frankly, the most vivid, the most real dream I had ever had. I do not remember what Doc said to me, nor I to him. He was holding in his hand that ice bag that he had supposedly obtained from Latha, and he applied it to my stomach and successfully induced the clotting of my blood, so that a transfusion would not be necessary. He then manipulated my abdomen, lay his hands on my chest for a while, and finally put one hand on my head and pronounced me cured. I remember only one thing I said: “Just like that, huh?”
And then I found myself in exactly the same position, in relation to the other two people who had been in the “dream,” except that I understood that I was “awake,” and that whatever I had been experiencing must have been a dream or a delirium. I felt wonderful. I felt, at least, much better than I had in weeks. “I reckon that ice bag worked!” I observed.
“We couldn’t use it,” he said apologetically. “Latha was all out of ice.”
“But didn’t you just put an ice bag on my stomach?” I asked.
He and Rowena exchanged looks. “Nope, I’m sorry,” he said. “But somehow the blood clotted anyway, so I reckon we won’t have to give ye a transfusion after all. I could’ve given ye one from my own arm,” he declared, “since me’n you has got the same blood type, but I’d shore of had to charge ye a good bit extry for that! ”
I was sitting up, I was ready to get out of bed, I was all well, but I was puzzled that Doc did not realize what he had done to me. “I must have been just dreaming,” I said, “but whatever it was, you healed me! You appeared to me in the dream and fixed me up just fine!”
He smiled his benevolent smile, and said, “Wal, it’s been a good long while since I did the dream cure on anybody, but if you think that’s what it was, and it worked, then we’re sure enough in good health again.”
“Dream cure?” I said, snared by the possible mythology of it. “Doc, you are just going to have to tell me about the dream cure.”
He let me get out of bed. He invited me into the adjacent room, his office, where there were a pair of comfortable chairs. He pulled out his pocket watch, looked at it, and declared, “Rowener’s taking off in a minute or two.” Then he opened a drawer of his desk and brought out a cigar box which contained, I was surprised and delighted to discover, a few cigars. He handed me one and began unwrapping one himself. Those weren’t nickel cigars, either. Hell, they weren’t even dime cigars, but two-for-a-quarter Antonio y Cleopatras. You know, I can’t hardly ever smoke anymore, mostly on account of consideration for Mary Celestia but also because this nursing home don’t allow smoking in bed and I aint allowed to get out of bed! But there was a time, many and many a year of my earlier days, when I truly appreciated a good cigar.
After Doc lit my cigar for me, and lit his own, and we commenced a-suckin and a-puffin and actin like a pair of pigs who’d got into the corncrib, pretty soon Doc got up again to fetch the demijohn and poured us both a good helping of the Chism’s Dew, saying, “Don’t worry, ole Rowener won’t be back ’til after suppertime.” Then Doc put on his storytelling face. I had learned to recognize it: the slight upturning of the corners of his mouth as if he was getting ready to be amused himself; the twinkle in his eye, the wrinkling of the crow’s-feet at the eye corners. But the gaze in his twinkling eyes was far, far away, and he said, “I aint quite ready to tell you my own story. Not jist yet. I reckon I could do it, by-and-by, but I’d better warm up first on somebody else’s story. I’m a-fixin to tell ye about the first physician of Stay More, who was my paw, and if you can swaller his story, you jist might be ready for mine.”
Then he began. He wound himself up and went all the way back to when his father, Gilbert Alonzo Swain, first arrived in what had become Stay More at the age of
And then I found myself in exactly the same position, in relation to the other two people who had been in the “dream,” except that I understood that I was “awake,” and that whatever I had been experiencing must have been a dream or a delirium. I felt wonderful. I felt, at least, much better than I had in weeks. “I reckon that ice bag worked!” I observed.
“We couldn’t use it,” he said apologetically. “Latha was all out of ice.”
“But didn’t you just put an ice bag on my stomach?” I asked.
He and Rowena exchanged looks. “Nope, I’m sorry,” he said. “But somehow the blood clotted anyway, so I reckon we won’t have to give ye a transfusion after all. I could’ve given ye one from my own arm,” he declared, “since me’n you has got the same blood type, but I’d shore of had to charge ye a good bit extry for that! ”
I was sitting up, I was ready to get out of bed, I was all well, but I was puzzled that Doc did not realize what he had done to me. “I must have been just dreaming,” I said, “but whatever it was, you healed me! You appeared to me in the dream and fixed me up just fine!”
He smiled his benevolent smile, and said, “Wal, it’s been a good long while since I did the dream cure on anybody, but if you think that’s what it was, and it worked, then we’re sure enough in good health again.”
“Dream cure?” I said, snared by the possible mythology of it. “Doc, you are just going to have to tell me about the dream cure.”
He let me get out of bed. He invited me into the adjacent room, his office, where there were a pair of comfortable chairs. He pulled out his pocket watch, looked at it, and declared, “Rowener’s taking off in a minute or two.” Then he opened a drawer of his desk and brought out a cigar box which contained, I was surprised and delighted to discover, a few cigars. He handed me one and began unwrapping one himself. Those weren’t nickel cigars, either. Hell, they weren’t even dime cigars, but two-for-a-quarter Antonio y Cleopatras. You know, I can’t hardly ever smoke anymore, mostly on account of consideration for Mary Celestia but also because this nursing home don’t allow smoking in bed and I aint allowed to get out of bed! But there was a time, many and many a year of my earlier days, when I truly appreciated a good cigar.
After Doc lit my cigar for me, and lit his own, and we commenced a-suckin and a-puffin and actin like a pair of pigs who’d got into the corncrib, pretty soon Doc got up again to fetch the demijohn and poured us both a good helping of the Chism’s Dew, saying, “Don’t worry, ole Rowener won’t be back ’til after suppertime.” Then Doc put on his storytelling face. I had learned to recognize it: the slight upturning of the corners of his mouth as if he was getting ready to be amused himself; the twinkle in his eye, the wrinkling of the crow’s-feet at the eye corners. But the gaze in his twinkling eyes was far, far away, and he said, “I aint quite ready to tell you my own story. Not jist yet. I reckon I could do it, by-and-by, but I’d better warm up first on somebody else’s story. I’m a-fixin to tell ye about the first physician of Stay More, who was my paw, and if you can swaller his story, you jist might be ready for mine.”
Then he began. He wound himself up and went all the way back to when his father, Gilbert Alonzo Swain, first arrived in what had become Stay More at the age of
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