Doctor Luke of the Labrador

Contents

A cluster of islands, lying off the cape, made the shelter of our harbour. They were but great rocks, gray, ragged, wet with fog and surf, rising bleak and barren out of a sea that forever fretted a thousand miles of rocky coast as barren and as sombre and as desolate as they; but they broke wave and wind unfailingly and with vast unconcern—they were of old time, mighty, steadfast, remote from the rage of weather and the changing mood of the sea, surely providing safe shelter for us folk of the coast—and we loved them, as true men, everywhere, love home.

“’Tis the cleverest harbour on the Labrador!” said we.

When the wind was in the northeast—when it broke, swift and vicious, from the sullen waste of water beyond, whipping up the grey sea, driving in the vagrant ice, spreading clammy mist over the reefs and rocky headlands of the long coast—our harbour lay unruffled in the lee of God’s Warning. Skull Island and a shoulder of God’s Warning broke the winds from the north: the froth of the breakers, to be sure, came creeping through the north tickle, when the sea was high; but no great wave from the open ever disturbed the quiet water within. We were fended from the southerly gales by the massive, beetling front of the Isle of Good Promise, which, grandly unmoved by their fuming rage, turned them up into the black sky, where they went screaming northward, high over the heads of the white houses huddled in the calm below; and the seas they brought—gigantic, breaking seas—went to waste on Raven Rock and the Reef of the Thirty Black Devils, ere, their strength spent, they growled over the jagged rocks at the base of the great cliffs of Good Promise and came softly swelling through the broad south tickle to the basin. The west wind came out of the wilderness, fragrant of the far-off forest, lying unknown and dread in the inland, from which the mountains, bold and blue and forbidding, lifted high their heads; and the mist was then driven back into the gloomy seas of the east, and the sun was out, shining warm and yellow, and the sea, lying in the lee of the land, was all aripple and aflash.

When the spring gales blew—the sea being yet white with drift-ice—the schooners of the Newfoundland fleet, bound north to the fishing, often came scurrying into our harbour for shelter. And when the skippers, still dripping the spray of the gale from beard and sou’wester, came ashore for a yarn and an hospitable glass with my father, the trader, many a tale of wind and wreck and far-away harbours I heard, while we sat by the roaring stove in my father’s little shop: such as those which began, “Well, ’twas the wonderfullest gale o’ wind you ever seed—snowin’ an’ blowin’, with the sea in mountains, an’ it as black as a wolf’s throat—an’ we was somewheres off Cape Mugford. She were drivin’ with a nor’east gale, with the shore somewheres handy t’ le’ward. But, look! nar a one of us knowed where she were to, ’less ’twas in the thick o’ the Black Heart Reefs....” Stout, hearty fellows they were who told yarns like these—thick and broad about the chest and lanky below, long-armed, hammer-fisted, with frowsy beards, bushy brows, and clear blue eyes, which were fearless and quick to look.

“’Tis a fine harbour you got here, Skipper David Roth,” they would say to my father, when it came time to go aboard, “an’ here, zur,” raising the last glass, “is t’ the rocks that make it!”

“T’ the schooners they shelter!” my father would respond.

When the weather turned civil, I would away to the summit of the Watchman—a scamper and a mad climb—to watch the doughty little schooners on their way. And it made my heart swell and flutter to see them dig their noses into the swelling seas—to watch them heel and leap and make the white dust fly—to feel the rush of the wet wind that drove them—to know that the grey path of a thousand miles was every league of the way beset with peril. Brave craft! Stout hearts to sail them! It thrilled me to watch them beating up the suddy coast, lying low and black in the north, and through the leaden, ice-strewn seas, with the murky night creeping in from the open. I, too, would be the skipper of a schooner, and sail with the best of them!

“A schooner an’ a wet deck for me!” thought I.

And I loved our harbour all the more for that.

Thus, our harbour lay, a still, deep basin, in the shelter of three islands and a cape of the mainland: and we loved it, drear as it was, because we were born there and knew no kinder land; and we boasted it, in all the harbours of the Labrador, because it was a safe place, whatever the gale that blew.

