Accepting temporary defeat, Joshua fairly stomped back to the sitting room, hung up his hat next to the pitchman’s polished silk topper, and flung himself into the remaining easy chair, Kennedy having occupied the one nearest the door. After a minute or so of sulking, his manners and his sense of justice resurfaced sufficiently to make him both ashamed of the display and ruefully in agreement with Freida’s scolding. He faced Kennedy, who was awaiting developments with a patient smile. “How did you come by your knowledge of Indian herbs?”
“I’ve been through some places that had a lot more Indians than you seem to have around here. Sometimes they’re curious about the wagon. I do some trading with ‘em, when they know enough English to tell me what the herbs are supposed to do.”
“And then what? You just give the stuff to someone and see what happens?”
The man chuckled, obviously used to disapproving medical men. “I generally start with myself. Sooner or later, I’m liable to have a headache or indigestion, or pull a muscle, or whatever. The ones that seem to help, I keep, and put into a potion when I stop somewhere with the necessary apparatus.”
Joshua hadn’t given much thought previously to how medicine shows obtained or produced their nostrums. It seemed likely there were pharmacists with flexible enough standards to let fellows like this make use of their facilities — no doubt for a price. He caught himself curling his lip and forced his mouth to relax into something friendlier as he studied the man sitting near him. He was older than he had appeared at a distance, possibly close to Freida’s age. The golden curls did not match the lines on his face; Joshua suspected the color was regularly and unnaturally renewed.
Kennedy redirected the conversation in an innocuous direction. “Were you born on the frontier, Doctor?”
“No. I come from Philadelphia.”
“I, too, am far from my ancestral home. Though that may be too grand a term for the town I was born in, this town’s size if that.”
Freida appeared in the doorway carrying a large platter barely containing the heaped slices of roast beef perfuming the air. Joshua’s mouth watered; Kennedy jumped up, took the platter from her, and placed it on the kitchen table, saying, “What a bounty you provide for us!”
Freida waved a hand in an unfamiliar and coy gesture. “It’s nothing, but it’ll fill you up, at least. You men seat yourselves, I’ll get the corn and the beans and the biscuits.”
When the table was groaning under the feast, Kennedy said with a respectful air, “Freida, would you care to favor us with one of your people’s blessings?”
Freida’s eyes went wide, and she seemed momentarily at a loss for words. Damn the fellow, he knew how to impress. “Of course. Not that I bother with such things so often, Mr. Blum thought it was old-fashioned, but it’s good to remember traditions, people had a reason for coming up with them in the first place.” She paused for breath and then rattled off a rhythmic string of syllables. “It means ‘blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, at whose word all came to be.’”
Kennedy nodded solemnly. “How very fitting.” He flashed a well-practiced smile. “Though I believe much of the credit is due closer by.”
Joshua had never thought to ask about Jewish customs. It brought home just how much he didn’t know about this woman who had become a cherished friend, and whose welfare he was now attempting to protect. Speaking of which: “This must be the sort of spread you don’t get often, Mr. Kennedy. It would take a direct-from-the-Almighty miracle to get food like this while following the trail in a wagon.”
“True enough. That makes it even more of a pleasure, like any fine thing one has gone without for too long.”
Just how many meanings did the man intend with that statement? Joshua restrained himself from looking at Freida to see how she had taken it.
Kennedy, seeming entirely at his ease, remarked, “Doctor Gibbs and I were just comparing our origins. He’s a big city fellow — not like me. I don’t suppose it surprised his kin when he turned out a doctor.”
Joshua suppressed the impulse to squirm. Was he obligated to explain the unofficial nature of his credentials? He compromised on an indirect approach to the matter. “It may have surprised them, in fact, because of the way it happened. It was the war, and helping the surgeons there, that drew me to it.”
“Now that’s mighty interesting. I had studied for a doctor myself, before the war, along with doing my best to improve my mind more generally, but my neighbors had no inclination to take those studies seriously. They’d known me and my family too long, maybe. My folks were good people, and I thank God for them every day, but we were never what you might call upper crust. I worked in a livery stable and helped our pharmacist in the evenings, learning more than he knew and more than the townsfolk would have credited.” Kennedy had tensed up now, as if his memories galled him. He took a big bite of roast and chewed it slowly, maybe to calm himself, before going on.
“Well, like I said, studying to be a doctor didn’t turn me into one, as far as anyone there saw it. I’d about given up on finding patients. But in the army, no one cared where I came from, or who my kin might be, or how old I was. They snatched me up and set me to work.” His face darkened. “And grim enough work it was. As you know.”
This traveling swindler had once been a doctor? Could that be true, or was the man preternaturally good at making up a story to suit his company? Joshua searched his memory for any doctors resembling the smooth-talking pitchman sitting at the table. None came to mind. But there had been battlefields and hospitals aplenty, and he’d paid little heed to what doctors looked like when he was busy trying to help keep their patients alive.
“After the war, I thought it might be different at home. But it wasn’t. So when my parents passed away, and I was free of family ties — well, with my knowledge of medications and of horses, as well as what I knew of doctoring, I hit on another way to serve the same goal.”
