Read "The Prodigal Parents" by Sinclair Lewis online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
There is no way in which a normally stubborn husband can more fruitfully surprise and annoy his loved ones than by being a 'good patient', which means a man who brightly agrees with the family doctor even when the doctor isn't sure that he agrees with himself.
Another technical phrase that goes along with 'good patient' is 'worried about his health', and it happened to Fredk Wm now that his wife decided to be worried about his health.