"So long, Tammy." "Bye-bye." "See you tomorrow." "Lord willing." "Carry your books, Tammy?" "You're monstrous kind, but the books ain't no burden." "I only wished it was less a burden carrying so much learning in my head." "Miss Tammy!" "I'll see you, Tammy." "Miss Tammy!" "You gotta go home quick, Miss Tammy!" "It's Mrs. Call!" "We were on your shanty-boat packing, when alls of a sudden, she keeled over." "Gosh a'mighty!" "They fetched the doctor, then they dropped me off to fetch you." "I reckon it'll be quicker if I catty-corner the swamp." "Oh, Nan." "She ain't come gone?" "No, no." "She's sleeping now." "Are you the young lady who's living here with Mrs. Call?" "Yes, sir." "I'm Tammy Tyree." "Only she's living here with me." "And what might be the nature of her ailment?" "Well, we can't tell yet." "We'll know better after I've run a few tests." "That's enough oxygen." "Please, please, help her all you can." "I'll do everything in my power, young lady." "Thank you kindly, sir, but I wasn't speaking to you." "It was to Grandma." "Mrs. Call your grandmother?" "No, sir, no." "My grandma Dinwoodie, she..." "Well, she passed on to glory years ago." "I was just asking her to shoo Mrs. Call's soul right back here to the Earth if she sees it a- heading that way." "Please, ma'am, please." "I'll be muchly beholden." "Yes, well, when she awakens, give her one teaspoonful of this every four hours." "A teaspoon?" "Be that the little one for stirring in a cup or the big one for tasting from the pot?" "Well, that's the stirring-in-the-cup one." "I'll be back first thing tomorrow morning." "Let's see." "No gas, no electricity." "I'll have to bring in a generator for my x-ray equipment and to keep the patient warm." "Keeping her warm won't be no bother, sir." "See?" "Well, what's that?" "It's Grandma's brick." "She used to just place it in the oven and then set it at her feet." "That's what I'm fixing to do for Mrs. Call." "Oh." "Yeah." "Let not your heart be troubled, ma'am." "Oh, Tammy." "What happened?" "Well, they ain't sure." "But the medicine man was here and he left this potion." "That's ridiculous." "The only thing wrong with me is too much fried catfish." "You'll oblige, ma'am, by please opening your mouth." "I will not oblige." "There's nothing wrong with me." "Please, ma'am." "With Grandma gone to glory and Grandpa in jail, why, you're the only family I got left." "If anything ever happened to you," "I'd be plain forspent with grief." "Most likely tastes like wormwood." "It's repulsive!" "Now, there." "It wasn't repulsive at all." "No." "Just plain nauseous." "This one shows definite back pressure into the lung and right side of the heart." "In addition, the electrocardiogram shows an exaggerated P-wave, with an abnormal contour and polarity." "I wish I knew what all that means." "That medicine talk fair gives me the shivers." "It has such a dark and boding sound." "Mrs. Call, my own examination confirms Dr. Crandall's previous diagnosis." "An extreme grade of mitral stenosis and congestive cardiac failure." "Nell's bells, why can't you medicine folk call a turnip a turnip?" "I beg your pardon?" "Well, you can beg it, but I ain't a-giving it!" "Tammy, Dr. Bentley is a very important specialist." "And we're lucky that he agreed to fly out here from Los Ángeles." "But that don't give him the right to set us all a-tremble with all his high-sounding medicine gibble-gabble." "You're quite right, young lady." "I should put it more simply." "Mrs. Call, there's a valve on the left side of the heart called the mitral valve." "In your case, the orifice, the opening, has contracted so that it allows just a small trickle of blood to pass through." "That sounds serious." "Now, don't you worry about it." "We're going to take you to Los Ángeles, and we'll build up your strength for a few weeks, and then perform a commissurotomy." "Now, there you go again." "I do declare, I get the all-overs when I hear them fearsome words." "A commissurotomy isn't as fearsome as it sounds." "Basically, it's a very simple but highly technical operation." "And, at my age, dangerous." "There are varying degrees of risk in all surgery, Mrs. Call." "Ma'am, there ain't nothing to worry about." "Betwixt him and me taking care of you, why, there ain't nothing can go wrong." "You can't go with me, Tammy." "You've got to stay here and keep up your schooling." "Now, ma'am, the human mind can only hold so much before it starts to spill over." "And my mind would be so full of worry that there wouldn't be room left for even a smidgen of learning." "Ain't that for a fact, sir?" "Having you along might be an excellent idea." "Thank you kindly, sir." "I'm muchly beholden." "Why, you know, I could just lie down there on the floor and die of pure gratefulness." "Please don't." "I don't want to have two patients on my hands." "Doctor, I'll go in and get my things together." "I am delighted he agreed to take your case, Mrs. Call." "You know, Wayne Bentley is one of our best heart men." "And he has trained a fine team of assistants at his hospital in Los Ángeles." "Sir?" "I feel ashamed for the way I acted a while back." "I feel humble and brought low." "No harm done, Miss Tyree." "You see, I'm just an unlearned shanty-boat girl who ain't got the least notion of how to act lady-fied and soft-spoken." "Shanty-boat girl?" "Well, I've been living upstream betwixt here and Vicksburg most of my remembering days." "That is, till lately when I come down the river to be a special student at Seminola College." "Well, that's why I took up with Mrs. Call." "She come here to live 'cause we was both lonesome and hunger-bit for affection." "Her in her big elegant house and me here on the river." "I'll do everything I can to alleviate your worries." "Well, I know now that you be a thoughtful human being." "Well, I also know that you just used them fearsome phrases because you's a leech." "Leech?" "Well, leech means doctor." "I know, but that term went out with the 18th century." "Oh, my goodness, no." "My grandpa still practices leechcraft here on the river folks." "Your grandfather is a leech..." "A doctor?" "No." "No." "No, sir." "He's kind of an on-and-off lay preacher." "But he's done some leeching and cupping on the side." "That is, before he got took off to jail, though." "I see, for practicing medicine without a license." "No, sir." "For making corn liquor without a license." "You know, Miss Tammy," "I have a feeling you're going to be better than a medical prescription for Mrs. Call." "Well, you know, sir, it pleasures me to hear you say that." "And it also pleasures me to see you break out into a big smile." "I didn't reckon you knowed how." "You can open your eyes now, Tammy." "Mmm-mmm." "I daresn't." "We're off the ground." "Well, I declare!" "It's like riding in Elijah's chariot of fire!" "It's like going up to heaven in a whirlwind!" "What's that?" "The Mississippi." "Well, I never seed it from so high up before." "The Lord sure set me down in a wide place." "A wide, calm, peaceful place, Tammy." "You know, when I was down there, that is, before I come down the river," "I'd watch planes flying