From John Grant's Diary
When I awoke this morning, I was inclined to pinch myself, wondering whether I was still dreaming. In a moment, however, my recollections were perfectly clear. Yesterday evening I met people such as I should no more have expected to find in Sweetapple Cove than in the mountains of the moon. I am glad that my idea in coming here was not to convert myself into a hermit; I am afraid I should have been sadly disappointed. Mr. Jelliffe is a man just beyond middle age, shrewd and inclined to good nature. His daughter, like the rest of her sex, is probably a problem, but so far I can only discover in her an exceedingly nice young lady who dotes on her father and takes rather a sensible view of things.
It appears that they have been all over the world and, like experienced travelers, understand exceedingly well the art of adapting oneself to all manners of surroundings. In no time at all they had transformed their ugly little house into quite a decent dwelling.
Miss Jelliffe is a decidedly attractive young woman. Of course I can only compare her with Dora Maclennon. They belong to two different types. The one is a bustling little woman, very earnest, determined and hard-working, who looks to the world for something which must as yet be rather indefinitely shaped in her mind, and who is going to find it. The other, I should say, has no cut and dried aim or ambition. Her father or grandfather achieved everything for her, and she is as free as air to follow her every inclination. Both are unquestionably good to look upon, and, at least for the present, I hope it may not be treasonable to say that Miss Jelliffe is the more restful of the two. We men are apt to think that the privilege of striving and pushing forward should be exclusively ours, and when we see a woman occupied with something of that sort we are somewhat apt to resent it as an unjustifiable poaching in our preserves. For a long time I considered Dora's efforts to be something in the nature of growing pains, which would disappear in the course of time. Now I am not so sure of this. Yet when I think of the dear little girl my heart beats faster, and somehow I persist in believing that a day will come when she will drift towards me, and we will tackle the further problems of life together.
I must confess I am glad to have met the Jelliffes. Barnett and his wife have been the only people with whom one could exchange ideas unconnected with codfish. The parson is a splendid little chap, utterly cocksure of a lot of things I take good care not to discuss too deeply with him. Moreover he is away a good part of the time, and composes his sermons with a painstaking care which must be somewhat wasted on Sweetapple Cove. I don't believe the people are really interested in the meaning of Greek texts. When he is in the throes of inspiration none dare go near him and Mrs. Barnett, the good soul, walks on tiptoe and hushes her brood. I only meet her at various sick-beds. In her own home she is so tremendously busy that I feel I have no right to trespass too often. The baby requires a lot of care, and there are lessons to the others, and family sewing, and keeping an eye upon the little servant. Worshipping her husband takes up the rest of her time.
After I had my breakfast I left Sammy's house, where I have an office which would astonish some of my New York friends. I had scraped my face and put on fairly decent clothing in deference not only to my own preferences but also to the feelings of the newcomers.
I was hardly out of the house before Sammy's wife came running after me.
"You's forgot your mitts," she cried. "Here they is. I hung 'em up back o' th' stove ter dry. It's like ter be cold at sea an' ye'll be wantin' them."
I thanked the good woman, telling her that I could afford to be careless since I had her to look after me.
"Oh! Don't be talkin'," she answered, highly pleased.
I stopped for a moment to light my pipe. Mrs. Sammy was now calling upon her offspring to hasten, for it was a fair drying day. The sun was out and the ripples glimmered brightly over the cove. The people were climbing up on their flakes, tall scaffolds built on a foundation of lender poles, and were spreading out the split, flattened codfish, that would have to dry many days before it would be fit to trade or sell. Everywhere in the settlement women and children, and a few old men unfit for harder labor, were engaged in the same back-breaking occupation. The spreading out always seems easy enough, for they deal out the fishy slabs as cards are thrown upon a table, but the picking and turning are arduous for ancient spines stiffened by years of toil.
I also looked out upon the cove, where a few men in dories were engaged in jigging for squid, pulling in the wriggling things which had been attracted by a piece of red rag, their tentacles caught upon the upturned needles of the jig. They were dropped with a sharp, jerky motion on the slimy mass of their fellows, all blotched with the inky discharge. Out beyond the rocky headlands, in the open sea, the little two-masted smacks were hurrying to anchor or already bobbing up and down with furled canvas, rising, falling and yawing to the pull of the sea. At times, by looking sharply, one could catch the gleam of a fish being pulled in, and sometimes one could hear the muffled thump of the muckle, when the fish was a big one.
The air was good indeed to breathe. The dull griminess of the village, so utterly dismal in the rain and fog of yesterday, had given place to something akin to cheerfulness. On the tops of the cliffs the scanty herbage, closely cropped by the goats, was very green, of the deep beautiful hue one only finds in lands drenched by frequent downpours. The sea was restless with long gentle swells which now only broke when they reached the bottoms of the rocks which they pounded, intermittently, with great puffs of white spray.
The goats were briskly clambering among the boulders; the dogs looked cheerful; the few chickens, no longer sad and bedraggled, scratched with renewed energy. At the entrance of the cove a few gannets wheeled, heavily, while further away a troop of black-headed terns screamed and darted about, gracefully, on long, slender, swallow-like pinions.
Even the houses, bathed in rejuvenating sunlight, looked more attractive. A few poor flowers in rare window-boxes perked up their heads. The puddles in the road were draining off into rocky crannies, and the very air seemed to have been washed of some of its all-pervading reek of fish.
I was thoroughly refreshed after a night during which I had slept so soundly that Mrs. Sammy, obeying instructions, had been compelled to enter my room and regretfully shake me into consciousness. Then I had poured much cold water over myself and used my best razor. Coffee and pancakes, with large rashers of bacon, were awaiting me, and I soon departed for the home of my new patient. Children called good morning, and a few ancient dames too old even for work upon the flakes nodded their palsied heads at me.
The house tenanted by the Jelliffes belongs to a man who is off to the Labrador, trapping cod with a crew of sons and neighbors. His wife has been only too glad to rent it to these very grand people from that amazing yacht, who have come all the way from New York, to the wonderment of the whole population, for the mere purpose of catching salmon. Her eldest daughter has been engaged as maid of all work by the tenants, and will doubtless compensate, in cheerful willingness, for her utterly primitive idea of the duties incumbent upon her.
Miss Jelliffe was sitting upon the porch. Wisps of her rich chestnut hair were being blown about by the pleasant breeze, and there is no doubt that her white shirtwaist with the rather mannish collar and tie, the tweed skirt with wide leather belt, and the serviceable low tanned shoes made a vision such as I had not expected to behold in Sweetapple Cove.
She smiled brightly as I came up and bade me good morning. Her pretty face had lost the worried, tearful look of the day before. I expressed the hope that her father had been able to obtain some rest.
