"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 that I 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, Miss Jelliffe," 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 say au revoir.



CHAPTER VII

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.

And so Miss Jelliffe turns out to be an exceedingly womanly young woman, which, after all, is the only kind we poor imperfect men are able to admire. When the chance came for her to show courage and sympathy she seized upon it instinctively. I am sure Dora would be ever so fond of her, and I wish that they could meet one another.



CHAPTER VIII

From Miss Helen Jelliffe to Miss Jane Van Zandt

Dear Aunt Jennie:

Harry Lawrence was telling me one day that the proper study of man is girl, and vice versa. It is his modification of the ancient and mossy saw.

Daddy is doing very well, and now that he is asleep through the hypnotic virtues of a best seller which I have read to him in large doses, I resume my correspondence with you, and, incidentally, my study of man. He is really very interesting, Aunt Jennie, with the tiniest bit of secretiveness as to his own purposes in life which, of course, makes one more curious about him. In a frock coat, with gardenia in his button hole, he would make an ideal usher at a fashionable wedding. A few days ago, when we took that trip to Will's Island, I observed that he has capable limbs, properly clean-cut features and a general appearance of energetic efficiency. There are scores just like him, that we meet on golf links and tennis courts, and, in spite of his rough garb, he really is a most presentable young man.

I received your letter yesterday, and of course my own Auntie Jennie could not have foreborne to say that there is no island so deserted that I would not find a nice young man in it. I consider this statement as merely displaying the most ordinary and even superficial acquaintance with the laws of gravitation.

By this time I am naturally entirely at home in the social circles of Sweetapple Cove. The ancient dames grin at me, most toothlessly and pleasantly, and since I recklessly distributed all my stock of Maillard's among the urchins I have a large following among the juvenile population. To guard against the impending famine I have obtained from St. John's some most substantial and highly colored candies at very little a pound which are just now quite as popular to an undiscriminating taste. I wish I had not been so prodigal with the other ones.

I have foregathered with Mrs. Barnett a great deal and have simply fallen in love with her. Aunt Jennie, dear, she is a lady to her poor needle-pricked fingers' ends. She is one of the numerous offspring of an English parson who was the seventh or eighth son of an inpecunious baronet, I believe. Her husband starved as a curate in the most genteel fashion, for some years, and suddenly announced that he was coming here. We don't know whether Ruth was quite so subservient after the wedding was over, for I understand that some brides change to some extent after marriage. Mrs. Barnett was a Ruth before and remained one ever since.

She quietly packed up her trunks and her infants and doubtless bought the tickets, as Mr. Barnett was probably writing a sermon or visiting old ladies up to the last moment. Then she found herself here and immediately made the best of it, and that best is a thing to marvel at. She is a beautiful, tired-looking thing in dreadful clothes who wears an aureola of hair that is a perfect wonder. Her back is beautifully straight and she is capable of a smile I wish I could imitate.

She has the softest, cultured, sweet, English accent, which came with a little quiver of her voice when she told of a little one who died here, before there was any doctor. The three that are left are to her as Cornelia's jewels.

I would just give anything to bring her to New York, give her the run of the best couturieres and show her to some of our diamonds-at-breakfast dowagers. As Harry would say, she would make them look like thirty cents. They would perish with jealousy. She holds the savor and fragrance of centuries of refinement.

Yesterday I went to their little church. It was built by Mr. Barnett and the inhabitants, who cheerfully gave their labor. Every board of it represents untold begging and saving. It was a nice, simple, little service, in which the people were much interested and sang hymns with fervor and plenty of false notes. My voice is hardly worth the money that has been squandered upon it, but such as it is I began to sing also. To my intense dismay I was soon singing alone, for the rest of the congregation respectfully stopped. Mr. Barnett looked at me most benevolently over his spectacles, but this was hardly enough to subdue my sudden stage fright.

On the day before the nice little man called on us, soon after dinner, which here is a midday function. Before this particular feast I had apologized to Daddy for leaving him alone and going sailing for a few hours.

"That's the worst of you women-folk," he rebuffed me. "Just because a fellow happens to be fond of you, you must pretend that you are entirely indispensable. I got on very nicely, thank you, and your absence had no deleterious influence upon my leg. There is some slight pain in it, whether you are here or not."

"I know that the charm of my conversation makes you forget it at times," I told him.

"I don't deny the charm," said Daddy, who is the most scrupulously polite man, as you know, "but just now the delight of something to eat is what I'm hankering for."

"You are going to have Newfoundland turkey," I told him.

Daddy looked at me incredulously, and then his countenance fell.