overhead like silver buzzards." "And a lonesomeness akin to pain would gather dark around me." "I guess it's 'cause I was always watching other folks getting to go places." "But now, I mean, now, here I be." "Me!" "Tammy Tyree!" "And I'm just flying through the air" "like something just turned loose from the hold of the Earth." "Why, just thinking about it, I come nigh onto dissolving my substance." "Gosh a'mighty!" "Now, what is down there?" "Those are farms." "You know, if I didn't know that the Lord made the Earth first," "I'd figure he took his plans from my grandma's patchwork crazy quilt." "Lord have mercy, Miss Baxter, I've never seen such a mess of cars in all my born days." "This is nothing." "Wait till we get on the freeway." "It pleasures me to hear they've got something for free." "Why, do you know that Mrs. Call already spent a passel of money just getting here?" "Yeah." "Gosh a'mighty!" "Each car is coming at us like a roaring lion seeking whom it may devour." "Lion country is safer than the Hollywood Freeway." "But just look at them!" "There are more and more!" "I mean, they're coming at us like a thundergust of woodpeckers." "You know, Miss Baxter, it don't seem fair that at this very minute complete strangers are holding your life and mine in their slippery little fingers." "You just grit your teeth and hope for the best on a freeway." "I'd breathe a heap easier on some road that ain't so free." "You know, maybe we should've took the other road and paid." "Sir, I'd be muchly beholden if you wouldn't drive so lickety-split." "If you don't mind my saying so, you kind of drive like Jehu, son of Nimshi, and he driveth furiously." "Oh?" "He drives an ambulance?" "No, sir." "He's from the Bible, second Kings." "Just about everyone would know a simple thing like that." "I say she's a kook!" "Dr. Bentley, you know we're overcrowded." "I'm afraid it's impossible for Miss Tyree to live at the hospital." "I wouldn't ask you, Coleman, but Mrs. Call needs Tammy, and so do I." "She has a very beneficial effect on the patient's morale." "Miss Tyree, I know you want to help." "Be close to Mrs. Call..." "Oh, yes, ma'am, to keep on companioning her like I've been doing." "Well, unfortunately, we can permit only staff members and employees to reside within the hospital." "Well, then there ain't no call for concern." "I'm real workbrickle." "You're what?" "Well, what I mean to say is that there ain't no chore that would be too lowly nor too mean." "And besides, I figured that working in a hospital among learned leeches would be enlarging to my mind." "You, work here?" "Well, ma'am, I'm apple-pie neat and, why, I'd keep your hospital slicker than a button." "Well, unfortunately, we only have openings for experienced personnel." "Well, it ain't as though I ain't had the faintest shadow of experience in leechcraft." "I can fashion an onion poultice, and I can ready hot mush in a flour sack for keeping a fever down." "Well, my goodness, you know that I even once helped in borning a babe?" "You what?" "Well, I was just powerful young then." "I mean, I was just eight past, but, well, there were these river folks and they come downstream because it was time for their babe to be born in the world." "And while the men went traipsing off to find a leech, well..." "Well, it was her woman time and she started hollering and told me what to do and I done it and helped in borning her babe." "Report to the employment office." "It's just down the corridor." "Oh, yes, ma'am, and thank you." "Why, you know, I'm so pleasured that I'm fair weak in the knees." "Thank you, sir." "Miss Burke, Miss Parker, please call Chief of Staff." "Oh, nurse!" "Doctor Ames, Surgery 2, please." "Nurse?" "You're next." "Me?" "Mmm-hmm." "Take a seat inside, please." "Well, congratulations." "Thank you kindly, sir." "The test was positive." "What test, if I may so ask?" "The rabbit test." "Was it positive good or positive bad?" "Well, just positive." "It denotes pregnancy." "That's nice." "That's why I congratulated you." "Well, why me?" "I mean, that's the usual condition of female rabbits." "It's not the rabbit that's expecting." "It's you." "Well, that ain't hardly likely." "I see I've surprised you." "Yes, you did for a fact." "And now I'm going to surprise you." "I ain't begetting any offspring!" "Yes, you are, ma'am." "At least that's what the lab technician says." "Well, whoever he be, he's speaking with a false tongue, and I ain't a ma'am, I'm a miss!" "Well, nevertheless..." "Miss?" "Miss!" "You mean, you're not married?" "Ain't married, ain't begetting, and I ain't got the least notion of sitting here, listening to my name being scandalized." "Well, no sense in getting angry, ma'am..." "Miss..." "These things happen." "Well, it ain't happened to me!" "Now, if you don't mind, I'll go out just the way I come in." "That's not being the family way!" "Now, just a moment, please." "Patient number OBS-18945." "Aren't you Gretchen Midnick?" "No!" "I'm Tammy Tyree!" "Tammy Tyree?" "And just what might be your entitlement?" "I'm Dr. Cheswick." "Mark Cheswick." "Dr. Bentley's assistant." "I'm afraid I've made a terrible mistake." "Well, it ain't a circumstance as to the kind of mistake you figured I made." "Have a seat." "Thank you." "Well, his name is Dr. Cheswick, and he got so shook up over figuring I was expecting, that he personal took me down to the employment office to make sure they'd let me stay on." "So, thanks to him and Miss Coleman, you got yourself a job." "And my keep, too." "They're fixing to let me share a lodgment with Miss Baxter and two other nurses." "Do you know they all got "RN" after their entitlements?" "RN standing for registered nurse." "Tell me more about this Dr. Cheswick." "Is he young?" "He's powerful young to be such an important leech." "And good looking?" "Give a little meat to his height, and he'd be nigh on for being plumb handsome." "And I just know he's learned." "The learning just oozes out of every pore of him." "Ma'am, with him, Dr. Bentley, me and the good Lord taking care of you, why, you're gonna be fitter than a fiddle before long." "You better get some rest now." "I gotta go find my lodgment." "But I'll be back a-visiting as soon as I can." "Bye-bye." "Vera Parker, Pamela Burke, say hello to Tammy Tyree." "Hi." "Hi." "Pleasured to meet the both of you." "You'll take that bed, Tammy, and share this dresser with me." "Thank you, Miss Baxter." "You're monstrous kind." "Tammy's moving in with us for a while." "Well, that ought to be good for a few laughs." "Why, thank you kindly." "I feel likewise about you." "What's all that?" "I brung some of my grandpa's most powerful cures." "Cures?" "Mmm-hmm." "Now, this here's sour dock root, you know, for curing the tetter." "And this here's catmint for brewing catmint tea, for colic." "And this is sassafras, and there ain't nothing better for purifying the blood." "And this is asafetida." "Now, that's great for fending off the plague, you know." "Ought to come in handy if we run out of penicillin." "What's in that jar?" "Grandpa's snake oil?" "No." "This is river water." "Well, isn't that