Cherry Ames Boxed Set 13-16

by Helen Wells

  The four cars sped off and the carefree picnickers burst into song. Cherry was squeezed in the second car—Dr. Hal’s car—with the Van Tine brothers and the Drew girls. In two minutes flat they had left Sauk, and were rolling along on the open highway. Riverside Park was some ten miles away, “kerplunk in the middle of our territory,” Dr. Hal said. The sun beat down, the fields were still green with the crops of late summer. Dick Van Tine said their father was already getting ready to plant a stand of winter wheat.

  The road followed along the broad Des Moines River, as it came flowing down from still farther west and north. Road and river turned together, and their four cars passed an overgrown farm, with a rickety farmhouse standing far back from the highway. Cherry could see the blue river glinting behind the farmhouse. Then they drove past a woods, and turned into the dirt roadway of Riverside Park.

  Once this site had been a forest where Indians camped and fished. It still was half wild, except for a few picnic tables, a log house with lockers for bathers, and an outdoor telephone booth. Cherry went with Dr. Hal while he hunted up a lean youth who was renting rowboats at the river’s edge.

  “Hello, Ezra,” the young doctor said. “Do you know our new county nurse?” He introduced Cherry. “Ezra, Dr. Clark is out of town for the holiday weekend, and anyway I’m always on county call. I’ve instructed his housekeeper, and also the telephone operators, in case there’s an emergency, to phone me here at the park. I’m the only doctor available around here this weekend. You’ll be sure to let me know if a call comes in?”

  “Sure thing, Dr. Miller.”

  The youth turned back to his rowboats. Dr. Hal and Cherry rejoined their new friends.

  Swimming came first on the program. The water felt warm with the sun on it. On the opposite shore, the neighboring state of Missouri was so near at one point, where the river narrowed, that three of the young men swam across and back. “We’ve just been to Missouri,” they announced. “Sorry we didn’t think to send you postcards.”

  After drying off in the sun and getting dressed again, they all had lunch. It tasted especially good outdoors. Then the picnickers split up to do a variety of things. Cherry, Dr. Hal, and roly-poly Joe Mercer wanted to go exploring.

  Starting off by themselves, they walked along the river’s edge. Presently Joe Mercer announced, “Excuse me, but I’m going back to eat that last piece of apple pie before the squirrels get it.” He jogged off, leaving Cherry and Dr. Hal laughing.

  “Well, I don’t mind being a twosome,” Dr. Hal said gallantly to Cherry.

  They strolled along the shore, sometimes ducking under low branches, pausing to admire fern and the first red berries of autumn. They had not gone far when something in deep shadow caught Cherry’s attention.

  “What’s that?” she said. “Let’s go see.”

  She pushed through underbrush several paces inland. Dr. Hal, following her, pointed out a few flat, worn rocks that suggested an old trail. “But I don’t see anything, Cherry.”

  “If you’ll help me pull this low branch aside—”

  They swung the half concealing branch to one side, and before them yawned the low, rocky opening of a cave. Its interior was inky black.

  “I didn’t know there was a cave here, so close to the river,” Dr, Hal said. “And I’ve been to this park a few times.”

  “It certainly is dark in there,” said Cherry. She already had one foot inside the cave. “Come on! I thought you wanted to explore.”

  “Careful,” Dr. Hal said. He struck a match, and they entered the cave together. Dr. Hal had to stoop to get in.

  The cave was low ceilinged, small, and craggy. Cautiously, step by step, they walked deeper into the cave. The air was chill and damp. Dr. Hal struck more matches, and the flame threw grotesque shadows. When Cherry spoke, her voice sent back whispery echoes.

  “We’d better not go too far in. I can’t see any end to this.” Sometimes a cave led into an interior cave, and still another, like a catacomb of rooms. It might be unsafe to go farther.

  “I think I see something,” Dr. Hal muttered. “Just ahead if my matches hold out—”

  Dr. Hal sprinted forward. Cherry followed him. They were brought to a halt by a wooden barrier.

  “It’s nothing but an old barn door,” Dr. Hal said disgustedly. He examined it, shook it, but it held firm. “Someone wedged it in here pretty tight, I guess,” he said. “Or this old barn door has been left in here for so long that it’s half sunk into the cave walls by now.”