"I am under the impression that Daddy slept rather better than I could," she answered, cheerfully. "Such a concert as I was treated to! I had always had an idea that my father was rather appalling, but your ancient sea-faring friend was positively extraordinary. After you left I read just a little to Daddy, and the hypnotic quality of my voice had rapid effect. After this Captain Sammy curled up on the floor, just like one of the local dogs, and spurned my offer of rugs and pillows with the specious excuse that if he made himself too comfortable and chanced to fall asleep he would never wake up. I went to my room to write a letter and presently the walls began to shake. You never heard such a duet."
"Is Mr. Jelliffe still asleep?" I asked.
"No, indeed! He has already clamored for his breakfast and is at present occupied with a bowl of oatmeal and some coffee."
Just then Frenchy came up, lifting his cap to the young lady. In one of his big paws he held his little boy's hand.
"Tak aff you cap to ze yong lady lak I tole you," he said, gravely. "Heem tink you a leetle sauvage."
The wide-eyed little chap obeyed the big sailor, his yellow curls falling over his eyes. He continued to stare at her, with a fat thumb tucked in a corner of his mouth.
"Me come say heem Beel Atkins heem go aff to St. Jean to-day. Heem got load of feesh."
"That is important news, Miss Jelliffe. Civilization is opening its arms to you," I told her. "Atkins can take letters and messages for you, and may be trusted to bring back anything you need, providing you write it all down carefully. This is also an opportunity of obtaining other surgical advice for your father."
"I need a lot of things," she exclaimed, "and there will be a message to our captain to hurry matters at that dry-dock. But I will have to consult my father."
"We go to-day?" Yves asked me, pointing towards Will's Island.
"Yes, Dick needs a lot of care yet," I answered. "But you will wait here and take some orders to Atkins first."
"Oui, orright, me wait," he said.
Miss Jelliffe had gone indoors and the man sat down on the porch, with the little chap beside him, and they gravely watched the gulls circling over the water. Yves is very big and rough looking, and his black beard is impressive. He gives one rather the idea of what the men must have been, who manned the ships of William the Conqueror, than the notion of a conventional Frenchman. Yet there is in him something very soft and tender, which appears when he looks at that child, with deep dark eyes that always seem to behold things beyond the ordinary ranges of vision.
"Ah! Glad to see you!" exclaimed Mr. Jelliffe as I entered the room. "A broken leg is no fun, but I can say that I got on rather better than I expected to. The pain has been no more than I can stand. I'll be through with this in a minute."
He swallowed his last mouthful of coffee, and Susie Sweetapple, the improvised domestic, took away a flat board with which she had made a tray.
"Is you real sure you got enough?" she enquired solicitously. "Them porridges doesn't stick long to folks' ribs, but if yer stummick gits ter teasin' yer afore dinner time jist bawl out. 'Tain't never no trouble ter bile th' kittle again."
"Thank you," said Mr. Jelliffe, as the girl left the room. "I have not yet decided, Doctor, whether that young female is an unmitigated nuisance or a pearl of great price. At any rate we couldn't get along without her."
In a few minutes I was allowed to inspect the broken leg, which was resting properly on the pillow. The swelling was not too great, and the patient declared that the confounded thing was doubtless as comfortable as such a beastly affair could be. Mr. Jelliffe possesses some notions of philosophy.
"A schooner is leaving to-day for St. John's, Mr. Jelliffe," I told him. "It will return in a few days, depending on the weather, and we could probably prevail upon one of the best surgeons there to come back with it."
My patient's eyes narrowed a little and he wrinkled his brow. He was looking at me keenly, like one long accustomed to gauging men with the utmost care.
"What is your own advice?" he finally asked.
I could not help smiling a little.
"Your fracture is not at all a complicated affair, and it looks to me as if the ends could easily be maintained in proper position. On the other hand I am still a young man, and desire to make no special claim to eminence in my profession."
"At any rate you are the local doctor."
"I suppose I represent all that this community can afford," I replied."If I were you I would send for a consultant."
"The community doesn't seem to me to be so very badly off, as far as its doctor is concerned," said Mr. Jelliffe, slowly. "The other chap will come and undo this thing, and hurt me a lot more. I'm inclined to let things slide. This practice of yours ought to be a great thing for a stout man needing a reducing diet. How the deuce do you keep from starving to death?"
"Mrs. Sammy feeds me rather well," I replied.
My patient smiled.
"You're a smart boy," he said. "I'll admit you don't look very hungry. But how about the appetite for other things, for success in life, for the appreciation of intelligent men and for their companionship? Is there no danger of what you fellows call atrophy? Men's intellects can only maintain a proper level by rubbing up against others."
For a moment he stopped, and then went on again.
"I beg your pardon, Doctor. I'm afraid that all this is none of my business. I am sure you will take excellent care of me, and I don't see the need of sending for any one else."
"I will do my best for you, Mr. Jelliffe," I answered.
He held his hand out to me, in the friendliest way. I think we are going to get on together very well. It is pleasant to meet people who are so secure in their position that they do not feel the slightest need for snobbishness.
I soon left for Will's Island, where I remained for some hours. Frenchy's boy came with us. He's a lovable little fellow, and manifested his admiration for "la belle dame" as he calls Miss Jelliffe. He is an infant of discriminating taste.
It was very encouraging to note a real improvement in the fisherman's condition, and I returned in a cheerful state of mind. In the afternoon I again called on the Jelliffes, and was chatting with the old gentleman when Mrs. Barnett, with her two oldest clinging to her skirts, put her head in at the door and cheerfully asked how the invalid was getting on.
"I won't come in," she said, "my little chaps would soon turn the place upside down."
"Do bring them in," urged Miss Jelliffe. "Daddy is ever so fond of children."
The parson's wife accepted the invitation.
"I daresay I will be able to hold them in for a few minutes," she said.
Miss Jelliffe is certainly a bright girl. I am positive that she recognized at once in Mrs. Barnett a woman who would adorn any gathering of refined people. The homemade dress mattered nothing, nor the garb of the little ones, which showed infinite toil combined with scanty means for accomplishment. It was delightful to observe the positive deference and admiration that were mingled with the perfect ease of the young woman's manner.
At their mother's bidding the little fellows said their greeting very politely. Miss Jelliffe kissed them and at once insured their further behavior by sitting on the floor with them, armed with chocolates and magazine pictures.
"You are exceedingly kind to visit us, Mrs. Barnett," Mr. Jelliffe assured her. "I hope I may have the pleasure of meeting your husband soon."
"I expect him back to-morrow," she answered. "He's away on a short trip. Sometimes he goes quite a distance up and down the coast, and occasionally it is—it is rather hard at home, when the weather gets very bad."
She looked out of the window, with a movement that was nearly mechanical, and which had become habitual during long hours of waiting.
"But he likes it," she continued. "He says it is a good work and makes one feel that one is worth one's bread and salt. And so, of course, we are very happy."
