The two men who had brought me in were very much startled when the exact contents of my black case was revealed. They glanced at each other and then promptly escorted me out of the room. We went into the kitchen, and there, beside the stove, the mystery was explained. One of the men looked curiously at me and then asked:
I hastened to explain that I had never before heard of Dr. Newton. Then it was revealed to me that these men were country doctors, waiting to hold a consultation with the great surgeon, who had been expected to arrive on my train. The man on the bed had had serious trouble with his knee. These physicians had agreed that the limb must be removed, yet both hesitated to perform a complicated operation. Hence, the surgeon was coming to do it. The sick man’s father-in-law had gone to the station; he had been instructed to bring back a man of medium size, who said little and carried a black case of surgical instruments. I was to look for an elderly man with a gray beard. Father-in-law and I had mixed our signals.
It took me but a short time to convince these physicians that I could not fill the bill or saw off the leg. At last it developed that the actual surgeon was detained and could not come until the following day.
The man on the bed forgot his terror and laughed when I told him my story, and it gave him the fighting courage to compel his wife to telegraph the surgeon not to come at all. But those doctors acted as though I had deprived them of their prey. In my capacity as substitute surgeon I gave the patient the best advice I knew of:
“As one afflicted man to another, I advise you to hang right on to your leg. Try the faith cure and make yourself believe it can be saved.”
“You bet I will. They’ll have to cut my throat before they cut this leg off!”
I saw him some years later. He carried a cane and limped, but he still had two legs.
“They never cut it off,” he reported. “They put a silver cord in the joint, and it has held ever since. It’s a little stiff—but _it’s a leg_. I guess if Pa Morton and you hadn’t been deaf that night they would have finished the job.”
I have heard of a deaf man who had an experience somewhat similar to this. He also left the train one dark, stormy night in a good-sized city. He was a stranger, so he was quite unfamiliar with the place. He carried a small black case containing his hearing device and a few toilet articles. As he stood in the dim light looking about for his friends, two men rushed up to him, talking quite excitedly; they grasped him by the arms and hurried him outside the station. Unable to understand the performance, the deaf man followed, trying to explain that he was waiting for his friends. Almost before he knew it he found himself inside a car with these excitable gentlemen, driving rapidly through the streets. Of course, you wonder why deaf men under such conditions do not explain and break away.