Cod environment seemed almost a prison
where I was held with tender force. I loved my people and they loved
me--but the big outer world was calling, and I could not close my ears
to its summons. The suffrage lectures helped to keep me contented,
however, and I was certainly busy enough to find happiness in my work.

I was in Boston three nights a week, and during these nights subject
to sick calls at any hour. My favorite associates were Dr. Caroline
Hastings, our professor of anatomy, and little Dr. Mary Safford, a
mite of a woman with an indomitable soul. Dr. Safford was especially
prominent in philanthropic work in Massachusetts, and it was said of her
that at any hour of the day or night she could be found working in the
slums of Boston. I, too, could frequently be found there--often, no
doubt, to the disadvantage of my patients. I was quite famous in three
Boston alleys--Maiden's Lane, Fellows Court, and Andrews Court. It most
fortunately happened that I did not lose a case in those alleys, though
I took all kinds, as I had to treat a certain number of surgical and
obstetrical cases in my course. No doubt my patients and I had many
narrow escapes of which we were blissfully ignorant, but I remember
two which for a long time afterward continued to be features of my most
troubled dreams.

The first was that of a big Irishman who had pneumonia. When I looked
him over I was as much frightened as he was. I had got as far as
pneumonia in my course, and I realized that here was a bad case of it.
I knew what to do. The patient must be carefully packed in towels wrung
out of cold water. When I called for towels I found that there was
nothing in the place but a dish-towel, which I washed with portentous
gravity. The man owned but one shirt, and, in deference to my visit,
his wife had removed that to wash it. I packed the patient in the
dish-towel, wrapped him in a piece of an old shawl, and left after
instructing his wife to repeat the process. When I reached home I
remembered that the patient must be packed "carefully," and I knew that
his wife would do it carelessly. That meant great risk to the man's
life. My impulse was to rush back to him at once, but this would never
do. It would destroy all confidence in the doctor. I walked the floor
for three hours, and then casually strolled in upon my patient, finding
him, to my great relief, better than I had left him. As I was leaving, a
child rushed into the room, begging me t