I noticed that Miss Jelliffe was studying her. A look of wonder seemed to be rising on the girl's face, as if it surprised her to find that this cultured, refined woman could be contented in such a place.
"Yes, I think I am getting along very well," said Mr. Jelliffe, in answer to a question. "This young man seems to know his business. I was just hinting to him, this morning, that such a village as this can offer but a poor scope for his ability."
"Gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Barnett, laughingly. "Please don't let him hear you. I have no doubt that what you say is perfectly true, but we could never do without him now. He has only been here a short time, and it has made such a difference. Before that we had no doctor, and—and it was awful, sometimes. You can't realize how often Mr. Barnett and I have stood helplessly by some bedside, wringing our hands and wishing so hard, so dreadfully hard, for a man like Dr. Grant to help us. Once we sent for a doctor, far away, and he came as soon as he could, but my little Lottie was already…"
A spasm of pain passed over her face, and there was a quickly indrawn breath. Then she was quiet again.
"I hope he will never leave us," she said. "He may miss many things here, but it is a man's work."
"I don't feel like leaving," I told her, and she rewarded me by one of those charming smiles of hers.
Presently she took leave, and Miss Jelliffe looked at her father.
"Isn't she wonderful!" she exclaimed. "I can hardly understand it at all."
"It isn't only in the big places that people do big things," he answered."What about that child she referred to, Doctor?"
I told him how the little one had been taken ill, and how they had been obliged to take her to the head of the cove, over the ice, until they were able to find a place where a pick could bite into the ground. Miss Jelliffe stared at me, as I spoke, and I could see her beautiful eyes becoming shiny with gathering tears.
On the next day, as I was doing something to the plaster dressing, she came into the room, hurriedly.
"I've been out there," she said. "What a poor desolate place in which to leave one's loved ones. Won't you let me help? I think I am getting on very well with my untrained nursing. I want as much practice as I can get."
"I am bound hand and foot," complained the patient. "These women are taking all sorts of unfair advantages of me. And, by the way, Helen, I want you to go out more. You are remaining indoors so much that you are beginning to lose all your fine color."
"I look like an Indian," she protested laughing.
"Then I don't want you to get bleached out. You must go out walking more, or try some fishing, but be careful about those slippery rocks. I can play no other part now than that of a dreadful example."
"I am not going to budge from this room," declared Miss Jelliffe. "You know that you can't get along without me. Besides, there are no places that one can walk to."
"I insist that you must get plenty of fresh air," persisted her father.
"There is no fresh air here," she objected. "It is a compound of oxygen, nitrogen and fish, mostly very ripe fish. One has to breathe cod, and eat it, and quintals are the only subjects of conversation. Codfish of assorted sizes flop up in one's dreams. Last night one of them, about the length of a whale, apparently mistook me for a squid, or some such horrid thing, and was in the very act of swallowing me when I awoke. I'm afraid, Daddy dear, that the fresh air of Sweetapple Cove is a dreadful fiction. But it must be lovely outside."
She was looking through the door, which stood widely opened, towards the places where the long smooth rollers broke upon the rocks, and beyond them at brown sails and screaming birds darting about in quest of prey.
"You are hungering for a breath of the sea, Miss Jelliffe," I told her."Sammy and Frenchy are waiting for me to go to Will's Island again. Withthis wind it will be only a matter of three or four hours there and back.Could you stand a trip in a fishing boat?"
"Just the thing for her. No danger, is there, Doctor?" asked Mr.Jelliffe.
"Not on a day like this," I replied. Miss Jelliffe made a few further objections, which were quickly overruled. Finally she gave Susie all sorts of directions, kissed her father affectionately, and was ready to go.
"We'll be back soon, Daddy. You are a dear to be always thinking about me. I know I am very mean to leave you."
"The young lady'll be well took care of, sir," declared Captain Sammy, who had come in to say that the boat was ready.
So we went down to the cove where Frenchy, already apprised that such a distinguished passenger was coming, was feverishly scrubbing the craft and soaking the footboards, endeavoring, with scant success, to remove all traces of fish and bait.
"It's dreadful, isn't it?" said Miss Jelliffe as we passed by the fishhouses. "I know that when I get back home I shall never eat another fish-cake. And just look at the awful swarms of flies and blue-bottles. And the smell of it all! It is all undoubtedly picturesque, but it is unspeakably smelly."
The men were busily working, and girls and boys of all sizes, and one heard the sound of sharp knives ripping the fish, and the whirring of grindstones, and the flopping of offal in the water. These people were clad in ancient oilskins, stiff and evil with blood and slime, but they lifted gruesome hands to their forelocks as Miss Jelliffe went by and she did her best to smile in answer.
"Couldn't they be taught to be a little cleaner?" she asked me. "Isn't it awfully unhealthy for them?"
"It is rather bad," I admitted, "and they are always cutting their hands and fingers and getting abominably infected sores. They only come to me when they are in a more or less desperate condition. Yet one can hardly blame them for following the ways of their fathers, when you consider the lack of facilities. They can't clean the fish on board their little boats, as the bankers do on the larger schooners, and there is no place in which they can dispose of the refuse save in the waters of the cove. They don't even have any cultivable land where they could spread it to fertilize the ground. It must drift here and there, to go out with the ebb of the tide or be devoured by other fishes, or else it gets cast up on the shingle. The smell is a part of their lives, and I am nearly sure that they are usually quite unconscious of it. Moreover, they are always harassed for time. If the fishing is good the men at work in the fish-houses ought to be out fishing, and the girls should be out upon the flakes. They often work at night till they are ready to drop. And then perhaps comes a spell of rain, days and weeks of it, during which the fish spoils and all their work goes for nothing. Then they have to try again and again, with hunger and debt spurring them on. And the finest part of it is that they never seem to lose courage."
"I wonder they don't go elsewhere and try some other kind of work," suggested Miss Jelliffe.
"I dare say they are fitted for little else," I replied. "And besides, like so many other people all over the face of the earth they are attached to their own land, and many get homesick who are transplanted to other places. They seem to have taken root in the cracks between these barren rocks, and the tearing them away is hard. So they keep on, in spite of all the hardships. They get lost in storms and fogs; they get drowned or are frozen to death on the ice-pans, nearly every spring, at the sealing, for which they are paid in shares. This naturally means that if the ship is unsuccessful they get nothing for all their terrible toil and exposure. Indeed, Miss Jelliffe, they are brave people and hard workers, who never get more than the scantiest rewards. I think I am becoming very fond of them. I'm a Newfoundlander, you know."
"Was it home-sickness that brought you back?" she asked.
"It may have been sickness of some sort," I answered.
She looked at me, without saying anything more, and we stepped on board the boat, after I had guided her over the precarious footing of a loose plank which, however, she tackled bravely.