The Watchman was the outermost headland of our coast and a landmark from afar—a great gray hill on the point of Good Promise by the Gate; our craft, running in from the Hook-an’-Line grounds off Raven Rock, rounded the Watchman and sped thence through the Gate and past Frothy Point into harbour. It was bold and bare—scoured by the weather—and dripping wet on days when the fog hung thick and low. It fell sharply to the sea by way of a weather-beaten cliff, in whose high fissures the gulls, wary of the hands of the lads of the place, wisely nested; and within the harbour it rose from Trader’s Cove, where, snug under a broken cliff, stood our house and the little shop and storehouse and the broad drying-flakes and the wharf and fish-stages of my father’s business. From the top there was a far, wide outlook—all sea and rock: along the ragged, treeless coast, north and south, to the haze wherewith, in distances beyond the ken of lads, it melted; and upon the thirty wee white houses of our folk, scattered haphazard about the harbour water, each in its own little cove and each with its own little stage and great flake; and over the barren, swelling rock beyond, to the blue wilderness, lying infinitely far away.

I shuddered when from the Watchman I looked upon the wilderness.

“’Tis a dreadful place,” I had heard my father say. “Men starves in there.”

This I knew to be true, for, once, I had seen the face of a man who came crawling out.

“The sea is kinder,” I thought.

Whether so or not, I was to prove, at least, that the wilderness was cruel.

One blue day, when the furthest places on sea and land lay in a thin, still haze, my mother and I went to the Watchman to romp. There was place there for a merry gambol, place, even, led by a wiser hand, for roaming and childish adventure—and there were silence and sunlit space and sea and distant mists for the weaving of dreams—ay, and, upon rare days, the smoke of the great ships, bound down the Straits—and when dreams had worn the patience there were huge loose rocks handy for rolling over the brow of the cliff—and there was gray moss in the hollows, thick and dry and soft, to sprawl on and rest from the delights of the day. So the Watchman was a playground for my mother and me—my sister, my elder by seven years, was all the day long tunefully busy about my father’s comfort and the little duties of the house—and, on that blue day, we climbed the broken cliff behind our house and toiled up the slope beyond in high spirits, and we were very happy together; for my mother was a Boston maid, and, though she turned to right heartily when there was work to do, she was not like the Labrador born, but thought it no sin to wander and laugh in the sunlight of the heads when came the blessed opportunity.

“I’m fair done out,” said I, at last, returning, flushed, from a race to Beacon Rock.

“Lie here, Davy—ay, but closer yet—and rest,” said she.

I flung myself at full length beside her, spreading abroad my sturdy little arms and legs; and I caught her glance, glowing warm and proud, as it ran over me, from toe to crown, and, flashing prouder yet through a gathering mist of tears, returned again.

“I knows why you’re lookin’ at me that way,” said I.

“And why?” said she.

“’Tis for sheer love o’ me!”

She was strangely moved by this. Her hands, passionately clasped of a sudden, she laid upon her heart; and she drew a sharp, quivering breath.

“You’re getting so—so—strong and—and—so big!” she cried.

“Hut!” said I. “’Tis nothin’ t’ cry about!”

“Oh,” she sobbed, “I’m proud t’ be the mother of a son!”

I started up.

“I’m that proud,” she went on, hovering now between great joy and pain, “that it—it—fair hurts me!”

“I’ll not have you cry!” I protested.

She caught me in her arms and we broke into merry laughter. Then to please her I said that I would gather flowers for her hair—and she would be the stranded mermaid and I the fisherman whom she besought to put her back in the sea and rewarded with three wishes—and I sought flowers everywhere in the hollows and crevices of the bald old Watchman, where, through years, some soil had gathered, but found only whisps of wiry grass and one wretched blossom; whereupon I returned to her very wroth.

“God made a botch o’ the world!” I declared.

She looked up in dismay.

“Ay,” I repeated, with a stamp of the foot, “a wonderful botch o’ the world He’s gone an’ made. Why, they’s but one flower on the Watchman!”

She looked over the barren land—the great gray waste of naked rock—and sighed.

“But one?” she asked, softly.

“An I was God,” I said, indignantly, “I’d have made more flowers an’ made un bigger.”

She smiled in the way of one dreaming.

“Hut!” I went on, giving daring wing to my imagination. “I’d have made a hundred kinds an’ soil enough t’ grow un all—every one o’ the whole hundred! I’d have——”

She laid a soft hand on my lips. “’Tis a land,” she whispered, with shining eyes, “that grows rosy lads, and I’m well content!”

“’Tis a poor way,” I continued, disregarding her caress, “t’ gather soil in buckets. I’d have made enough t’ gather it in barrows! I’d have made lots of it—heaps of it. Why,” I boasted, growing yet more recklessly prodigal, “I’d have made a hill of it somewheres handy t’ every harbour in the world—as big as the Watchman—ay, an’ handy t’ the harbours, so the folk could take so much as they wanted—t’ make potato-gardens—an’—an’ t’ make the grave-yards deep enough. ’Tis a wonderful poor way,” I concluded with contempt, “t’ have t’ gather it in buckets from the rocks!”

