"No, Doctor, they aren"t ours exactly," replied our host, in answer to my question, "but us took Sam as our own when he was born, and his mother lay dead, and he"ve been with us ever since. Those be his little ones. You remember Kate, his wife, what died in the hospital?"
Yes, I remembered her very well, and the struggle we had had in trying to save her.
"Skipper John," I said as soon as tea was over, "let"s get out and see the old Englishman. He"ll be tired waiting."
"Youse needn"t go out, Doctor. He be upstairs in bed."
So upstairs, or rather up the ladder, we went, to find the oddest arrangement, and yet far the most sensible under the peculiar circ.u.mstances. "Upstairs" was the triangular s.p.a.ce between the roof and the ceiling of the ground floor. At each end was a tiny window, and the whole, windows included, had been divided longitudinally by a single thickness of hand-sawn lumber, up to the tiny cross-beams.
There was no lofting, and both windows were open, so that a cool breeze was blowing right through. Cheerfulness was given by a bright white paper which had been pasted on over everything. Home-made rag mats covered the planed boards. At one end a screen of cheesecloth veiled off the corner. Sitting bolt upright on a low bench, and leaning against the part.i.tion, was a very aged-looking woman, staring fixedly in front of her, and swaying forwards and backwards like some whirling Dervish. She ceaselessly monotoned what was intended for a hymn.
"The old gentleman sleeps over there," said the skipper with his head just above the floor level. He indicated the screened corner, and then bobbed down and disappeared, being far too courteous a man to intrude.
The old lady took no notice whatever as I approached. No head was visible among the rude collection of bedclothes which, with a mattress on the boards, served for the bed.
"Uncle Solomon, it"s the Doctor," I called.
The ma.s.s of clothes moved, and a trembling old hand came out to meet mine.
"Not so well, Uncle Solomon? No pain, I hope?"
"No pain, Doctor, thank t" good Lord--and Skipper John," he added. "He took us in, Doctor, when t" old lady and I were starving."
The terrible cancer in spite of which his iron const.i.tution still kept him alive had so extended its fearful ravages that the reason for the veiled corner was at once apparent, and also the effective measures for ventilation.
The old lady had now caught the meaning of my presence. "He suffers a lot, Doctor, though he won"t say it. If it wasn"t for me singing to him, I don"t know how he would bear up." And, strangely enough, even I had noticed the apparent descent from an odd, dreamy state to crude realities, as the old lady abandoned her droning, and talked of symptoms.
"But, Aunt Anne," I said, "you can"t keep it up all night as well as all day?"
"No, not exactly, Doctor, but I mostly sleeps very little." And to my no small astonishment she now shut up like an umbrella, and at once recommenced her mesmeric monotone.
When the interview was over, and all my notes made and lines of action decided, I still did not feel like moving. I was standing in a brown study when I heard the skipper"s voice calling me.
"Be you through, Doctor? There be two or three as wants to see you,"
it said; but it meant, "Is there anything wrong?" The long silence might mean that the sight had been too much for me.
"There"s no hurry, Doctor," it hastened to add, for his quick ear had caught the noise of my start as I came to earth again.
"What can be the meaning of it all?" I was pondering. Is there any more explanation to the riddle of life than to Alice in Wonderland?
Are we not all a lot of "slithy toves, that gyre and gimble in the wabe"--or worse? Must we who love living only regard it as one long tragedy?
The clinic of Skipper John"s lower room included one or two pathetic tales, and evidently my face showed discouragement, but I confess I was surprised when the last poor creature had left, to find my host"s hand on my shoulder.
"You"ll be wanting a good hot cup o" tea, I knows, Doctor. And t"
wife"s made you a bit o" toast, and a taste o" hot berry jam. We are so grateful you comed, Doctor. T" poor old creatures won"t last long.
But thanks aren"t dollars."
At that minute his happy, optimistic eyes chanced to meet mine. They seemed like good, deep water, and just for a second the thought crossed my mind that perhaps he knew more of the real troubles of life than his intellectual opportunities might suggest.
"No, Skipper," was all I said. "We doctors, anyhow, find them quite as scarce."
"Well, Doctor," he added, "please G.o.d if I gets a skin t" winter I"ll try and pay you for your visit, anyhow. But I hasn"t a cent in the world just now. The old couple has taken the little us had put by."
"Skipper John, what relation are those people to you?"
"Well, Doctor, no relation "zactly."
"Do they pay nothing at all?"
"Them has nothing," he replied.
"Why did you take them in?"
"They was homeless, Doctor, and the old lady was already blind."
"How long have they been with you?"
