Blessed Assurance by Lyn Cote Read Free Book Online

coat stepped out of the shadows.
    Jessie hurried toward him. “Are you a doctor? Help me. This baby’s dying!” She thrust the child toward him.
    The man briefly stared into her face, then bowed. “Dr. Gooden.”
    At Jessie’s elbow, the matron burst out, “Coloreds aren’t allowed in this hospital.”
    The doctor spoke to Jessie alone, “The parents may wait outside. No one could object to the infant, but…”
    Jessie pivoted. “Ruth and Ben, I’ll see that everything possible is done.”
    Ben tugged Ruth toward the door obviously against her will. The sight nearly broke Jessie’s heart, but the baby’s life was all that mattered now.
    The doctor touched Jessie’s sleeve. “Come.”
    Jessie hurried beside the doctor down the dimly lit passage.
    â€œWhat is your name, please?”
    â€œMrs. Wagstaff.” She trotted after him, keeping up with his longer stride.
    â€œThe child has been sick, how long?” he said in a voice that held the barest hint of an accent.
    â€œHe began to be feverish at night over a week ago.”
    â€œDiarrhea?”
    â€œYes.” Jessie turned the corner.
    â€œThe mother stopped nursing, isn’t that it?”
    â€œYes, I warned them not to use cow’s milk with a baby this young—”
    â€œIt is most likely milk fever, that you know. A mother loses hermilk in the warmer part of the year before a child is a year old or more, so she gives the child cow’s milk…” He lifted his hands in a gesture that said, “What can be done?”
    â€œI know,” she said desperately.
    The baby jerked in her arms and began gagging again. “He’s started again!” Oh, God, I don’t know what to do!
    The doctor sprinted the last few feet into a small examining room. Jessie ran to keep up with him. He paused, just long enough to turn up the gas lamp on the wall. “Lay the child on the table.” He hurried to a bowl and ewer in the corner and washed his hands.
    Within seconds, he was turning the child to its side. He probed the quivering child with deft fingers, checking for pulse and temperature, and listening to the heart with his stethoscope.
    â€œIsn’t there anything we can do?” Jessie twisted her hands together.
    â€œYou will you act as my nurse?”
    â€œI’ll do whatever you tell me to.” Father God, bless this doctor. How could I face telling Ruth her baby’s gone?
    â€œWe start with an alcohol bath.”
    Soon Jessie was sponging down the naked baby with the cool, pungent alcohol. The child went limp again, but his appearance terrified her even more. His little jaw hung slack and under his dark skin, an ashen undertone. “I feel so helpless,” Jessie whispered.
    â€œI know.”
    The empathy in his voice made Jessie study the man who stood across from her in the stark room. He was tall like Will. He was blond with blue eyes like Will only much darker blue. If only Will had been spared. She sucked in the familiar vacant feeling.
    The doctor leaned over the table, studying the child. “I ask myself over and over—what is the cause? The cure?”
    In spite of the dire situation, for just a moment, Jessie was thrilled to have him speak to her as though she were an equal.
    He went on, speaking forcefully as though he thought his words could subdue the child’s disease. “What is in cow’s milk that is notin mother’s milk? Older children drink cow’s milk without bad effect—why? I need to know the answers.”
    She looked at him wonder-struck. “I’ve felt that way myself.”
    â€œI thought so.” His gaze connected with hers, then dropped back to the baby.
    â€œWhat are you going to try?”
    â€œWe will introduce a mild salicin—”
    â€œSalicin?”
    â€œA powder from willow bark in boiled water. To lower the fever.”
    â€œWhat do you want