Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/384

 318 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY elsewhere, presents him to view as working out the destiny of the wilderness, hand in hand with the other forces of civilization for the common good. He was an integral part of the primitive social fabric. As such he shared the manners, the customs, the aims, and the ambitions of his companions, and he. with them, was controlled by the forces which determine the common state and the common destiny. The chief concerns of himself and com- panions were material — engaged with the serious problem of existence. The struggle to survive was, at its best, a competition with nature. Hard winters and poor roads were the chief impedi- ments. Only rough outlines remain of the heroic and adventurous side of the pioneer physician's long, active and honored life. The imagination cannot, unaided by the facts, picture the primitive conditions with which he had to contend. Long and dreary rides, by day and night, in summer's beat and winter's cold, through snow, and mud. and rain, was his common lot. He trusted him- self to. the mercy of the elements, crossed unbridged streams, made his way through uncut forests, and traveled the roadless wilderness. He spent one-fifth of his life in his conveyance, and in some cases traveled as many as two hundred thousand miles in the same. Dr. Oliver. Wendell Holmes has graphically described the old doctor's daily routine: "Half a dollar a visit — drive, drive, drive, all day; get up in the night and harness your own horse — drive again ten miles in a snowstorm ; shake powders out of a vial — drive back again, if you don't happen to be stuck in a drift; no home, no peace, no continuous meals, no unbroken sleep, no Sunday, no holiday, no social intercourse, but eternal jog, jog, jog in a sulky." He always responded to the call of the poor, and gave freely his services to those who could not pay without hardship. Who can narrate the past events in the life of such a man? His deeds were ''written upon the. tablets of loving and grateful hearts, and the hearts are now dust. The long and exhausting rides through storm, or mud, or snow ; the exposure to contagions ; the patient vigils by the bedside of pain; the kindly deeds of charity; the reassuring messages to the despondent ; the shielding of the inno- cent; the guarding of secrets; the numberless self-abnegations that cannot be tabulated, and are soon forgotten, like the roses of yesterday." Wealth did not flow into the old practitioner's coffers; in fact, he needed no coffers. He was a poor collector, and with all his efforts he obtained but little, and never what was his due. As an offset to the generally acknowledged abili- ties of the old doctor in every other line of his work, it must also be admitted that he was greatly deficient in business tact. Often