The Monster and Other Stories
Copyright© 2024 by Stephen Crane
Chapter 21
“By-the-way, Grace,” said Trescott, looking into the dining-room from his office door, “I wish you would send Jimmie to me before school-time.”
When Jimmie came, he advanced so quietly that Trescott did not at first note him. “Oh,” he said, wheeling from a cabinet, “here you are, young man.”
“Yes, sir.”
Trescott dropped into his chair and tapped the desk with a thoughtful finger. “Jimmie, what were you doing in the back garden yesterday—you and the other boys—to Henry?”
“We weren’t doing anything, pa.”
Trescott looked sternly into the raised eyes of his son. “Are you sure you were not annoying him in any way? Now what were you doing, exactly?”
“Why, we—why, we—now—Willie Dalzel said I dassent go right up to him, and I did; and then he did; and then—the other boys were ‘fraid; and then—you comed.”
Trescott groaned deeply. His countenance was so clouded in sorrow that the lad, bewildered by the mystery of it, burst suddenly forth in dismal lamentations. “There, there. Don’t cry, Jim,” said Trescott, going round the desk. “Only—” He sat in a great leather reading-chair, and took the boy on his knee. “Only I want to explain to you—”
After Jimmie had gone to school, and as Trescott was about to start on his round of morning calls, a message arrived from Doctor Moser. It set forth that the latter’s sister was dying in the old homestead, twenty miles away up the valley, and asked Trescott to care for his patients for the day at least. There was also in the envelope a little history of each case and of what had already been done. Trescott replied to the messenger that he would gladly assent to the arrangement.
He noted that the first name on Moser’s list was Winter, but this did not seem to strike him as an important fact. When its turn came, he rang the Winter bell. “Good-morning, Mrs. Winter,” he said, cheerfully, as the door was opened. “Doctor Moser has been obliged to leave town to-day, and he has asked me to come in his stead. How is the little girl this morning?”
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