nice, Burke?" "She's going to keep a goldfish." "No, ma'am." "It's for drinking." "River water?" "It's muddy!" "Well, mud's good for the bowels." "Why, do you know that I've got enough mud in my stomach to grow persimmons?" "And I ain't never been sick a day in my life." "Here, Miss Baxter, take a swig." "No, thanks." "I'll take mine straight." "From the tap." "Well, you know, my grandpa allowed that it was the filtering and fancy fixing they did to tap water that weakened it and brought on all manner of sickness." "What's that?" "Oh, this is the weed." "My grandpa smoked it all the time." "Did you say weed?" "Mmm-hmm." "He said after he smoked it, why, he felt just as spry as a colt." "Tammy, what kind of weed is this?" "Jimsonweed." "Smoked it in his pipe all the time." "Best cure for asthma." "Oh!" "When you get down to the end of the corridor, work to the left." "I've got some duties of my own." "I'll be right back." "Yes, ma'am." "Miss Coleman." "Miss Coleman, please call Chief of Staff." "Dr. Crindle, you are wanted in Surgery 1." "I'm sorry, Doctor." "I plumb didn't see you." "Well, there's a good scientific reason." "Your eyes were shut." "Something wrong?" "No, sir." "I was just testing." "Testing?" "Well, you see, I'm already well acquainted with the strangest of sight and sound in a hospital, but I still find a perplexity in the smells." "Well, that's iodoform and a little formaldehyde from the lab." "Well, whatever it is, it puts me in mind of Grandpa's corn liquor before it's aged and seasoned." "But, you know, it's a cleanly smell." "I mean, likely the breathing of it fends off all manner of pestilence that walketh in darkness." "You know, I like the way you say things, Tammy." "It's..." "Well, it's unusual, it's different." "Yeah, well, maybe so, but I'm getting plumb tired of being different and having folks think I'm funny-peculiar or something." "I don't think you're funny or peculiar, Tammy." "I think you're natural and refreshing." "Well, then, I guess I feel no dismay." "I mean, it pleasures me to hear such a big, important doctor speak of me in such a fashion." "Well, I will treasure it in my heart." "Yeah, well, don't let any dust get by you." "Coleman hates dust." "Ain't seemly, anybody hating dust, being the Lord made man out of the same." "And woman, too." "Don't forget." "No." "Woman was made out of bone." "I reckon that's so she'll be strong enough to sweep away the dust that man leaves behind." "Good morning, Mark." "If you're heading for the cafeteria..." "Well, I see we've installed some new equipment." "And very interesting, if I may so say." "Well, you done so said, so let it lay." "I'm Dr. Hassler, Psychiatry." "If you're ever in the east wing, honey, my office hours are 8:00 to 4:00." "Okay, let's go, lover-boy." "Don't forget, doll, you drop by any time at all and get yourself analyzed." "Well, I don't know what that word "analyzed" means, but, well, it sure has an unholy sound." "Well, there's nothing unholy about it." "I'll just ask a few questions and bare your inhibitions." "Well, being you're a doctor, you can ask all the questions you like, but you ain't gonna bare anything of mine!" "She's cute." "Hands off." "Well, don't tell me you're interested, I mean, personally." "Well, not the way you mean, Eric." "Well, she's a nice kid." "Hasn't been around people, especially man-people." "Well, if you're staking a claim, Mark, that's one thing." "Otherwise, don't expect others to keep from prospecting." "Dr. Schultz, you're wanted in Surgery 2." "Emergency." "Tammy, there's one thing I forgot to tell you." "Don't date any interns." "Interns?" "What might those be?" "Student doctors." "With them, it's always open season on nurses." "Why, you mean, they'd try to seduce me?" "That's one way of putting it." "Have no fear, Millie." "I'll not be beguiled by sweet words." "Why, you know, my grandpa always said that the voice of the devil may be sweet as butter, but there's deceit in his heart." "Bully for Grandpa." "What about Dr. Cheswick?" "He be an intern, ben't he?" "Yes, but you don't need to worry about him." "He's like Dr. Bentley." "They only time they're interested in a female is when she's got heart trouble." "Well, I reckon there's one kind of heart trouble that's easier to get than I figured." "Take it easy, girl." "Dr. Cheswick may be a nice guy, but an intern's an intern." "Have the interns ever tried to get carnal with you?" "I'd like to see them try." "I'd like to see them try." "Hurry up and finish, Tammy." "Coleman wants me to show you how we change bedpans." "What's those?" "Well, to put it delicately..." "I'm afraid there's no way to put it delicately." "You'll find out soon enough." "Dr. Bentley, Dr. Cheswick, you are wanted in Surgery 1." "Morning, ma'am." "I brung vittles for your stomach and a beverage to wet your whistle." "Oh..." "I'm not hungry." "I had a bad night." "Well, I'm sorely troubled at the news, ma'am, but, well, you've just got to keep up your strength." "Now, there be the juice of the orange and a bowl of porridge and milk for pouring onto the porridge, it being a mite too thick to drink and too thin to plow." "I'm too sick to get it down." "Well, now, you can't tell till you've tried." "Pretend they're battercakes, the kind you favor, made with bread crumbs, buttermilk and soda." "You know, it reminds me of the time I had my first battercake out of a box." "Readymade, they called it." ""What's this?" says I." ""A pancake," they tell me." ""And rightly named," I says." ""It's more like a pan than anything else."" "May the Lord shine his countenance on you this day, Mrs. Call." "I'll be back soon for the tray." "I like the way you handle patients, Tammy." "You ought to be a nurse." "That's a noble calling." "I just wish I had the book-learning for it." "You've got something better than book-learning." "Watch your step in 310." "It's Jason Tripp." "He's a vip." "What's that?" "A very important patient." "Why, it don't seem right, one patient being more important than the other." "He isn't, really." "But he's rich." "Dr. Bentley's hoping that he'll show his gratitude by endowing a new heart wing." "If you ask me, the old crab doesn't know what gratitude is." "He's made life miserable for everyone." "What the..." "Who told you to open the blinds?" "Ain't nobody told me, Mr. Tripp, sir." "Then close them." "Now, there ain't no sense in wrapping yourself up in darkness" "like a package that's been covered and put away." "Don't argue with me." "Close those blinds." ""Be still," the morning says, "and fret not thyself, the sun is risen."" "The sun may be risen, but I'm not." "Now, damn it, girl, do I close them or do you?" "I just hope it's the three-letter "dam," like in Amsterdam, and certainly not the four-letter one." "What in the world?" "Open the blinds." "Come over here where I can see you." "Who are you?" "Well, my name is Tammy Tyree." "The Tammy being short for Tambrey." "You know, it come out of a book entitled" "Ladies' Names and Their Significance, page 22." "It means immortal." "Oh, well, I brung your vittles and a libation to wet your whistle." "Vittles..." "Libation..." "It's