During the depression there was a family with no work. When the father thought he would go insane he tore up the floor boards and dug a root cellar under the kitchen. It took him a year. Mostly they were able to cook and wash around his labors.
There were two children and one of them was sick. For months he had a sore throat and fever and his ears hurt. They gave him herb teas to drink, and they heated bags of sand for him to put on his hurting ear, but nothing helped. When they finally took him to the clinic the doctor said he must have his tonsils out. They had no money.
It was not altruism that kept the doctor practicing in a poverty ridden backwater. But if he had been the best doctor in the state he could have done little for many of his patients. They did not come to the clinic until too late. His sleep was interrupted by apparitions of appendices ruptured days ago, of high forceps deliveries bungled in the light of a dying kerosene lantern - performed on a woman who had been in labor three days before he was called.
So now the doctor said ``Come to the clinic tomorrow. I'll take out his tonsils. You may have to carry him home. He will bleed.''
The boy heard. He said he would not go. He was afraid. In the morning he hid down by the lake. When they found him it was already late. His mother took a dollar from her purse.
``For you,'' she said, ``if you come with me and be good.''
The boy took the money in his hand. More money than he dreamed of. He held it tight. At the clinic they held him down and the doctor put scissors down his throat and snipped out his tonsils. The boy never forgot the crackling sound. Blood poured down his throat and out his mouth. He wept and howled which made the pain worse. His mother heaved him up into her arms - he was tall for eight - and they began their long walk home, leaving a trail of drool and blood.
But the boy held tight to the dollar bill, and his mother had to pry it from his clenched and unforgiving hand.
``You can't keep it,'' she said, ``that's groceries for all of us a week and more!''
And she tore at the dirty little fist until at last she had the bloody green paper back again.