From Miss Helen Jelliffe to Miss Jane Van Zandt
Dearest Auntie:
During these long evenings there is absolutely nothing for me to do except to inflict long epistles upon you. Dear Daddy seems to be making up for some of the lost sleep of his youth, and is apt to begin early the unmusical accompaniment to his slumbers.
We are now able to dispense with the nice old mariner who watched him so effectively the first night. Daddy said the competition was too great for him to stand, and explained that he wanted a monopoly. You will be delighted to hear that as far as we can tell the poor leg is doing nicely; at any rate the doctor seems to be pleased. I had no idea that our patient would be so easily resigned to his fate. He is just as good as good can be.
To console you for reading about the hardships I must tell you that I had one of the times of my life to-day. An ultimate analysis of it would reduce itself to a trip from a dirty shore, in a dirty boat, to a dirty island, at least that part of it that was not daily scrubbed by the Atlantic billows. Of course this may be somewhat exaggerated, but the places one departs from and arrives at are somewhat trying to sensitive noses.
That young doctor I spoke of is the responsible party, aided and abetted by Daddy. Between them they just bundled me away, under some silly pretense that I needed fresh air. It is possible, after all, that they may have been right.
We went down to the fish-houses and flakes that crop out like queer mushrooms on stilts all over the edges of the cove, and it was a shaky damsel who shuddered over the passing of a wobbly plank. The crew of two waited below in the boat, and smiled encouragingly, so that I had to try and show more bravery than I really felt. I had no desire to intrude among the squids; one sees them dimly through the clear water and they impress one, as they move about, as resembling rather active rats. The cod are more partial to them than I ever shall be. Then there was a rather rickety ladder down which I scrambled. I am sure the crew had never seen silk stockings before, but their heads were politely turned away. A large, exuberantly whiskered Frenchman in picturesque rags gave me his hand and helped me down with a manner worthy of assorted dukes and counts; and there was a little boy who sat on a thwart and looked wistfully at me.
"De leetle bye, heem want go, if mademoiselle heem no mind," said theFrenchman, bashfully, with a very distinct look of appeal.
The little fellow also sought my eyes, and held his ragged little cap in his hands. He was simply the curliest darling, clad in a garment of many colors made of strange remnants and sewed by hands doubtless acquainted with a sailor's palm but unfamiliar with ordinary stitching.
Naturally I bent down and lifted him up and put him on my knees, recognizing in this infant the nicest discovery I have yet made on this amazing island. His little pink face and golden curls imperatively demanded a kiss. He is just the sweetest little fellow you ever saw, and looks altogether out of place among the sturdy urchins of the Cove. Then I had to put him down, because of course I had flopped down in the wrong place. I notice that in small boats one always does. The child took his cap off again and said "merci," and I had to smile at Yves, the Frenchman, whose grin distinctly showed that the way to his heart lies through that kiddy.
We were off at once, and I sat astern near the ancient. Yves had gone forward and the doctor, after the usual totally unnecessary concern as to rugs and either useless things, followed him and appeared to practice his French on the sailor.
"That there Frenchy," Captain Sammy confided to me, "is most crazy over th' young 'un. I never did see sich a thing in all me born days."
"He must be awfully proud of such a dear little son," I answered.
"There's them as says it ain't the son o' he," replied Sammy. "He don't never talk about the bye. They says he jist picked him up somewheres, jist some place or other. You would hardly think what a plenty they is as have fathers or mothers neither, along th' coast."
This opened to me a vista of troops of kiddies wandering up and down the cliffs, wailing the poor daddies that will never be given back by the rough sea, and the mothers who found life harder than they could bear, and it saddened me. You always said I must beware of my imagination, but I think there was a funded reality in that vision. Then I was compelled to look about me, for we were passing through headlands at the narrow mouth of the cove, the long lift of the open sea bore us up and down again, softly, like an easy low swing. That terrible reek of fish had disappeared and the air was laden with the delightful pungency of clean seaweed and the pure saltiness of the great waters. North and south of us extended the rocky coastline all frilled, at the foot of the great ledges, with the pearly spume of the long rollers.
It was very early when we arrived in theSnowbird, and I was not on deck very long. It didn't seem nearly so beautiful then, and I had no idea that it would be like this.
"It is perfectly marvelous," I told Captain Sammy. "But it is a terrible coast. How do you ever manage to get back in storms and fogs? The mouth of the cove is nothing but a tiny hole in the face of the cliffs."
"Times when they is nought but fog maybe we smells 'un," he replied, with the most solemn gravity.
"I hadn't thought of such an obvious thing," I replied, laughing. "It seems quite possible. But how about gales?"
"They is times when we has to run to some o' the bays north or south of us fer shelter," he answered. "I've allers been able to fetch 'un."
"But what if you were carried out to sea?"
"Then likely I'd git ketched, like so many others has, ma'am."
And then, Aunt Jennie dear, in spite of the shining of the bright sun upon the glittering water and the softness of the air that was caressing my face, I felt very sad for a moment. It looked like a very cruel world for all of its present smiling. On this coast the elements seem always to be waiting for their prey, just as, in the shelter of ledges deep beneath our keel, unspeakable slimy things with wide glaucous eyes are lying in watch, with tentacles outspread.
"It all seems very dreadful to me," I said.
But the old fellow, though he nodded civilly in assent, had not understood me in the least. This was clearly the only world with which he was acquainted; the one particular bit of earth whereupon fate had dropped him, as fertilizing seeds are dropped by wandering birds. I daresay he is unable to realize any other sort of existence, excepting perhaps in some such vague way as you and I may think of those canal-diggers of Mars. Close to us, to port, we passed a big rock that was jutting from the water and over which the long smooth seas washed, foaming with hissing sounds.
"He nigh ketched us, day I fetched doctor back to yer father," Sammy informed me. "Ye mind t'were a bit rough that day, and ye couldn't tell yer hand afore yer face, hardly, t'were that thick, and tide she'd drawed us furder inshore 'n I mistrusted. The wind he were middlin' high an' gusty, too. I don't mind many sich hard times a-makin' th' cove. We was sure glad enough ter get in."
"I never thought of it in that way," I exclaimed. "It certainly was an awful afternoon, and it must have been horribly dangerous."
"I telled 'un afore startin' as how t'were a bit of a job, an' he asks me kin I make it, an' I says I expect I kin, like enough, wid luck. Then he tells me ter think o' th' old woman an' th' children, an' I says it's all right. Frenchy he were willin' too, so in course we started."
Then, perhaps for the first time, I took a real long look at that doctor, who was sitting forward, perched on the head of a barrel. He was laughing with Frenchy, and held the boy on his lap. I decided that he belongs to a class that is familiar to us. You know his kind, Aunt Jennie, keen of eye, full of quiet determination, and always moving forcibly, even if slowly, towards success. We have seen lots of them on the football fields, at Corinthian yacht races, wherever big chaps are contending and care but little for the safety of their necks as long as they are playing the game.
