Trees and Shrubs (Eyes and No Eyes, Book 5)

THE DOCTOR PRESCRIBES Jonitza lay sprawled out on the warm carpet in the living-room near a big brick stove that reached almost to the ceiling. Beside him were his playthings and two picture books with fancy covers, but he kicked his slippered feet discontentedly at them, until his mother, seated at the other end of the room, arose, put down her sewing, and with a scarcely audible sigh, picked them up and laid them on the table.

Jonitza paid no attention. Ever since he had been seriously ill the month before, he had grown accustomed to having people wait on[2] him. He now turned on his back and began tracing in the air with his finger the pretty stenciled patterns that covered the walls. Tiring of that, he started beating a monotonous tattoo with one foot, until his mother, with the faintest shade of impatience, said: "I think you'd better get up. You've been lying on the floor for a whole hour doing nothing."

Jonitza arose languidly, stretched himself, and walking over to one of the big double windows, plumped himself down into a deep arm chair in front of it.

Jonitza's home was a very comfortable one-story house in the city of Galatz, one of the leading ports on the Danube River, near the border line between Moldavia and Wallachia, the two provinces which with Dobrudja, make up the kingdom of Roumania. It was in one of the best residence districts, at one end of a high earth cliff. Somewhat below this cliff extended the flat level of the Lower Town,[3] made up principally of mills and business houses, immense warehouses for grain, much of which is exported from Roumania, and wharves stretching out to the river.

The little boy could not see much of this, but far below, in between the scattered apricot-trees and lilac bushes in the garden, he could just get a glimpse of an interesting procession of rude carts to which bullocks or buffaloes were harnessed, toiling slowly upward on a wide road. He had become so interested in the struggles of one cart that looked as if it were loaded with the enormous reeds that are used for fuel by the poorer people of Galatz that he did not hear the bell ring and so was quite unprepared to have a hand suddenly laid on his shoulder and to look up into the smiling face of the family Doctor.

Jonitza had a guilty feeling without knowing why and tried his best to scowl and look away. It wasn't easy though.

[4]

"Why aren't you out-of-doors?" the Doctor asked in a surprised tone.

It was Jonitza's turn to be surprised. "Why," he stammered, "it's—too cold," here he shivered, "I—I—I am not well enough."

"What nonsense!" the Doctor said. "The air is delightful. I've been traveling around half the day in it. And, even granting that you're not well—why, fresh air is the only thing that will make you well."

Jonitza suppressed a yawn and looked listlessly about him. The Doctor shrugged his shoulders as he said: "I see I must leave a new prescription for you." Saying this, he tore a leaf from his note-book, hastily wrote something on it, folded it, and handed it to Jonitza's mother who stood near by, with: "Please treat what is written here seriously, Mrs. Popescu. I shall have more to say regarding it to your husband. Now I must hurry away."