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$Pretitle{}
$Title{Sketches, Old And New
Experience Of The McWilliamses With Membranous Croup}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{child
now
mortimer
too
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little
mcwilliams
mrs
never
once}
$Date{1893}
$Log{}
Title:       Sketches, Old And New
Book:        Experience Of The McWilliamses With Membranous Croup
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1893

Experience Of The McWilliamses With Membranous Croup

     [As related to the author of this book by Mr. McWilliams, a pleasant New
York gentleman whom the said author met by chance on a journey.]

     Well, to go back to where I was before I digressed to explain to you how
that frightful and incurable disease, membranous croup, was ravaging the town
and driving all mothers mad with terror, I called Mrs. McWilliam's attention
to little Penelope and said:

     "Darling, I wouldn't let that child be chewing that pine stick if I were
you."

     "Precious, where is the harm in it?" said she, but at the same time
preparing to take away the stick - for women cannot receive even the most
palpably judicious suggestion without arguing it; that is, married women.

     I replied:

     "Love, it is notorious that pine is the least nutritious wood that a
child can eat."

     My wife's hand paused, in the act of taking the stick, and returned
itself to her lap.  She bridled preceptibly, and said:

     "Hubby, you know better than that.  You know you do.  Doctors all say
that the turpentine in pine wood is good for weak back and the kidneys."

     "Ah - I was under a misapprehension.  I did not know that the child's
kidneys and spine were affected, and that the family physician had recommended
- "

     "Who said the child's spine and kidneys were affected?"

     "My love, you intimated it."

     "The idea!  I never intimated anything of the kind."

     "Why my dear, it hasn't been two minutes since you said - "

     "Bother what I said!  I don't care what I did say.  There isn't any harm
in the child's chewing a bit of pine stick if she wants to, and you know it
perfectly well.  And she shall chew it, too.  So there, now!"

     "Say no more, my dear.  I now see the force of your reasoning, and I will
go and order two or three cords of the best pine wood to-day.  No child of
mine shall want while I - "

     "O please go along to your office and let me have some peace.  A body can
never make the simplest remark but you must take it up and go to arguing and
arguing and arguing till you don't know what you are talking about, and you
never do."

     "Very well, it shall be as you say.  But there is a want of logic in your
last remark which - "

     However, she was gone with a flourish before I could finish, and had
taken the child with her.  That night at dinner she confronted me with a face
as white as a sheet:

     "O, Mortimer, there's another!  Little Georgie Gordon is taken."

     "Membranous croup?"

     "Membranous croup."

     "Is there any hope for him?"

     "None in the wide world.  O, what is to become of us!"

     By and by a nurse brought in our Penelope to say good-night and offer the
customary prayer at the mother's knee.  In the midst of "Now I lay me down to
sleep," she gave a slight cough!  My wife fell back like one stricken with
death.  But the next moment she was up and brimming with the activities which
terror inspires.

     She commanded that the child's crib be removed from the nursery to our
bed-room; and she went along to see the order executed.  She took me with her,
of course.  We got matters arranged with speed.  A cot bed was put up in my
wife's dressing room for the nurse.  But now Mrs. McWilliams said we were too
far away from the other baby, and what if he were to have the symptoms in the
night - and she blanched again, poor thing.

     We then restored the crib and the nurse to the nursery and put up a bed
for ourselves in a room adjoining.

     Presently, however, Mrs. McWilliams said suppose the baby should catch it
from Penelope?  This thought struck a new panic to her heart, and the tribe of
us could not get the crib out of the nursery again fast enough to satisfy my
wife, though she assisted in her own person and well nigh pulled the crib to
pieces in her frantic hurry.

     We moved down stairs; but there was no place there to stow the nurse, and
Mrs. McWilliams said the nurse's experience would be an inestimable help.  So
we returned, bag and baggage, to our own bed-room once more, and felt a great
gladness, like storm-buffeted birds that have found their nest again.

     Mrs. McWilliams sped to the nursery to see how things were going on
there.  She was back in a moment with a new dread.  She said:

     "What can make Baby sleep so?"