"Don't tell me you are referring to codfish," he said.

"That is the sad news," I told him. "It is going to be perfectly delicious, and you will have to wait a moment."

So I turned up my sleeves and armoured myself in a blue gingham apron before invading the realm of Susie Sweetapple, who only knows how to boil things, including the tea. Like a true artist I engaged in an improvisation. The only really bad thing about codfish, Aunt Jennie, is its intrusive quality when it is prepared by the hundreds and thousands of quintals. Otherwise, like eggs and potatoes, it is capable of a multiplicity of avatars. We brought the dish back in triumph.

"Here, at last, is some return for the money squandered upon my education," I announced. "Aren't you glad I took a course in cookery?"

But Daddy refused to commit himself until after he had thoroughly sampled my effort.

"It is first rate," he said, "and you can take another course if you like."

"You know I brought the cookery book with me," I informed him, "but I've stopped using it. It tells one to take pinches of this, and pints of that, and cupfuls of other things that have never been heard of in Sweetapple Cove. It is dreadfully discouraging. I suggested roast beef to Susie, for to-night, and she stared at me and I laughed at my own folly. There is just one recently imported cow in the place, and a small calf, and they're alive, as are the goats. I can't reconcile my mind to the idea of a live cow being beef, and the calf is a personal friend of mine."

"I have hitherto considered you as being somewhat ornamental," said Daddy. "Now that you are also proving useful I am deeming you a profitable investment."

So we had lunch together, for I can't get used to the custom of calling it dinner.

"That was a splendid sail we had," I said. "The sea was perfectly delightful. And that poor man was so glad to be brought here. Dr. Grant is doing wonderful things."

"A smart chap," commented Daddy. "If he has to do this for a living I'm sorry for him, and if he isn't compelled to he's probably some sort of useful crank."

"At any rate Sweetapple Cove appreciates him," I said.

"I have no doubt he's an angel with pin-feathers sprouting all over him," retorted Dad. "But it isn't business, which I take the liberty of defining as the way of making the best of one's opportunities instead of frittering them away. He has unquestionably done a few dozens of poor devils a lot of good, including myself. But he could find many more cripples in any big city, and a few of them might have bank accounts."

Just then we heard some one whistling. I was interested to note that the tune was from a fairly recent comic opera that can hardly have reached the general population of Sweetapple Cove.

"There is your crank," I said, rather viciously.

He knocked at the door and came in, breezily, as he generally does.

"I've got to be off," he announced. "I shall probably not return till to-morrow night, or perhaps the morning after. You are getting along very well, Mr. Jelliffe. Just let me have another look before I go away."

The inspection seemed to be entirely satisfactory.

"Well, I'll run now," said Dr. Grant. "I'll come and see you the moment I get back."

He hurried out again, and I saw him join Sammy and the Frenchman. I waved my hand at him as the boat was leaving the cove, but I suppose that he wasn't looking for he made no answer, though Yves wigwagged with a flaming bandanna.

"Now wouldn't that jar you?" said Daddy. "Wouldn't it inculcate into you a chastened spirit? Doesn't he consider me as an important patient? Just comes in and grins and runs away again, for a couple of days, as if I were not likely to need him at any moment. He's the limit!"

"I don't really think he is going away just for the fun of it," I objected.

At this moment Susie Sweetapple burst into the room like a Black Hand bomb. It is one of her little ways.

"Parson's coming," she declared, breathlessly, and nodded her head violently to emphasize the importance of her statement.

"I suppose it is Mr. Barnett," I said. "They expected him back to-day. He has been away to a place they call Edward's Bay."

"I presume it is," assented Daddy. "His arrival appears to cause the same sort of excitement on this population as the fire-engines produce among the juveniles of New York, judging from Susie's display."

The girl had run to the door and opened it widely. Then she backed away before a little man who removed a clerical hat that was desperately green from exposure to the elements, and which revealed a shock of hair of a dull flaxen hue doubtless washed free of any pigment by salt spray and rain. His garments were also of distinctive cut, though they frankly exposed well-meant though unvailing efforts at matching buttons and repairing small rents. He bowed to me, his thin face expanding into a most gentle and somewhat professional smile, and he expressed commiseration at the sight of Daddy in his bed.

"I hope I don't intrude upon your privacy," he said, with an intonation just as refined as that of his wife, though scarcely as sweet. "I took the liberty of calling, having been informed of your very distressing accident. I fear you have not finished your repast, and perhaps I had better..."

"Do come in and take a seat," I told him. "It is ever so kind of you to call."

