurse Landway.”

      Pulling the door shut, Ida kept one eye on Loeman through the glass as she peered up to the teacher. “I’m dreadfully sorry to have caused such a ruckus, Mr. Grimshaw. Believe me, I had no idea the trouble those booties would cause.”

      Grimshaw blinked, his face splitting into a smile that looked somehow alarming on his lanky features. “I thought it rather cute, truly. Seems a shame how a spot of kindness gets so poorly repaid.”

      Ida hadn’t expected his reaction. “Why thank you, Mr. Grimshaw. But it seems to me you are doing the paying.” She cast a glance at Loeman, now wincing as he gingerly swiped the cake of soap across his knuckles. It stung, no doubt about that, but keeping wounds clean was absolutely essential in this moist heat. “I hadn’t thought about there being siblings in here.”

      Grimshaw’s features softened further. “Loeman’s one of the sadder cases, actually. His pa’s been out of work so long they just couldn’t feed them any longer.”

      Ida’s jaw fell open. “Do you mean to say Meredith and Tony’s parents are still living? They’re not actually orphaned but abandoned?” The thought practically knocked her against the hallway wall. “It’s a wonder Tony hasn’t slugged the whole world.”

      “He’s working on it. This wasn’t his first fistfight. That’s why I came down so hard on him.”

      Ida could only sigh and stare in at the poor boy. He looked her way for a fraction of a second—likely imagining she and Grimshaw were out here devising hideous forms of punishment—then returned to his painful task.

      “I still think it was a fine thing you did. I know Mrs. Smiley will give you no end of grief for it, but I’m glad to see a kindness paid, no matter what the cost.”

      After a weekend of awful consequences, the man’s encouragement warmed Ida’s sore heart. “It’s mighty kind of you to say so, Mr. Grimshaw.” She glanced up and down the hallway, again aware of how stark the buildings were. “I’m just so aching to put a dash of color into this place. Children should live in cheerful rooms, СКАЧАТЬ