To me the strangest thing about this man is that he appears to be thoroughly adapted to these surroundings, and yet would be equally at home in what we choose to call our set, just like that dear woman Mrs. Barnett. I can't help wondering what he is doing here, I mean apart from his obvious work which, in all conscience, appears to be hard enough.
He was pointing out something to the little boy, in the distance, so thatI stared also and caught a puff of vapor above the water.
"It's a whale, isn't it?" I asked.
"Yis, ma'am," replied Sammy. "It's one o' they big sulphur-bottoms. Them little whaling steamers is mighty glad to get hold o' that kind. They grows awful big. I've seed some shockin' big fellows."
"I'd like to see one caught. It must be ever so exciting," I said.
"There ain't no whalin' stations in these parts, but they tells me some of 'em 'll tow them little steamers miles and miles, even wid' engine half speed astern. Then other times they gits 'em killed first shot out o' the gun."
After this I looked around again. I know you don't care for small boats, but it is delightful to be so close to the water, and it gives one a sense of keen pleasure one often misses in bigger ships. They seem to be so much more alive.
I must acknowledge that after a time I began to observe the doctor again. I presume it is a fault of our present education, Aunt Jennie, that we young girls are not much used to being neglected by young men. This one was really paying little attention to me. Even when a man's daily garb includes a flannel shirt one expects him to be attentive, if he is nice. Of course I don't suppose any one here knows how to starch and iron white shirts and collars, so that the doctor can't help his raiment, which is better adapted to the local fashions. You must not think that he seems to be restrained by a sense of respectful deference especially due to the daughter of one whom the silly papers are fond of referring to as belonging to the tribe of magnates. His manners are perfectly civil and courteous, showing that he has been accustomed to move among nice people. He took the trouble to ask whether I were comfortable, to suggest a rug which I declined and to ask if there was anything else he could do. But after that he went forward to practise his French on Yves, who frequently grinned with pleasure. Nor has he seemed to be particularly elated at the privilege of attending a rich yacht owner, who may represent a decent fee. I know perfectly well that he takes a great deal more interest in the fisherman we went to see.
The island towards which we were sailing was rising from the sea, and Sammy pointed it out to me, in the distance, faintly azure in the slight haze. We were sailing with a fair wind, our little sails drawing steadily and the forefoot casting spray before it in pearly showers.
"Won't you let me take her?" I asked.
Sammy opened astonished eyes and doubtfully relinquished the tiller to me. Isn't it queer how people of our sort are always deemed to be quite helpless with their hands? I may boast of the fact that the ancient mariner was soon satisfied that his craft was in fairly competent ones. I had to use just a little more strength than I had expected to, and to stand and brace myself against the pull. But it was glorious and made me feel to its full extent the delight of the sea. In a moment I felt that my cheeks were red enough to satisfy Daddy himself, who is always a strenuous advocate of robustious femininity. He has no use for the wilted-flower effect in girls. My locks, of course, were disporting themselves as they pleased, and I am sure that I began there and then to strew the bottom of our ship with hairpins.
Then I got the one great genuine compliment of my youthful existence.
"La belle dame qui gouverne!" exclaimed Yves' little boy.
Of course the other two turned at once to behold the beautiful lady who was governing, as the Gallic language calls steering. I shall give that infant a supply of chocolate which will make his big blue eyes open widely. Such a talent for discrimination should be encouraged. That pard of a Frenchman was smiling in approval, and the doctor was evidently taking notice. When a girl wears a white jersey and blue skirt, and she has a picturesque cap, and is engaged in the occupation of steering, which brings out many of one's best points, she has a right to expect a little admiration. It worked and presently the doctor was sitting at my side, which goes to show that he is but a weak male human after all.
"They are splendid little boats, are they not?" he said.
"Yes, indeed. The rig reminds me of some of the sharpies they use on the Connecticut coast. But these are regular sea-going craft, and must beat up to windward nicely."
"You are quite a sailor," was his obviously indicated remark.
"I've done a good deal of small-boat sailing on the Sound," I informed him, "out of Larchmont and those places, and in Great South Bay. I suppose I've been a good deal of a tomboy."
"You've been a fine, strong, healthy girl, and you still are," he replied, quietly.
It was only such approval as Harry Lawrence, for instance, might have bestowed on a blue-ribbon pointer. The man considers me as a rather nice specimen and, with all due modesty, I am inclined to agree with him.
By this time we were rapidly nearing the island. As far as I could see it was nothing but a rough mass of rocks better suited to the tenancy of sea-gulls than human beings. Everywhere the waves were breaking at the foot of the cliffs and monstrous boulders. A great host of sea-birds was rising from it and returning; in the waters near us the dear little petrels dotted the surface with black points, while slow-flying gannets traveled sedately and active terns rioted in the air. Coots and other sea-ducks rose before our boat and, from time to time, the little round heads of harbor seals, with very human-looking eyes, bobbed on the seas.
"Isn't it perfectly delightful," I cried. "I could never weary of watching all these things, and what is that big duck, or is it a goose, traveling all alone and flying straight as an arrow?"
"It is just a big loon. The Great Northern Diver, you know."
"I don't think I ever saw them flying. I shall always recognize one again. They are regular double-enders, pointed at both ends. Is it the same sort of loon that we see on the Maine and Adirondack lakes?"
"The very same," he replied. "I dare say you are well acquainted with its voice."
"Indeed I am; it used to give me goose-flesh when I first heard it, ever so long ago. It's a dreadfully shivery sound."
The man smiled, as if he thought this a pretty fair description.
"It is rather spooky," he admitted, "but I love it as a typical sound of the wilderness. It is just redolent with memories of the scented smoke of camp-fires, of game-tracked swamps and big forests mirrored in deep, calm waters all aglow with the lights of the setting sun."
This interested me. It is evident that this doctor is not simply a fairly well educated dispenser of pills and a wielder of horrid instruments. There is some tincture of sentiment in his make-up.
"How do you enjoy the practice of your profession in Sweetapple Cove?" I suddenly asked him, rather irrelevantly.
"I have an idea that it is a sort of practice for which I am fairly well fitted," he answered, slowly, and still looking at the birds. "A fellow can never be sure that he would make a success in the larger places. Here you will admit that the critical sense of the population must be easily satisfied. I have no reason to doubt that I am at least the half a loaf that is better than no bread."
Of course I could only smile. He had said a lot, very pleasantly, without giving me the slightest bit of information. To-morrow I intend to go and have a chat with Mrs. Barnett and pump her dry. I notice that I am rather a curious young person.
"Jist keep her off a bit now," advised Sammy. "They is a big tide settin' in."
A slight pressure on the tiller was enough, and Yves loosened the sheets just a little. On our port side we could see the cliffs, dark and rather menacing, which as yet failed to show the slightest indenture within which a boat might lie.