My mother was laughing heartily now.

“’Twould not be a better world, thinks you?” said I. “Ay, but I could do better than that! Hut!” I cried, at last utterly abandoned to my imagination, “I’d have more things than potatoes grow in the ground an’ more things than berries grow on bushes. What would I have grow in the ground, says you? Is you thinkin’ I don’t know? Oh, ay, mum,” I protested, somewhat at a loss, but very knowingly, “I knows!” I was now getting rapidly beyond my depth; but I plunged bravely on, wondering like lightning, the while, what else could grow in the ground and on bushes. “I’d have flour grow in the ground, mum,” I cried, triumphantly, “an’ I’d have sea-boots an’ sou’westers grow on the bushes. An’, ecod!” I continued, inspired, “I’d have fishes grow on bushes, already split an’ cleaned!”

What other improvements I would have made on the good Lord’s handiwork I do not know. Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, being on the road to Trader’s Cove from the Rat Hole, where he lived alone with his twin lads, had spied us from Needle Rock, and now came puffing up the hill to wish my mother good-day: which, indeed, all true men of the harbour never failed to do, whenever they came near. He was a short, marvellously broad, bow-legged old man—but yet straight and full of strength and fine hope—all the while dressed in tight white moleskin (much soiled by the slime of the day’s work), long skin boots, tied below the knees, and a ragged cloth cap, which he kept pulled tight over his bushy grey hair. There was a mild twinkle forever lying in the depths of his blue eyes, and thence, at times, overflowing upon his broad brown face, which then rippled with wrinkles, from the roots of his hair to the fringe of white beard under his chin, in a way at once to make one laugh with him, though one could not quite tell why. We lads of the harbour loved him very much, for his good-humour and for his tenderness—never more so, however, than when, by night, in the glow of the fire, he told us long tales of the fairies and wicked elves he had dealt with in his time, twinkling with every word, so that we were sorely puzzled to know whether to take him in jest or earnest.

“I’ve a very bad son, the day, Skipper Tommy,” said my mother, laying a fond hand on my head.

“Have you, now, mum!” cried the skipper, with a wink. “’Tis hard t’ believe. He’ve been huntin’ gulls’ nests in parlous places on the cliff o’ the Watchman, I’m thinkin’.”

“’Tis worse than that.”

“Dear man! Worse than that, says you? Then he’ve took the punt beyond the Gate all by hisself.”

“’Tis even worse than that. He’s not pleased with the dear Lord’s world.”

Skipper Tommy stopped dead and stared me in the eye—but not coldly, you must know; just in mild wonder, in which, it may be, was mixed some admiration, as though he, too, deep in his guileless old heart, had had some doubt which he dared not entertain.

“Ay,” said I, loftily, “He’ve not made flowers enough t’ suit my taste.”

Skipper Tommy rubbed his nose in a meditative way. “Well,” he drawled, “He haven’t made many, true enough. I’m not sayin’ He mightn’t have made more. But He’ve done very well. They’s enough—oh, ay, they’s enough t’ get along with. For, look you! lad, they’s no real need o’ any more. ’Twas wonderful kind of Un,” he went on, swept away by a flood of good feeling, as often happened, “t’ make even one little flower. Sure, He didn’t have t’ do it. He just went an’ done it for love of us. Ay,” he repeated, delighting himself with this new thought of his Lord’s goodness, “’twas wonderful kind o’ the Lard t’ take so much trouble as that!”

My mother was looking deep into Skipper Tommy’s eyes as though she saw some lovely thing therein.

“Ay,” said I, “’twas fair kind; but I’m wishin’ He’d been a bit more free.”

My mother smiled at that. Then, “And my son,” she said, in the way of one poking fun, “would have flour grow out of the ground!”

“An’ did he say that!” cried Skipper Tommy.

My mother laughed, and Skipper Tommy laughed uproariously, and loudly slapped his thick thigh; and I felt woefully foolish, and wondered much what depth of ignorance I had betrayed, but I laughed, too, because Skipper Tommy laughed so heartily and opened his great mouth so wide; and we were all very merry for a time. At last, while I wondered, I thought that, perhaps, flour did grow, after all—though, for the life of me, I could not tell how—and that my mother and Skipper Tommy knew it well enough; whereupon I laughed the merrier.

