Cherry Ames 22 Rural Nurse (9 page)

The chemist was busy with paper and pencil, recon-structing the formula of the patent medicine, mutter-ing, “Traces of albumen.” He looked up and noticed Cherry’s excitement. “Have you found something interesting, Miss Ames?”

“Yes, I have!—in this book—I mean, especially at an abandoned farm near Sauk,” she sputtered. It took her 76
CHERRY

AMES,

RURAL

NURSE

a moment to calm down, and explain to Dr. Hal and the chemist.

They agreed her discovery was important. The ginseng that went into the patent medicine might very well be the same ginseng growing at the abandoned farm. If so, they had their fi rst lead toward fi nding the irresponsible or dishonest manufacturer of Nature’s Herb Cure.

“But look at this address,” Dr. Hal objected. He held up the jar and read: “ ‘Manufactured by Nature’s Herbs Company, Flushing, Iowa.’ Is Flushing near here? I never heard of it.”

Dr. Greer, a native Iowan, had never heard of Flushing, either. “Never mind where the place is. Ginseng is uncommon. The ginseng used in this remedy might be grown around Sauk, and shipped to Flushing.”

“Dr. Greer,” Cherry asked, “if I were to go to that old farm this afternoon and bring you back a ginseng plant today or tomorrow, how soon could you analyze it? To fi nd out for certain whether it has the same ingredient, the panacin, that you just found in this patent medicine—”

“I could analyze it Monday morning,” the chemist said. “All I’ll need will be the root.”

“I’ll bring it late today or tomorrow.” Dr. Greer obligingly gave her his home address in case the laboratory was closed. They completed the day’s business with the chemist, paid and thanked him, and left.

MEDICAL DETECTIVE WORK

77

On the drive back to Sauk, Cherry and Dr. Hal stopped for late lunch at a highway diner. Dr. Hal decided to notify all the other local doctors at once of what he and Cherry were beginning to fi nd out.

“I’d like to tell Jane what’s up,” Cherry said. “It’s her farm that’s involved.”

“That
may
be involved,” Dr. Hal corrected her.

Cherry smiled. “Yes. Just the same, I think she should be told. It’s her property. Would you mind, Hal?

And would you mind if I took Jane to the old farm with me this afternoon?”

Dr. Hal said he had no objection. He drove Cherry back to Sauk, to her aunt’s house, and went off to his patients. Cherry said a quick hello to Aunt Cora, explained she was at leisure that afternoon, and dashed off for the garage and her own car.

“At leisure?” Aunt Cora called after her. “I never saw anyone so busy in my life!”

This page intentionally left blank
c h a p t e r v i i

A Theft and Some Answers

cherry found jane fraser sitting in the sunny yard with Mrs. Barker. They were slicing vegetables for supper, holding a pan apiece in their laps. Cherry heard Floyd whistling in the house.

“Jane, would you like to come for a little drive?” Cherry asked. “Would you, Mrs. Barker?” Emma Barker was too busy, but urged Jane to go.

“Floyd!” she called. “Bring Jane’s sweater, will you? She and Miss Cherry are going riding.” In a minute or two Floyd sauntered out carrying Jane’s sweater. “I’ll go along with you,” he said. “I just feel like a ride.”

“No, sir. Sorry, but you’re not invited this time,” Cherry said quickly. Perhaps a shade too quickly. The investigation of ginseng and the remedy was none of Floyd’s business. “This is an all feminine party.” 79

80
CHERRY

AMES,

RURAL

NURSE

He shrugged and—when his mother prompted him—helped Jane maneuver her crutches as she got into Cherry’s car. The two girls drove off.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” Jane said. “I thought you’d be busy even on a Saturday afternoon.”

“I
am
busy. This drive has a purpose. Jane, can you keep a secret? It concerns your farm, in part—or it may.” Cherry told her all that she and Dr. Hal had discovered so far. Jane, with her nutritionist’s training in biology, chemistry, and biochemistry, understood what Cherry was telling her. She was shocked at the possibility that their neighbors were endangering their health with the so-called remedy.

“We’ve all heard about that Nature’s Herb Cure,” Jane said. “I thought it might be harmless, or worthless at the worst. But I never suspected it might be dangerous. Do you suppose there’s any chance that the ginseng growing on my farm—?”