"I think I will give you the tiller now," I told Sammy.
"If you'll not be minding," he answered.
I am discovering that these people have an inborn sense of courtesy. Their broad accent, which is a mixture of Scotch and Irish and other North British sounds, is rather a pleasant one. It was quite evident that I was to suit myself in the matter of steering the boat. If I objected to relinquishing the tiller owing to a preference for running up on the rocks I was entirely welcome, as far as I could judge from Sammy's words. I am beginning to love the old man.
He took the helm and I swung my arms against my sides, for my muscles felt just a little bit sore.
"I'd like to do this often," I informed him. "It is fine for one's arms."
"It's sure fine fer the pretty face of yer," he asserted, rather timidly."The color on it an' the shinin' in yer eyes is real good to see."
"You are very complimentary," I laughed.
Then the old man looked at me, quite soberly, and I could see that a misgiving had made its way in his dear old soul.
"I mistrust I doesn't jist know what that means," he said, rather worried. "Ef it's anythin' bad I'm a-beggin' yer pardon."
"You are a perfect dear, Captain Sammy," I told him. "Indeed it means something very nice."
Profound relief appeared upon his countenance. I am discovering that in Sweetapple Cove one must limit one's vocabulary. The old man would probably not appreciate chocolates, but he deserves them.
We were dashing on, at a safe distance from the rocks, and suddenly there was an opening in the cliffs, with a tiny bay within. Yves pulled in the sheets a little and we sailed into the deep, clear water of the tiny cove.
There was a small beach of rolling shingle and, beyond this, clinging like barnacles to the rocky hillside, were a couple of decrepit houses. Some big flakes and a fish-house were built over the water, on spidery legs. A few children, very stolid of face and unkempt, watched our arrival and stared at me. A man, in half-bared arms dotted about the wrists with remnants of what they call gurry-sores, stood at the water's edge, waiting to lend a hand. There appears to be no anchorage in this deep hole. The sails were quickly wrapped around the masts and our forefoot gently grated against the pebbles. Then all the men jumped out and dragged the boat up, using some rollers.
"She'll do now," announced Sammy. "Tide's on the ebb, anyways."
There was no lack of hands to help me jump out on the little beach. Frenchy's small boy had clambered out like a monkey and, like myself, was an object of silent curiosity to the local urchins. The scent of fish prevailed, of course, but it was less pronounced than at Sweetapple Cove, very probably for the unfortunate reason that very few fish had been caught, of late. Indeed, it was a fine drying day and yet the poor flakes were nearly bare.
"Bring up the barrel, Sammy," said the doctor. "I'm going up to the house. I don't think I'll keep you waiting very long, Miss Jelliffe."
He hastened up, scrambling up the rocky path, and entered the house. I followed him, perhaps rather indiscreetly. This queer atmosphere of poverty had affected me, I think, and I suddenly became eager to see whether I could not be of some help.
A woman had met him at the door, with an effort at a smile upon her thin, seamed face, that was pale with scanty food and haggard from long watching at night.
"Un do be sayin' as th' arm be better a lot," she informed him. Then she stared at me, just for a moment, and smiled again.
"That's fine," said the doctor. "We'll have another look at it directly.You can come in if you wish to, Miss Jelliffe."
There was nothing but just one fairly large room. The patient was lying on a bed built of planks and his right arm was resting on a pillow, wrapped up in an enormous dressing.
"You sure is a sight fer sore eyes ter see," said the man.
"I hope I'm one for sore arms too," said the doctor, cheerfully. Then he turned to me.
"It would perhaps be best for you to leave for a few minutes, MissJelliffe," he said. "It won't take long."
But I didn't feel that I could leave, and he began to cut through bandages and dressings. Oh! Aunt Jennie dear! I didn't realize that people could have such dreadful things the matter with them. It made me just a little faint to look at it, and I had to turn away. There was but a slight injury at first, I was told, and it had become awful for lack of proper treatment and care. Dr. Grant, I was also informed by old Sammy, was confronted at first with the horrible problem of either taking fair chances for the man's life by an amputation which would have meant starvation for the family, or of assuming the risk of trying to save that arm upon which the woman and her little ones were depending. Such things must surely try a man's soul, Aunt Jennie. The doctor told me that he had gone out of the house and sat on a rock, to think it over, and had looked at the flakes with their pitiful showing. The kiddies were ravenous and the wife exhausted with care. Then he had stared at the other old house, now abandoned by a family that had been unable to keep body and soul together in the place.
And so he had been compelled to decide upon this great gamble and spent three nights and days in watching, in a ceaseless struggle to save that arm, using every possible means of winning his fight, knowing that the penalty of failure was death. It was no wonder that he looked happy now that he knew he had won.
I suppose that such things happen often, Auntie dear, but we have never seen things like these, and they make an awfully strong impression.
Dr. Grant was working away, looking well pleased, and I handed him a few things he needed.
"That's fine!" he declared, after he had completed a fresh dressing. "You are well enough now to come back with me to the Cove, Dick, because that arm must be attended to every day and I can't come here so often. You will be able to stand the trip all right and I'll send you back as soon as you are well."
"I sure kin stand anythin' so long as yer says I kin," answered the man. His eyes were full of a confidence one usually sees only in happy children.
For a few minutes the wife had gone out of the house, and she returned, breathlessly.
"They is all laughin' down ter th' beach," she announced. "They is Frenchy's little bye, all wid' yeller curls, a-playin' wid our laddies, and Sammy Moore he've brung a barrel o' flour, and a box wid pork, and they is more tea and sugar. What d' yer think o' that?"
She was much excited, and looked from her husband to us, nervously, as if fearing to awaken from a dream.
"That ere trader he said I couldn't have no more, afore I sent him a few quintals o' fish," said Dick, "I don't see how it come."
"You had to have it," said the doctor, just a little bit gruffly. "You can pay me back after you get to work again."
The woman grabbed his arm, and made him wince, and then she returned to the beach again and brought back the box.
"Beggin' yer pardon, ma'am," she said. "Jist set down still fer a minnit.I kin bile th' kittle now an' you'll be havin' a dish o' tea."
"Thank you ever so much," I answered, as pleasantly as I could. "I don't want to give you so much trouble, and we are going back at once."
The woman looked sorely disappointed.
"It's awful good tea," she pleaded. "Th' kind as comes in yeller packages, and they is sugar too."
I turned to Dr. Grant. A nearly imperceptible smile and nod from him showed me that I had better accept. It was evident that the poor creature could not understand how any one could refuse tea, the only luxury of her hard life.
"I'll change my mind, if you will let me," I said. "I really think I would enjoy it very much."
Then she smiled again, and went up to the little stove, and I followed her. Dr. Grant had gone out for a moment.
"Doctor un' says Dick goes back wid' un," she said. "He be th' best man in the whole world, ma'am. Says he'll take pay when fishing gets better. I mistrust he'll be waitin' a long spell. It must be most twelve dollars, all the things he've brung."