“Come, look you!” then said Skipper Tommy, gently taking the lobe of my ear between his thick, hard thumb and forefinger. “Don’t you go thinkin’ you could make better worlds than the Lard. Why, lad, ’tis but play for Him! He’ve no trouble makin’ a world! I’m thinkin’ He’ve made more than one,” he added, his voice changing to a knowing whisper. “’Tis my own idea, but,” now sagely, “I’m thinkin’ He did. ’Tis like that this was the first, an’ He done better when He got His hand in. Oh, ay, nar a doubt He done better with the rest! But He done wonderful well with this one. When you’re so old as me, lad, you’ll know that though the Lard made few flowers He put a deal o’ time an’ labour on the harbours; an’ when you’re beatin’ up t’ the Gate, lad, in a gale o’ wind—an’ when you thinks o’ the quiet place t’other side o’ Frothy Point—you’ll know the Lard done well by all the folk o’ this world when He made safe harbours instead o’ wastin’ His time on flowers. Ay, lad, ’tis a wonderful well built world; an’ you’ll know it—then!”

We turned homeward—down the long road over the shoulder of the Watchman; for the evening was drawing near.

“They’s times,” said Skipper Tommy, giving his nose a puzzled tweak, “when I wonders how He done it. ’Tis fair beyond me! I wonders a deal, now, mum,” turning to my mother, his face lighting with interest, “about they stars. Now, mum,” smiling wistfully, “I wonders ... I wonders ... how He stuck un up there in the sky. Ah,” with a long sigh, “I’d sure like t’ know that! An’ wouldn’t you, mum? Ecod! but I would like t’ know that! ’Twould be worth while, I’m thinkin’. I’m wishin’ I could find out. But, hut!” he cried, with a laugh which yet rang strangely sad in my ears, “’tis none o’ my business. ’Twould be a queer thing, indeed, if men went pryin’ into the Lard’s secrets. He’d fix un, I ’low—He’d snarl un all up—He’d let un think theirselves wise an’ guess theirselves mad! That’s what He’d do. But, now,” falling again into a wistful, dreaming whisper, “I wonders ... wonders ... how He does stick them stars up there. I’m thinkin’ I’ll try t’ think that out—some day—so people could know, an’ wouldn’t have t’ wonder no more. I—wonders—if I could!”

We walked on in silence—down the last slope, and along the rocky path to Trader’s Cove; and never a word was spoken. When we came to the turn to our house we bade the skipper good-evening.

“Don’t you be forgettin’,” he said, tipping up my face with a finger under my chin, “that you’ll soon be thinkin’ more o’ harbours than o’ flowers.”

I laughed.

“But, ecod!” he broke out, violently rubbing his nose, until I was fairly concerned for it, so red did it turn, “that was a wonderful good idea about the flour!”

My mother looked at him sharply; then her eyes twinkled, and she hid a smile behind her hand.

“’Twould be a good thing t’ have it grow,” the old man continued. “’Twould be far better than—than—well, now—makin’ it the way they does. Ecod!” he concluded, letting his glance fall in bewilderment on the ground, “I wonders how they does make flour. I wonders ... wonders ... where they gets the stuff an’—an’—how they makes it!”

He went off, wondering still; and my mother and I went slowly home, and sat in the broad window of our house, which overlooked the harbour and fronted the flaring western sky; and then first she told me of the kind green world beyond.

There was a day not far distant—my father had told my mother with a touch of impatience that it must come for all sons—when Skipper Tommy took me with one of the twin lads in the punt to the Hook-an’-Line grounds to jig, for the traps were doing poorly with the fish, the summer was wasting and there was nothing for it but to take to hook and line: which my father’s dealers heartily did, being anxious to add what fish they could to the catch, though in this slower way. And it was my first time beyond the Gate—and the sea seemed very vast and strange and sullen when we put out at dawn—and when the long day was near done the wind blew gray and angry from the north and spread a thickening mist over the far-off Watchman—and before night closed, all that Skipper Tommy had said of harbours and flowers came true in my heart.

“We’ll be havin’ t’ beat up t’ the Gate,” said he, as he hauled in the grapnel.

“With all the wind she can carry,” added little Jacky, bending to lift the mast into the socket.

In truth, yes—as it seemed to my unknowing mind: she had all the wind she could carry. The wind fretted the black sea until it broke all roundabout; and the punt heeled to the gusts and endlessly flung her bows up to the big waves; and the spray swept over us like driving rain, and was bitter cold; and the mist fell thick and swift upon the coast beyond. Jacky, forward with the jib-sheet in his capable little fist and the bail bucket handy, scowled darkly at the gale, being alert as a cat, the while; and the skipper, his mild smile unchanged by all the tumult, kept a hand on the mainsheet and tiller, and a keen, quiet eye on the canvas and on the vanishing rocks whither we were bound. And forth and back she went, back and forth, again and again, without end—beating up to harbour.

