Chapter VIII: Preface (8)

"I've got the pipes, dochthor, dear--but sorrow a bit of tibaccy. Do you think smoking is good for the rheumatiz?"

"There's some mistake here," said the clerk; "what's that you've got in your hand?"

"They tould me to bring this bit ov pasteboord here, sure."

The clerk took it. It was a dispensary ticket. He explained the mistake, and told the applicant where she should go to obtain medicine and advice.

"No, dochthor, dear--it's no mistake--it's the water cure I'm after. Sure it's the blissid wather that saves us. There was Pat Murphy that brak his leg when he fell with a hod of bricks aff the ladder in Say Strate, and they put a bit of wet rag round it, and the next wake he was dancing a jig to the chune of Paddy Rafferty, at the ball given by the Social Burial Society. And there was my sister Molly's old man, Phelim, that was took bad wid the fever--and he drank walth of whiskey, but it never did him a bit of good--but when he lift off the whiskey, and drank nothin' but wather, he came round in a wake. O, dochthor, let me have the blissid water."

"You must see your landlord about that."

"You wouldn't sind me to him, dochthor."

"I'm no doctor, good woman," said the clerk, now thoroughly annoyed, "and you've come to the wrong shop, as I told you."

"How do you use the water?" inquired the woman.

"Why, you turn the cock and let it on--in this way," said the clerk, letting a little Cochituate into a basin. "There, go along now, and go to the doctor's, as I have directed you."

"Sorrow a dochthor I go to but the water dochthor, this blissid day," said the woman, and she left the office.

She repaired to her cellar in no enviable frame of mind. She was sick and discouraged, and labored under the impression that she had been to the right place, but they had imposed upon her, from an unwillingness to aid her. In the mean while, however, during her absence, a service pipe had been admitted into her premises by the landlord, though she was not aware of the fact. She became acquainted with it soon enough, however. The next morning, about four o'clock, as she lay on the floor, bemoaning her hard fate and the neglect of the "dochthor," she heard a rushing noise. The water pipe had burst, and a stream, like a fountain, was now steadily falling into the cellar.

"Bless their hearts!" exclaimed the old woman, "they haven't forgotten the poor. The dochthor's sent the water at last--and I must lie still and take it."

The first shock of the invading flood was a severe one.

"Millia murther!" she exclaimed, "how could it is! Dochthor, dear, couldn't ye have let me had it a thrifle warmer?"

The water continued to pour in, and she was thoroughly soaked. Under the belief that the doctor must be somewhere about, superintending the operation, but keeping himself out of sight from motives of delicacy, she continued to address him.

"There! dochthor, dear. Blessings on ye! That'll do for this time. It's could I am! Stop it, dochthor! I've had enough! It's too good for the likes of me. I fale betther, dochthor; I won't throuble ye more, dochthor; many thanks to ye, dochthor! do ye hear? It's drowning I am!"

By this time she had risen, and was standing ankle deep in water. As the element was still rising, and the "dochthor" failed to make his appearance, the poor woman climbed upon a stool, which was soon insulated by the tide. From this she managed to escape in a large bread trough, and ferried herself over to a shelf, where she lay in comparative safety, watching the rising of the waters.

What would have been her fate, if she had remained alone, it is impossible to say. After some time the noise of waters alarmed the neighbors; they came to see what was the matter, and finally succeeded in rescuing the tenant of the cellar from the threatened deluge. She was comfortably cared for by a fellow-countrywoman, and a regular dispensary physician sent for. Wonderful to relate, the shock of the cold bath had accomplished one of those accidental cures, of which many are recorded in the history of rheumatic disorders; and in a few days, the sufferer was on her legs again. Furthermore, her sickness had proved the means of interesting several benevolent individuals in her fate, and by their assistance she was established in a little shop, where she is making an honest penny, and laying by something against a rainy day. This she all attributes to the "blissid wather," and, in her veneration for the element, has totally abjured whiskey, and signed the pledge, an act which gives assurance of her future fortune.

THE COSSACK.