For a moment the prospect of this huge debt sobered her, and a tear ran down her cheek.
"And what about the doctor's pay?" I asked.
"I doesn't know," she answered, helplessly. "It's sure a turrible world."
From this I judge that the financial returns of Dr. Grant's practice must be more than meager. If I had had any money with me I would have given it to this poor creature, but I had no pockets and had never thought of the need of a vanity bag and purse for a visit to Will's Island.
The woman looked out of the door, and saw that the doctor had gone down to the beach and was talking to the men, apparently engaged in making some arrangement at the bottom of the boat whereon to lay his patient.
"I doesn't know what we'll do," she said again, hurriedly. "But there never was a good man the like o' he. You ain't got a man yet, has you, ma'am?"
"No, I'm a spinster yet," I declared, smiling.
"He's sure the best ever was. Mebbe he might go to courtin' you, ma'am, and what a happy woman ye'd be."
I don't think I blushed, Aunt Jennie, or showed any particular embarrassment. I think I simply recognized a tribute of adoration rendered by the poor soul to one who, in her weary, red eyes, deserved nothing less than worship.
"I am quite sure he is a splendid man," I answered, quietly. "He is also taking care of my father, who broke his leg on the rocks, while salmon-fishing."
"Oh! I knows yer now," said Mrs. Will. "Sammy he told us how you come in that white steam schooner, wi' brass shinin' all over."
"Yes," I replied.
She began to stare at me, much interested.
"Sich a bonnie lass ye be! I wisht he'd take a fancy ter ye!" she exclaimed. "Ye'd sure never find a better man nowheres an' ye look as good as he do. I mistrust ye'd make an awful fine woman fer he."
I could only smile again. Fancy my meeting with matchmakers in this rocky desert. The poor thing meant well, of course, and I could make no further answer, for Dr. Grant was returning. He packed all his things away in his bag, and I went over to the fisherman's bed.
"I am so glad that you are getting along so much better," I told him.
"Thank yer kindly, ma'am," he answered. "I'se sure a whole lot better an' now we has grub too."
You know how sweet the fields are after a storm, Aunt Jennie. Here it also looked as if some dreadful black cloud had lifted, so that the sun shone down again on this desolate place and made it beautiful to the sick man.
Then I had to swallow some strong tea, without milk, which I abhor. I trust I managed it with fortitude. The doctor also had to submit.
"The day is fast approaching when I shall perish from an aggravated case of tea-poisoning," he confided to me. "Everywhere, under penalty of seeing long faces, I am compelled to swallow it in large doses. I lie awake nights seeking vainly for some sort of excuse that will be accepted without breaking hearts."
"I hope that when you feel the symptoms coming you will hasten back to the security of civilization," I told him.
"Even that is open to question," he answered.
And so we brought the poor man home, Aunt Jennie, and I'm beginning to feel dreadfully sleepy, so I'll sayau revoir.
From John Grant's Diary
Atkins has just returned from St. John's, bringing loads of things for the Jelliffes. He consulted me timidly as to how much he might charge them for freight, for I am beginning to share with Mr. Barnett the honor of being considered as a general bureau of information. I craftily obtained his own views, and suggested a slight increase. Mr. Jelliffe audited the bill and gave the man five dollars extra for his trouble, so that by this time the whole family is weeping with joy. Atkins also brought me a batch of medical journals and a letter.
To look at Dora's handwriting one would judge that the young woman must be at least six feet high. The letters are so big and bold that they would never suggest her actual five feet four, with a small fraction of which she is rather proud. As usual she tells me little about herself, saying that I can easily understand the nature of her work in the tenements. Of course I can and, what is more, I am chagrined to think she is toiling harder and enjoying herself less than I. Here I have a chance at great breaths of pure air, whereas in New York she is ever hurrying through sordid little East Side streets and breathing their emanations. I prefer the fish-houses, and if Miss Jelliffe were acquainted with some of those streets she would think as I do. The people I deal with here are grateful and happy to see me. Dora's mob is apt to suspect her motives, to distrust her offers of care and instruction, and to disagree entirely with her ideas of cleanliness. I wish she were here; it seems to me that a partnership in this place could accomplish wonderful things. I would build a bit of a hospital and she could boss the patients to her heart's content.
The little girl says that she approves of my doings, but complains that I write rather flippantly, at times. Considering that she has bidden me to avoid carefully all matters relating to the tender passion what else can I do? She says that if I persevere I shall realize that I am doing good work. We are all seeking achievement, she tells me, and she is sure I am accomplishing great things.
Poor little Dora! I wish I were as sure of this as she seems to be. As a matter of fact I am constantly disgruntled at the lack of facilities. How can a man do big work in surgery with no assistants? The least I should have is a nurse. I have written to tell her so.
Day before yesterday I took Miss Jelliffe over to Will's Island. I really think she had lost a little of her color in her assiduous care of her father, and I was pleased to see the roses return to her cheeks on her way there. I would have thought that a young woman of her class would require a great deal of attention, but this young lady appears to be just as independent in her way as Dora is in hers. She was very much at home in the boat, and old Sammy just eats out of her hand. She has long ago gathered him into the fold of her adorers. Ten minutes after we left she was running our little ship and handling the tiller understandingly.
She is a young woman whose life will be cast in pleasant places, and she awaits the future cheerfully, secure in the belief that it can bring but happiness. Dora, on the other hand, is prospecting with shovel and pick, and I'm afraid they may blister her little hands.
When we arrived at Will's Island the young woman followed me into the house. I noticed that she shuddered just a little at the sight of Dick's arm. It was a novel thing to her, and I must say she met it bravely. Indeed it was rather fine to see how quickly she adapted herself to those surroundings. She held bandages for me and handed me the solutions with quick intuition. Also she was delightfully simple and kind in her treatment of poor Dick's bewildered wife.
I decided to bring the man to the Cove. He insisted that he was perfectly able to walk down to the boat, but staggered as soon as he tried to stand up and would have fallen had I not been prepared for him. Sammy and Frenchy carried him down to the boat and lifted him on board, where they stretched him on the foot-boards which we had taken the precaution to upholster luxuriously with dried seaweed. An old sack, stuffed with the same material, constituted a pillow.
Dick's wife and her brother, with the children, waved their hands at us as we left the little bay and started on the long run close-hauled to the mainland.
For a short time Miss Jelliffe remained near Sammy. She was peering at the retiring cliffs.
"Who would ever have thought that men would cling to such places?" she said. "I don't know whether I am glad or sorry that I came."
One could see that she was moved. Life had taken a wider aspect for her. She doubtless knew of poverty and suffering, but to her they had been abstract things near which her footsteps had never carried her.
