The Fire in the Flint

Kenneth Harper gazed slowly around his office. A smile of satisfaction wreathed his face, reflecting his inward contentment. He felt like a runner who sees ahead of him the coveted goal towards which he has been straining through many gruelling miles. Kenneth was tired but he gave no thought to his weariness. Two weeks of hard work, countless annoyances, seemingly infinite delays⁠—all were now forgotten in the warm glow which pervaded his being. He, Kenneth B. Harper, M.D., was now ready to receive the stream of patients he felt sure was coming.

He walked around the room and fingered with almost loving tenderness the newly installed apparatus. He adjusted and readjusted the examining-table of shining nickel and white enamel which had arrived that morning from New York. He arranged again the black leather pads and cushions. With his handkerchief he wiped imaginary spots of dust from the plate glass door and shelves of the instrument case, though his sister Mamie had polished them but half an hour before until they shone with crystal clearness. Instrument after instrument he fondled with the air of a connoisseur examining a rare bit of porcelain. He fingered critically their various parts to see if all were in perfect condition. He tore a stamp from an old letter and placed it under the lens of the expensive microscope adjusting and readjusting until every feature of the stamp stood out clearly even to the most infinite detail. He raised and lowered half a dozen times or more the lid of the nickelled sterilizer.

The great amount of time at his disposal irritated Kenneth. He was like a spirited horse, champing at the bit, eager to be off. The patronizing air of his people nettled him⁠—caused him to reflect somewhat bitterly that “a prophet is not without honour save in his own country.” And when one has not the gift of prophecy to foretell, or of clairvoyance to see, what the future holds in the way of success, one is not likely to develop a philosophic calm which enables him to await the coming of long-desired results. He was seated one day in his office reading when his mother entered. Closing his book, he asked the reason for her frown.

“You remember Mrs. Bradley⁠—Mrs. Emma Bradley down on Ashley Street-don’t you, Kenneth?” Without waiting for a reply, Mrs. Harper went on: “Well, she’s mighty sick. Jim Bradley has had Dr. Bennett in to see what’s the matter with her but he don’t seem to do her much good.”

Kenneth remembered Mrs. Bradley well indeed. The most talkative woman in Central City. It was she who had come to his mother with a long face and dolorous manner when he as a youngster had misbehaved in church. He had learned instinctively to connect Mrs. Bradley’s visits with excursions to the little back room accompanied by his mother and a switch cut from the peach tree in the back yard⁠—a sort of natural cause and effect.

Kenneth left all this to Mrs. Johnson, for he knew in her hands it would be well done. He telephoned to Dr. Williams to ask that he give the anaesthesia. In his excitement Kenneth neglected to put in his voice the note of asking a great and unusual favour of Dr. Williams. That eminent physician, eminent in his own eyes, cleared his throat several times before replying, while Kenneth waited at the other end of the line. He realized his absolute dependence on Dr. Williams, for he knew no white doctor would assist a Negro surgeon or even operate with a coloured assistant. There was none other in Central City who could give the ether to Mrs. Bradley. It made him furious that Dr. Williams should hesitate so long. At the same time, he knew he must restrain the hot and burning words that he would have used. The pompous one hinted of the pressure of his own work⁠—work that would keep him busy all day.

Into his words he injected the note of affront at being asked⁠—he, the coloured physician of Central City⁠—to assist a younger man. Especially on that man’s first case. Kenneth swallowed his anger and pride, and pleaded with Dr. Williams at least to come over. Finally, the older physician agreed in a condescending manner to do so.

Kenneth found in the front room another excited and chattering lot of men and women. The men seemed rather furtive and were dressed in “peg-top” trousers with wide cuffs, and gaudily coloured shirts. The women were clad in red and pink kimonos and boudoir caps. With an inclusive “Hello, folks,” Kenneth followed a woman who seemed to be in charge of the house into the next room. In the centre of the darkened room there stood the bed, dishevelled, the sheets stained with blood. On them lay a man fully clothed, his eyes closed as though in great pain, and breathing heavily, with sharp gasps every few seconds. By the bed, bathing the man’s brow, stood a woman in a rumpled nightdress and kimono. Kenneth recognized the man as Bud Ware, sometimes a Pullman porter, who used his occupation, it was rumoured, to bring liquor from Atlanta, which his wife sold. It was his wife Nancy who bathed his brow and who moved away from the bed when Kenneth approached. She informed him that he had come home unexpectedly from his run, and had been shot. Kenneth said nothing but went immediately to work. He found Bud with two bullet holes in his abdomen and one through his right leg. It was evident that he had but a few hours, at most, to live. Kenneth did what he could to relieve Bud’s suffering. Turning to Nancy, he told her what he had discovered. She stared at Kenneth wide-eyed for a minute and then burst forth in an agony of weeping.

“Oh, Lawdy, why didn’t I do what Bud tol’ me to do? Bud tol’ me to let dat man alone! Why didn’t I do it? Why didn’t I do it?”

In another section of Central City there was being enacted at the same time another scene of poignant drama that threatened to translate itself into tragedy. The place was a darkened bedroom in the home of Roy Ewing on Georgia Avenue, and the actors in it were four in number. Roy Ewing, owner and manager of the Ewing General Merchandise Store, whom Kenneth had seen but little since Ewing had discontinued his nocturnal visits to Kenneth’s office, was one of the actors. His wife, whose face still bore evidences of a youthful beauty that was fast fading, was a second. A third was old Dr. Bennett, who sat by the bed, his hair dishevelled, his face lined with perplexity and anxiety, as he apprehensively watched the fourth actor in the drama, a girl of nineteen who was restlessly tossing in pain on the bed. Row Ewing stood at the foot of the bed. His wife sat on the other side uttering little snatches of phrases of soothing sympathy which her daughter did not hear.

Dr. Bennett was plainly worried and at a loss what to do to relieve the torture Ewing’s daughter was so clearly experiencing. He turned to Ewing. “Roy, to tell you the truth, it don’t seem like I can find out what’s the matter with Mary. When she had that first attack, I thought she had appendicitis, but she ain’t got no fever to speak of, so it can’t be her appendix that’s botherin’ her. Looks like t’ me she’s got some sort of bleedin’ inside, but I can’t tell.”