I know now how excessively wearied
a man can get of his own back, how tired of it, how bored with
it! And after that another two weeks elapsed before my legs became
the same dependable pair of legs I had known in the past.
I did not want to eat at first, and when I did begin to want to
they would not let me. If I felt sort of peckish they let me suck
a little glass thermometer, but there is not much nourishment
really in thermometers. And for entertainment, to wile the dragging
hours away, I could count the cracks in the ceiling and read my
temperature chart, which was a good deal like Red Ames' batting
average for the past season--ranging from ninety-nine to one hundred
and four.
Also, through daily conversations with my nurse and with the
surgeons who dropped in from time to time to have a look at me,
I learned, as I lay there, a great deal about the medical profession--
that is, a great deal for a layman--and what I learned filled me
with an abiding admiration for it, both as a science and as a
business.
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