“Dear man!” said Skipper Tommy, with a glance at the vague black outline of the Watchman, “but ’tis a fine harbour!”

“’Tis that,” sighed Jacky, wistfully, as a screaming little gust heeled the punt over; “an’—an’—I wisht we was there!”

Skipper Tommy laughed at his son.

“I does!” Jacky declared.

“I—I—I’m not so sure,” I stammered, taking a tighter grip on the gunwale, “but I wisht we was—there—too.”

“You’ll be wishin’ that often,” said Skipper Tommy, pointedly, “if you lives t’ be so old as me.”

We wished it often, indeed, that day—while the wind blustered yet more wildly out of the north and the waves tumbled aboard our staggering little craft and the night came apace over the sea—and we have wished it often since that old time, have Jacky and I, God knows! I had the curious sensation of fear, I fancy—though I am loath to call it that—for the first time in my life; and I was very much relieved when, at dusk, we rounded the looming Watchman, ran through the white waters and thunderous confusion of the Gate, with the breakers leaping high on either hand, sharply turned Frothy Point and came at last into the ripples of Trader’s Cove. Glad I was, you may be sure, to find my mother waiting on my father’s wharf, and to be taken by the hand, and to be led up the path to the house, where there was spread a grand supper of fish and bread, which my sister had long kept waiting; and, after all, to be rocked in the broad window, safe in the haven of my mother’s arms, while the last of the sullen light of day fled into the wilderness and all the world turned black.

“You’ll be singin’ for me, mum, will you not?” I whispered.

“And what shall I sing, lad?” said she.

“You knows, mum.”

“I’m not so sure,” said she. “Come, tell me!”

What should she sing? I knew well, at that moment, the assurance my heart wanted: we are a God-fearing people, and I was a child of that coast; and I had then first come in from a stormy sea. There is a song——

“’Tis, ‘Jesus Saviour Pilot Me,’” I answered.

“I knew it all the time,” said she; and,

“‘Jesus, Saviour, pilot me,
Over life’s tempestuous sea,’”

she sang, very softly—and for me alone—like a sweet whisper in my ear.

“‘Unknown waves before me roll,
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal;
Chart and compass came from Thee:
Jesus, Saviour, pilot me!’”

“I was thinkin’ o’ that, mum, when we come through the Gate,” said I. “Sure, I thought Skipper Tommy might miss the Way, an’ get t’other side o’ the Tooth, an’ get in the Trap, an’ go t’ wreck on the Murderers, an’——”

“Hush, dear!” she whispered. “Sure, you’ve no cause to fear when the pilot knows the way.”

The feeling of harbour—of escape and of shelter and brooding peace—was strong upon me while we sat rocking in the failing light. I have never since made harbour—never since come of a sudden from the toil and the frothy rage of the sea by night or day, but my heart has felt again the peace of that quiet hour—never once but blessed memory has given me once again the vision of myself, a little child, lying on my mother’s dear breast, gathered close in her arms, while she rocked and softly sang of the tempestuous sea and a Pilot for the sons of men, still rocking, rocking, in the broad window of my father’s house. I protest that I love my land, and have from that hour, barren as it is and as bitter the sea that breaks upon it; for I then learned—and still know—that it is as though the dear God Himself made harbours with wise, kind hands for such as have business in the wild waters of that coast. And I love my life—and go glad to the day’s work—for I have learned, in the course of it and by the life of the man who came to us, that whatever the stress and fear of the work to be done there is yet for us all a refuge, which, by way of the heart, they find who seek.

And I fell asleep in my mother’s arms, and by and by my big father came in and laughed tenderly to find me lying there; and then, as I have been told, laughing softly still they carried me up and flung me on my bed, flushed and wet and limp with sound slumber, where I lay like a small sack of flour, while together they pulled off my shoes and stockings and jacket and trousers and little shirt, and bundled me into my night-dress, and rolled me under the blanket, and tucked me in, and kissed me good-night.

When my mother’s lips touched my cheek I awoke. “Is it you, mama?” I asked.

“Ay,” said she; “’tis your mother, lad.”

Her hand went swiftly to my brow, and smoothed back the tousled, wet hair.

“Is you kissed me yet?”

“Oh, ay!” said she.

“Kiss me again, please, mum,” said I, “for I wants—t’ make sure—you done it.”

She kissed me again, very tenderly; and I sighed and fell asleep, content.

