What Heals the Heart

by Karen A. Wyle

  When Freida’s turn came, she spoke haltingly at first, but soon gained confidence. Joshua plugged away at the task, knowing himself to be a mediocre performer and not much caring. Alton, he thought, had some promise as an actor.

  They made it through the first act before Alton drew out his pocket watch and shook his head. “This has been delightful, but I’m afraid I should be getting back. I have lesson plans to finish.”

  Freida stood up and bustled about packing up the remains of the cake. Alton, to Joshua’s amusement, made no polite pretense of refusing it, but beamed and bowed as she handed him the parcel. “Thank you for this very useful reminder of a lovely afternoon.”

  Joshua had used the livery stable buggy to fetch Alton and now drove him back again. As they headed out of town, he said as casually as he could, “That went well, I thought.”

  “Agreed! I would enjoy more gatherings like this, the three of us reading plays or just talking — and eating.” Alton grinned and licked his lips.

  Joshua had to agree. But a trio wasn’t what he’d set out to achieve.

  A week later, Joshua picked Alton up again and deposited him at Freida’s before noon, but this time declined to join him there. “You’ll get to know each other better without me in the way. I’ll be in my office, over there.” He pointed, then turned the buggy toward the livery stable without staying to be persuaded otherwise.

  An hour and a half later, Alton knocked at his door. Joshua had hoped for longer. He invited Alton in, waved him to a chair, and opened his desk drawer where he kept his whiskey and glasses. “Care for a dram before I drive you home?”

  “Don’t mind if I do. It’ll wash down that good-sized dinner Mrs. Blum forced on me.”

  Joshua grinned. “I’m sure you fought valiantly against it.” He poured for both of them, though less for himself, seeing as how he’d need to get Nellie-girl to Rushing and back. Though she could probably make the latter part of the trip just fine, however impaired Joshua might be.

  They drank without talking for several minutes. Then Alton drained his glass and said quietly, “I like your friend the widow lady just fine. She’s good company, and every bit the homemaker you said she was. And I think she likes me well enough, in a friendly way. Whether she’s open to more, I’m not as sure.”

  Joshua took one more sip and left the rest in the glass, standing up and heading to the door. “It’s early days yet. Are you willing to come again? I could join you this time, try to form my own impression.”

  “Certainly. We have yet to finish the play.”

  Alton rode his own horse over next time, to spare Joshua the trouble of conveying him. And he brought a few books for Freida to borrow, if she was so inclined. She thanked him extravagantly. “So thoughtful! Maybe, you set up a social library in Rushing, and the two libraries can lend books back and forth.”

  Alton tapped his chin. “I’m surely embarrassed I haven’t already started one. You’re a good influence, Mrs. Blum.”

  They finished the long second act of She Stoops to Conquer, all joining in on the song that closed it, and gave themselves and each other a round of applause. Alton broke the slightly awkward silence that followed. “When we finish this play, there are some good possibilities in one of the books I brought. But they have even more parts than this one. Does either of you have a friend who might want to join us, maybe next time I come?”

  Joshua stayed stubbornly silent. That was not the direction things were supposed to go. But Freida said cheerfully, “Doctor Gibbs, your good friend the pharmacist, might he be willing? A nice voice he’s got, and higher than either of yours, he would add variety.”

  As Alton headed to his horse, bearing a well-wrapped parcel of roast chicken and cream pie, Joshua took a deep breath and faced Freida. “I’ll ask Robert. But wouldn’t you like to spend some time with just Mr. Farley?”

  Freida chuckled and patted his arm. “You and Mr. Farley, that I can see, the two of you fit together like butter on bread. I’m glad you’re making more friends, a man needs to spend time with other men, especially working as hard as you both work, you need to unwind. But what you want to happen, him stealing my heart? I don’t see it.”

  Damn it all, Alton had been right.

