The Doctor's Undoing

“Volunteer knitters like we had at the Red Cross. Of course!” Leanne tapped her forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that first. It’d be so easy.”

“If gals would knit for soldiers, they’d surely knit for children.”

Ida watched her friend purse her lips in thought. She knew that look. “I imagine I could have a dozen ladies lined up by tomorrow if I set my mind to it.”

“And don’t I know what you can do when you set your mind to something.” Ida grabbed Leanne’s hand. “So you’ll help?”

Leanne’s eyes sparkled. “Just try to stop me. But we’ll need details—how many girls, their shoe sizes, that sort of thing.”

Opening her desk, Ida handed her a sheet of paper. “I’m miles ahead of you. We have twenty-six girls. I told them I was inspecting their shoes for mites last night at bedtime, but I really just logged their sizes. I figure if we just divide them up into small, medium and large sizes, we’ll have it covered with only three patterns. But the yarn...”

Leanne stood up. “Don’t you worry about the yarn. Papa has enough friends in the cotton trade to get that covered. And what Papa can’t get, John will.” Leanne’s new husband, John—a decorated war hero who’d come to South Carolina to stump for war bonds after being wounded in battle—was legendary for his persuasive abilities.

“One rule.” Ida held up a finger. “Only bright, cheerful colors. No white. And not one speck of black, navy or army green.”

Leanne pulled Ida into a hug. “Not on your life. Pinks and yellows and every cheerful color I can find. I think ruffles on the edges, too?”

Ida imagined Gitch’s feet clad in extravagant yellow ruffles and could barely contain the glow in her heart. “Absolutely.”

“I can even help from Washington,” Leanne said with a sadness overcoming her smile. Leanne and John were moving soon to Washington, DC for John’s new post as a diplomatic attaché. Ida knew she’d feel the loss keenly when the couple left. She treasured every face-to-face visit with Leanne, knowing soon they’d be confined to letters and infrequent visits. They’d been partners in escapades—knitting and otherwise—for so long, Ida wasn’t sure how she’d keep her spirits up in a place like this without Leanne.

“Of course you can.” Ida tightened her grip on her friend. “Socks mail well. But it won’t be the same. I shall miss you so very much.” They’d been through desperate times together, such as when they’d fought the Spanish influenza outbreak that had almost taken Leanne’s life. Still, Leanne was glowingly happy in her new life and destined for great success in Washington with her dashing husband.

“I won’t worry about you having nothing to do here,” Leanne said as she pulled away and tucked the list into her bag.

“Do you think we need to supply patterns?”

Leanne thought for a moment. “Not if we gather experienced knitters. Scaling down to small sizes and cheerful colors will be easy for women who knit all those army socks. Honestly, this should be effortless to pull together. I’ll stop by the Red Cross on my way home and come back in a day or so with the list of volunteers.”

“I was thinking we could assign specific girls to each knitter if we can find enough volunteers. That way there would be a personal connection. I want every chance for these girls to know someone outside those gates cares about them.”

Leanne recaptured Ida’s hand. “Look at you. I never thought of you as having much of a heart for young ones, but it’s so clear you belong here. This place needs my dear Ida’s dose of brilliant color.”

Ida quoted the pledge behind her. “I shall be loyal to my work and devoted towards the welfare of those committed to my care.”

“With only the necessary amount of mischief,” Leanne added, giving Ida’s hand one last squeeze before turning toward the door. “Oh!” She dodged to the side as a small boy with a very green tint to his face tumbled into the room half held up by one of the older lads.

“Eddie ate dirt,” the older boy proclaimed, as though that were all the explanation required.

Ida didn’t even bother to ask why but simply reached for a basin with one hand as she waved farewell to Leanne with the other.

* * *

Daniel was wrestling with the midmonth invoices and bookkeeping when a knock came at his door.

“Come in.”

To have Mrs. Smiley appear at his door with a scowl was a near-daily occurrence at the Home. Her scowl today, however, seemed especially severe. It didn’t take a medical degree to diagnose the source of the schoolmistress’s current pain.

Daniel removed his glasses. “What has Miss Landway done now, Mrs. Smiley?”

That wasn’t entirely fair, but he was indeed weary of Mrs. Smiley’s litany of petty complaints. She’d yet to grace any of the nurse candidates with her favor. Indeed, Daniel could never be sure the stout woman had ever found any of the Home staff up to snuff—himself included. Still, she’d been hired by his father, and was practically as much a fixture of the place as the bricks and mortar. As a doctor, he could manage without a nurse, but he could never hope to last a day without a schoolmistress.

“It isn’t Nurse Landway exactly, Dr. Parker.”

Daniel wasn’t sure if that boded well or ill. “Well, then, what is it exactly?”

“That woman just spent the last thirty minutes trying to convince me that knitting involved mathematics. As if I should be tucking yarn and needles inside the girls’ textbooks.”

Daniel never favored sums and figures as a child, nor as a man, as his current battle with accounting accurately proved. “Is there math in knitting? I’d no idea.”

Mrs. Smiley huffed. “Well, if you want to ask Nurse Landway about it, make sure you’ve got half an hour to spare. I declare, but that woman can go on.”

“She has a certain...” He searched for the right word that would agree with her but yet still defend his new nurse. “...enthusiasm, I’ll agree.”

“I want your assurance such foolishness will not be entering my classroom.” Mrs. Smiley’s plump hands planted on her hips. “The last thing I need is those girls thinking about fiddling with stitchery when I’ve got multiplication to teach.”