     I said:

     "Why, my darling, Baby always sleeps like a graven image."

     "I know.  I know; but there's something peculiar about his sleep, now. He
seems to - to - he seems to breathe so regularly.  O, this is dreadful."

     "But my dear he always breathes regularly."

     "Oh, I know it, but there's something frightful about it now.  His nurse
is too young and inexperienced.  Maria shall stay there with her, and be on
hand if anything happens."

     "That is a good idea, but who will help you?"

     "You can help me all I want.  I wouldn't allow anybody to do anything but
myself, anyhow, at such a time as this."

     I said I would feel mean to lie abed and sleep, and leave her to watch
and toil over our little patient all the weary night - but she reconciled me
to it.  So old Maria departed and took up her ancient quarters in the nursery.

     Penelope coughed twice in her sleep.

     "Oh, why don't that doctor come!  Mortimer, this room is too warm. This
room is certainly too warm.  Turn off the register - quick!"

     I shut it off, glancing at the thermometer at the same time, and
wondering to myself if 70 was too warm for a sick child.

     The coachman arrived from down town, now, with the news that our
physician was ill and confined to his bed.  Mrs. McWilliams turned a dead eye
upon me, and said in a dead voice:

     "There is a Providence in it.  It is foreordained.  He never was sick
before. - Never.  We have not been living as we ought to live, Mortimer. Time
and time again I have told you so.  Now you see the result.  Our child will
never get well.  Be thankful if you can forgive yourself; I never can forgive
myself."

     I said, without intent to hurt, but with heedless choice of words, that I
could not see that we had been living such an abandoned life.

     "Mortimer!  Do you want to bring the judgment upon Baby, too!"

     Then she began to cry, but suddenly exclaimed:

     "The doctor must have sent medicines!"

     I said:

     Certainly.  They are here.  I was only waiting for you to give me a
chance."

     "Well do give them to me!  Don't you know that every moment is precious
now?  But what was the use in sending medicines, when he knows that the
disease is incurable?"

     I said that while there was life there was hope.

     "Hope!  Mortimer, you know no more what you are talking about than the
child unborn.  If you would -.  As I live, the directions say give one
teaspoonful once an hour!  Once an hour! - as if we had a whole year before us
to save the child in!  Mortimer, please hurry.  Give the poor perishing thing
a tablespoonful, and try to be quick!

     "Why, my dear, a tablespoonful might-"

     "Don't drive me frantic!.....There, there, there, my precious, my own;
it's nasty bitter stuff, but it's good for Nelly - good for mother's precious
darling; and it will make her well.  There, there, there, put the little head
on Mamma's breast and go to sleep, and pretty soon - Oh, I know she can't live
till morning!  Mortimer, a tablespoonful every half hour will - .  Oh, the
child needs belladonna too; I know she does - and aconite.  Get them,
Mortimer.  Now do let me have my way.  You know nothing about these things."

     We now went to bed, placing the crib close to my wife's pillow.  All this
turmoil had worn upon me, and within two minutes I was something more than
half asleep.  Mrs. McWilliams roused me:

     "Darling, is that register turned on?"

     "No."

     "I thought as much.  Please turn it on at once.  This room is cold."

     I turned it on, and presently fell asleep again.  I was aroused once
more:

     "Dearie, would you mind moving the crib to your side of the bed?  It is
nearer the register."

     I moved it, but had a collision with the rug and woke up the child.  I
dozed off once more, while my wife quieted the sufferer.  But in a little
while these words came murmuring remotely through the fog of my drowsiness:


     "Mortimer, if we only had some goose-grease - will you ring?"

     I climbed dreamily out, and stepped on a cat, which responded with a
protest and would have got a convincing kick for it if a chair had not got it
instead.

     "Now, Mortimer, why do you want to turn up the gas and wake up the child
again?"

     "Because I want to see how much I am hurt, Caroline."