When the mail-boat left our coast to the long isolation of that winter my mother was even more tender with the scrawny plants in the five red pots on the window-shelf. On gray days, when our house and all the world lay in the soggy shadow of the fog, she fretted sadly for their health; and she kept feverish watch for a rift in the low, sad sky, and sighed and wished for sunlight. It mystified me to perceive the wistful regard she bestowed upon the stalks and leaves that thrived the illest—the soft touches for the yellowing leaves, and, at last, the tear that fell, when, withered beyond hope, they were plucked and cast away—and I asked her why she loved the sick leaves so; and she answered that she knew but would not tell me why. Many a time, too, at twilight, I surprised her sitting downcast by the window, staring out—and far—not upon the rock and sea of our harbour, but as though through the thickening shadows into some other place.

“What you lookin’ at, mum?” I asked her, once.

“A glory,” she answered.

“Glory!” said I. “They’s no glory out there. The night falls. ’Tis all black an’ cold on the hills. Sure, I sees no glory.”

“’Tis not a glory, but a shadow,” she whispered, “for you!”

Nor was I now ever permitted to see her in disarray, but always, as it seemed to me, fresh from my sister’s clever hands, her hair laid smooth and shining, her simple gown starched crisp and sweetly smelling of the ironing board; and when I asked her why she was never but thus lovely, she answered, with a smile, that surely it pleased her son to find her always so: which, indeed, it did. I felt, hence, in some puzzled way, that this display was a design upon me, but to what end I could not tell. And there was an air of sad unquiet in the house: it occurred to my childish fancy that my mother was like one bound alone upon a long journey; and once, deep in the night, when I had long lain ill at ease in the shadow of this fear, I crept to her door to listen, lest she be already fled, and I heard her sigh and faintly complain; and then I went back to bed, very sad that my mother should be ailing, but now sure that she would not leave me.

Next morning my father leaned over our breakfast table and laid his broad hand upon my mother’s shoulder; whereupon she looked up smiling, as ever she did when that big man caressed her.

“I’ll be havin’ the doctor for you,” he said.

She gave him a swift glance of warning—then turned her wide eyes upon me.

“Oh,” said my father, “the lad knows you is sick. ’Tis no use tryin’ t’ keep it from un any more.”

“Ay,” I sobbed, pushing my plate away, for I was of a sudden no longer hungry, “I heared you cryin’ las’ night.”

My sister came quickly to my side, and wound a soft arm about my neck, and drew my head close to her heart, and kissed me many times; and when she had soothed me I looked up and found my mother gloriously glad that I had cried.

“’Tis nothing,” then she said, with a rush of tenderness for my grief. “’Tis not hard to bear. ’Tis——”

“Ay, but,” said my father, “I’ll be havin’ the doctor t’ see you.”

My mother pooh-poohed it all. The doctor? For her? Not she! She was not sick enough for that!

“I’m bent,” said my father, doggedly, “on havin’ that man.”

“David,” cried my mother, “I’ll not have you do it!”

“I’ll have my way of it,” said my father. “I’m bent on it, an’ I’ll be put off no longer. ’Tis no use, m’am—nar a bit! The doctor’s comin’ t’ see you.”

“Ah, well!” sighed my mother.

“Ay,” said my father, “I’ll have that man ashore when the mail-boat comes in the spring. ’Tis well on t’ December now,” he went on, “an’ it may be we’ll have an early break-up. Sure, if they’s westerly winds in the spring, an’ the ice clears away in good season, we’ll be havin’ the mail-boat north in May. Come, now! ’twill not be later than June, I ’low. An’ I’ll have that doctor ashore in a hurry, mark my words, when the anchor’s down. That I will!”

“’Tis a long time,” said my mother.

Every morning, thereafter, she said that she was better—always better—much, much better. ’Twas wonderful, she said, ’twas fair past making out, indeed, that she should so soon grow into a fine, hearty woman again; and ’twould be an easy matter, said she, for the mail-boat doctor to cure her—when he came. And she was now more discreet with her moods; not once did I catch her brooding alone, though more than once I lay in wait in dark corners or peered through the crack in the door; and she went smiling about the house, as of old—but yet not as of old; and I puzzled over the difference, but could not discover it. More often, now, at twilight, she lured me to her lap, where I was never loath to go, great lad of nine years though I was; and she sat silent with me, rocking, rocking, while the deeper night came down—and she kissed me so often that I wondered she did not tire of it—and she stroked my brow and cheeks, and touched my eyes, and ran her finger-tips over my eyebrows and nose and lips, ay, and softly played with my lips—and at times she strained me so hard to her breast that I near complained of the embrace—and I was no more driven off to bed when my eyes grew heavy, but let lie in her arms, while we sat silent, rocking, rocking, until long, long after I had fallen asleep. And once, at the end of a sweet, strange hour, making believe to play, she gently pried my eyes wide open and looked far into their depths—so deep, so long, so searchingly, so strangely, that I waxed uneasy under the glance.

