The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife
"The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 New York edition of In Our Time, by Boni & Liveright.[1] The story is the second in the collection to feature Nick Adams, Hemingway’s autobiographical alter ego.[2]
In the story, a doctor hires three Native Americans to move logs on his property, and one of the workers casually asks him where he stole them from. The doctor gets angry, and the workers eventually leave. After going back to his house, the doctor finds his wife and tells her what happened. He speculates that they started a fight with him to get out of doing the work, but she expresses doubt that anyone would do something like that. The doctor leaves the house. He finds his son, Nick, reading a book outside and tells him that his mother would like to see him. However, Nick replies that he wants to go with his dad, and the doctor lets him.
References
Sources
- Oliver, Charles. (1999). Ernest Hemingway A to Z: The Essential Reference to the Life and Work. New York: Checkmark Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-3467-3
- Tetlow, Wendolyn E. (1992). Hemingway's "In Our Time": Lyrical Dimensions. Cranbury NJ: Associated University Presses. ISBN 978-0-8387-5219-7