Adventures in Contentment

"There are some things a man can't concede, and one is, that a man who has broken a law, like a man who has broken a leg, has got to suffer for it." It was only with the greatest difficulty that he could be prevailed upon to present a bill. It was not because the community was poor, though some of our people are poor, and it was certainly not because the Doctor was rich and could afford such philanthropy, for, saving a rather unproductive farm which during the last ten years of his life lay wholly uncultivated, he was as poor as any man in the community. He simply seemed to forget that people owed him. It came to be a common and humorous experience for people to go to the Doctor and say: "Now, Doctor North, how much do I owe you? You remember you attended my wife two years ago when the baby came--and John when he had the diphtheria----" "Yes, yes," said the Doctor, "I remember." "I thought I ought to pay you." "Well, I'll look it up when I get time." But he wouldn't. The only way was to go to him and say: "Doctor, I want to pay ten dollars on account." "All right," he'd answer, and take the money. To the credit of the community I may say with truthfulness that the Doctor never suffered. He was even able to supply himself with the best instruments that money could buy. To him nothing was too good for our neighbourhood. This morning I saw in a case at his home a complete set of oculist's instruments, said to be the best in the county--a very unusual equipment for a country doctor. Indeed, he assumed that the responsibility for the health of the community rested upon him. He was a sort of self-constituted health officer. He was always sniffing about for old wells and damp cellars--and somehow, with his crisp humour and sound sense, getting them cleaned. In his old age he even grew querulously particular about these things--asking a little more of human nature than it could quite accomplish. There were innumerable other ways--how they came out to-day all glorified now that he is gone!--in which he served the community.