“I’m afraid it’s a possibility, Jane.” They turned in at the abandoned farm and parked the car. Cherry got out alone. She walked to the edge of the big ginseng patch and pulled up eight or nine plants by the roots. Jane watched as Cherry examined the roots to make sure she had an adequate, average sampling. She discarded two rotted roots, and picked others.

“How quiet and lonely it is here!” Jane called from the car. “I hear that bullfrog croaking.”

“Must be a pond or stagnant water around here,” Cherry answered. “That’s where your bullfrog lives.”

A THEFT AND SOME ANSWERS

81

Stagnant water, probably with fl ies or mosquitoes breeding in it and in the dirt of an abandoned house.

The place needed a thorough disinfecting, scrubbing, painting, before it would be fi t to live in—not to mention the fi re-eaten second fl oor. She wandered closer to the house, looking for any bare spots where someone else had pulled up ginseng plants and roots. The patch grew so thickly that she could not tell.

Cherry returned to the car and put her armful of plants and roots on the back seat. She noticed that Jane looked troubled.

“I wish this ginseng plant weren’t growing on my farm,” Jane said. “If someone is gathering this plant to make that medicine—well, it’s rather frighten-ing. I have enough problems, without this additional worry.”

Cherry said, “Maybe whoever is helping himself to this wild patch of ginseng—
if
anybody is—doesn’t know that a new owner has this farm now.” Jane was still uneasy on the drive back. To cheer her up, Cherry told her how she and Dr. Hal had been inquiring on their rounds—among patients, among acquaintances, in Sauk, at the Iowa City hospital—

about a nutritionist’s job for Jane. One or two leads were shaping up. Jane was encouraged.

“If only this ankle would hurry up and heal,” she said with a sigh. Cherry had to help her out of the car at the Barker cottage. Jane went up the path. “Mrs. Barker loves to have company. Have you a few minutes to come in and visit?”

82
CHERRY

AMES,

RURAL

NURSE

“On a Saturday afternoon, yes, thanks.” The old lady put aside her chores and came into the little sitting room to chat. If Floyd was around, he did not intrude on them. Mike, the parrot, was asleep hanging upside down.

Mrs. Barker wanted to have a tea party, but the two girls would not let her bother. Cherry admired the old sampler on the wall.

“My great grandmother embroidered it,” Mrs. Barker said. “I still darn socks the way she taught my grandmother. I used to do embroidery, too. But fi ne needle-work is a lost art nowadays—though there’ll surely be some nice patchwork quilts on display at the county fair.”

They talked about going to the fair next month—Jane could meet local people there and ask about repairing the old house. Besides, the fair was a gala event.

After half an hour, Cherry said she must go. Emma Barker was so disappointed that Cherry explained:

“I want to stop in to see Mrs. Reed and her baby.

Then, too, I promised my aunt to buy a bushel of apples at the crossroads grocery store. She likes their Rome Beauties.”

Cherry did not add that she also hoped to have time to drive to Iowa City with the ginseng roots for the chemist.

At Dot Reed’s she found mother and baby in fi ne shape, and left some baby-care pamphlets. Then Cherry drove on to the grocery store at the crossroads.

Because it was a Saturday afternoon, a large number

A THEFT AND SOME ANSWERS

83

of cars and station wagons were parked out in front and the store was crowded. Cherry visited with several people until it was her turn to be waited on. The grocer carried the bushel basket of apples out to Cherry’s car for her.

As Cherry opened the car door for the grocer to put the apples in the back seat she gave a little cry. The ginseng plants and roots were gone!

“What’s the matter, miss?” the grocer asked.

“Something’s been stolen from my car! Nothing valuable, but—but I never thought to lock the car.”

“That’s a real mean trick,” the grocer said. “Anything I can do to help?”

Cherry thanked him and said no. He went back to his customers. For a moment or two Cherry simply stood there, she was so surprised. Who would steal the ginseng samples from her? Someone who did not want the county nurse to fi nd out too much? Someone who did not want the medical people to link the ginseng plant with the dubious medicine?

Had someone trailed her and Jane to the abandoned farm, and observed her picking the ginseng? She hadn’t noticed anyone. Unless someone lurking inside the old farmhouse had watched her—then followed her—

Cherry felt a momentary terror but controlled herself.

She had seen no one follow her from the farm.

Well, then, at what point had the unknown person stolen the ginseng from her car? She had parked the car, unlocked, at three places—here in the crowded space in front of the grocery store, briefl y in front of 84
CHERRY

AMES,

RURAL

NURSE

Dot Reed’s house, and before that, at Mrs. Barker’s.

