Chapter 35
section thirty-five of ginger snaps by fanny fern this librivox recording is in the public domain my doctor you have one of course and of course he never opens his mouth without dropping pearls i hope the printer will not print this last word pills Your doctor believes in flannel next to the skin, all the year round. Mrs. Jones' doctor, who knows much more than your doctor, thinks that a person of discretion may occasionally, in the dog days, lay flannel on the shelf and no coffin be imminent. Your doctor says that young children's necks and shoulders should always be covered, even in warm weather.
Mrs. Smith's doctor, who, she says, stands at the head of his profession, says that is all nonsense and that children should go through a toughening process, which will render changes of temperature harmless. Your doctor advises you never to cross the street or go downstairs unless accompanied by quinine. Mrs. Smith's doctor tells her if she wants poison, she had better get rat's bane, and then she will know what she is swallowing. Now each of you
believe that my doctor is infallible. That is a great comfort to you, and very satisfactory to them, especially pocket-wise. My doctor hasn't dealt with women so long, and failed to see their blind side. He knows what brutes husbands are, and how, like flints, they will oppose the seashore, merely because their wives want to go there. What is the use of my doctor unless he comforts you under this affliction, and declares that to be the only place where you can regain your lost appetite.
No wonder you like him. No wonder life is a blank to you when his carriage is not before your door. There is healing in the very sight of his beard and mustache, and how much handsomer they are than the brutes. Ah, had you met my doctor years ago, you say, not stopping to reflect that in that case, he would have been attending women who paid fees and left you, his wife, to some medical friends for pills and consolation. It is better as it is, you see. Well, it is comforting that he
understands you better than anybody else and seems to know just what you want. And then he shows such an absorbing interest in your symptoms that you almost feel cured by his sympathy alone before you swallow a single powder. And since my ears are out of your reach, I will remark that, well, you may, when half the time nothing in the world ails you but the want of some absorbing occupation or interest. Coloured water and bread pills are safe prescriptions for that complaint. Meantime, it
won't hurt the brute to pay for the wear and tear of the doctor's carriage in coming and going. If my doctor laughs in his sleeve occasionally when he thinks what funny creatures women are, You are none the wiser or the angrier for it. He don't dislike, after all, their little, cuddlesome, trusting, confiding ways. Possibly not so much as his wife does, whose acquaintance you had better not make.
As I before remarked, his medical friends can take care of her. It is no business of yours, her disgusting ills and aches. But what a thing it is when my doctor was also Ma's doctor. If he don't know all the ins and outs, then may the devil fly away with him. The moral of all this is that my doctor's life is not without its consolations,
and the most astonishing part of it is that husbands are so blear-eyed to this subject. It won't harm them to hint that in sympathy and courteousness they had better not present too sharp a contrast to my doctor. End of section 35
