"Oh, ma--ma! take care or you"ll break my string of robins" eggs!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE VILLAGE DOCTOR IN A SNOW-STORM.
Snow! deep, deep snow everywhere! It lay three feet on a level in the river vale. It spread a shining crust over the hills. It lodged in the branches of the densely green pine woods, and whitened the roof of every house in the neighborhood. The burying-ground on the hill, was wrapped so deep in a fleecy shroud, that you could hardly distinguish the marble grave-stones from its white surface, and the church, always a beautiful object, with its slender steeple and white walls, looked like a temple wrought from the snow itself--something that the angels had visited overnight, and left spotless as themselves.
With all this depth and volume of snow, crusted over as it had been by a sharp frost, it was almost impossible that the roads could be broken in a single day. Still, a few ox sleds had marked out the line of the turnpike, and some sleighs had followed in their track, with a wrangle of bells that told of the struggle made by the smoking horses which drew them. On the bank of the river, on the Chewstown side, the highway runs along the side of a hill, which terminates abruptly at the bridge, where the New Haven turnpike intersects it.
There is nothing very beautiful about the spot now, for the hemlocks, and young tamarisks are all cut down, the dog-wood and shad-blossoms cleared away, and the hill is almost left without a shade. But at the time of this snow-storm, the naked boughs and evergreens proved how thick and green the summer shadows must be, and if the "Rock Spring"
sent its waters flashing through the snow, melting it softly away, you could, at least, imagine how cool and bright they were when ferns, mosses, and violets crept into the turf, and covered the rocks with the green and azure of a spring birth.
This road was not generally so much travelled as the one across the sand banks, but two or three loads of wood had pa.s.sed that way, revealing the depths of the drifts without rendering them much more pa.s.sable. Still a "solitary horseman" came out from the shelter of the hemlocks, and made his way very slowly toward the bridge. His horse, a stout animal, with any amount of mane and foretop streaming in the wind, came tramping heavily through the snow, emitting clouds of steam from his sides, while each labored breath bearded his under lip with icicles, and fringed his dilating nostrils with quivering frost-work.
The man who had braved that almost impa.s.sable road and cold day, was one of the most remarkable personages known in that portion of the country.
His very eccentricities gave force and vitality to the general regard.
Singular in person, singular in character, unlike all other men in almost every particular, he was, perhaps, somewhat for this very reason, looked up to and reverenced as the peculiar property of the neighborhood. Learned he certainly was; and neither before or after has another man been found who could, in all things, pretend to fill his place.
This man was the village doctor; no, the district doctor, rather, for his ride extended over thirty miles, and as a consulting physician over the whole State. With a huge bear-skin cap upon his head, and an ample brown overcoat, girded to his waist by a broad leather belt, and falling low on each side of his horse, he issued from behind the trees. Two crutches, worn smooth as gla.s.s, were crossed before him on the saddle bow. He held the bridle loosely in his hands and encouraged the horse with many a droll saying, as if the animal were human and could enjoy his quaint humor. At the "Rock Spring" there was a struggle between the doctor and his steed. For an unknown number of years the horse had invariably quenched his thirst in that particular place, and he was determined not to make this day an exception, though a deep round hole, scarcely larger than the doctor"s cap, and a moist sinking of the snow across the road might have deceived a less sagacious animal into a belief that this old drinking place had been swallowed up by the storm.
There was no deceiving our doctor"s brown horse in any thing, much less in a case of appet.i.te like that. He was a dainty animal in the matter of drink, and water so pure and crystaline as that which lost its smothered music in the snow, was not to be found within twenty miles.
The doctor was in haste, or he never would have dreamed of contesting any thing with his faithful steed. Indeed, the case must have been one of life or death which could bring any man on the highway at a time like that. He began to protest and reason with the horse after his eccentric fashion, and finally went so far as to gather up the bridle and tighten the bit, a procedure which so astonished the horse that he backed sideways into a drift, viciously slanted his ears, and subsided into a state of masterly inactivity, the most difficult thing to conquer that we know of, either in statesmanship or horseflesh.
The doctor chuckled, laid the bridle down caressingly on the neck that had made a lamentable failure in striving to arch itself, and folding his hands in the loose sleeves of his overdress, waited. Obstinate animals and obstinate men are apt to feel as if fighting the air when no one opposes them. The horse began to realize this sensation. The snow-drift into which he had backed was cold and deep. The waters of the spring murmured a soft enticement. First, he pointed one ear and turned his head with sly, compunctious timidity, as if ashamed to enjoy his own triumph. Then he pointed the other ear, shook himself a little, tramped heavily toward the spring, and thrusting his head deep into the snow, began to drink.
The doctor indulged in a laugh, and when the horse withdrew his head, shaking a storm of drops back into the spring, he patted him softly, called him a good fellow for having his own way, and appeared so much like the obliged party that the animal, to his dying hour, was never quite certain of his own triumph.
After all, this struggle had taken but little time. The horse breasted his work with fresh vigor after it. He pushed through and trampled down the snow until he reached the bridge, stalked over it, toiled through the valley and up Falls Hill, never stopping till he reached the huge willow tree which stood on the crossroad that led to Bungy. This was a farming district, back of Castle Rock, where the Thrasher farm and Mrs.
