Read Online The Doctor's Undoing by Allie Pleiter - Free Book Online Page A

father, and was practically as much a fixture of the place as the bricks and mortar. As a doctor, he could manage without a nurse, but he could never hope to last a day without a schoolmistress.
    â€œIt isn’t Nurse Landway exactly, Dr. Parker.”
    Daniel wasn’t sure if that boded well or ill. “Well, then, what is it exactly?”
    â€œThat woman just spent the last thirty minutes trying to convince me that knitting involved mathematics. As if I should be tucking yarn and needles inside the girls’ textbooks.”
    Daniel never favored sums and figures as a child, nor as a man, as his current battle with accounting accurately proved. “Is there math in knitting? I’d no idea.”
    Mrs. Smiley huffed. “Well, if you want to ask Nurse Landway about it, make sure you’ve got half an hour to spare. I declare, but that woman can go on.”
    â€œShe has a certain...” He searched for the right word that would agree with her but yet still defend his new nurse. “...enthusiasm, I’ll agree.”
    â€œI want your assurance such foolishness will not be entering my classroom.” Mrs. Smiley’s plump hands planted on her hips. “The last thing I need is those girls thinking about fiddling with stitchery when I’ve got multiplication to teach.”
    â€œPerhaps she was just making conversation.” Miss Landway did seem eager to make friends with just about anyone. Perhaps she viewed the dour Mrs. Smiley as an interpersonal challenge.
    â€œMake conversation? That woman has no need to dream up conversation. She has chatter seeping out of her pores, bless her heart.” Like generations of Southern women before her, Jane Smiley applied the platitude of “bless her heart” at the end of any negative judgment. Somehow considered the universal absolution of an unkind comment, to Daniel “bless her heart” simply allowed women of good breeding to be delicately mean. The opinion was confirmed by the next sentence out of his schoolmistress’s mouth. “If I want my meals in a circus, I’ll just head on down to the tavern.”
    The thought of prim Mrs. Smiley hoisting a mug with the town’s multitude of sailors in a tavern was about as ludicrous as it was entertaining. But he couldn’t agree with the substance of her complaint. The truth was, Daniel was rather coming to enjoy Miss Landway’s way of livening up conversation at the staff dining table. He’d learned things about his staff since her arrival that he’d never known in the years he worked here. Yes, she could be difficult at times, and he was quite sure she’d challenge him on any number of subjects once she settled in properly. His initial reservations, however, were giving way to a reluctant admission that Ida Landway might actually be good for the Parker Home for Orphans. “What is it you’d like me to do, Mrs. Smiley?” He’d learned this to be an effective question—often Mrs. Smiley didn’t actually want any action taken, she just wanted her views to be known. Clearly and in considerable detail.
    Apparently this was the present case, for she blinked and huffed again, caught up short at the request for a suggestion. While the schoolmistress was never short of opinions, she rarely had suggestions. Miss Landway, on the other hand, seemed to boast an endless supply of both. “Mind she knows her limits, Dr. Parker.”
    â€œIndeed I will, Mrs. Smiley.” It was, in truth, a valid suggestion. Daniel had already concluded that guiding Miss Landway to see her proper boundaries and not to step on toes would be the key to her fitting in on the staff. He switched the subject. “How is Miss Forley doing in her studies these days? I know she was having some trouble earlier.”
    Nothing puffed up Jane Smiley like the accomplishments of her charges. “Exemplary. Once Donna put her mind to it, she caught on