Doctor Luke of the Labrador - Norman Duncan (e reader .TXT) 📗

me aside, the while wiping the sweat from his red face with his hand; "but she'll weigh five quintal if a pound! She's e-_nar_-mous! 'Twould break your heart t' pull _that_ cargo from Wolf Cove. But I managed it, lad," with a solemn wink, "for the good o' the cause. Hist! now; but I found out a wonderful lot--about cures!"

Indeed, she was of a bulk most extraordinary; and she was rolling in fat, above and below, though it was springtime! 'Twas a wonder to me, with our folk not yet fattened by the more generous diet of the season, that she had managed to preserve her great double chin through the winter. It may be that this unfathomable circumstance first put me in awe of her; but I am inclined to think, after all, that it was her eyes, which were not like the eyes of our folk, but were brown--dog's eyes, we call them on our coast, for we are a blue-eyed race--and upon occasion flashed like lightning. So much weight did she carry forward, too, that I fancied (and still believe) she would have toppled over had she not long ago learned to outwit nature in the matter of maintaining a balance. And an odd figure she cut, as you may be sure! For she was dressed somewhat in the fashion of men, with a cloth cap, rusty pea-jacket and sea-boots (the last, for some mysterious reason, being slit up the sides, as a brief skirt disclosed); and her grizzled hair was cut short, in the manner of men, but yet with some of the coquetry of women. In truth, as we soon found it was her boast that she was the equal of men, her complaint that the foolish way of the world (which she said had gone all askew) would not let her skipper a schooner, which, as she maintained in a deep bass voice, she was more capable of doing than most men.

"I make no doubt o' that, mum," said Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, to whom, in the kitchen, that night, she propounded her strange philosophy; "but you see, mum, '_tis_ the way o' the world, an' folks just _will_ stick t' their idees, an', mum," he went on, with a propitiating smile, "as you is only a woman, why----"

"_Only_ a woman!" she roared, sitting up with a jerk. "Does you say----"

"Why, ay, mum!" Skipper Tommy put in, mildly. "You _isn't_ a man, is you?"

She sat dumb and transfixed.

"Well, then," said Skipper Tommy, in a mildly argumentative way, "'tis as I says. You must do as the women does, an' not as a man might want to----"

"Mm-a-an!" she mocked, in a way that withered the poor skipper. "No, I isn't a man! Was you hearin' me _say_ I was? Oh, you _wasn't_, wasn't you? An' is you thinkin' I'd _be_ a man an I could? What!" she roared. "You isn't _sure_ about that, isn't you? Oh, my! Isn't you! Well, well! He isn't _sure_," appealing to me, with a shaking under lip. "Oh, my! There's a man--_he's_ a man for you--there's a _man_--puttin' a poor woman t' scorn! Oh, my!" she wailed, bursting into tears, as all women will, when put to the need of it. "Oh, dear!"

Skipper Tommy was vastly concerned for her. "My poor woman," he began, "don't you be cryin', now. Come, now----"

"Oh, his _poor_ woman," she interrupted, bitingly. "_His_ poor woman! Oh, my! An' I s'pose you thinks 'tis the poor woman's place t' work in the splittin' stage an' not on the deck of a fore-an'-after. You does, does you? Ay, 'tis what I _s'posed_!" she said, with scorn. "An' if _you_ married _me_," she continued, transfixing the terrified skipper with a fat forefinger, "I s'pose you'd be wantin' me t' split the fish you cotched. Oh, you would, would you? Oh, my! But I'll have you t' know, Skipper Thomas Lovejoy," with a sudden and alarming change of voice, "that I've the makin's of a better ship's-master than _you_. An' by the Lord Harry! I'm a better _man_," saying which, she leaped from her chair with surprising agility, and began to roll up her sleeves, "an' I'll prove it on your wisage! Come on with you!" she cried, striking a belligerent attitude, her fists waving in a fashion most terrifying. "Come on an you dare!"

Skipper Tommy dodged behind the table in great haste and horror.

"Oh, dear!" cried she. "He won't! Oh, my! _There's_ a man for you. An' I'm but a woman, is I. His poor woman. Oh, _his_ woman! Look you here, Skipper Thomas Lovejoy, you been stickin' wonderful close alongside o' me since you come t' Wolf Cove, an' I'm not quite knowin' what tricks you've in mind. But I'm thinkin' you're like all the men, an' I'll have you t' know this, that if 'tis marriage with me you're thinkin' on----"

But Skipper Tommy gasped and wildly fled.

"Ha!" she snorted, triumphantly. "I was _thinkin_' I was a better man than he!"

"'Tis a shame," said I, "t' scare un so!"

Whereat, without uttering a sound, she laughed until the china clinked and rattled on the shelves, and I thought the pots and pans would come clattering from their places. And then she strutted the floor for all the world like a rooster once I saw in the South.