  At least, if they were enlarging their reading circle, he could conceivably suggest adding Clara Brook to share the female roles. Just as the thought crossed his mind, Freida reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a somewhat battered envelope, extracting the letter inside. “My niece that I told you about, my next older sister’s girl? I’m still hoping she’ll come out to visit me, I haven’t seen her in so long! Let me show you her picture.” She fetched her overstuffed photo album and leafed through it, muttering to herself. “Cousin Hymie, such a whiner, he complained the whole time . . . Mama, didn’t she look nice that day . . . .” She looked up in triumph. “Here she is! Just look, isn’t she lovely?”

  Dutifully, Joshua looked. The young woman did indeed look quite pretty, if a little awkward at being photographed.

  Freida peered at him. “Wouldn’t you like to meet a nice girl like this?” Apparently he did not look sufficiently enthusiastic at the prospect, for she wagged a finger at him and added, “Anyone would think you don’t want to have a real home, someone to look after you.”

  Anyone would be at least partly right. But maybe Freida’s niece would be less interested in mothering (or smothering) him. Though the likely alternative, a lively young woman eager for entertainment, made him tired to contemplate. Was he getting old before his time? He mentally snapped his suspender buckles so they thumped against his chest. He needed to give Freida’s niece a chance — if she indeed came to town and had any interest in giving him one.

  Lost in thought, it took Joshua a moment to notice that Freida was holding onto the chair opposite Joshua, panting a bit. Certainly she’d been talking a good deal, but she always did. He couldn’t remember her panting like that before. “Mrs. Blum — Freida — have you been especially short of breath lately?”

  She waved a dismissive hand at him. “Doctor, I’m an old lady. My joints ache, even when it isn’t raining, and I have palpitations, like I’ve told you, and even my hair, it breaks in the comb, Samuel would cry to see it. But I can still breathe.”

  Joshua didn’t have his bag with him, but he did have his stethoscope in his waistcoat pocket. “Would you let me listen to your lungs? It’s been some time.”

  She heaved a dramatic sigh. “Doctors, always busy, always worrying! All right, if it’ll make you happy, but first, finish your pie.”

  He ate the pie as quickly as he could manage without choking, and then coaxed her to sit down, and to breathe on command. He was glad she was not in a position to see his frown.

  It could be any number of ailments. And some of them, he would be helpless to arrest.

  Chapter 10

  The next time Freida dropped by during Joshua’s office hours, he expected her errand to concern her niece’s imminent arrival. He was, he soon learned, half right. Dropping heavily into a chair with an exhalation of relief, she looked up at him, her expression unusually apologetic. “I had so looked forward to you meeting my niece Rachel, such a charming girl and so eager for the adventure of coming west, but her parents, they wouldn’t allow it.”

  She shuffled her feet around in a restless fashion, giving him a glimpse of a definitely swollen ankle. He was pondering how to ask her for a more prolonged look when she said sharply, “You have nothing to say, you didn’t care about meeting my niece, just another girl, hardly worth your trouble?”

  Discussion of Freida’s ankles could wait while he mollified her. “I’m so sorry, I was distracted by — by concern for a patient. I regret that I won’t have the opportunity to meet your niece. Did her family consider the journey too hazardous?”

  Freida sighed. “Not hazardous like you’re thinking, train accidents and robbers and whatnot. No, they didn’t want her to . . . to meet, to maybe want to marry . . . . Well,
they want her to marry a Jewish boy, natural enough, but she hasn’t met one she likes enough, they should let her be an old maid instead?”

  Joshua had somehow failed to appreciate the flaw in Freida’s latest matchmaking scheme, but once she pointed it out, he could understand her family’s way of thinking. ““If your niece had come here as you hoped, and if I had somehow gained her affections, what did you expect us to do about religious matters?”

  She shrugged, looking down at her feet. “I hoped, a gentleman like you, you wouldn’t drag Rachel to a church, at least not too often, and you would let her light Sabbath candles and say blessings like a good Jewish girl.”

