"What do you propose to do ?" "Think out something better, myself; so brace me up with some pillows and give the baby to me." She looked at me aghast and said, "You'd better trust the doctors, or your child will be a helpless cripple." "Yes," I replied, "he would be, if we had left either of those bandages on, but I have an idea of something better." "Now," said I, talking partly to myself and partly to her, "what we want is a little pressure on that bone; that is what both those men aimed at.
How can we get it without involving the arm, is the question ?" "I am sure I don't know," said she, rubbing her hands and taking two or three brisk turns round the room.
"Well, bring me three strips of linen, four double." I then folded one, wet in arnica and water, and laid it on the collar bone, put two other bands, like a pair of suspenders, over the shoulders, crossing them both in front and behind, pinning the ends to the diaper, which gave the needed pressure without impeding the circulation anywhere.

As I finished she gave me a look of budding confidence, and seemed satisfied that all was well.

Several times, night and day, we wet the compress and readjusted the bands, until all appearances of inflammation had subsided.
At the end of ten days the two sons of Aesculapius appeared and made their examination and said all was right, whereupon I told them how badly their bandages worked and what I had done myself.

They smiled at each other, and one said: "Well, after all, a mother's instinct is better than a man's reason." "Thank you, gentlemen, there was no instinct about it.

I did some hard thinking before I saw how I could get a pressure on the shoulder without impeding the circulation, as you did." Thus, in the supreme moment of a young mother's life, when I needed tender care and support, I felt the whole responsibility of my child's supervision; but though uncertain at every step of my own knowledge, I learned another lesson in self-reliance.