A Maid of the Kentucky Hills and The Man From Jericho
9781465508607
418 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
When a man of thirty who has been sound and well since boyhood suddenly realizes there is something radically wrong with him, it amounts almost to a tragedy. It was mid-March when I became convinced that I was "wrong." Near the close of winter I had developed a hacking cough with occasional chest pains, but with masculine mulishness had refused to recognize any untoward symptoms. I was not a sissy, to let a common cold frighten me and send me trembling to the doctor. I began to lose flesh and grow pale, whereas I had been of fine frame, and decidedly athletic. Then I discovered a fleck of crimson on my handkerchief one day after a hard coughing spell. I got up from my desk with unsteady knees and a chilly feeling down my spine, and went to 'Crombie. He was generally known as Abercrombie Dane, M. D., but we grew up hand in hand, as it were, and so—I went to 'Crombie. He was a fine, big animal; head of a Hercules and strength of a jack and sense like Solon. A rare man. I told him my tale shamefacedly, for I realized now I had acted a fool, and that maybe my day of grace had passed. He knew I was scared, for he was sensitive, in spite of his bulk and seeming brusqueness. There was pity in his eyes before I finished, and I had to grapple with myself to keep the moisture out of mine, his sympathy was so real. Then I silently gave him the handkerchief, with the telltale stain. He looked at it absently, and rubbed it gently with the tip of one big finger. "My son," he said—it was an affectionate form of address which he nearly always employed—"you are starting a colony." His deep voice was very steady. "A what?" I demanded. "Bugs," he replied, laconically, and looked me squarely in the eyes. "Bugs!" I cried, feeling the cold hand of Fear at my heart. He shut his lips tightly, and nodded three or four times. For a few moments I was literally and positively paralyzed. I felt as if he had pronounced sentence of death. 'Crombie had dropped his eyes, and his broad, strong face was serious. My nature is buoyant, and presently the reaction came. "Are they crawlin' yet, Doc?" I asked, a smile struggling to my lips. I cannot understand now why I asked that question. Perhaps it was a foolish attempt at bravado in the presence of a serious fact just discovered. He did not answer. He recognized the query as flippant, and his nature was deep. He sat looking at the floor a long time, and I did not intrude again upon his thoughts. But I imagined I felt a tickling beneath my ribs, as of many tiny feet at work. Bugs! Ugh! At last 'Crombie's shaggy head came up. "There's a chance—a good chance," he said, and I felt courage spreading through me like wine, for 'Crombie never spoke hastily, nor at random. "Sea voyages and high altitudes wouldn't hurt," he resumed, "but you haven't the money for them. Still you've got to hike from town, my son. Change is all right, but pure air and coarse, good food is your cue. The knob country is not far away. There you'll find all you'd find in New Mexico or Colorado or Arizona, and be in praying distance of the Almighty to boot. I know the spot for you, my son. It is a great knob which stands in the midst of a vast range, and it is belted with pine and cedar trees. Find or build you a shack on it half way up and stay there for a year. That's your prescription, my son." "It's a devilish hard one to take!" I protested, in my ignorance. "Condemned men are not usually so particular as to their method of escape," he admonished, with a half smile. Then he fell to thinking again, with his finger on his eyebrow. It was a peculiar attitude, which I had never seen in anyone else. I sat still, hoping he was evolving some pleasanter plan for my redemption. He was trying to change me into a hillbilly, a savage!
