Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
11th Dec 2013 from TwitLonger
#DailyLines #MOBY #WRITTENInMYOwnHEARTSBlood #Book8 #OutJUNE10th #secondopinion
Captain Leckie frowned at Mrs. Wilkins and beckoned her closer. She looked nervously at me, but allowed him to lean down and look at little Owen.
“He has a difficult tooth,” Leckie said, rather accusingly, after running a large, unwashed thumb through Owen’s drooling mouth. “He ought to have the gum slit, to let the tooth come through.” He began to fumble in his pocket, where he doubtless had a highly insanitary scalpel or lancet.
“He is teething,” I agreed, shaking out a quantity of crumbled willow bark into my pestle. “But he also has an ear infection, and the tooth will come through of its own accord within the next twenty-four hours.”
He rounded on me, indignant and astonished.
“Are you contradicting me?”
“Well, yes,” I said, rather mildly. “You’re wrong. You want to have a good look in his left ear. It’s—“
“I, madam, am a diplomate of the Medical College of Philadelphia!”
“I congratulate you,” I said, beginning to be provoked. “You’re still wrong.” Having thus rendered him momentarily speechless, I finished grinding the bark into powder, and poured it into a square of gauze, which I folded into a neat packet and handed to Mrs. Wilkins, with instructions as to the brewing of the infusion and how to administer it, as well as how to apply an onion poultice.
She took the packet as though it might explode, and with a hasty glance at Captain Leckie, fled, little Owen’s howls receding like a siren in the distance.