“Wh-wh-what—what you——” I began, inarticulately.

“What am I looking for?” she interrupted, speaking quickly.

“Ay,” I whimpered, for I was deeply agitated; “what you lookin’ for?”

“For your heart,” said she.

I did not know what she meant; and I wondered concerning the fancy she had, but did not ask, for there was that in her voice and eyes that made me very solemn.

“’Tis but a child’s heart,” she sighed, turning away. “’Tis but like the hearts,” she whispered, “of all children. I cannot tell—I cannot tell,” she sobbed, “and I want—oh, I want so much—to know!”

“Don’t cry!” I pleaded, thrown into an agony by her tears, in the way of all children.

She sat me back in her lap. “Look in your mother’s eyes, lad,” said she, “and say after me this: ‘My mother——’”

“‘My mother——’” I repeated, very soberly.

“‘Looked upon my heart——’”

“‘Looked upon my heart——’” said I.

“‘And found it brave——’”

“‘An’ found it brave——’”

“‘And sweet——’”

“‘An’ sweet——’”

“‘Willing for the day’s work——’” said she.

“‘Willing for the day’s work——’” I repeated.

“‘And harbouring no shameful hope.’”

“‘An’ harbouring—no shameful—hope.’”

Again and again she had me say it—until I knew it every word by heart.

“Ah,” said she, at last, “but you’ll forget!”

“No, no!” I cried. “I’ll not forget. ‘My mother looked upon my heart,’” I rattled, “‘an’ found it brave an’ sweet, willing for the day’s work an’ harbouring no shameful hope.’ I’ve not forgot! I’ve not forgot!”

“He’ll forget,” she whispered, but not to me, “like all children.”

But I have not forgotten—I have not forgotten—I have never forgotten—that when I was a child my mother looked upon my heart and found it brave and sweet, willing for the day’s work and harbouring no shameful hope.

The winter fell early and with ominous severity. Our bleak coast was soon too bitter with wind and frost and snow for the folk to continue in their poor habitations. They were driven in haste to the snugger inland tilts, which lay in a huddle at the Lodge, far up Twisted Arm, in the blessed proximity of fire-wood—there to trap and sleep in hardly mitigated misery until the kindlier spring days should once again invite them to the coast. My father, the only trader on forty miles of our coast, as always dealt them salt beef and flour and tea with a free hand, until, at last, the storehouses were swept clean of food, save sufficient for our own wants: his great heart hopeful that the catch of next season, and the honest hearts of the folk, and the mysterious favor of the Lord, would all conspire to repay him. And so they departed, bag and baggage, youngsters and dogs; and the waste of our harbour and of the infinite roundabout was left white and silent, as of death itself. But we dwelt on in our house under the sheltering Watchman; for my father, being a small trader, was better off than they—though I would not have you think him of consequence elsewhere—and had builded a stout house, double-windowed, lined with felt and wainscotted with canvas, so that but little frost formed on the walls of the living rooms, and that only in the coldest weather.

“’Tis cozy enough,” said my father, chucking my mother under the chin, “even for a maid a man might cotch up Boston way!”

Presently came Skipper Tommy Lovejoy by rollicking dog-team from the Lodge to inquire after my mother’s health—to cheer us, it may be, I’m thinking, with his hearty way, his vast hope, his odd fancies, his ruddy, twinkling face. Most we laughed when he described his plan (how seriously conceived there was no knowing) for training whales to serve as tugboats in calms and adverse winds. It appeared, too, that a similar recital had been trying to the composure of old Tom Tot, of our harbour, who had searched the Bible for seven years to discover therein a good man of whom it was said that he laughed, and, failing utterly, had thereupon vowed never again to commit the sin of levity.

“Sure, I near fetched un,” said Skipper Tommy, gleefully, “with me whales. I come near makin’ Tom Tot break that scandalous vow, zur, indeed I did! He got wonderful purple in the face, an’ choked in a fearsome way, when I showed un my steerin’ gear for the beast’s tail, but, as I’m sad t’ say, zur, he managed t’ keep it in without bustin’. But I’ll get un yet, zur—oh, ay, zur—just leave un t’ me! Ecod! zur, I’m thinkin’ he’ll capsize with all hands when I tells un I’m t’ have a wheel-house on the forward deck o’ that wha-a-ale!”

But the old man soon forgot all about his whales, as he had forgotten to make out the strange way the Lord had discovered to fasten His stars to the sky; moved by a long contemplation of my mother’s frailty, he had a nobler inspiration.

