It made me
just a little faint to look at it, and I had to turn away. There was but
a slight injury at first, I was told, and it had become awful for lack of
proper treatment and care. Dr. Grant, I was also informed by old Sammy,
was confronted at first with the horrible problem of either taking fair
chances for the man's life by an amputation which would have meant
starvation for the family, or of assuming the risk of trying to save that
arm upon which the woman and her little ones were depending. Such things
must surely try a man's soul, Aunt Jennie. The doctor told me that he had
gone out of the house and sat on a rock, to think it over, and had looked
at the flakes with their pitiful showing. The kiddies were ravenous and
the wife exhausted with care. Then he had stared at the other old house,
now abandoned by a family that had been unable to keep body and soul
together in the place.
And so he had been compelled to decide upon this great gamble and spent
three nights and days in watching, in a ceaseless struggle to save that
arm, using every possible means of winning his fight, knowing that the
penalty of failure was death. It was no wonder that he looked happy now
that he knew he had won.
I suppose that such things happen often, Auntie dear, but we have never
seen things like these, and they make an awfully strong impression.
Dr. Grant was working away, looking well pleased, and I handed him a few
things he needed.
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