: Saving a terminally ill three-year-old girl, a young village doctor inserts a silver tube into her throat so that she can breathe. The child recovers, and the doctor becomes famous throughout the district.

The narration is on behalf of a young doctor, whose name is not mentioned in the story. The action takes place in 1917.

The doctor lived his twenty-three years in a very large city. Forty-eight days ago, he graduated with honors from the medical faculty of the university and was appointed head of the Nikolsky medical station, although he wanted to work in a county town forty miles from Nikolsky, where there was electricity and four doctors to consult with.

But there was no way to escape, but at times I myself realized that this was cowardice. After all, for this I studied at the Faculty of Medicine ...

The young doctor was unsure of himself, most of all he was afraid that they would bring a woman during the wrong birth or a patient with an injured hernia. The narrator saw the operation of the strangulated hernia only once, while studying at the university. Every evening he looked through numerous manuals on operative surgery, operative obstetrics, reference books.

Late evening, at the end of November, a three-year-old girl, blue-eyed beauty Lidka, was brought to Nikolskaya Hospital. She was panting, and the doctor immediately established the diagnosis: "diphtheria croup, the throat is already clogged with films and will close tightly soon." According to the Lidkin mother and grandmother, the girl was ill for the fifth day.

The doctor realized that the girl was dying, and, despite her fear, decided on a tracheotomy operation. Mother and grandmother for a long time and fiercely did not agree to the operation, persuaded them with great difficulty. A young capable paramedic and two midwives, paramedics, helped the doctor to operate the girl. The operation was very difficult, the doctor could not find the respiratory throat, and the paramedic lost consciousness at the most crucial moment.

Finally, the doctor made a hole in his throat and put a silver tube in it. The air whistled into his throat, and the girl began to breathe.

Through a dream and a sweat that covered my eyes, I saw the happy faces of the midwives ...

The doctor reassured the frightened mother: the girl is alive, but until she picks up the phone, she will not speak.

After this operation, the doctor conducted many others, worse than Lidkin's throat. Reception of patients has increased. A midwife believed that the doctor became famous due to a tracheotomy. In the district they said that he had inserted Lidke's steel throat, and went to look at the girl as a miracle.