  “Why would anyone drag an old barn door in here?” Cherry wanted to know.

  “Oh, kids do things like that when they’re playing. Didn’t you ever play cops and robbers, or hide-and-seek, in places like this? I used to. Well, this is the far end of the cave, I guess.”

  “Or is it?” Cherry asked. “Could that old barn door be the door to something?”

  Dr. Hal knocked on the rotting wood. “It doesn’t sound as if there’s anything on the other side,” he said. “Only the back of the cave, at a guess.”

  His match went out, his last one.

  Someone was calling them. The call came from near the mouth of the cave, a man’s voice shouting:

  “Doc-tor! Doc-tor!”

  Cherry and Dr. Hal groped their way as fast as they could toward the patch of daylight at the cave’s opening. There stood Joe Mercer, puffing and puzzled.

  “Oh, so that’s where you disappeared to!” Joe Mercer said. “I’ve been hollering all around here. Ezra has a telephone message for you, Doctor. Emergency.”

  “Thanks.” Dr. Hal started off at a run. Cherry hurried after him, hoping that the holiday emergency was not more than one doctor and one nurse could handle.

  CHAPTER III

  Jane’s Story

  ONCE DR. HAL HAD EZRA’S MESSAGE, HE AND CHERRY were obliged to say good-bye to their guests. “Come back if you can,” their friends called, as Cherry and Hal drove out of Riverside Park. On the way back to town Dr. Hal told Cherry what the message was.

  Half an hour before a young woman, a stranger, had gotten off the train at Sauk. While carrying her suitcase and looking around for a telephone or a taxi, she had stumbled over a rut in the road. She had fallen and broken her ankle. A passer-by and the druggist had applied a temporary splint and carried her to Dr. Clark’s house. Dr. Clark’s housekeeper had telephoned Dr. Hal.

  Dr. Hal planned to examine the patient and set the ankle in Dr. Clark’s well equipped medical office, he told Cherry. “You’ll assist me,” he said. “Mrs. King—that’s the housekeeper—is helpful, but she’s not a nurse.”

  As soon as they arrived at Dr. Clark’s house, they quickly scrubbed, donned clean white cotton coats, and went into the examining room. A brown haired young woman was resting on a couch. Mrs. King, who was with the patient, had covered her with a light blanket and had already given her a cup of hot tea. The housekeeper looked relieved as the doctor and nurse came in.

  “Dr. Miller, Nurse, this is Miss Jane Fraser. She’s just come here from New York to—to—”

  “—to fall down and break my ankle,” the young woman said, and grinned in spite of her evident pain. She was about Cherry’s age, very pleasant looking, trimly dressed in a cotton suit which had smears of dust and gasoline on it. “What a way to arrive!”

  “Never mind, we’ll soon fix you up,” Dr. Hal said. He looked at the ankle, which was swelling. “You’re alone, Miss Fraser? Haven’t you anyone here to take care of you?”

  “Well, I—Someone was supposed to meet me with a car, but he didn’t show up. I don’t know why.” The young woman swallowed hard. “I’m to stay at Mrs. Barker’s house, out in the country. She’s the only person I know here. But she’s an old lady and can’t come to get me, and her son didn’t meet my train. Sorry to be thrown on your mercy.”

  “That’s what we’re here for.” The tall young doctor smiled at her. “This is Cherry Ames, our county nurse. Mrs. King, do you know our nurse?”

 
Cherry smiled at the housekeeper and at the young woman. It was hard enough for anyone to sustain an injury, but to be alone and helpless in a strange place must be hard indeed.

  “You mustn’t worry, Miss Fraser,” said Cherry. “We’ll see that you reach Mrs. Barker’s, won’t we, Dr. Miller?” He nodded. “The doctor and I will come and check on how your ankle progresses.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Jane Fraser said. She was so grateful that tears came to her eyes. “Mrs. King has already been so kind to me, you’re all so kind to a stranger. I—I can’t pay much, hardly anything for your—”

  Dr. Hal told her a reasonable fee could be arranged. The housekeeper, after inquiring whether she would be needed further, left the room. Dr. Hal set to work.