"I am very glad to see you, sir," said Daddy, very cordially. "We have not had many opportunities to welcome visitors here, and even our doctor is too busy a man to pay long calls."

"Yes, quite so. Indeed he is at times exceedingly busy. We think him an extremely nice young man; quite delightful, I assure you, and he does a great deal of good."

The man was rubbing his thin little hands together, with his head cocked to one side, looking like an intellectual and benevolent sparrow.

I must say that I was impressed by him. From conversations with the fishermen I had gathered the impression that Mr. Barnett was a perfectly fearless man on land and water, and I had imagined an individual cast in a rather heroic mold.

It hardly seemed possible that this little parson was the subject of the tales I had heard, for he bore a tiny look of timidity and, I was sorry to see, of overwork and underfeeding. But the latter may have been dyspepsia.

"This is rather a large field to which we have been called," he continued. "It gives one very fine opportunities as well as some difficulties to contend with. But of course we keep on striving. It is not missionary work, you understand, for the people are all very firm believers. It is merely a question of lending a helping hand, to the best of one's ability."

"It must be dreadfully hard at times," I put in. "You had quite a long sail to get here, didn't you? And isn't it perfectly awful in winter?"

"I have been carried out to sea, and things have looked rather badly sometimes," he said, deprecatingly. "But one must expect a little trouble now and then, you know."

Daddy began to ask him questions. You know how he prides himself on his ability to turn people inside out, as he expresses it. The poor little man answered, slowly, smiling blandly all the time and looking quite unfit, physically, to face the perils of such a hard life. I became persuaded that under that frail exterior there must be a heart full of strength to endure, of determination to carry out that which he considers to be his duty.

"You know I really am afraid I'm a dreadful coward," he suddenly confessed. "I have been rather badly frightened some times."

"My father was the bravest man I ever knew," said Daddy, "and he acknowledged that he was scared half to death whenever he went into battle, during the war. Yet he was several times promoted for gallantry in the field. I feel quite sure that you must have deserved similar advancement, more than once."

Mr. Barnett looked at him, doubtfully, and with a funny little frightened air.

"I am afraid you must be chaffing me," he said, with a tentative smile.

"No, sir, I am not," clamored Daddy. "Bravery lies in facing the odds, when you have to, and putting things through regardless of one's fears. The chap who never gets scared hasn't enough brains to know danger."

The uneasy look of the parson's face gave way to a pleased expression.

It was interesting to watch Daddy getting at all the facts, as he calls it, and I suppose that it is a precious talent. In the shortest possible time he knew the birth rate, the chief family histories, the rates for the transportation of codfish to the remotest parts of the world, and how many barrels of flour it took to keep a large family alive for one year, besides a few hundred other things.

During a lull I asked Mr. Barnett whether he would have some tea. Your cultivated taste is the one I have followed as regards this beverage, and I have an ample provision. Before the full-flavored North China infusion, which I kept out of Susie's devastating hands, and the little biscuits coming from the most British-looking tin box, I saw the Reverend Basil Barnett, late of Magdalen, gradually becoming permeated by a sense of something that had long been missing from his life. When he first caught the aroma he looked incredulous, then his features relaxed in the smile of the expert utterly satisfied.

"Mrs. Barnett and I are exceedingly fond of tea," he said, after I had compelled him to let me fill his cup for the third time.

To-morrow I shall discover some manner of making the dear woman accept a pound or two of it. The appreciation of her spouse made me think of some lion-hearted, little, strenuous lady with an inveterate tea-habit. Can you understand such a confused statement? I realize that it is badly jumbled. At any rate he held his cup daintily, with three fingers, and looked at it as Daddy looks at a glass of his very special Chateau-Larose.

"I shall have to go now," he announced, perhaps a little regretfully. "I hear, Miss Jelliffe, that you have helped minister to the needs of that poor Dick Will. I am going to see him now. By the way, I trust I may have the pleasure of seeing you to-morrow at our little church, if you can leave your dear patient long enough."

"Of course I'll come," I promised, "and I would be glad to go with you now and see Dick. I know Daddy won't mind, and I should like to see whether I can do anything to make the man more comfortable."

"Run along, my dear," said Daddy.

Mr. Barnett expressed thanks, and we walked away together. I actually had to shorten my steps a little to accommodate myself to his quick, shuffling gait. It is queer, Aunt Jennie, but before this tiny, unpretentious parson I feel a sense of deference and high regard. To think he is able to overcome his fears, that his gracile body has been called upon to withstand the bufferings of storms, and that his notion of duty should appear to raise him, physically, to the level of these rough vikings among whom he labors, is quite bewildering. And the best of it is that when he talks he is entirely free from that didactic authority so often assumed by men of his cloth. He just admits you into his confidence, that is all.