“Perhaps she was just making conversation.” Miss Landway did seem eager to make friends with just about anyone. Perhaps she viewed the dour Mrs. Smiley as an interpersonal challenge.

“Make conversation? That woman has no need to dream up conversation. She has chatter seeping out of her pores, bless her heart.” Like generations of Southern women before her, Jane Smiley applied the platitude of “bless her heart” at the end of any negative judgment. Somehow considered the universal absolution of an unkind comment, to Daniel “bless her heart” simply allowed women of good breeding to be delicately mean. The opinion was confirmed by the next sentence out of his schoolmistress’s mouth. “If I want my meals in a circus, I’ll just head on down to the tavern.”

The thought of prim Mrs. Smiley hoisting a mug with the town’s multitude of sailors in a tavern was about as ludicrous as it was entertaining. But he couldn’t agree with the substance of her complaint. The truth was, Daniel was rather coming to enjoy Miss Landway’s way of livening up conversation at the staff dining table. He’d learned things about his staff since her arrival that he’d never known in the years he worked here. Yes, she could be difficult at times, and he was quite sure she’d challenge him on any number of subjects once she settled in properly. His initial reservations, however, were giving way to a reluctant admission that Ida Landway might actually be good for the Parker Home for Orphans. “What is it you’d like me to do, Mrs. Smiley?” He’d learned this to be an effective question—often Mrs. Smiley didn’t actually want any action taken, she just wanted her views to be known. Clearly and in considerable detail.

Apparently this was the present case, for she blinked and huffed again, caught up short at the request for a suggestion. While the schoolmistress was never short of opinions, she rarely had suggestions. Miss Landway, on the other hand, seemed to boast an endless supply of both. “Mind she knows her limits, Dr. Parker.”

“Indeed I will, Mrs. Smiley.” It was, in truth, a valid suggestion. Daniel had already concluded that guiding Miss Landway to see her proper boundaries and not to step on toes would be the key to her fitting in on the staff. He switched the subject. “How is Miss Forley doing in her studies these days? I know she was having some trouble earlier.”

Nothing puffed up Jane Smiley like the accomplishments of her charges. “Exemplary. Once Donna put her mind to it, she caught on quickly. I’ve even asked her to tutor one of the younger ones having trouble with subtraction.”

Daniel hoped Donna Forley would be one of the Home’s success stories. After losing her mother to illness at an early age, Donna was raised by her father and an aunt until the war, when battle and influenza took them both from the poor child. Life had dealt Donna a terrible hand indeed, and she’d been withdrawn and near starving when she had come to the Home. Now, at sixteen, she was blooming into a confident young woman ready to take her place in the world. She’d managed to establish bonds with the other children, crafting siblings when no blood family existed. Daniel took great satisfaction in the fact that many of the Home’s “graduating” classes became makeshift siblings to each other in the outside world. Father had told him, “The Home makes families out of need, not blood,” and it was true.

He was almost afraid to ask the next question. “And the business with Matthew Hammond?” Romantic entanglements—even on the most basic teenage levels—were one of the most difficult parts of his job. Young hearts deprived of familial affection often looked for love in inappropriate places. It seemed at least once a week he, Mrs. Smiley and Mr. Grimshaw had to sit down and strategize how to keep Boy A from finding a few minutes alone with Girl B out behind the dormitories. Mr. MacNeil had even once suggested they install a hive of honeybees in that corner to deter “trysts.” While Daniel applauded the groundskeeper’s creativity, he also knew young hearts would simply seek out another secluded corner. Since then, however, “beehiving” had become the staff code word for teens getting a bit too sweet on each other.

“Settled for now,” Mrs. Smiley said wearily. This particular couple had been caught “beehiving” multiple times, making Daniel wish Donna would indeed focus her clever mind on math rather than Mathew. “But it won’t be the last, I’m sure.” Her eyes squinted in analysis, as if the pair were a mathematical equation. “Properly chaperoned, they might make an appropriate couple.”

Daniel sat back in surprise. “Really?” While still eminently clinical, this was the first time he’d ever seen Mrs. Smiley offer anything close to an endorsement of any couple. Just because his curiosity refused to let go, he asked, “How so?”

“When they’re not making eyes at each other over supper, their characters do suit each other well.” She folded her hands in front of her. “Donna coaxes him out of that shell of his, and Matt calms Donna down. Matt turns seventeen next month, and Donna two months after that. I believe they might actually fare well if they chose to make a go of it after graduation.” Again, Daniel couldn’t shake the notion that she looked as if she’d just solved an algebra problem, not brokered a match.

Still, Mrs. Smiley claimed to have been happily married for six years before her husband died. As a bachelor himself, Daniel had to at least respect her opinion as the more experienced on the subject of courtship and matrimony. He certainly brought no expertise to the subject; women had mostly bored or baffled him. Not that Mother ever ceased to offer up suitable bridal candidates—that woman’s pursuit of a Parker family heir could never be called subtle.

It served him well that most women, while enamored of his social standing, quickly grew tired of the time and devotion he gave to the Home. And for all of Mother’s rants about his duty to the Parker legacy to pressure him to find a bride, wasn’t this the true Parker legacy—this orphanage that his father had built? Daniel knew he didn’t measure up to his father in many ways, but he would not cease in striving to give his best to the Home, come what may.

“And what, in your opinion, should we do about that?”

An actual smile broke over Mrs. Smiley’s face—a rare sight indeed. “Much as we should do with Nurse Landway—temper their enthusiasm.” She gave the final word a tone of disdain.

“Perhaps the September picnic could grant them an appropriate social outing.”