  This was the first time Cherry had worked with Dr. Hal Miller on a fracture case. She was impressed with the skill and gentleness of his big hands. First, with her aid, he took an X-ray of the ankle, using Dr. Clark’s X-ray machine, then developed it. As Dr. Hal lightly probed the broken bones of the ankle with his fingertips, the pain made Jane hold tight to Cherry’s hands. Then Dr. Hal injected a local anesthetic. Very carefully, scowling with concentration, he set the ankle, bringing the bones into proper alignment with one another. Then, with Cherry assisting, Dr, Miller put a plaster cast on the ankle, to hold the bones firmly in place. Finally he took another X-ray to check that everything was in good order.

  “All finished. You’re a good patient,” he said to Jane Fraser. “Not a murmur out of you. And you, Miss Ames, are a good nurse.”

  “We both thank you, don’t we?” Cherry said.

  Jane Fraser smiled weakly. “I feel as if I’m among friends.” “You are,” Dr. Hal said. “That ankle will take time to heal, but you’ll be able to get around within a few days. This is the lightest weight cast, and we’ll lend you a pair of crutches. That’s not so bad, is it?”

  “That’s fine, because I have an awful lot of urgent things to do around here,” Jane Fraser said. “And such a short time to do them all.” She looked anxious.

  “Don’t overdo,” Dr. Hal cautioned her. “And don’t put your weight on the cast. Rest half an hour now. Then we’ll drive you to Mrs. Barker’s.”

  Cherry tried to telephone Mrs. Barker, but the party line was busy continuously on a holiday, and Cherry could not reach her.

  It was late afternoon by the time the three of them were on the highway in Dr. Hal’s car. They had propped Jane Fraser across the back seat as comfortably as they could manage, with her foot elevated on a pillow. Cherry turned around to talk with her. Jane told them that she was a nutritionist, that all the family she had was her mother, and that she was engaged to be married.

  “We’re going to get married even if Bill never gets completely well!” Jane said. “He may be cured someday, if I can just swing things here in Iowa.” She did not say what was the matter with her fiancé.

  “You sound worried,” Cherry said sympathetically.

  Jane forced a lighter tone. “I guess if I weren’t so worried about what I hope to do here, and so excited and overtired, I wouldn’t have stumbled and awarded myself a fractured ankle. A great help I am, not.”

  Dr. Hal, driving, looked concerned but kept silent. Cherry said encouragingly to Jane, “Could be worse. We’ll have you walking around on crutches by tomorrow.”

  They stopped at a crossroads store to inquire where Mrs. Barker’s place was, since neither Dr. Hal nor Cherry knew. Jane Fraser did not know, either. She said she had been in Iowa once when she was about four years old, with her mother, and had met Mrs. Barker and her son then, but she could not remember either the place or the people. She knew Mrs. Barker, an old acquaintance of her mother’s, only through letters.

  The Barker place was a mile beyond Riverside Park. It was a scrap of land in these vast plains, only about three acres, with a flimsy cottage, one cow, a shed, a few chickens, and a vegetable patch. Mrs. Barker must be poor, Cherry thought. But the place was as clean and tidy as the old lady who came bustling out to greet them.

  “Jane! Is that you, Jane? Land’s sakes, where have you been?” Mrs. Barker looked at the three young people in bewilderment. “Young man, aren’t you the new doctor?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and Cherry thought she’d be inclined, too, to say a respectful “yes, ma’am” to this vigorous little woman of sixty.

  “Which one of you girls is Jane?” Mrs. Barker asked. “Why in the world are you so late? And where’s Floyd? Didn’t he meet you?”

  Dr. Miller introduced Jane and Cherry, and explained gently what had happened. The old lady looked ready to cry, but she said:

  “Well, what’s done is done. I’m mighty sorry about your accident, Jane. I’ll take good care of you. That shiftless son of mine! If he had met you, like he promised me, maybe you wouldn’t have taken that tumble. I can’t count on Floyd for a single, blessed thing,” she said sadly, half to herself. “Well! Come on, children, let’s get this girl into the house.”

  Jane managed slowly with the crutches and help from Dr. Hal. Cherry went ahead with Mrs. Barker into the cottage. The living room was small and crowded with an assortment of worn-out furniture. A parrot greeted Cherry with “Goodbye! Goodbye!”