the same dog food I've been getting every day!" "Indigestible!" "Poisonous!" "Sir, I didn't ready it, I only brung it!" "Well, brung it back!" "Now look what you made me do!" "Well, don't stand there with your mouth open!" "Change my nightgown!" "Millie!" "Millie!" "Where the devil are you going now?" "Come back here!" "Sir..." "You'll find a fresh nightgown in the top drawer." "Well?" "Sir, you're as naked as a jaybird on a horse!" "What do you expect underneath, a suit of armor?" "Well..." "Now, listen to me, sir." "I don't want you to be nervous, or..." "It won't take long, sir." "Everything's just gonna be fine." "I'm just going to get this wet nightdress off you." "Okay?" "Sir?" "Continue sedation in 311, and iv feeding in 315." "And don't forget to... 310!" "Mr. Tripp!" "Help!" "Help!" "Help!" "What's going on here?" "Look at this." "This is wrong." "Look, you've got my leg in my neck here." "Stop." "And this is..." "Just be still a minute." "No, no, no." "Help!" " Doctor!" "Doctor!" " Mr. Tripp!" "This is surgery." "That's Dr. Smithers." "He's operating today." "Begging your pardon, sir, but you know, you ain't tied." "You fool!" "Don't you know better than to touch me?" "Now I've got to change my gown." "Well, now how come he busted into such a swivet?" "You shouldn't have touched him." "Well, why not?" "Because he's sterile." "My goodness, at his age you wouldn't figure it'd make any difference." "Dr. Ade, Dr. Jonathan Ade, please come to the main desk, third floor." "You're sure you want me to cut it?" "Well, maybe if I look more like the other nurses, they won't always be poking so much fun at me." "It's too bad." "It's such a cute ponytail." "Well, that'd be another reason that I want it cut off, Millie." "There's only one place that the Lord intended for a ponytail to grow." "And the back of a human's head ain't it." "Okay." "Oh, Millie, you saved the best for the last." "I'd love to come here every day and put these little babes to slumber and change their hippens." "Hippens?" "Hippens!" "I'm sure that can be arranged." "My goodness!" "Now, what's that nurse over there doing to that little babe?" "The baby's head is probably warm and the nurse is checking her temperature." "From that end?" "Well, we're both off duty tonight." "How about a movie?" "With me?" "What's the matter, Eric?" "Did you lose your address book?" "No, but it's getting tired and so am I." "Same faces, the same dull conversation." "Maybe tonight's the night for Southern fried chicken." "Not me, thanks." "I'll eat at the cafeteria." "What do you mean?" "I think I'll show our Mississippi mermaid a little Hollywood night life." "She already has a date." "With me." "You?" "Why not?" "I think I'll stick around and watch a miracle unfold." "I do declare, ma'am, just seeing them newborn babes brung joy to my heart." "When I'm stronger, I'd like you to take me there." "I will for a fact, ma'am." "I'll take you to the room where the soon-to-be fathers are waiting to become already-are." "Such a to-do of excitement!" "You'd think they're mother hens instead of roosters." "Hello?" "Hello, is Tammy there?" "Yes, she is." "It's for you." "Me?" "Lord have mercy, the only person I know of that'd calling me here would be Grandpa." "From jail?" "It must be he's dead!" "Nonsense." "If he's dead, he wouldn't be calling you." "Hello, Grandpa?" "Yes, Tammy." "It's me, Dr. Cheswick." "What time will you be ready?" "Depends on ready for what?" "Twenty minutes will be fine." "Hold it!" "Wait a minute!" "It's Dr. Cheswick!" "It sounds like he wants to meet up with me!" "What should I do?" "Well, meet up with him, of course." "Oh, no." "That don't seem proper." "Why not?" "Why, ma'am, you know, Tom Freeman and me was practically courting back at Seminola College." "Yes, and before that you were practically courting with some fellow named Pete that you fished out of the river." "Tammy, child, you'll never know when true love comes along until you're out in the world more, among other men, so that you can compare your feelings." "You reckon that's what I got to do?" "I reckon that's what you got to do." "I'll be pleasured to meet up with you, sir." "Good." "We could see a movie or take in a concert." "Do you want to go to the Bowl?" "Bowl?" "I never heard it called that." "But don't you worry." "I'll go afore we leave." "I never heard such music in all my born days." "I mean, it just fair sets my spine a-tingle." "But you know something, Doctor?" "There is one thing that's plumb confusing to my mind." "What's that?" "Well, one minute the music will be just as sweet as honey-drip, and as soon as you figured you were catching on to the tune of it, it would skedaddle six ways to Sunday and become solemn with holiness." "Well, I think a few more concerts and you'll develop a taste for classical music." "No, I don't think my mind is culture-ized enough." "I mean, I kind of prefer the music that a body can whistle to." "Well, like my grandpa's music on the Ellen B." "You know, oft-times, in the evening, when the sun's sunk behind the bank, and the bugs would stop a-chirping, and the river would just get hushed like the still of the night." "Well, Grandpa would take out his fiddle and start playing Rosing The Bow, Go Tell Aunt Nancy." "Well, now, there was real music." "I mean, just thinking about it, it gives me such a homesickness that..." "Well, I get a gnawing at my innards." "How come you decided to become a heart doctor?" "Well, one day, after I'd finished medical school," "I saw Dr. Bentley perform an operation on a blue baby." "Just a tiny speck of life with a deformed heart." "And I watched his hands work a miracle." "In that moment, I realized that more than anything in the world," "I wanted to be a heart surgeon." "Well, thanks to Dr. Bentley, I've got the chance." "Maybe some day you'll be as good as he is." "I hope so." "It's something I dream about." "Well, it could be it's more than a dream." "Could be it's a visión." "Why do you say that?" "Well, old men dream dreams, and young men have visions." "You know, Tammy, you're amazing." "You've lived away from the world half your life, and yet there's so much worldly wisdom in that uncluttered mind of yours." "Mrs. Call always said that my mind was like a virgin page, waiting to be writ on." "Checking-in time." "Thank you, Doctor." "I'm muchly beholden for the concert." "No, Tammy, I'm the one that's beholden." "It's been a wonderful evening." "What's the matter?" "Stomach ache?" "No, it's just that..." "Well, every time you stand close to me," "I get this funny-peculiar feeling in my stomach." "You know, like I ate too many overly ripe persimmons?" "You don't suppose I've got some mysterious ailment in my innards?" "No, Tammy, it's not an ailment." "And it's not mysterious." "It happens to all grown women." "Well, then I reckon I am a woman fully growed 'cause I sure get that feeling." "Good night, Doctor." "Good morning, Dr. Bentley." "I didn't know you was here." "Is it all right if I bring in the breakfast vittles?" "Certainly, Tammy." "Good morning, ma'am." "Good morning, Tammy." "I haven't seen very much of