She’d been at the Reeds’ on a wide-open stretch of highway too short a time for the theft to have occurred there. She’d been parked longest—half an hour—outside Mrs. Barker’s cottage, when she brought Jane home and stayed to visit. That would have given the thief ample time to help himself to the ginseng.

Floyd! Floyd might still have been around the Barker place during that half hour, and out of sheer nosiness and mischief, he could have poked into her car. That might be his malicious retort to not being included in her and Jane’s drive.

Or—
if
Floyd was the thief—did he have some other motive for taking her samples of ginseng?

“But the thief must know I can go back to the old farm and pick more ginseng,” Cherry thought. Maybe the theft was subtle warning that she was being watched. Cherry recalled her fi rst impression of Floyd Barker—he appeared to be a not-very-bright country bumpkin, but she had sensed something hard and tricky in him.

On the other hand, the thief need not necessarily be Floyd at all. She’d been inside the grocery store for a good fi fteen or twenty minutes. The thief could have taken the plants during that time. So many possible answers!

As she reached into the back of the car to steady the basket of apples, she noticed something on the car fl oor. It was a ginseng root. Good! Here was one root

A THEFT AND SOME ANSWERS

85

the thief had overlooked or dropped. She still had a sample!

Cherry telephoned Aunt Cora from the grocery store that she didn’t know how late she would be home that evening, and not to wait for her for supper. Then she turned the car around and headed for Iowa City. It was dark by the time she got there and left the root for Dr. Greer. It was dark and chilly on the drive home to Sauk. No one followed her and nothing untoward happened.

However, the fi rst thing she did on reaching home was to telephone Dr. Hal and tell him what had happened. He was disturbed about the theft, too.

“You’ve had quite a day,” he said. “Rest yourself tomorrow. I’ll come over and buy you a soda. Don’t worry, now. We should have the laboratory reports by Monday or Tuesday, if we’re lucky.”

“Did you reach Mr. Henderson?” Cherry asked.

“Not yet, but soon. I talked to his wife, and she said he phoned that he’ll be working on this same inspection job all evening, and will be home tomorrow morning,” Hal said. “So I’ll call him at his home tomorrow morning. It’s progress.”

Hal kept his word about coming over to treat her to a soda on Sunday afternoon. And he had encouraging news. The head of the State Department of Pharmacy and Narcotics agreed with Dr. Hal that action should be taken immediately to investigate the trouble making remedy. He would try to send an inspector tomorrow, Monday. At the moment all of his inspectors were out 86
CHERRY

AMES,

RURAL

NURSE

on fi eld trips, but he would make every effort to send a man by tomorrow.

“Good,” said Cherry. “That’s a relief.”

“I also told Mr. Henderson,” Dr. Hal said to Cherry,

“that Snell is selling the remedy in both Iowa and Missouri, that makes it interstate commerce—so the Federal Food and Drug Administration would probably be interested in this case. Mr. Henderson said he’d take that factor into consideration, and maybe he’ll decide to call in the Food and Drug people. But, in the meantime, he’ll try to have an inspector here in Sauk tomorrow.” Hal sighed. “I feel relieved, too. I’d feel still more satisfi ed if I could see those lab reports.” Monday noon, on her lunch hour, Cherry telephoned from the fi eld to her offi ce in Sauk.

“Just a moment,” said the clerk. “Dr. Miller is here, and he wants to talk with you.”

Hal’s voice came on. He sounded excited.

“Cherry, I have the lab technician’s—Miss Cross’s—

report. She just telephoned it in. Wow, this is a bomb-shell! Listen to this!”

He read the report and Cherry could scarcely believe it, it was so appalling. First, the patent medicine was worthless as a cure. In the tests run on the fl u-infected mice, giving them the patent medicine did not check the fl u in the least—instead it made them sicker, inducing diarrhea and vomiting. Second, the patent remedy was dangerous. In the tests run on well mice, the patent medicine made many of them sick.

A THEFT AND SOME ANSWERS

87

Miss Cross has discovered that the patent medicine was contaminated by live bacteria—by a form of
Salmonella
bacteria, which were communicated from chickens, usually from dirty eggshells contaminated by chicken manure. It was the bacteria, not the harmless ginseng, which made the mice—and Dr. Hal’s and Cherry’s patients—so very sick.