     "Well look at the chair, too - I have no doubt it is ruined.  Poor cat,
suppose you had - "

     "Now I am not going to suppose anything about the cat.  It never would
have occurred if Maria had been allowed to remain here and attend to these
duties, which are in her line and are not in mine."

     "Now Mortimer, I should think you would be ashamed to make a remark like
that.  It is a pity if you cannot do the few little things I ask of you at
such an awful time as this when our child - "

     "There, there, I will do anything you want.  But I can't raise anybody
with this bell.  They're all gone to bed.  Where is the goose-grease?"

     "On the mantel piece in the nursery.  If you'll step there and speak to
Maria - "

     I fetched the goose-grease and went to sleep again; once more I was
called:

     "Mortimer, I so hate to disturb you, but the room is still too cold for
me to try to apply this stuff.  Would you mind lighting the fire?  It is all
ready to touch a match to."

     I dragged myself out and lit the fire, and then sat down disconsolate.

     "Mortimer, don't sit there and catch your death of cold.  Come to bed."

     As I was stepping in, she said:

    "But wait a moment.  Please give the child some more of the medicine."

     Which I did.  It was a medicine which made a child more or less lively;
so my wife made use of its waking interval to strip it and grease it all over
with the goose-oil.  I was soon asleep once more, but once more I had to get
up.

     "Mortimer, I feel a draft.  I feel it distinctly.  There is nothing so
bad for this disease as a draft.  Please move the crib in front of the fire."

     I did it; and collided with the rug again, which I threw in the fire.
Mrs. McWilliams sprang out of bed and rescued it and we had some words.  I had
another trifling interval of sleep, and then got up, by request, and
constructed a flax-seed poultice.  This was placed upon the child's breast and
left there to do its healing work.

     A wood fire is not a permanent thing.  I got up every twenty minutes and
renewed ours, and this gave Mrs. McWilliams the opportunity to shorten the
times of giving the medicines by ten minutes, which was a great satisfaction
to her.  Now and then, between times, I reorganized the flax- seed poultices,
and applied sinapisms and other sorts of blisters where unoccupied places
could be found upon the child.  Well, toward morning the wood gave out and my
wife wanted me to go down cellar and get some more.  I said:

     "My dear, it is a laborious job, and the child must be nearly warm
enough, with her extra clothing.  Now mightn't we put on another layer of
poultices and - "

     I did not finish, because I was interrupted.  I lugged wood up from below
for some little time, and then turned in and fell to snoring as only a man can
whose strength is all gone and whose soul is worn out.  Just at broad daylight
I felt a grip on my shoulder that brought me to my senses suddenly. - My wife
was glaring down upon me and gasping.  As soon as she could command her tongue
she said:

     "It is all over!  All over!  The child's perspiring!  What shall we do?"

     "Mercy, how you terrify me!  I don't know what we ought to do.  Maybe if
we scraped her and put her in the draft again - "

     "O, idiot!  There is not a moment to lose!  Go for the doctor.  Go
yourself.  Tell him he must come, dead or alive."

     I dragged that poor sick man from his bed and brought him.  He looked at
the child and said she was not dying.  This was joy unspeakable to me, but it
made my wife as mad as if he had offered her a personal affront. Then he said
the child's cough was only caused by some trifling irritation or other in the
throat.  At this I thought my wife had a mind to show him the door. - Now the
doctor said he would make the child cough harder and dislodge the trouble.  So
he gave her something that sent her into a spasm of coughing, and presently up
came a little wood splinter or so.

     "This child has no membranous croup," said he.  "She has been chewing a
bit of pine shingle or something of the kind, and got some little slivers in
her throat.  They won't do her any hurt."

     "No," said I, "I can well believe that.  Indeed the turpentine that is in
them is good for certain sorts of diseases that are peculiar to children.  My
wife will tell you so."

     But she did not.  She turned away in disdain and left the room; and since
that time there is one episode in our life which we never refer to. Hence the
tide of our days flows by in deep and untroubled serenity.

     [Very few married men have such an experience as McWilliams's, and so the
author of this book thought that maybe the novelty of it would give it a
passing interest to the reader.]