  Very likely he would have done. But as this prospect had now gone from unlikely to impossible, he could at least try to soothe Freida’s disappointment. “Your niece looked quite young in the photographs. How old is she?”

  Her face softened in a fond smile. “Just twenty-one, such a lovely girl she’s become.” Her mouth drooped. “Just right for a good man like you.”

  The idea of such youth made him wince. “Just right for the right young man, someone who could join her fresh hopes to his. Your niece deserves a man with an open heart and a bright future. Not an old fellow like me, several years past thirty.” A man with too many memories and too many scars.

  Freida sniffed. “Not so old, a girl’s husband should be older, he can steady her, help her understand life. I find you the right young woman, you’ll see, it’ll work out just fine!” Then a thought obviously came to her. “Though she doesn’t have to be quite that young . . . .”

  Joshua had to smile. No disappointment, it seemed, could restrain Freida’s matchmaking fervor for long. But at least he could change the subject. “And now, I would like to examine your feet and ankles. I have some concern about their condition.”

  In the following days, Joshua took pains to give Freida what attention he could spare. Unsure what to do to improve her health, and with early summer making the outdoors a pleasure before the summer humidity set in, he thought to give increased fresh air a try. After a mix of coaxing and demands and something close to nagging, he got her to accept a buggy ride in the country, the canopy pulled partway back to let the breezes through. Naturally he had not the leisure for such a trip unless combined with his duties, but she sat in the buggy while he dropped off medicines and did a couple of quick checkups on convalescing patients.

  Freida did indeed seem livelier as Nellie-girl pulled them toward home, with cheeks reassuringly pink and plenty of energy to whisper her updates about or (more rarely) opinions of the people they passed. As they reentered town under the orange and purple clouds of sunset, he slowed Nellie-girl to a walk. Something had attracted a crowd in the street. Joshua gritted his teeth, remembering the last time he had seen the like. “It might be another one of those —” He held back the various curses that came to mind. “ — those medicine shows.”

  Freida wrinkled her brow. “A show for medicine? Is this a man like your friend Robert who goes from town to town selling? But why would all these people want to listen?”

  So somehow, the pernicious practice had escaped her notice. At least it gave him the opportunity to warn her. “They’re not pharmacists — far from it. They’re crooks, pure and simple. They get people’s attention with dancing girls and magic tricks and what all, and then tell them that no matter what ails them, all they need is some miraculous elixir made of Lord knows what — snake oil, some call it, and it can even be true, or worse. Sometimes they call it a ‘tonic’ to make it sound especially wholesome. People can poison themselves and pay handsomely for the privilege.” He restrained the impulse to spit.

  Joshua could hear the pitchman’s voice now, though not his words. He had a good voice for the task, projecting a long ways, and not as obviously whiny or slimy as some Joshua had heard. All the more dangerous, then. Even Clara Brook, he was indignant to note, was standing and listening, though to her credit, she appeared more amused than enthralled.

  Joshua could see only part of the wagon’s bonnet, but the curly purple letters on it spelled out a name that might be Professor Kennedy. He snorted his derision of the honorific and tried to ease Nellie-girl around the crowd, but there was little room for the buggy, and she balked. They would have to wait for the crowd to thin. Freida, meanwhile, leaned forward to inspect the pitchman as he worked the crowd. Joshua followed her gaze. The fellow was a large, well-looking man, dressed up fancy as they always were, but with more taste than some. His whiskers were trimmed, but not waxed, and his hair was curlier than Freida’s, their golden color lending the man an incongruous aura of innocence. He had established an easy rapport with the crowd, answering questions, even listing ingredients — though not, Joshua noted, by any recognizable names.

  Freida looked at Joshua. “This is a crook?”

  “Bound to be. What, you don’t think he looks like one?”

  “What should I know, crooks come in all shapes and sizes.” But she sounded less than convinced by her own words.