you in the past two weeks." "Well, that's 'cause you've been busy operating in the operating room." "But I've been kind of busy myself." "Well, what with that Mr. Tripp down the hall." "He's always ringing me and complaining about something." "Mr. Tripp is just a crotchety old man who's mad at the world." "He ain't mad, he's just plain scared." "Scared?" "Jason Tripp?" "He's not scared of anyone or anything." "Well, there's one thing he's scared of." "And that's ending up a lonely old man, all alone in the world." "That's what's got him sour as a green persimmon, always plucking at folks." "You know, sir, I was wondering if maybe you could move him into the empty room across the hall." "And then he and Mrs. Call could kind of companion one another." "That's a splendid idea if Mrs. Call doesn't object." "No." "Move the reprobate in." "I'll make a Christian of him if it's the last thing I do." "I told Dr. Bentley and I'm telling you," "I have no intention whatsoever of changing my room." "But you're gonna like Mrs. Call." "She ain't notional, like most old folks." "I order you to drop the subject!" "What's that?" "Bacon." "Take it away." "Don't you like hog meat?" "Certainly." "But I have trouble chewing." "Just like my grandpa." "He had trouble with his first store teeth, too." "But he got onto it." ""It's a trick," he said." ""Just like spitting accurate."" "Oh?" "Oh, well, leastways, you can drink the coffee and eat your hot mush." "Why, do you know, that when my grandma was only 24 she had all her teeth drawn out." "And she never took the store ones out, except for cleaning them." "That's how come she could bite the burglar." "Bite the burglar?" "Mmm-hmm." "He come creeping aboard the Ellen B. one night." "And she said that she felt a hand just slipping right under her pillow." "And she turned her head real slow-like, and she bit him right in the arm!" "My goodness, he started to holler like all get out and ran away." "My grandma said, "Just goes to show you what you can do if you keep your head."" "And your teeth in it." "Did they catch the burglar?" "Well, they did so." "They picked up a man with her teeth marks right there on his arm." "They sent for my grandma to come to town to see if her teeth fit." "But she said she was just too busy putting up blackberry juice." "She put the teeth in a bag and sent them along with my grandpa." "They fit, all right." "Why you know, they took that burglar and sent him right off to jail." "Hello." "How's our patient?" "If you're here about changing my room, the answer is no." "I've come to take your pulse and your temperature, Mr. Tripp." "It was supposed to be done before breakfast." "I wasn't in the mood." "Well, it'll have to be done now." "Darn it!" "I left my watch in the washroom." "Here, take his temperature, Tammy." "I'll be right back." "Millie!" "Millie..." "I can't." "Something wrong?" "Well, I never took a body's temperature before." "There's nothing to it." "Well, I mean, I know that." "I've seen it done before." "Well, do it." "Oh, I daresn't." "Why daresn't you?" "Well, it'd be different if you was a babe, but a man fully growed..." "For heaven's sake!" "Well, I do declare!" "Both ends?" "I want you close to the recovery room every moment, Coleman." "Yes, Doctor." "If there's the slightest change, get in touch with me immediately." "Of course." "Mark, how about dinner at my club tonight before the cardiology meeting?" "I'm sorry, I can't even make the meeting." "I've got a date." "With Tammy?" "Well, yes." "How did you know?" "A little difficult to keep secrets in a hospital, Mark." "I understand you've taken her out several times." "Yes, I've been doing what she calls "culture-izing" her." "You know, ballet, concert, museum." "Tonight we're seeing Romeo and Juliet." "Mark, you're just starting out in heart surgery." "When I picked you as my assistant," "I felt you wouldn't permit anything to interfere with our work." "I hope you haven't changed your mind." "Oh, no, Doctor." "Nothing like that." "You know, that Mr. W. Shakespeare, he sure ate up plenty of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge." "He did, indeed." "He was a genius." "Then how come he came to write such a muddled-up mess?" "Romeo and Juliet a muddled-up mess?" "Well, now, I tell you, I couldn't have been more discombobbled if I was night-foundered in a swamp." "Now, I mean, there'd be Romeo, right?" "Now, he's love-pining for Juliet." "And there'd be Juliet and she's love-pining for Romeo." "And then, now there's him thinking that she's done herself in, and her thinking that he's done himself in." "And then they both do themselves in." "Well, I just got so mad I could've clawed the bark off a hickory tree." "Now, there's no reason to get angry, Tammy." "There be good reason." "Life's just worth having, I mean, be it good or evil that befalls." "And Romeo and Juliet just had no right to cut short their allotted time." "Well, I mean, it's such like being an abomination in the sight of the Lord." "Well, just chalk up a mistake in judgment for Mr. Shakespeare." "Yeah, well, you can chalk up another one." "What's that?" "He should've written a book instead of a play for acting out." "Why a book?" "Well, a play is public and a book, well, that's just more private." "I mean, when you sit down, it's just you and the book." "And words that were spoken like Romeo and Juliet spoke, why, they should just be whispered when a man and a woman are just together alone, not just shouted in a theater in front of a lot of folks." "Now there you go, laughing at me like some of the nurses do when I done said something wrong." "If I'm laughing, Tammy, it's with pure delight." "Well, if you're pleasured by me and something I've said, then I am pleasured by you and your laughing at me." "I often come up here to catch a smoke and count the stars." "You've got a faraway look, Tammy." "Farther than the stars." "Well, I was just pondering on love and, well, how it comes to each of us in a different manner." "That to some it's just like a song singing, and to others, like Miss Juliet in the play, or Miss Coleman, it's..." "Well, it's a sadness just like the call of the mourning dove." "Miss Coleman?" "She's been love-pining something terrible for Dr. Bentley." "Rachel Coleman and Wayne Bentley?" "Really, Tammy, you can't be serious." "But I am, for a fact." "My goodness, she just wears her heart in her eyes every time she beholds him." "Well, I'm sure Dr. Bentley doesn't know about it." "Neither do I." "That's 'cause you're just too wrapped up in leeching." "I mean, maybe your whole life is dedicated to leechcraft, but, well, for Miss Coleman it is just a foxhole." "Foxhole?" "A place she dug to hide in." "And now she's afraid to come out for fear her life has just been flowing by, fast and forever gone, just like the river after a rain." "Well, Coleman's been with Dr. Bentley long enough to realize that our work leaves little time for love or anything else." "That's because you and Dr. Bentley just ain't got the least notion what true love really is." "Well, I know this about true love." "It's not fair to expect a wife and family