"Just twelve months come Sat.u.r.day."
"Thanks, Skipper," was all I could say, but I found myself standing with my hat off in the presence of this man. I thought then, and still think, I had received one of my largest fees.
TWO CAT"S-PAWS
Jean Marquette had nothing French about him but his name. Indeed "ne"er a word of French" could the old man remember, for he had lived for many years on the bleak, northeast side of Labrador; and few folk knew why, for all his forbears from sunny France had studiously avoided the Atlantic seaboard.
Over his evening pipe, when the sparkling forks of fire bursting from the crackling logs seemed to materialize before his eyes again the scenes of his venturous life in the wild, as if they had been imperishably imprinted in the old trunks which had witnessed them, the old _coureur de bois_ spirit, and even accent, flashed out as he carried his listeners back into the gallant days of the men who founded the great _seigneuries_ which still stretch along the thousand miles of coast from the barren Atlantic seaboard to the bold heights of Quebec.
In this country, only separated from the land of Evangeline by a few miles of salt water, one might reasonably suppose that the good folk would look to the soil and the peaceful pursuits of Arcady for at least some part of their daily bread. But, with the exception of a few watery potatoes, Uncle Johnnie had never "growed e"er a thing in his life." His rifle and axe, his traps and his lines, had exacted sufficient tribute from wild nature around him, not only to keep the wolf from the door, but to lay up in the stocking in his ancient French trunk dollars enough to give his only child, Marie-Joseph, quite a little dowry for that coast.
It had often been a puzzle to us why this lonely old man, with no one belonging to him but one unusually pretty daughter, should have migrated to the lonely North. He had been asked more than once what the reason was, but he had always put the curious off by saying, "Hunting must be a lonesome trade. You wants a lot of room to catch foxes."
But one night, when he was in a more communicative mood than usual, we got the whole story out of him.
Late one fall, when the southern fishing craft had gone south, and the ground was crisp with the first frost of winter, the lovely calm and sunny October morning had induced him to suggest to his wife that she should go over to the neighbouring island with their two elder children, a girl and a boy, and have a picnic, while they gathered some of the beautiful red cranberries to "stow away" for the winter.
The baby girl, Marie, was left at home with the little servant maid.
The children had jumped for joy at the idea, and early after breakfast he had rowed them across to the island, returning himself to finish loading his small schooner with the household goods and chattels which they must take up the bay to their winter home in the woods. So busy had he been with work that only as it came time to go off for the family did he notice how suddenly the weather had chopped around. A sinister northerly flaw was already rippling the surface of the hitherto placid sea; and Uncle Johnnie, accustomed to read the sky like a book, hurried as he seldom did to get the small boat under way.
No one could have driven her faster than he drove her, and the pace satisfied even his uneasy mind. The "cat"s-paw" had stiffened to a bitter blast behind him, and long before the boat reached the beach, it was difficult enough to look to windward. Hauling up the boat, he gave the familiar call which his wife knew so well; but no answer came to greet him. Following along the sh.o.r.e, and still finding no traces, he suddenly remembered that there was an old deserted house nearly a mile farther along, and incontinently he started to run as fast as he could in its direction. As he drew near, to his infinite joy he caught sight of smoke issuing from holes in the leaky roof. Calling as he went, he soon reached the cabin, to find the little party trying to dry themselves before a wood fire in the crazy stove, which had no funnelling, and was filling the hut with eye-torturing smoke.
"Come along, Mother," he cried. "There"s no time to be lost. If we hurry, we may get over before dark."
A little delay was caused by the children, who were unwilling to leave even that pretence of a shelter; and more time was lost crossing the island, the children having to be carried most of the way. At last, having placed them all safely in the boat, Uncle Johnnie proceeded to launch her, and by wading into the water himself, succeeded in keeping them dry for the start. But the increasing sea soon made even that sacrifice of little avail, for broken water and driving spray, with the now heavily falling snow, soon soaked them through and through, at last half filling the boat itself with water.
Uncle Johnnie knew by instinct that it was now neck or nothing. He must get across that strip of water if human endurance could do it. So he kept on and on, long after he might have gone back, and put the boat before it once more to run for the island only after it was well dark, and he was being blown astern anyhow in spite of his best efforts. Nearing the sh.o.r.e, he had every reason to expect disaster, for the boat was now half filled, and he could see no place to make a landing. So as soon as his oars struck bottom he once more jumped into the water, and, holding the boat in his iron grip, he dragged it and its precious freight once more out of the furious violence of the sea.
The children by this time were quite unable to "travel"; so, sending his wife ahead, Uncle Johnnie struggled along with the little ones as best he could.