Dear Mother,

I’ve had my first patient today! The Bean children practically beat down my door this morning. Remember the second-youngest, Charlie? Sullen-faced, twitchy, didn’t talk much when I came by to introduce myself? He stepped on a rusty nail a week before I arrived. No wonder he didn’t want to talk; lockjaw had him all clamped up.

I have to admit, I was worried. I’ve dealt with lockjaw before, but never this far gone. The poor boy could barely breathe; the two eldest Bean kids had to carry him in, keep him from jerking too badly. But I just remembered what you always told me: you have to take things apart sometimes to put them back together.

Took the jaw off first - had to make sure that he wouldn’t stop breathing halfway through the disassembly - and then worked my way down. Stripped the muscles from the bone, stretched them out on the rack - that’s always the scary part. You nick a tendon and you have to hope you can make a replacement out of boiled horsebone. Then all I had to do was pick out the worms with tweezers. Not sure if you ever worked on lockjaw, but the worms are purple and wiggly - easy to see, tricky to catch. Got them all in a jar downstairs, might make them into jam after church this Sunday. Then I just put everything back, which would have been easy if I wasn’t rushing and forgot to number all of those red ribbons. Still, it all worked out fine. Charlie’s walking like new, the seams are barely noticeable, and the ether kept him asleep through the whole thing while the voltaic kept him living. It’s always so much worse when they wake up halfway through. Or die. Or both.

Only downside is that I didn’t get paid. Well, not properly at least. The Bean kids didn’t get any money from their parents to pay me with. Their parents didn’t even know they brought Charlie; they had to sneak him out of the house because Pastor and Mrs. Bean didn’t want them seeing ‘that heathen negro’. They did give me a frog they found down by the gully, and some rabbit skulls Millie Bean had been collecting. I explained again that I’m not a voodoo or a creyente; everything I do is just God-fearing science and hard work. But they were so happy that they wanted me to have something, so I have a pet frog now.

“Take things apart to put them back together”, right? Town’s definitely sick with something. So many are still holding onto hope that I’m not Dr. Birch’s replacement, that someone paler will come up the road to take my place. I expected the shunning, the broken windows, the nigger-calling, but I didn’t expect them to let their children die over it!

Don’t you worry though. I’m sticking through. They’ll stop fighting me once it’s clear that I’m not leaving. And when they do, I’ll fix this place. Take it apart, put it back together. Maybe then I’ll find out why they shot you dead.