to be content with a leftover corner of a man's heart." "A leftover corner is all a woman needs, providing that there's a lot of love in it, and not just a stingy smidgen." "You know, Tammy, you've almost got me believing it." "Well, be you gonna or be you ain't?" "Be I gonna what?" "Kiss me." "Well, I wasn't even thinking about it." "Well, then how come you was puckered?" "Well, now, I can't do no comparing with a picayune peck like that." "Comparing?" "What're you trying to compare?" "Well, like I told you, I had these two beaus." "Now, when Pete kissed me he made me feel like I was just a little girl, not yet fully growed." "But then there was Tom Freeman, you know, the almost-professor at Seminola College." "Well, when he kissed me, I..." "Well, he gave me a sort of womanish feeling." "And now you want me to kiss you so you can compare?" "Well, that's what Mrs. Call said I just got to do." "I do declare!" "There it goes again!" "That sort of womanish feeling?" "Inside my stomach." "Only this time it just ain't sort of." "It's..." "Why, it's womanish-womanish." "Now, come on, let's do some more comparing." "Don't you want to kiss me again?" "Yes." "Very much." "In fact, too much." "It's late." "We'd better go back inside." "Well, you go on ahead." "I think I'll just tarry here a little longer." "I hear the cottonwoods whispering above" "Tammy, Tammy" "Tammy's in love" "The old hootie owl hootie-hoos to the dove" "Tammy, Tammy" "Tammy's in love" "Does my lover feel what I feel when he comes near?" "My heart beats so joyfully" "You'd think that he could hear" "Wish I knew if he knew what I'm dreaming of" "Tammy, Tammy" "Tammy's in love" "Wish I knew if he knew what I'm dreaming of" "Tammy, Tammy" "Tammy's in love" "Take this patient to Recovery Room B." "Cut off five-yard strips of bandage and put them in there." "I'll get you a yardstick." "There ain't no need." "Grandma done all the measuring thusly." "That ought to be close enough." "I'll be back in a few minutes." "Millie, I don't see no shears here for cutting." "They're around somewhere." "Look in that drawer." "It must be here." "I couldn't have removed the appendix without it." "It didn't fall on the floor, Doctor." "I looked." "Oh, no!" "I couldn't have!" "Come on, step on it." "This is an emergency." "What's up?" "I thought it was a simple appendectomy." "Not now, it isn't." "Dr. Whitford wanted in surgery." "Dr. Crindle wanted in surgery." "Dr. Ames, Dr. Shultz, Dr. Ricardo, come to surgery, immediately!" "I'm sure I put them right on here." "Notify our insurance company." "If word of this leaks out, I'm ruined!" "So is the hospital." "Get me a sterile gown and prepare for immediate surgery!" "Yes, Doctor." "When you finish this floor, Tammy, do the next one." "Yes, ma'am." "I'm afraid I'll have to keep you mopping floors until I'm convinced you won't get into trouble elsewhere." "Yes, ma'am." "Hi, Millie." "Hi." "I've never seen such a ruction in all my born days." "So many growed men getting into such a swivet over a teensy little pair of scissors." "At least you didn't get fired." "I can thank Miss Coleman for that." "You know, she spoke up for me." "She's a good woman." "It saddens me to see her so sorrow-filled all the time." "It saddens most of us, Tammy, but nobody can do anything about it." "Well, there be one, and that's Dr. Bentley." "I never knowed how fearsome it could be when a woman loves a man and the love ain't returned." "Well, I guess it's a burden each of us totes in a different fashion." "Miss Coleman in her way, and others in other ways." "Like Tammy Tyree in her way?" "Millie, I don't know what I'm going to do." "Do you know that Dr. Cheswick ain't said a word to me in days?" "I mean, just except for howdy while passing." "It's got me plain discombobbled." "Like I tried to tell you, Tammy, an intern is an intern." "Tammy." "Please try not to get into trouble again." "Have no fear, ma'am." "I'll make no more mistakes." "I'm like a nail in a sure place." "Good." "Miss Coleman!" "Sir, you daresn't!" "I have to do this." "Sir, no matter how sorely provoked at life you be, it's worth living!" "Tammy!" "Thank goodness you're here!" "I stuck my chin out with Coleman getting you another chance, Tammy, so please take it easy." "Yes, ma'am." "And I'm muchly beholden." "Where should I put this dirty laundry?" "You'll find a dumb-waiter outside the door." "Here!" "What do you think you're doing?" "Gosh a'mighty!" "You can talk!" "Well, certainly, I can talk!" "Ben't you the dumb-waiter?" "No!" "I be Chief of Staff!" "Why didn't you tell me Mrs. Call was such a good chess player, Tammy?" "I've only beaten her once all week." "Well, I didn't knowed." "And besides, I brought your lunch." "It ain't apples and flagons, but it sure should comfort you." "Apples and flagons!" "I see you're not up on your Bible, Mr. Tripp." ""Comfort me with apples and stay me with flagons."" "Well, it'll still taste like dog food." "Have you talked to you-know-who lately?" "No, ma'am, I've been too busy mopping floors." "I don't suppose you-know-who would be Dr. Cheswick?" "No need to look so surprised." "There's precious little goes on in this hospital I don't know about." "If Mr. Snoop knows so much that's going on," "I guess it won't do any harm for him to know more." "Tammy is convinced that Dr. Cheswick doesn't like her because he stopped inviting her out." "It's got me plain discombobbled, sir." "The important thing is how do you feel about him?" "Well, same as before." "I mean, just because a man alters his ways, well, that's got nothing to do with the loving of him." "You're trying to say you're in love with Dr. Cheswick?" "Well, I ain't positive that it's the forever after kind of love, but I..." "But I sure get a giddy feeling when he kisses me." "Just a glandular reaction." "Doesn't mean a thing." "How do you feel when he isn't kissing you?" "Well, when he ain't around, I get such a sweetly sad emptiness that it..." "It just seeps through the furthermost part of my being." "Now, that's important." "Since when is a never-married bachelor supposed to be an expert on love, Mr. Tripp?" "Married or not, Mrs. Call, I've had my moments." "Well, I can give Tammy all the motherly advice that she needs." "A situation like this calls for fatherly advice." "Tammy, I believe Dr. Cheswick stopped seeing you not because he doesn't want to, he's afraid to." "Afeared of me?" "Afraid of falling in love." "The young fool is trying to imitate Dr. Bentley." "You reckon that's the true way of it, ma'am?" "I reckon that's the true way of it." "I'm afraid that Dr. Cheswick isn't going to change his opinions on love until Dr. Bentley changes his." "Well," "looks like them two leeches is fermenting in the same barrel of mash." "And since I can't do nothing about Dr. Cheswick," "I sure aim to try to do something about Dr. Bentley." "And you can just set that down and nail it right up on the wall." ""Fermenting in the same barrel of mash."" "Come in." "Yes, Tammy?" "Ma'am, I am vexed by a grievous problem and I just must unburden myself." "Well, sit down and unburden." "The reason I come to you is because