Shaking the Nickel Bush by Ralph Moody

meals, and I want to see you each day. After I’ve examined your specimen I’ll write a report to your doctor in the East. What’s his name again, and his address?”
    Of course, I couldn’t let him write to Dr. Gaghan, and the only way I could keep him from it was by promising to do what he told me. I stayed in my room all day except when I went to eat, but it was one of the longest days I ever put in. He’d put some sort of plaster on my back that kept it from aching too much, but I was still bent over like a question mark, and I couldn’t be comfortable either lying down or sitting up. Then too, there was nothing but local news in the paper, and the magazine I bought had only one interesting story in it.
    I think I might have been a little bit homesick that day if it hadn’t been for the Larsens. I didn’t go to lunch till well past noontime, so I wouldn’t be too much trouble to them, and when I got there Mr. Larsen had a chicken fricasseed for me, crisp celery stalks, and cabbage boiled with caraway seeds. Besides that, he’d got hold of some gluten flour, so Mrs. Larsen copied down Mother’s recipe and baked bread for me that afternoon. I think it would have been better than Mother’s if she hadn’t put in a big handful of caraway seeds—and, of course, I didn’t tell her I disliked them. Even with the seeds, my supper that night was the best I’d had in a long, long time. There was hot bread and butter, more cabbage and celery, and a whole broiled fish. I don’t know what kind it was, but it was fresh and it was good.
    The next morning my back was a lot better and I could straighten up pretty well, but my legs were still so stiff that the muscles pulled at every step. After the doctor had smeared salve on my face and hands, he listened to my heart for three or four minutes, nodded, and said, “A slight improvement already. A week of complete rest should repair the damage fairly well.”
    I’d been worried about not letting Lonnie know I was back in Phoenix, and I thought I might be able to work some of the kinks out of my legs if I went to find him, so I told the doctor, “I’ve got a buddy waiting for me down at the stockyards, and he’ll be worried if I don’t let him know I’m back in town. Would it be all right if I walked that far—very slowly?”
    â€œVery slowly!” he told me. “This heart must have complete rest until Nature has had time to repair it. Otherwise you might be an invalid for the remainder of your life.”
    I grinned and said, “Well, if the specialists were right, it won’t be a very long drag.”
    â€œI don’t know. I don’t know,” he said, sort of questioningly. “That specimen I examined yesterday wasn’t as bad as I expected—under the circumstances. I’m rather inclined to agree with your family physician—that is, if you behave yourself, stick rigidly to your diet, and get as much sunshine as you can on your body. Nature is a wonderful healer, and there is no better medicine than sunshine.”
    I waited until I had my shirt back on, then gave him one of the report cards to fill out for Dr. Gaghan, but I didn’t leave it for him to mail. When I checked it with the copy of the one I’d made out myself I found them almost exactly alike, so I knew I couldn’t have done myself too much damage in the horse falls.
    On my way to the stockyards I poked along slowly, stopping to look at the old guns in pawnshop windows, or at anything else that would kill a little time, and I had one of the finest pieces of luck that I ever had in my life. In one of the windows there were a dozen or so brightly painted water jars, and inside the dingy little shop an old Mexican was shaping another on a potter’s wheel. The minute I saw him I knew I’d found exactly what I needed to take up my time during the week I’d have to