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Show s THE DOCTOR CORNER By Helen Janney '- . i ' ". mi...)., i. in.. . v 4 LINNDALE had two doctors . . . two doctors about as different in every way as any two men could be. Doc Boggs was old, in his eighties, eight-ies, and he shouldn't have been practicing at all. He was cross and , . ill tempered and 3ii. i. he often got his Minute patients and Fiction their prescrip-I prescrip-I I tions a 1 1 mixed up. Doctor Willis, on the other hand was just gushing thirty. He was alert, dependable and pleasant to deal with. The women, especially, were most enthusiastic about him. "Why," Mrs. Preston said, "when I called him for my Willie when he had the measles, he worked like a trooper. When Willie didn't do so well at first he actually cried. A doctor. What do you think of that?" For a while he dated this one and that, playing no- favorite. I know." Mrs. bcott agreed. "He cried over my Martha, too. We both cried. He's sweet. I just love him." You see, at first Doc Boggs was the only physician in town. People called him just because he was there. If they wanted somebody else they'd have to get a man in Bloomdale, thirty miles away. So everybody was mighty glad when young Doctor Willis came to Lin-dale Lin-dale to see about locating tbre. The business men and the farmers gave him a lot of encouragement. en-couragement. The young married mar-ried women who were expecting expect-ing babies welcomed him. In fact, the only person who opposed op-posed him in any way was old Doc Boggs. "It's a one doctor town," he said when young Doc went to call on him. "We don't need or want another one here." Doctor Willis came just the same' and set up his practice on Elm Street. He was single so he fixed himself bachelor's quarters in the-upstairs the-upstairs over his house. Old Mrs. South who used to do for Doc Boggs, went over to the young doc's now, which made old doc madder than ever. IT SEEMED strange the way young doc took on when Doc-Boggs Doc-Boggs finally passed on. Not many-even many-even shed a tear at the funeral But young doctor Willis sat there-crying there-crying openly. It made everybody think even more of him than they did before, for they knew that the old man had absolutely refused to cooperate with the younger one and that he lost no opportunity to run him down to his patients. "What a wonderful husband Doctor Doc-tor Willis would make," was the thought in the minds of more than one mother of a marriageable aged daughter. The girls themselves busied about inviting him to parties and dances. There was open rivalry for his attention. at-tention. For a while he dated this one and that, playing no favorites. One summer after he'd been away on bis vacation he came back with a wife, a girl from his old home town in Ohio. Jean, that was her name, had such a nice way with her that she soon made friends. When people kept saying over and over that her husband was the sweetest, most tender hearted man in the whole world, she sometimes looked a bit surprised. Sure, she thought he was great. That was one reason she married him, but nevertheless she felt a bit puzzled at times. And then she found out something that nobody else knew. She kept still and just smiled when they began be-gan to rave about her husband. She smiled and went about her business busi-ness of picking up after him, keeping keep-ing him well fed and mended and not really minding the times when he was thoughtless and inconsiderate inconsider-ate as all husbands are at times. The way she found, out was that one night he came home to dinner quite late and dog tired, too. When she looked at him she saw that his eyes were red. "Don't tell me you've been crying?" cry-ing?" she said. "Crying? Me" he laughed. "What ever gave you that Idea?" "Your eyes. They look like it." "It't those flowers . . . roses. Why is it people always send roses to the sick? Every place I've been today has had a bouquet of 'em. I hate roses. I'm allergic to 'em. I have to take shots all the time. Roses roses roses!" |