I figured you were the only one to give me the proper advice." "Why me?" "Because we're both mud-stuck in the same swamp hole." "I don't understand." "Well, now, you take me." "I'm fair distraught by Dr. Cheswick." "And then you take you, love-pining for Dr. Bentley." "So, the way I figured it..." "Dr. Bentley?" "Where did you get such an idea, Tammy?" "Well, I didn't reckon you was keeping it a secret, the way all the other hospital folks been talking about it." "They've been laughing behind my back?" "Oh, ma'am, they ain't been laughing." "They all be your true friends, and they feel a real sadness on account of it." "Pitying me?" "That's even worse!" "Well, I do declare, I just can't keep myself all together," "living amongst people with their strange, mixed-up notions." "Now, I just can't see no shame in being in love or wanting to cherish another, regardless of what pain may be given." "There's no shame in love, Tammy, only in letting it make a fool of you." "I'm afraid I've been doing that for a long time." "Ma'am, when I was living on the river," "I many times seen a piece of driftwood get caught up in a slow-moving current, and all unawares would just start circling around and around." "And it would get caught up in this large whirlpool that would..." "Well, it would last forever." "And you think I'm driftwood?" "Well, till you come out of drifting..." "Ma'am, you've just got to go tell Dr. Bentley how much you care for him, and that you're not just his right arm, the way the hospital folks been saying, but you be a woman, too." "It's easy when you're young, Tammy." "For me, it's too late." "Not if'n you set your mind to it." "Ma'am, you've just gotta!" "'Cause until you do, I just can't get no place with Dr. Cheswick." "Don't worry, Tammy." "I promise I'll do something about it." "Thank you, ma'am." "I'm muchly beholden." "Okay." "It's your turn now, Charles Edward Jones." "Oh!" "Lord have mercy, I plumb forgot to put back their jewelry." "Oh, well, at least I know you be Charles Edward Jones." "Yes, sir." "Oh..." "Well, now..." "And you be Linda." "Yes!" "Well." "Yeah." "No, wait." "No, that's Linda there, over yonder way." "You're Alice Mae." "Here's Linda." "I don't rightly recall." "Be you Nils Eric Svensen lll or Bernard Schwartz?" "Schwartz." "Milk break." "It's time for our new citizens to visit their mommies." "All right." "Hi, I have a visitor for you." "There he is." "Thank you." "Nurse!" "I could've took an oath on the Bible that he be Bernard Schwartz." "There hasn't been so much excitement around here since Tony Curtis came in for a check-up." "It's a good thing the babies' footprints are on record." "Well, look who's back cleaning floors again, the moppet from Dixie." "You spill it, she mops it." "What's Grandpa's cure for housemaid's knee, Tammy?" "Well, he sits on it." "Well, you know, my grandpa, he got a heap of cures for almost all ailments." "Except there's one thing they ain't invented a cure for yet." "And that's bad manners." "You know, when I come here," "I figured nurses was closer to being angels of God than most folks, seeing they had the power to heal in their wings." "Well, I seed now that I was mistook." "I guess living on the river caused a great gulf between me and the rest of you, a gulf that I've tried powerful hard to cross." "And the more I hankered at it, the more you put me up to scorn, mocking and laughing," "like the children who ran after Elisha and provoked him mightily." "In case you be ignorant on such matters, it come from the Bible." "And you know, another thing I figured I'd learn living amongst you, and that would be enlargening my mind." "But the only thing I learned here was a new kind of lonesomeness." "I ain't bitter." "I mean, I reckon that you've just looked upon so much suffering and sorrow that, well, it's kind of warped your seeing." "Otherwise, you couldn't decide that taking pain away from some folks give you the right to hurt others." "Well, I reckon that's all I've got to say, except that when Luke wrote in the Good Book, "Physician, heal thyself,"" "maybe he was thinking of nurses, too." "We had it coming and more." "Especially me." "Tammy?" "Tammy, I've been looking for you." "I am in no mood for bonding in small talk." "This isn't small talk, Tammy." "It's about Mrs. Call." "I've just left Dr. Bentley." "These are Mrs. Call's latest tests, and they're not very good." "Well, how not very good are they?" "Her mitral valve is becoming more atresic." "That means she's rapidly getting worse." "She ain't going to die?" "Not if we can help it." "That's why Dr. Bentley has decided to advance her operation." "Well, how soon?" "Day after tomorrow." "Does Mrs. Call know?" "Dr. Bentley said he'd tell her." "I am sorely troubled at the evil tidings." "Even though Mrs. Call and I ain't begat from the same seed," "I feel like she be my own flesh." "Well, I promise we'll do everything humanly possible, Tammy." "Well, I ain't afeared, knowing that she be in such good hands as yours and Dr. Bentley's and Miss Coleman's, and above all, the good Lord's." "Tammy, I know this is hardly the time to discuss it, but..." "Well, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about us, you and me." "Some of the things I've said..." "You're right, Dr. Cheswick." "This ain't hardly the time to discuss it." "My place now is with Mrs. Call." "Why, that poor woman must be nigh unto distracted out of her mind with worry." "I can't move." "Looks like I'm finished." "It's the end." "You're early, Tammy." "Just in time to see me win my second game." "Just luck." "I reckon Dr. Bentley ain't been here yet." "Yes, he came and went long ago." "Didn't he say nothing special?" "Well, nothing that I wasn't expecting to hear, except..." "Well, I didn't think it would be quite so soon as day after tomorrow." "Your operation?" "Why in thunder didn't you tell me, Mrs. Call?" "Well, I didn't consider it anyone's business but mine, Mr. Tripp." "It happens to be my business, too!" "I mean, I don't want you doing anything foolish, Annie." "I have no intention of doing anything foolish, Jason." "In fact, I promised Dr. Bentley, when I'm cured" "I'm going to build him a new heart research wing." "If he brings you through this safely, Annie, I'll build it." "Oh, no, you won't." "It's my money and I'll do what I like with it!" "It's my operation, Mr. Tripp!" "Well, we'll tell him to make a larger wing, and both endow it, Annie." "That's fair enough, Jason." "Why don't you get hold of Dr. Bentley now and let him know?" "Good idea." "Tammy." "You were right about Mr. Tripp, Tammy." "He is a good man inside." "Come and sit beside me, child." "I was lying here earlier remembering the first day I came to live on the Ellen B." "I was a lonesome, bitter old woman." "You helped me find myself." "Well, I don't rightly see how." "I mean, the way I remember it, it was always you that was helping me." "Since then, I've grown very fond of you." "Almost as if you were my very own." "Well, it pleasures me to hear you say that, ma'am, being I feel likewise." "If anything goes wrong, you get in touch with Mr. Welling, my