A breeze awakens me.  The floor boards crunch beneath my feet as I get out of bed.  My footsteps trail into the kitchen where I make my morning tea.  I raise the warm glass up to my lips as the soothing liquid fills my mouth with relaxation.  I put the glass down on the wooden table. I am about to take a bite of my toast when I hear a loud pounding on my door.  I slowly walk down to my workshop in the basement, the stairs beneath me are weary and old.  As I finally reach my destination at the bottom of the stairs they knock again.

“I’m coming!” I say as I walk towards the door, they knock again.  This aggravates me.

           “I said I’m coming!” I yell as I start to reach for the door handle, those lousy farmers always getting sick.  I open the door, purposely taking my time.  In front of me stands the governor of James Town!  

          “We’ll I’m sorry but I have never been yelled at like this before!”  He says, he is obviously very offended.  “I had no idea I was not welcome here, and if you act in heard this manner again, neither will you!”  He turns around and starts to walk away, “I’ll be back in two weeks, hopefully you’ve changed.”  He walks away and suddenly I feel like I’ve just been stepped on by everyone in the town.  Suddenly I was nothing.  I meant nothing.  The governor hates me, my best customer hates me.  My taxes will raise and salary will drop.  The busy streets have closed in on me.  I close the door.  Now, I am nothing.

        In my left ear I hear a loud bold knock, the same knock from before.  Filled with excitement I rush to the door.  When I open it my smile is smeared into a frown.  In front of me stands the lousy farmer again.  We talk for awhile about his family and how his farm is holding up.  Faking a smile is easy but pretending that you care about whatever the heck their talking about is a true skill.  I tell him to come in and he lays down on the table.  I ask him where he hurt him self and he tells me it’s his ankle.  I press down on his ankle and he squirms with pain.  Carefully I lift up his leg to get a closer look at his ankle.  Quickly he slaps my hand away and I drop his leg and he yells out in pain.  He apologizes and looks at me like its my fault.  

        “Is your leg hurting” I ask?   “We’ll it is now” he says like I’m some kind of idiot.  “I mean was it hurting before,” I ask?  “A little bit why?” He questions me.  “Oh, no reason. Does it hurt when I do this?”  I ask as I press two fingers on his leg bone.  He shrieks with pain, and nods.  “Your leg is broken” I say.   “Hopefully it has not gotten infected yet”.  I inform him I can also fix his leg for a few extra shillings.  He asks if it will be painful. I lie and say not at all.  I look at my clock it is five o’ clock, I’ve still got time.  I call for my apprentice who lives in a room downstairs.  Quickly he rushes into the room.  I tell him to hold down the patient.  The young man holds the farmer down against the table.  I hand the farmer a bullet and tell him to bite down on it.  He nods and puts the small iron ball in his teeth.  I go over to my medicine cabinet and pull out my tools.  I walk back to my patient and he flinches as I pull out my amputation knife.  I gently draw blood from his leg, it is thick and dark.

         “It’s infected,” I tell the farmer.  He does not answer but instead he nods and a tear rolls down his left cheek.  I look at the young apprentice, he nods and pushes down harder on the young farmers arms.  I raise the long knife into the air and he closes his eyes.  The curved knife digs into his flesh and he screams and squirms, but the young boy pushes down harder.  I quickly take out my bone saw and begin to cut into his bone.  He screams more and try’s to escape but the apprentice is a very strong young boy.  Finally I finish the surgery and I sew his leg up and cover it in bandages, I hand him a walking stick.  He puts my earnings down on the table and leaves without a word.  Harold my apprentice leaves as well to go to bed.  It is already seven o’ clock and is dark outside.  I cannot work late because I can’t afford candles so I go upstairs and eat the toast lying on the counter and then go to my bedroom.  I change into my night gown and get into bed.  Slowly I start to fall asleep.