“’Tis sad, lass,” he said, his face aquiver with sympathy, “t’ think that we’ve but one doctor t’ cure the sick, an’ him on the mail-boat. ’Tis wonderful sad t’ think o’ that! ’Tis a hard case,” he went on, “but if a man only thunk hard enough he’d find a way t’ mend it. Sure, what ought t’ be mended can be mended. ’Tis the way o’ the world. If a man only thinks hard an’ thinks sensible, he’ll find a way, zur, every time. ’Tis easy t’ think hard, but ’tis sometimes hard,” he added, “t’ think t’ the point.”

We were silent while he continued lost in deep and puzzled thought.

“Ecod!” he burst out. “I got it!”

“Have you, now?” cried my father, half amused, half amazed.

“Just this minute, zur,” said the skipper, in a glow of delighted astonishment. “It come t’ me all t’ oncet.”

“An’ what is it?”

“’Tis a sort o’ book, zur!”

“A book?”

“Ay, ’tis just a book. Find out all the cures in the world an’ put un in a book. Get the doctor-women’s, an’ the healers’, an’ the real doctor’s, an’ put un right in a book. Has you got the dip-theria? Ask the book what t’ do. ‘Dip-theria?’ says the book t’ you. ‘Well, that’s sad. Tie a split herring round your neck.’ S’pose you got the salt-water sores. What do you do, then? Why, turn t’ the book. ‘Oh, ’tis nothin’ t’ cure that,’ says the book. ‘Wear a brass chain on your wrist, lad, an’ you’ll be troubled no more.’ Take it, now, when you got blood-poison in the hand. What is you t’ do, you wants t’ know? ‘Blood-poison in the hand?’ says the book. ‘Good gracious, that’s awful! Cut off your hand.’ ’Twould be a wonderful good work,” the skipper concluded, “t’ make a book like that!” It appeared to me that it would.

“I wonder,” the skipper went on, staring at the fire, a little smile playing upon his face, “if I couldn’t do that! ’Twould surely be a thing worth doin’. I wonder—I wonder—if I couldn’t manage—somehow—t’ do it!”

We said nothing; for he was not thinking of us, any more, as we knew—but only dreaming of the new and beneficent work which had of a sudden appeared to him.

“But I isn’t able t’ write,” he muttered, at last. “I—I—wisht I could!”

“’Twould be a wonderful fine work for a man t’ do,” said my father.

“’Tis a wonder, now,” said Skipper Tommy, looking up with a bright face, “that no one ever thought o’ doin’ that afore. T’ my mind,” he added, much puzzled, “’tis very queer, indeed, that they’s nar a man in all the world t’ think o’ that—but me!”

My mother smiled.

“I’m thinkin’ I’ll just have t’ try,” Skipper Tommy went on, frowning anxiously. “But, ecod!” he cried, “maybe the Lard wouldn’t like it. Now, maybe, He wants us men t’ mind our business. Maybe, He’d say, ‘You keep your finger out o’ My pie. Don’t you go makin’ no books about cures.’ But, oh, no!” with the overflow of fine feeling which so often came upon him. “Why, He wouldn’t mind a little thing like that. Sure, I wouldn’t mind it, meself! ‘You go right ahead, lad,’ He’d say, ‘an’ try t’ work your cures. Don’t you be afeared o’ Me. I’ll not mind. But, lad,’ He’d say, ‘when I wants my way I just got t’ have it. Don’t you forget that. Don’t you go thinkin’ you can have your way afore I has Mine. You just trust Me t’ do what’s right. I know My business. I’m used t’ running worlds. I’m wonderful sorry,’ He’d say, ‘t’ have t’ make you feel bad; but they’s times, b‘y,’ He’d say, ‘when I really got t’ have My way.’ Oh, no,” Skipper Tommy concluded, “the Lard wouldn’t mind a poor man’s tryin’ t’ make a book like that! An’ I thinks I’ll just have t’ try.”

“Sure, Skipper Tommy,” said I, “I’ll help you.”

Skipper Tommy stared at me in great amaze.

“Ay,” said my mother, “Davy has learned to write.”

“That I have,” I boasted; “an’ I’ll help you make that book.”

“’Tis the same,” cried Skipper Tommy, slapping his thigh “as if ’twas writ already!”

After a long time, my mother spoke. “You’re always wanting to do some good thing, Skipper Tommy, are you not?” said she.

“Well,” he admitted, his face falling, “I thinks and wonders a deal, ’tis true, but somehow I don’t seem t’——”

“Ay?” my father asked.

“Get—nowhere—much!”

Very true: but, even then, there was a man on the way to help him.