Texas Surgeon: an Autobiography Page: 74

stances and my toilsome career up to the present. To be honest,
I felt a little hollow after so many years of struggle, and it may
be that the attempt at practice in Louisville served a useful
purpose as a breathing spell, though I did not realize it then.
As I stared out into the street I would sometimes think
gloomily how much of the glitter and clash of life had passed
me by. The Spanish-American War had come and gone. Admiral
Dewey, in Manila Bay, had issued his "You may fire when ready,
Gridley" command, and Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders had
taken San Juan Hill. These simple triumphs had been greeted
throughout the country with a frenzy of approbation. But they
had left me untouched.
Meanwhile, too, the automobile age which was to change all
American mores had come, and the first carriage-like Duryeas,
Cadillacs, Haynes-Appersons, and Oldsmobiles were putt-putt-
ing through the streets on high and flimsy wheels. Would I
ever own one of these fascinating machines, all black leather
and brass trim? Richard Harding Davis, the "Gibson man," was
the darling of the nation. I shared none of his splendid attributes,
or so it seemed to me! In empty stores hired for projection
purposes, one could see the first movie film, The Great Train
Robbery, by paying a nickel. George M. Cohan's "Give My
Regards to Broadway" was being whistled by every milkman.
The Marconi wireless, following successful transatlantic mes-
sages, was going to make oceanic travel perfectly safe.
All these wonderful things were happening in the world
about me, but as far as I was concerned they might have been
taking place on Mars. Here I was, almost thirty, a doctor with-
out twenty dollars' worth of practice a week. With melancholy
thoroughness Price and I discussed the rumor that doctors who
had gone farther west were doing well. The Indian Territory,
site of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, according to rumor,
was a gold mine of medical opportunity. My friends McMillan
and Walsh, the lighthearted Texans who would not be downed,
assured me it was the Lone Star State to which I should turn for
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