A Physician's Story [pp. 544-547]

A Physician's Story.
night I could even understand the talk
of those Indians among themselves. I
do not mean that I could have translated their words, but I somehow understood their conversation.'
"' And what do you think theiy said?'
I asked somewhat skeptically, for I naturally thought his imagination was running away'with his good sense.
"But he was fully convinced of the
correctness of his understanding.
"' Much of it' he said'was of no special importance. They chaffed each other about their personal appearance. Two
of the women picked us out for lovers,
they said, and the others laughed at
them.
"'One old woman, who had crowded
close to me, said a queer thing, though.
She said "He looks like an Indian himself,"- and I do,' he added.' I recalled
my features, and I do look like an Indian, though my hair is brown and my
eyes are gray.'
"When Clary said this I turned and
looked at him. The gathering twilight
darkened still more his deeply sunburned skin, and I was almost startled
to see the strong resemblance in gereral outline between his face and those
of the men and women we had just left.
"We walked-on in silence for a while,
then he passed his hand over his forehead.'Strange what curious dreams,
experiences, and ideas, we sometimes
have, is n't it?' he said.'But I think
they are best forgotten, so let us neither
think nor speak of this again.'
"That was the last time he mentioned
the matter to me; but it was late before
he turned in that night, and I learned
afterwards that he had been back to the
Indian village again that evening."
Here Doctor Ellender stopped.
"Well," said the lawyer, "what is the
end of your story?"
"There is no other end; that is all I
can tell you. We learned later, however,
that the old woman who had first recognized his resemblance to the Indians
had lost a son, a promising young medicine-man, who had been accidentally
killed on the same day that Harry Clary
returned to life."
"And do you mean -" said the lawyer, - then stopped, unwilling to put
the absurd question into words.
"I mean nothing at all. I have told
you the facts as they came to my knowledge. I do not presume to offer any
explanations. You may think whatever
you please."
Theoda Wilkins.
1892.1
547