Read Online Thoreau at Devil's Perch by B.B. Oak - Free Book Online Page A

this time pray instruct me to remember the visit.”
    He stood up abruptly and frowned down at me. “I will do no such thing. This experiment should not be repeated. Who knows where it could lead us.”
    â€œThat is what makes it so exciting!”
    â€œNo, Julia. That is what makes it so perilous. Please do not argue with me about it anymore.”
    I did not. I have found that arguing with Adam only makes him dig in his heels all the deeper. We are much alike in that regard, he and I. But I have not given up trying to persuade him to hypnotize me again. How I wish he would cease being so protective toward me. It can be most irritating.

ADAM’S JOURNAL
    Saturday, August 8th
    Â 
    J ulia rushed into the barn whilst I was grooming Napoleon this morning. “Come quickly, Adam. There’s a badly injured man outside.”
    Went out to see a lathered nag hitched to a rickety buckboard in front of the house. A farmer I knew to be Mr. Herd was standing by the horse, and his son Hiram was standing in the wagon. They both looked to be all right. Hiram beckoned with great energy, and I ran to the wagon along with Julia. There I saw an insensible man lying on the wagon platform, bleeding from the head. I lifted myself into the back of the wagon and began to examine him. It was difficult to see his head injury through the matted, blood-soaked hair covering it.
    â€œOur bull got loose,” young Hiram said. “Found him in the far pasture. This poor fellow was lyin’ close by him.”
    â€œHe was trespassin’!” Farmer Herd shouted.
    The boy ignored his father. “Sultan must have gored him, and I fear he is dying.”
    â€œIs he still breathing, Adam?” Julia said.
    â€œYes. Therefore he might still be saved.”
    Herd and his boy helped me carry the man into the office as Julia cradled his head. We put him onto the examination table and stripped him of his coat, waistcoat, and shirt.
    â€œLooks to be an Injun,” Herd said when the man’s ruddy torso was revealed.
    He bore a few healed scars on his chest, and I saw bruises, most likely from bull hoofs, but no broken bones. His skull, however, was smashed open, and cracked bits of cranial material were pushing against his brain. I deemed him to be young and healthy enough to endure both a gore to the head and my remedy to set him right again.
    â€œI will have to operate,” I said.
    â€œCan’t you just patch him up, doc?” Herd said. “I ain’t payin’ for any fancy surgery on some trespassin’ Injun. Bad enough Hiram almost kilt our old horse in his haste to get him here.”
    â€œOur bull gored him, Pa,” Hiram said. “Don’t that make us accountable?”
    â€œInjun had no right to be on our land in the first place. Besides which you never seen Sultan attack him.You just supposed he did.”
    â€œWhat else could I suppose, Pa? There was blood on Sultan’s horn.”
    â€œThat don’t prove nothin’.”
    â€œEnough!” Julia said. “You are wasting precious time with your petty-mindedness, Mr. Herd. Leave the doctor to do what is necessary to save this man.”
    â€œLet’s go, Hiram,” the farmer said, grabbing his son’s arm. “We have done our Christian duty by fetching the Injun here and need do no more.”
    â€œWait,” I said.“I will need a pair of steady hands to assist me.”
    Both men shook their heads most vigorously and backed out of the room.
    â€œMy hands are steady, are they not?” Julia said. She raised them for me to see. They were already bloody from pillowing the man’s head. “Allow me to assist you, Doctor.”
    I regret to admit that I hesitated before assenting, for it is an accepted belief in the medical profession that women are far too faint of heart and weak of stomach to assist in operations. Yet the idea of having this particular woman at my side made my