"In another year or two it will be deserted," I told her. "The few sticks on the island have all been cut down, and they have begun to burn the boards of the abandoned house, though they also get a little driftwood for fuel. That is the story of many places on this coast, after the people have exhausted the scanty supply of wood."
She evidently thought it marvelous that such desolate bits of rock should have found human limpets to cling to them and be able to support life after a fashion. Then she began to look at the man who was lying in the bottom of the boat. Although he was very pale and weak he looked contentedly at the sky and the fleecy clouds, and when his eyes caught hers he smiled bashfully. And the instinct then moved her, which lies in every proper feminine heart, however dormantly, to mother something or somebody.
The screaming feathered life no longer interested her, nor the surging of the crested waves against the cliffs, nor the cleaving of the water by our little ship. She took a step forward and sat down on the rough boards, beside this wreck of manhood we were bringing in, unmindful of the dried fish-scales that would flake off upon her skirts. It was surely an unconscious movement of hers when her hand went out and rested on the fisherman's rough paw.
I saw him stare at her, his eyes filled with wonderment and gratitude, for men of these places know little of tender care.
"How do you feel now?" she asked him, gently.
"I feels like I once did after a day an' a night on th' ice," he replied, slowly. "I mind there wuz four on us to a small pan as had broke loose. An' two they give out with th' cold, an' wuz dead afore mornin', but th' steamer as had lost us in th' fog she jist sudden loomed up, all ter once, an' took Tom Pilley an' me off an' we wuz saved. I mistrust that's jist how I feels again now."
The girl turned her eyes towards me, and they were moist. She had understood the man and realized the time he had spent in despairing resignation, with the image of death ever before him during the long battle against cold and starvation. Then life had come, like a flash, out of the smothering mists, and soon he had been ready to struggle on again. And it was evident that the dreary prospect of such an existence prolonged was enough to make him happy once more.
After this she remained silent for a long time. Hitherto, in her existence, sorrow and suffering had appeared like some other wonderful things occurring in nature, such as the forces holding atoms together or compelling bodies to gravitate. One knew of such things, of course, yet one was unconscious of them. Now they were assuming an importance she had never realized before. Her head bent low, as if she were being chastened by some strange feeling of reproach.
It was perhaps the soothing touch of her hand that caused Dick to fall asleep, and Miss Jelliffe, with cramped limbs, rose to her feet.
"See how quietly he is resting now," she said. "I should think that you would feel ever so proud of what you have done. I'm sure I hope you do."
I had taken charge of the tiller, upon which she also laid her hand. I dare say that I was a little surprised, and did not answer at once.
"I don't think that I ever realized before how much just one man may accomplish," she continued.
"I am afraid that in my profession most of us who try to be honest with ourselves are inclined to deplore how very little we can achieve," I replied.
"No man has any right to be entirely satisfied with his efforts," she declared, "and I think all this is a magnificent thing to be devoting one's energies to."
"I am glad if I am sometimes able to justify an indulgent faculty for having granted me a parchment permitting me to prune my fellow mortals, as Holmes puts it," I answered.
She looked at me, seriously, and shook her pretty head.
"You are not speaking at all seriously," she said.
Dora has accused me of flippancy, and this young lady states that I don't talk seriously. Yet a fellow has a right to dislike the danger of being unjustifiably placed in the category of meritorious people. I couldn't very well tell Miss Jelliffe that I was doing all this at the bidding of a little nurse with whom I am mightily in love. Dora has as yet given me no right to speak of her as my affianced.
"What I wish to know is how you are going to be paid for your work in this case," pursued Miss Jelliffe, "and for the things you have given to these people? And who pays for this boat and the wages of the men? Of course if I am indiscreet you must say so."
"I am the owner, in perspective, of absolutely unlimited codfish, Miss Jelliffe," I told her. "Some day these people will bury me under an avalanche of quintals. Still, it is also possible that they may come on the installment plan. One hundred and twelve pounds of fish may seem an unusual fee for a rather protracted case, but consider how far it will go in the feeding of a lone bachelor. Even though it may be small recompense it is promised with an honest and kindly heart. I am led to expect huge amounts when some of the men get back from the Labrador, and still more will flood my coffers if the shore catch is good and all sorts of other wonderful things happen. These people actually mean it, and worry themselves considerably over the matter. Some of the idiots actually refuse to send for me for the specious reason that they have nothing to pay me with, and permit themselves to die off in the silliest way, without my assistance."
"Of course all that is mostly nonsense," said the young lady, decisively, "but—but I don't exactly see how you manage to get along. Of course just one glance such as I have seen that poor Dick give you ought to be a nice reward for any man, but then that sort of thing doesn't exactly provide…"
"I am fortunate in having a little money which, in Sweetapple Cove, stretches out to a fairly important income, so that I am able to invest in futures, if that be the proper financial term. In the meanwhile I am having a rather good time," I answered.
For quite a while she remained silent, seeming to be engaged in profound calculations. After this she again watched the waters and the rugged coast, and the birds wheeling and screaming over shoals of fish.
We soon neared the entrance to Sweetapple Cove and Miss Jelliffe looked at it with renewed interest. Beyond those fierce ramparts with their cruel spurs dwelt men and women, most of whom she probably considered to be among the disinherited ones of the earth, eking out a bare living from hand to mouth.
"Isn't it too bad that they should all have to strive so hard for the little they get," she said, suddenly.
"They do it willingly and bravely, Miss Jelliffe," I said. "Here as elsewhere, of course, the rain falls on the just and the unjust, and usually spoils their fish."
When we landed some men came out of the fish-houses, for the time of the midday meal was at hand. I called for volunteers to bring a hand barrow.
"Who's got a bed in his house that I can put Dick Will in for a few days, till he gets better?" I asked.
A number of offers were forthcoming at once. Finally he was carried away, with two sturdy men at the handles, while others walked alongside, supporting the patient in a sitting posture. He had begun by protesting.
"I is sure I kin walk now, if ye'll let me try," he said.
"You must do just as you are told," Miss Jelliffe admonished him. "You and I know nothing about these things and we must obey the doctor. You know he is ever so proud of your arm and you mustn't dare to run chances of spoiling his beautiful work."
"No, ma'am, not never," he declared, properly ashamed of himself and quite aghast at the prospect.
The procession caused some excitement in the village, and doubtless much discussion on the part of the good women. I have no doubt that some of them lectured their husbands severely for their failure to offer suitable inducements. They are always eager to be helpful.
"We has three beds i' th' house," the lucky contender had announced, proudly. It was only very late in the afternoon that I discovered the domicile to be tenanted by three adults and seven children, most of whom now cheerfully curl up on the floor. This, however, is never considered as a hardship by a Newfoundlander. To him anything softer than a plank is luxury.
When I saw Miss Jelliffe back to her house she asked me to come in for lunch. I thanked her and assured her that I would accept her kind invitation another time, as I had to go at once to another patient.