  Just then, the pitchman turned and looked right at Joshua — and then at Freida. “Gentlemen and ladies, won’t you come a little closer and let these good people through? That horse isn’t getting any happier. That’s right. Thank you! And now, without further ado, let me introduce my associate Hercules, who will perform stupendous feats . . . .”

  Freida murmured something under her breath. Joshua couldn’t hear every word, but he did catch the word “considerate.” He would not have thought Freida’s standards for consideration to be so low.

  Nellie-girl was pulling away, none too soon. Joshua clucked at her to step lively. But Freida turned back and watched a while longer as they drove on toward the stable.

  A couple of days later, Clara Brook’s brother came in during Joshua’s office hours and asked Joshua to come out to the farm sometime soon. From what the boy said, the family had been trying to hold Mr. Brook back from working as hard as usual, accepting a few neighborly offers of help with the plowing and planting, but the farmer was growing increasingly obdurate as his health returned. The family wanted to know whether to offer any further resistance. Joshua doubted anything he might say to the man would make much difference, even if the farmer’s recovery was incomplete, but he agreed to make the visit.

  Mrs. Brook had not, as Joshua had earlier feared, been the next to fall ill. Perhaps she had had a mild case of whooping cough in the past, without even realizing it. Or perhaps it had been Clara Brook tending her father from the beginning, even before Joshua had been summoned. When Joshua rode up to the farm, Mrs. Brook was hanging sheets on the line and humming a little tune. From the wife’s demeanor, the husband was probably hale enough to work to his heart’s content.

  Now that he had come, however, he had better examine his former patient. Mrs. Brook sent her son out to find his father, while Joshua whiled away the time stroking Nellie-girl and listening to birdsong.

  Clara Brook emerged from the house with more laundry to be hung. When she saw Joshua, she set the basket at her mother’s feet and came to join him. The sight of her reminded Joshua of the last time he had seen her, among the crowd surrounding the wagon of the medicine show. The sour taste of that memory must have shown in his face, for Miss Brook stopped a few paces away and said in her straightforward way, “I hope I am not the occasion for that frown.”

  Joshua did his best to smile. “By no means. At least, it was not any conduct of yours that troubled me. I was simply remembering that the last time I happened to see you, that detestable medicine show was in town.”

  His disclaimer was not entirely truthful, and Miss Brook immediately cut to the heart of the question. “I would wager you wonder why you saw me watching.”

  Without confirming or denying it, he replied, “There is usually the prospect of entertainment, before or after the pitch for whatever noxious substances the show is there to sell.”

  “Yes, and I was curious what it might be. And also curious to see what claims th
e man would make for his product, and whether the people listening would believe them.”

  Joshua found himself curious as well. “What did you discover?”

  Miss Brook took on the faraway look of someone remembering. “The claims the man made were less ridiculous than those of the few other pitchmen I’ve heard. As for his audience, I had the impression — which you may find reassuring — that the men were chiefly interested in the promise of dancing girls. As for the women, I believe some of them were admiring the pitchman’s face and form, more than listening to him.”

  Joshua had started to unbend, but Miss Brook’s final words brought back forcefully the favorable impression the pitchman seemed to have made on Freida Blum. He was more than ready to end the conversation. Looking around, he saw, to his relief, that the boy had returned, Mr. Brook walking with long easy steps at his side. Joshua gave Miss Brook a hasty bow. “If you’ll excuse me, I must examine your father.”

  He followed the farmer and his son toward the house. As he reached the door, he took one quick look back, to see whether his abruptness had caused Miss Brook any offense. But she stood near her mother, pinning up laundry, and he could not see her face.

  Chapter 11

  Well, that was a first. Freida had come bearing gifts, generally edible, and she had come to him or asked him to come to her when she felt poorly, but never had she asked him for an actual favor. “One of my customers, a widow, so sad, still so young. She’s been so eager for her new dresses, hers are worn to rags, but the neighbor who was going to bring her into town, he got too busy, I hate to make her wait. Would it be too much trouble, you could take me there tomorrow morning, maybe you have a patient to see on the way?”