Place Called Estherville by Erskine Caldwell

After the town was laid out, he was one of the first physicians to move to Estherville and, although there were now four or five other general practitioners in town, he and Dr. Horatio Plowden, who had lived there about the same length of time, attended more patients than all the others combined. All his children had married and moved away, and his wife, who had always disliked living in such a small town, had divorced him when he was fifty. He lived alone with two Negro servants in a spacious, white colonial house on Cedar Street and raised pigeons in his backyard. During his early years in Estherville he, unlike Dr. Plowden, had acquired a considerable amount of valuable real estate, especially farm land in the county, and he was now one of the wealthiest men in that section of the state. Those who disliked Lamar English said that he had become rich by exacting real estate mortgages from patients who could not pay their bills, while his friends maintained that he had reluctantly accepted first mortgages rather than see hard-pressed patients go into debt to others in order to pay their bills in cash. Anyway, most of the mortgages were eventually foreclosed, and he now owned a large portion of Tallulah County farm land in addition to business property in town. When increased property taxes threatened to make him land-poor, he began selling real estate, and with the rapidly accumulating cash had begun making private loans to persons who were unable to obtain credit at the stores. He never charged interest, but instead financed a purchase by first buying it himself and then reselling it for double the original cost to him. He collected these payments in weekly installments, besides holding a chattel mortgage until full payment had been made.
    When he finally finished the conversation on the phone, he turned around in his chair.
    “What’s your name?” he asked, looking at Ganus over the rims of his glasses.
    “Ganus Bazemore.”
    Dr. English picked up a pad of notepaper and began scrawling on it with a fountain pen.
    “How old are you, Ganus?”
    “Eighteen—but Dr. English—I’m not sick or anything. I don’t want to have to take any medicine. I don’t need the shots, either. I only came up here because Mr. Hutto—”
    “I know—I know!” he said with an impatient motion of his hand. “We’ll get everything straightened out in a minute. I want to ask some questions first.” He lit a cigarette with nervous hands. “Where do you live, Ganus?”
    “I live with my Aunt Hazel.”
    “What’s her full name?”
    “Aunt Hazel Teasley.”
    “What’s her address?”
    “We all live down there in Gwinnett Alley.”
    “Which house?”
    “But, Dr. English, I don’t want some old medicine—I don’t need it,” Ganus protested. “I’m not sick at all. I feel mighty fine today. All I came up here for—”
    “Which house?” Dr. English repeated in a stern manner.
    “The fourth house on the right-hand side—the one with the two ginkgo trees in the front yard.”
    “Is she employed—and if so, where?”
    “Who? Aunt Hazel?” When he saw Dr. English nod, he shook his head. “Aunt Hazel can’t work. She’s sick in bed all the time. That’s why me and my sister moved to town late last summer to take care of her.”
    “Is anyone in your family employed at present?”
    “No, sir. My sister Kathyanne hasn’t worked steady for a long time now. She hasn’t had a real steady job since she used to work for Mrs. Madgie Pugh. She does day work, when she can find it.”
    “Well,” Dr. English said with a solemn smile, “I’m glad to hear you’re going to work, Ganus. Somebody in every family ought to work. Don’t you agree?”
    “Yes, sir,” Ganus replied eagerly. “Mr. Harry Daitch said he’d give me a job if I’d—”
    Dr. English made another motion of impatience. “I know all about it, Ganus. I talked to Claude Hutto on the phone a few minutes ago.” He leaned back in the chair. “How much