Joshua almost choked on his mouthful of roast. Freida took one look at him and spoke before he could get his throat clear. “Some people, they might wonder how having a medicine show is like being a doctor. Even with the word medicine right there to give them a clue.”
Joshua thumped his fists on the table. “Medicine! Sir, if you were really a doctor or trying to become one, I cannot imagine how you can countenance encountering those in need of actual medicine, people who might have sought out vital treatment, and persuading them instead to spend their coin on potions that, if not positively dangerous to their health, at best will do nothing to further it.”
Even now, the pitchman did not respond with open anger. He gripped the table tight enough for his knuckles to whiten, but his voice remained even and well below a shout. “Is it not necessary for doctors to examine symptoms and treatments, and allow the facts to govern their judgment? You assume the nature of the medicines I sell, and allow no possibility that they might be . . .” He seemed to search for a word, and finally found it. “ . . . efficacious?”
“Tell me then, Doctor,” Joshua fairly snarled, as Freida looked daggers at him. “Your expertise has surely led you to notice our hostess’s less than perfect health. What would your efficacious treatment be for her condition?”
Kennedy laid his large, well-groomed hand over Freida’s, a gesture that inescapably recalled to Joshua his own similar recent action toward Clara. “Given the weakness of her heart, I would provide her with my Doctor Bloomington’s Revitalizing Elixir, which includes foxglove as well as an herb to bring water from the body.”
Joshua sat dumbstruck, his mouth hanging open before he managed to clap it shut.
The pitchman — the doctor — Mr. Kennedy took advantage of Joshua’s silence. “I would imagine, Doctor, that you sometimes find your patients stubborn, and inclined to trust family remedies or a neighbor’s suggestion over your advice. As a traveling salesman of miraculous potions, I benefit from this peculiar habit — but my customers benefit as well. I sell some preparations not of my
own making, but only those that I believe to be either harmless or of some small benefit. And even these can do more than I can rightly explain.”
Joshua cleared his throat. “I have heard the word ‘placebo’ used to describe this effect.”
Mr. Kennedy nodded thoughtfully. “Good to have a word for it. I’ll remember.”
Freida studied Joshua’s face, presumably to see if he had suffered sufficient mortification for the sin of pride. She appeared satisfied, for she said, “Enough talk for now. Both of you eat up, it shouldn’t get cold. And then I have apple pie.”
Mr. Kennedy stood up. “Thank you, dear friend, but I would be liable to burst if I took another bite. If I might beg a slice of pie to take with me, I’ll bid you good afternoon. You and your friend surely have news to catch up on.”
“A piece, he says! Let me pack up half the pie, I won’t eat but a sliver and Doctor Gibbs can have the rest.” Joshua saw her pause and lean on the counter before she rummaged through her cabinets for a plate and napkin.
Joshua followed the pitchman to the sitting room. “Mr. Kennedy. I owe you an apology.”
The man’s smile had a weariness to it. “I can hardly blame you for jumping to conclusions. I know well enough what most of those in my profession are worth.”
Joshua felt a sudden wave of sympathetic feeling. “It must be a lonely way to live, going from place to place and knowing that those you could most respect are unlikely to offer you a like esteem.”
Mr. Kennedy’s gaze moved to the kitchen, where Freida was now humming to herself, some air as unknown to Joshua as her blessing had been. “It is lonely. And more so the longer I live it.” He took a deep breath and regained his smiling composure as Freida emerged with the covered plate. He took the plate and bowed over her hand. “Thank you again for your kindness, and I hope I may call again soon.”
Freida opened the door for him. “Keeping an old woman company, it’s a good deed. That pie, don’t leave it too long, it’ll be better warm.”
She stood watching him until he reached the street, and then closed the door and turned back to Joshua, looking up at him with something like defiance. “Well? You have something to say, you can say it.”
“First and foremost, I ask you to forgive my rudeness and arrogance. My behavior tonight is a poor return for your hospitality and your friendship.”
Her face softened. “I knew what you thought, it was no surprise. But now you think different?”
“I admit I am somewhat of a loss as to what to think. I have never conceived of a — a benevolent medicine show pitchman. If he will permit it, I would like to examine his merchandise, with Robert’s assistance. But I do not know why he would allow me the liberty.”
Freida looked away as if embarrassed. “Seems to me, what do I know, but I think maybe he would like your good opinion.”
There was little enough Joshua could do to dampen the townspeople’s enthusiasm for the pitchman’s products. Joshua could think of only one reason the man might care what Joshua made of him. But before he could attempt to confirm it, Freida turned the conversation back on him. “So tell me already, how did it go in New England? You’re back here with Clara, and all of a sudden she’s at Miss Wheeler’s boardinghouse instead of with her family, so what happened?”
Joshua summarized the plan for Clara to become his assistant, skipping over the means by which he had extracted her — or he had helped her extract herself — from the hospital. He had little hope Freida would overlook the omission, but perhaps she would be merciful enough to leave that subject for a later interrogation.
For now, at least, she was content to focus on the immediate future. “Your business can support an assistant?”