VIII

THE BLIND and The BLIND

Ah, well! at once she set about the cure of my mother. And she went tripping about the house--and tripping she went, believe me, stout as she was, as lightsome as one of Skipper Tommy's fairies--with a manner so large and confident, a glance so compelling, that 'twas beyond us to doubt her power or slight her commands. First of all she told my mother, repeating it with patience and persuasive insistence, that she would be well in six days, and must believe the words true, else she would never be well, at all. And when my mother had brightened with this new hope, the woman, muttering words without meaning, hung a curious brown object about her neck, which she said had come from a holy place and possessed a strange and powerful virtue for healing. My mother fondled it, with glistening eyes and very tenderly, and, when the doctor-woman had gone out, whispered to me that it was a horse-chestnut, and put her in mind of the days when she dwelt in Boston, a little maid.

"But 'tis not healin' you," I protested, touching a tear which had settled in the deep hollow of her cheek. "'Tis makin' you sad."

"Oh, no!" said she. "'Tis making me very happy."

"But you is cryin'," said I. "An' I'm thinkin' 'tis because you wisht you was in Boston."

"No, no!" she cried, her lip trembling. "I'm not wishing that. I've _never_ wished _that_! I'm glad your father found me and took me where he wished. Oh, I'm glad of that--glad he found and loved me--glad I gave myself to his dear care! Why, were I in Boston, to-day, I would not have my dear, big David, your father, lad, and I would not have your sister, and I would not have----"

"Me?" I put in, archly.

"Ay," she said, with infinite tenderness, "_you,_ Davy, dear!"

For many days, thereafter, the doctor-woman possessed our house, and I've no doubt she was happy in her new estate--at table, at any rate, for there she was garrulent and active, and astoundingly active, with less of garrulence, on feast days, when my father had pork provided. And she had a way with the maids in the kitchen that kept the young men from the door (which my sister never could manage); and I have since been led to think 'twas because she sought to work her will on Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, undisturbed by the clatter and quick eyes of young folk. For Skipper Tommy, to my increasing alarm and to the panic of the twins, who wished for no second mother, still frequented the kitchen, when the day's work was done, and was all the while in a mood so downcast, of a manner so furtive, that it made me sad to talk with him. But by day our kitchen was intolerable with smells--intolerable to him and to us all (save to my sister, who is, and ever has been, brave)--while the doctor-woman hung over the stove, working with things the sight of which my stomach would not brook, but which my mother took in ignorance, hoping they would cure her. God knows what medicines were mixed! I would not name the things I saw. And the doctor-woman would not even have us ask what use she made of them: nor have I since sought to know; 'tis best, I think, forgotten.

But my mother got no better.

"Skipper David," said the doctor-woman, at last, "I'm wantin' four lump-fish."

"Four lump-fish!" my father wondered. "Is you?"

"Oh, my!" she answered, tartly. "Is I? Yes, I is. An' I'll thank you t' get un an' ask no questions. For _I'm_ mindin' _my_ business, an' I'll thank _you_ t' mind _yours_. An' if _you_ thinks _you_ can do the doctorin'----"

"I'm not seekin' t' hinder you," said my father, flushing. "You go on with your work. I'll pay; but----"

"Oh, will you?" she cried, shrilly. "He'll pay, says he. Oh, my! He'll _pay_! Oh, dear!"

"Come, now, woman!" said my father, indignantly. "I've had you come, an' I'll stand by what you does. I'll get the lump-fish; but 'tis the last cure you'll try. If it fails, back you go t' Wolf Cove."

"Oh, my!" said she, taken aback. "Back I goes, does I! An' t' Wolf Cove? Oh, dear!"

My father sent word to the masters of the cod-traps, which were then set off the heads, that such sculpin as got in the nets by chance must be saved for him. He was overwrought, as I have said, by sorrow, overcome, it may be, by the way this woman had. And soon he had for her four green, prickly-skinned, jelly-like, big-bellied lump-fish, which were not appetizing to look upon, though I've heard tell that starving folk, being driven to it, have eaten them. My sister would not be driven from the kitchen, though the woman was vehement in anger, but held to it that she must know the character of the dose my mother was to take. So they worked together--the doctor-woman scowling darkly--until the medicine was ready: which was in the late evening of that day. Then they went to my mother's room to administer the first of it.

"'Tis a new medicine," my mother said, with a smile, when she held the glass in her hand.

"Ay," crooned the doctor-woman, "drink it, now, my dear."

My mother raised the glass to her lips. "And what is it?" she asked, withdrawing the glass with a shudder.

"Tut, tut!" the doctor-woman exclaimed. "'Tis but a soup. 'Twill do you good."

"I'm sure it will," my mother gently said. "But I wonder what it is."

Again she raised the glass with a wry face. But my sister stayed her hand.

"I'll not have you take it," said she, firmly, "without knowin' what it is."

The doctor-woman struck her arm away. "Leave the woman drink it!" she screamed, now in a gust of passion.

"What's--this you're--giving me?" my mother stammered, looking upon the glass in alarm and new disgust.

"'Tis the eyes o' four lump-fish," said my sister.

My mother dropped the glass, so that the contents were spilled over the coverlet, and fell back on the pillows, where she lay white and