Ghosts of Graveyards Past by Laura Briggs Page B

cemetery in the woods.
     
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    There was no physician in Sylvan Spring at that time, and the apothecary was buried several summer’s back, from an illness beyond the aid of his medicine cabinet. Healers would sometimes pass through, and traveling men boasted of miracles in a bottle from displays in the town square.
    The town’s reverend was among those who cast a wary eye at such claims. He had not always been among them. His younger days were passed in Mobile, where a relative’s illness brought him in contact with a doctor’s more refined practice. Anxious to provide for his flock—most of whom suffered the effects of old age—he was the one who sent a letter to that same clinic, inquiring if any who trained there might fill the position of doctor for a small farming community.
    He shared its reply from the pulpit, a sheet of stationary in one hand as the other adjusted the spectacles balanced on his nose. “I regret to inform you of Dr. Moore’s recent death,” he read from the paper, “and the subsequent closing of his clinic. However, I can promise to fulfill the request for a qualified physician set to begin practice in your community within the month.”
    Signed M.R. Moore, it would seem the doctor’s son had followed in his footsteps and would soon be among them to continue his medical trade.
    It was Nell’s family who would board the physician, a decision that gave her unease as she pictured a stranger moving into Henry’s old room. Her discomfort grew when she learned the reason why, her mother’s voice carrying through the window to the kitchen where Nell scrubbed the family’s breakfast dishes.
    “He is likely to be older, you know,” she said, crouched in the herb garden beside Nell’s grandmother. “A man with no family but a skill to keep him busy when even the crops are bad. It may be he will take a shine to Nell, since no one else has spoken for her these past years. “
    Her granny sounded less certain. “There can be no hurry to lose Nell. I would miss her terribly, and with her brother gone, you would find it hard to manage the house and farm both.”
    “What else can she do, though?” her mother wondered. “I have urged her to think of teaching, but she will have no part of it.”
    Mortified, Nell had almost dropped the plate she cleaned. Leaving it half-washed in the basin, she retreated quickly to her room, burying her face in a pillow as she prayed, God, please don’t let this be my future. A marriage made out of no other choice—I would rather be alone, or to teach at the school, as Mama so wants me to do.
    The same thoughts ran through her head as she drove the family’s cart to meet the stagecoach over in Woolwich. Her mother had insisted she be the one to go, since Mr. Darrow’s smithy work kept him in town, and her hands were too stiff for guiding the reins. Really, though, it was just an excuse to push her daughter in the doctor’s path as soon as might be.
    At the station, Nell’s voice shook when she asked for the passenger who came from Mobile, only for the clerk to point where a woman scarcely older than herself waited, a trunk and bag piled beside her on the bench. Seeing Nell, she rose with an expectant look on her face while the girl struggled to grasp the scene before her.
    “We assumed the doctor was alone—unmarried,” Nell stammered, remembering her mother’s words on this subject with fresh shame. How bitter that woman’s disappointment would be upon learning the physician had a wife. Nell quickly banished the thought for one even more startling.
    “I am alone,” the young woman replied, drawing her shoulders further back as she spoke. “My father, Dr. Moore, was the recipient of your minister’s letter. I have answered the post in his stead.”
    A woman doctor. The notion was unfamiliar to her. Nell stole glances at the figure beside her as the wagon bounced over narrow lanes. She was nothing like the herb women who peddled their plants