But in planning to get the "whip hand" Mrs. Holt reckoned without
Kate. She had been under the whip hand all her life. Her dash to
freedom had not been accomplished without both mental and physical
hurt. She was doing nothing but going over her past life
minutely, and as she realized more fully with each review how
barren and unlovely it had been, all the strength and fresh young
pride in her arose in imperative demand for something better in
the future. She listened with interest to what George Holt said
to her. All her life she had been driven by a man of inflexible
will, his very soul inoculated with greed for possessions which
would give him power; his body endowed with unfailing strength to
meet the demands he made on it, and his heart wholly lacking in
sentiment; but she did not propose to start her new life by
speaking of her family to strangers. George Holt's experiences
had been those of a son spoiled by a weak woman, one day petted,
the next bribed, the next nagged, again left to his own devices
for days, with strong inherited tendencies to be fought,
tendencies to what he did not say. Looking at his heavy jaw and
swarthy face, Kate supplied "temper" and "not much inclination to
work." He had asked her to teach him, she would begin by setting
him an example in the dignity of self-control; then she would make
him work. How she would make that big, strong man work! As she
sat there on the bank of the ravine, with a background of
delicately leafed bushes and the light of the setting sun on her
face and her hair, George Holt studied her closely, mentally and
physically, and would have given all he possessed if he had not
been so hasty. He saw that she had a good brain and courage to
follow her convictions, while on closer study he decided that she
was moulded on the finest physical lines of any woman he ever had
seen, also his study of medicine taught him to recognize glowing
health, and to set a right estimate on it. Truly he was sorry, to
the bottom of his soul, but he did not believe in being too
humble. He said as much in apology as he felt forced, and then
set himself the task of calling out and parading the level best he
could think up concerning himself, or life in general. He had
tried farming, teaching, merchandise, and law before he had
decided his vocation was medicine.
On account of Robert Gray, Kate was much interested in this, but
when she asked what college he was attending, he said he was going
to a school in Chicago that was preparing to revolutionize the
world of medicine. Then he started on a hobby that he had ridden
for months, paying for the privilege, so Kate learned with
surprise and no small dismay that in a few months a man could take
a course in medicine that would enable him "to cure any ill to
which the human flesh is heir," as he expressed it, without
knowing anything of surgery, or drugs, or using either. Kate was
amazed and said so at once. She disconcertingly inquired what he
would do with patients who had sustained fractured skulls,
developed cancers, or been exposed to smallpox. But the man
before her proposed to deal with none of those disagreeable
things, or their like. He was going to make fame and fortune
in the world by treating mental and muscular troubles. He was
going to be a Zonoletic Doctor. He turned teacher and spelled it
for her, because she never had heard the word. Kate looked at
George Holt long and with intense interest, while her mind was
busy with new thoughts. On her pillow that night she decided that
if she were a man, driven by a desire to heal the suffering of the
world, she would be the man who took the long exhaustive course of
training that enabled him to deal with accidents, contagions, and
germ developments.