lawyer." "Before we came here, I made arrangements so that you'll be taken care of." "Please, ma'am, there's only one thing I want and that's for you to get better." "I know, child." "I know." "Run along, now." "Get back to your work." "I've got to rest." "Mercy, miss, I almost plumb forgot!" "I brung you a gift." "It's my grandma's good luck pin." "Tammy, why, that's beautiful." "Thank you, dear." "It was made out of her pappy's hair." "Her pappy's hair?" "Yes'm." "When my grandma's pappy died, her ma cut off a lock of his hair and wove it into this keepsake." "She made three teardrops out of that fine, black hair, then she bound it in glass and tied it with a silver cord." "You know, she worked a whole year for a silversmith in Natchez to make it into this breastpin." "And then she wore it the rest of her life as a mourning pin, to mourn her man that was gone." "But my grandma said that the mourning's long since gone out of it and that it would bring good luck." "Good luck because the only thing left in it was love." "Tammy, we want you to know how sorry we are for the way we behaved toward you." "No need to be sorry." "Ain't no harm done." "If there's anything I can do..." "Well, there'd be one thing you can do." "You can tell me how a body goes about finding the river." "The river?" "Well, my grandma and grandpa done their most powerful praying at the river." "They opined that God felt closest there." "There is no river, Tammy." "But I heard tell that there be one that goes by the entitlement of the Los Ángeles River." "It's as dry as a desert." "But I've got a better idea." "Come on." "Come with me." "I never seed the ocean before." "Why, there's even more of it than I figured." "Well, it stands to reason that if the Lord listens at the river, he'll listen every bit as good here." "Dear Lord, there's such a teensy space betwixt the quick and the dead." "Please, please, keep Mrs. Call from passing through." "And you, Grandma, well, now that you dwell in the shelter of the most high," "I'd be muchly beholden if you'd help out." "Mrs. Call is a godly woman." "She always thinking of other folks, and she done a heap of things for a lot of people, including me." "She's been doing all the things that you was fixing to do, Grandma, afore you got took away." "Her operation's going to be the day after tomorrow." "And if she were to get took away now, why, all the sweet sap of life would just dry up within me, and naught would be left but the ache of its going." "So, please, Grandma, please, whisper a word in Mrs. Call's favor." "I'd be muchly beholden." "Baxter speaking." "Yes." "Assist who?" "When?" "What is it?" "I'm assisting Dr. Bentley in surgery tomorrow." "What about Coleman?" "She's gone away." "You mean, forever gone away?" "Packed up, checked out last night and left a letter of resignation, and nobody knows why." "Dr. Bentley..." "Some other time, Tammy." "But I've been waiting to talk to you." "I wouldn't want to go through that again." "Dr. Bentley was as nervous as an intern at his first tonsillectomy." "Millie, maybe you can tell me..." "I can tell you one thing." "Dr. Bentley doesn't want a nurse to help him." "He wants a mind reader." "Did something go wrong?" "Plenty." "And I'm glad he told me he doesn't want me in there tomorrow for Mrs. Call's operation." "Mark..." "Oh!" "I mean, Dr. Cheswick." "Yes, Tammy?" "Well, you've just got to put off Mrs. Call's operation." "That's impossible." "Dr. Bentley would never permit it." "But Miss Coleman ain't gonna be there." "We'll manage." "Well, maybe so, but without her it's going to be a heap more dangerous." "It's far more dangerous to postpone." "I should have never come here." "It's all my fault." "Now, there's no reason to blame yourself, Tammy." "There be good reason." "I scratched up a snake." "It's on account of me that Miss Coleman took off." "How on account of you?" "Well, it was me that told her about folks knowing how she was love-pining for Dr. Bentley." "And, well, I guess she just figured that she was shamed before the world." "I don't know, living on the river, I just never suspicioned that folks carried so much false pride in their hearts." "Now, don't worry, Tammy." "We'll have a well-qualified nurse in her place." "But it ain't no longer what hospital folks been calling first team." "I just got to go and try to find Miss Coleman and tell her how much Dr. Bentley needs her." "Well, it's worth a try, Tammy." "You can find her home address at the personnel office." "Thank you." "Well, ma'am, the last time I came to you with a problem, it was because I was just being selfish and, well, thinking of myself." "But now it's Mrs. Call's life that's teetering in the balance." "Ma'am, it ain't just Mrs. Call who needs you." "It's Dr. Bentley." "Why, he proved that today in the operating room." "Without you by his side, he was as discombobbled as a short dog in tall grass." "Well, ma'am, maybe that's just his way of showing you how much he loves you." "For love comes to each of us in a manner different from all others." "And Dr. Bentley has just been trying to live his whole life without love." "And you know the good Lord didn't intend man to do that." "That's how come I figure that maybe he needs your help." "Well, I guess I'd better go." "I reckon that's all I got to say on the subject." "Good day, ma'am." "Dr. Ricardo." "Dr. Ricardo, please call Chief of Staff." "Be there any news yet, Mr. Tripp?" "Just got here, Tammy." "I hurried through my chores, but it were an enduration." "The waiting and not knowing," "like time just all at once slowed down to a snail-crawl, and then there ain't no fore and no after, just a heavy in-between time to be lived through." "She's going to be all right, Tammy." "I feel it." "I'd breathe a heap of a lot easier if I knew Miss Coleman was in there." "She'll come through it, Tammy." "Every nurse in the hospital is pulling for her." "Dr. Whitford, Dr. Ames, emergency, Surgery 2." "Dr. Whitford, Dr. Ames, Surgery 2." "She's come through it fine, this far." "This far?" "You mean, they don't know for sure?" "We'll know more after she regains consciousness." "I'll be back as soon as I clean up." "Thanks, Rachel." "Thank Tammy." "Without her, I wouldn't be here." "No change." "I'm going off duty now." "Dr. Bentley will take over." "Yes, Doctor." "Now, Miss Tyree, you're going to your room and get some sleep." "It's been over 24 hours." "But, Dr. Cheswick, it just wouldn't make no sense, my trying to sleep," "I'm completely forsook by slumber." "I think I'm just gonna wait over here." "Dr. Whitford, please go to Recovery Room A." "Dr. Whitford, please go to Recovery Room A." "Come in." "She's coming through it fine." "She's going to be all right." "Mark, such tidings bring such a joy that, well, it wakens tears." "I knew she'd be okay right along." "All this fuss for nothing." "Tammy." "Dr. Bentley, you are the best leech in all the world!" "I like you, Tammy." "But you'd better get yourself a younger doctor." "I'm already spoken for." "Tammy is, too." "Jason." "Jason." "Annie." "You, too?" "It's a medical experiment." "I drank some of your river water."