Allen"s place lay.
While the doctor was breathing his horse under the willow, a teamster pa.s.sed with a large sled, on which some bags of grain were piled. He stopped his oxen with a flourish of the goad, and a storm of who--who-o-as, while he held a little conversation.
"Tough teaming this!" he said. "Hard on young cattle; but somebody must go first. Any of the neighbors dangerous out this way, doctor?"
"No," answered the doctor, with a twinkle of the eye.
"Then what on arth brings you out?"
"Wanted a ride, and thought perhaps I could hunt up a patient."
"Wal, now I shouldn"t a thought it! Which way are you a going, if I may be so bold?"
"Haven"t decided. If you"ve got a copper in your pocket, toss up. It"s all the same to me."
The man took a new cent from his pocket, and balancing it on his thumb nail, he called out----
"Which"ll ye have, doctor?"
"Heads."
Up flashed the cent into the sunshine, then down to the teamster"s feet, where it made a deep, round hole in the snow.
"Heads it is, doctor," cried the man, fishing his coin up in a handful of flakes.
"True enough! then I will ride over the hill. That toss up decides it."
"You"ll never get there, doctor; drifts over your head."
The doctor was ploughing his way up the Bungy road, and did not seem to hear this prediction. He was evidently very anxious to go forward, and encouraged his horse with sharp e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, as they approached the hills. The animal understood it all, and lending himself to the work, stamped and pursued his way onward with the perseverance of a veteran; but his progress was necessarily slow, and the doctor"s broad forehead gathered into an anxious frown under his cap.
"Poor thing--poor thing--she may be dead before we get there," he muttered more than once, and then he would commence expostulating with the horse, who, good fellow, was doing his very best. Just as they were ascending the brow of the hill, a woman was seen in advance, wildly pushing her way through the snow. She saw the doctor, and waved her arms in distracted haste, beckoning him to come on.
The doctor must have been insane with anxiety to have ventured on it.
But he seized one of his crutches and gave the horse a back-handed blow.
A plunge that almost unseated the imprudent man--a storm of snow about his ears, and the animal broke into one of the most extraordinary gaits that ever a horseman experienced--backing down, rushing forward, and making side movements that came very near landing the doctor head foremost in a huge wave-like drift that covered the fence close by to its topmost rail.
At last, with great coaxing and expostulation, this state of things was reduced to the most awkward attempt at a trot, which the exasperated animal persisted in, though his efforts were broken up at every other step.
The woman stood for a minute knee-deep in the snow. She only ceased wringing her hands to beckon him forward. When certain that he was doing his best, she turned and walked quickly up the road, and entered Mrs.
Allen"s house.
"I thought so--I feared it," muttered the doctor, "but who ever saw riding like this? It"s like wading through a desert of cotton wool.
Don"t you think so, old fellow?"
The horse was indignant yet, and scorned to give any sign that he understood those conciliatory tones, even by a twinkle of the ear. On he scrambled, deeply injured in his feelings, but resolved to do his duty, and leave the rest on his master"s conscience.
At last they reached the gate which led to Mrs. Allen"s house. With his crutches making deep holes in the snow at every step, the doctor made for the door, which was opened hurriedly, and Mrs. Allen stood pale as death, with a wild light in her eyes, waiting for him to come in.
The door was closed, and only opened for a moment for the pale, stern woman to come forth, with a blanket in her arms, which she threw over the smoking horse, and went in again.
Then a dead, heavy blank came upon the house, and all that surrounded it. The horse fell into a doze under his blanket. Not a living thing was in view, nothing but the dreary white bosom of the earth, and a soft curl of smoke that rose from the Thrasher homestead, which was itself invisible, a little farther over the hill, though the naked twigs of the poplar trees in front could be seen against the sky. Once, the horse started, and pointed his ears, as if some familiar sound had reached him, but his head drooped again directly. The sound, if any had troubled him, was so indistinct that he rejected it as a delusion. When the doctor came out, it was with a thoughtful, anxious look that seldom visited his face. No one followed him to the door, and he sighed heavily while climbing to his seat on the saddle.
On his way home the doctor met several persons, who in the kind-hearted curiosity usual to the place, inquired who was sick enough to call him out in such terrible weather. He answered, with quizzical gravity, that he had been to visit old Mr. Lane over the hill, a man of ninety, who was suffering dreadfully with the whooping-cough.
"The whooping-cough, and he full ninety--why I never heard of such a thing," said one of the questioners; "I thought nothing but children ever had that disease."
"True enough; but you forget that old Mr. Lane is in his second childhood," answered the doctor.
The man"s face brightened.
"Yes, yes," he said, "that accounts for it. I never thought of the second childhood. Does the old chap whoop much?"
"Awfully, awfully! Good-day!" and the doctor rode on, chuckling pleasantly to his horse; but the gleam of humor soon died from his features, and they grew anxious again--so anxious, that you might have fancied that his visit had been to a death-bed.