  “He’ll say hello to you when you leave,” Mrs. Barker said. “His name is Mike. That bird is an embarrassment to me, the way he repeats our conversations sometimes, but he’s company.”

  The old lady sounded lonely. Cherry inquired whether anyone else besides her son Floyd lived here. No one else, Mrs. Barker said. She led the way into the small spare bedroom which was to be Jane’s. Cherry helped Mrs. Barker turn down the bedcovers, since Jane would need to rest.

  Hal helped Jane slowly into the spare room, and she sank down on the bed. Dr. Hal gave a few simple instructions to Mrs. Barker for Jane’s care, and told the patient:

  “Now don’t worry about a thing. Just rest. Miss Cherry and I will come back tomorrow.”

  Cherry said a few encouraging words to Jane Fraser, and said good-bye to Mrs. Barker. Then she and Dr. Hal left, with the parrot calling after them:

  “Hello! Hello!”

  The next day Dr. Hal held a conference with Cherry as they drove up to the Barker’s cottage on Labor Day afternoon.

  “The main problem, I think,” Dr. Hal said, “is to keep Jane in good general health, so she’ll have the vitality needed for the ankle to heal. As it is, that girl seems tired to the point of exhaustion.”

  “And worried half to death,” Cherry said. “That’s a large part of what’s draining her energies, isn’t it?”

  “Her health problem may be mostly a problem of morale,” Dr. Hal agreed. “Let’s see whether we can get Jane to talk about what’s worrying her. She might find it a relief to unburden herself. We’ll have time to visit with her today, since it’s a holiday. Hey, look at that museum piece in the Barkers’ yard!”

  Dr. Hal braked to a stop and they both stared. Next to the well, someone had parked a rusty old jalopy. It looked ready to fall to pieces, but apparently it worked, for a pair of man’s rubber boots and a tin bucket of grapes were on the front seat.

  “Might be Floyd’s,” Cherry said.

  “Maybe,” Dr. Hal said, “Floyd didn’t meet Jane because that contraption never made it as far as the railroad station.”

  That, in fact, was Floyd’s excuse. Mrs. Barker told them so when she came out and led them into the house. She took the grapes in with her.

  “I wish my son would’ve stayed home a few minutes to meet you folks,” Mrs. Barker apologized. “But Floyd always has some business of his own to attend to. I never know where he’s off to.”

  They found Jane sitting beside a sunny open window in the spare bedroom. She was writing a letter when they came in, but eagerly put it aside.

  “You look much better today,” Dr. Hal said. He examined Jane’s leg around the cast, to make sure that circulation was normal, and asked Jane a few questions. Cherry made notes for him, for Jane Frase
r’s record.

  “This girl isn’t sick,” Cherry said cheerfully, “just incapacitated temporarily.”

  “But I can’t afford to be incapacitated!” Jane exclaimed. “Not when I need to make every single day here count!”

  “You’re in Iowa on a very special errand, aren’t you?” Cherry said.

  “Yes. But now, with this ankle—” Jane shook her head. “To come all this distance for nothing—Bill and I may never get married now.”

  “Maybe we can help you with your special errand,” Dr. Hal suggested.

  “Yes, maybe we can,” Cherry said, and sat down in the sun beside Jane to listen.

  The girl sighed, then told them her story. When she and Bill Dowd became engaged, they had to find ways to provide a home for themselves and Jane’s mother. Jane’s salary as a nutritionist was small, and so were Bill’s earnings as a salesman. So he took a risky job which paid well. Bill had done deep sea diving for sport and—thinking himself strong and well—went to work diving to mine underwater bauxite. He did heavy labor for long hours in the cold water, off the coast of Brazil, and worked several long, rainy, sea voyages on a freighter between the United States and Brazil. As a result Bill contracted tuberculosis. For over two years, he had been in hospitals; the money he earned had gone to pay for his hospital bills.

  “I feel responsible for the tuberculosis,” Jane said. “He won’t be able to work for a very long time to come. If ever.” She added, “Bill has no family, no one but me to look out for him.”

  From the way she spoke, Cherry could see that Jane and Bill were very much in love, still wanted to marry—and they had already had a long wait.

  Jane sighed. “My mother feels bad, too, about our situation. She wants to help Bill and me all she can—by keeping house while I work, and doing whatever nursing Bill may need.”