He sighed. “I hope so. We’ll find out. If not, I’ll endeavor to find her work suited to her capabilities in some other town. I owe her that at the very least, after having persuaded her to return.”
It occurred to him that if Mr. Kennedy’s medicine show lingered in Cowbird Creek, it would reduce the number of patients in Joshua’s practice at exactly the wrong time. “Has Mr. Kennedy been staying continuously since his arrival?”
Freida chuckled. “That man, he’s so restless! He goes east to one county and west to another, always moving, coming back for a day or two and then off again.”
That was some relief.
“And you and Clara, she’ll be your assistant and what else?”
That had been a short respite . . . . “I confess my feelings are in a state of some confusion. I cannot say whether hers are in the same condition.”
She studied him and then said with an unconvincing casual air, “If you’re just as confused about Dolly, I should maybe tell you that the cordwainer, the one who makes shoes a little too tight, but they say he was good at saddles, he should go back to making them — he’s maybe courting her.”
He had not expected the news, but he found he was not surprised at it. Looking back at his dealings with Dolly, he could see that she was more than ready to find a man for herself and a father for Hope. It was the thought of Hope, mainly, that saddened him. “How does the child like this cordwainer?”
Freida looked at Joshua fondly. “Maybe not as well as she liked you, with you so good with her, it was something to see. But she likes him well enough, it’ll be all right.”
Then she gasped dramatically. “The pie, I forgot all about it. You sit right there, there’s plenty left, I won’t be a minute.” She bustled off to the kitchen, while Joshua took several deep breaths and tried to recover some sort of aplomb. At least he knew the pie would be delicious.
Chapter 27
Joshua’s truce with the barber appeared to be working. At least, since their meeting over whiskey, no patients had come to him with complications arising from delay and the sheepish admission that they had seen Mr. Hawkins first. So when Hawkins knocked on his office door and thrust his head inside, Joshua welcomed him with more curiosity than wariness..
After the exchange of a few pleasantries, the barber got to the purpose of his visit. “Some of us are getting together a baseball game on Saturday afternoon, and we’re looking for players. I don’t know if you’ve ever played the game, but I know that many soldiers did.” Hawkins studied Joshua with an unusually alert expression, as if watching for a reaction to Joshua’s veteran status. Few townspeople, Joshua realized, ever alluded to his service. He must have somehow revealed, early in his residence in Cowbird Creek, that the topic pained him.
Joshua waited for the weariness and near nausea that references to the war often brought. To his surprise, his reaction was muted, bearable. He swallowed and replied, “I have in fact played baseball, though not since some time before I was mustered out.”
The barber’s shoulders relaxed. “I thought you might have. And we all know hereabouts that you’re tolerable strong, and plenty good with your hands. So we hoped — well, not to put too fine a point on it, I hoped you’d join my team. Not that I’m captain of it — that’s the blacksmith.”
Given that the blacksmith was somewhat accident-prone, that choice of captain might be unwise. But Joshua had more urgent matters to consider. What would Hawkins make of it if Joshua declined? It was unlikely the barber, who had not — as far as Joshua knew — been a soldier, knew any details of when and where the soldiers had played. He might misconstrue the refusal as excessive pride or remaining hostility. Or an admission of insufficient skill, which Joshua found he did not want anyone assuming.
With a feeling of watching himself act rather than acting, Joshua put out his hand to shake the barber’s. “You’ve got yourself a player. What positions remain open? And when does practice begin?”
He did not mention the upcoming match to Clara, lest she consider herself in any way obligated to attend it. But on Saturday afternoon, as the preliminary practice ended and the crowd of onlookers swelled, he caught sight of her familiar figure among the crowd. And as he approached the pitcher’s mound, amidst the varied and rowdy calls of enc
ouragement to an onlooker’s favorite team or of challenge to the other, he heard her clear voice cheering him on.
* * * * *
As Joshua made his way through the general store, the storekeeper hailed him. “No mail for you today, but there’s a letter for Li Chang. You heading out his way for anything?”
Joshua had no errands in that direction, but he was greatly concerned about what tidings the letter might contain. Among the news items Joshua had missed during his travels was the passage of the Page Act. It had passed weeks ago, perhaps even before his petition had reached Washington City. He had gone to see Li Chang as soon as he heard. Li had not, at that time, known whether his wife and mother had already set sail. Nor did Joshua know whether the Act was already being enforced, either in China or in U.S. ports.
In retrospect, his efforts to oppose it appeared ridiculous, a sign of arrogance and delusion. When Clara asked the cause of his brown study, he burst out, “I was six kinds of fool, to think I could change the course of things. At least Don Quixote brought a lance when he went tilting at windmills, rather than a quill.”
She drew in her breath in dismay and then blew it out again, assuming a determined stance. “You know better than that, Doctor. You were a soldier. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that every battle lost was therefore ignoble? That surrender, rather than striving, is always the better course, no matter the cause to be served? When that cause is just, is not any chance worth pursuing? You should be proud of having made the attempt.”
In his bitterness, he was hard put not to answer harshly. The best he could do was not to answer at all. But he suspected that once the smart of humiliation had faded, he would grant her the better argument.
What Heals the Heart Page 24