"Mrs. Barnett has told me of your kindness to her and the little chaps," he said. "I am so pleased that you have become acquainted. The thing a woman misses most, in places like this, is her circle of friends. But she is the bravest soul in the world, and although she worries a good deal when I am away in bad weather she always looks cheerful when I return. I have been blessed beyond my deserts, Miss Jelliffe."

The little man looked up at me, and I could see that his face was bright with happiness, so that I had to smile in sympathy. I don't know that I have ever realized before what a huge thing love and affection mean in the lives of some people, how they can cast a glamour over sordid surroundings and reward one for all the hardships.

"I am glad that you are happy," I told him. "I think that you have become very fond of the place and of these people."

"I shall miss them if ever I am called away," he acknowledged, looking at the poor, unpainted houses and the rickety flakes.

Dear Auntie Jennie, it looks to me as if these were people to be envied. To the parson life is the prosecution of a work he deems all-important, and which he carries on with the knowledge that there is always a helping hand lovingly to uphold his own. And yet I admire his wife still more deeply, for she looks like a queen who loves her exile, because the king is with her.

We went into the house in which Dick found shelter. The men were away fishing, of course, but two women were there, with their fair share of the children who swarm in the Cove. At once aprons were produced for the polishing of the two rough chairs of the establishment.

"We has some merlasses now," one of the women told me, proudly. "Th' little bye he be allers a puttin' some on bread an' leavin' it on th' cheers."

Daddy is calling me, so good by for the present. I am so glad the people of Sweetapple Cove interest you.

Lovingly, HELEN.



CHAPTER IX

From Miss Helen Jelliffe to Miss Jane Van Zandt

Dearest Auntie:

Would you believe that the time here flies at least as fast as in New York during Horse-Show week, although one gets to bed earlier. I am beginning actually to enjoy this place, strange as it may seem. Had it not been for poor Daddy's accident I should have been the most contented thing you ever saw. He sends his love and says I've just got to learn stenography and type-writing so that when he breaks more legs he can write to you daily. I believe he's forgotten the use of a pen except to sign checks with. His patience is wonderful, but he calls it being a good sportsman. I believe there is a great deal in that word.

It is queer that one can make oneself at home in such a little hole, and find people that are quite absorbing; I mean the natives, as well as the others. The whole place is asleep by eight or nine, unless there has been a good catch of fish, when the little houses on the edge of the cove are full of weary men still ripping away at the cod, that are brought in huge piles dwindling very fast after they are spread out to dry. Daddy gets batches of newspapers, by the uncertain mail, but finishes by nine and requests to be permitted to snore in peace. I write hurriedly for an hour or two, and finally succumb to the drowsiness you may find reflected in these pages.

On returning from my visit to Dick Will, Daddy looked at me enquiringly, as I am his chief source of local news and the dear old man is becoming nearly as absorbed in Sweetapple Cove as in Wall Street.

"The parson has gone to pay other visits," I told him, "but I couldn't leave you any longer. He is such a nice little man. He asked if he could read a chapter from the Bible, and Dick said he would be very glad. When it was finished the man looked as if he were thinking very hard, and Mr. Barnett asked if anything were puzzling him. Then Dick asked about the ice in the Sea of Galilee, because big floes were often ankle-deep and he had often seen men who looked as if they were walking on the water. Mr. Barnett explained that there was no ice in that country."

"And what did Dick say?" asked Daddy.

"'Then how does they do for swiles?'" was what he asked, and when he was informed that there were no seals in Galilee Dick expressed commiseration for the poor people.

"They are a pretty ignorant lot," commented Dad, laughing heartily.

"Few of them have the slightest chance of obtaining any education," I replied. "And Mr. Barnett was so nice to him, explaining things. Then he said nothing at all about the chastening effect of suffering. That seems to be something these people know about. The parson just said that we were all so glad to see him getting well again. You know, Daddy, the admonitions of some dominies sound rather like hitting a fellow when he's down. Mr. Barnett isn't that kind."

"I expect that he belongs to a first-rate kind, my dear," said Daddy. "There are all kinds of religions, but the only one I respect is that of the simple, trusting soul."

"I met Mrs. Barnett and asked her to come in to supper," I informed Dad. "We have plenty of canned chicken left and Susie's brother brought in a lot of beautiful trout. The man thought that fifteen cents a dozen would be about the right price, but he left it to me, and I couldn't beat him down. When he brought them Susie disdainfully informed him that fish was grub for poor people, and that we had lots of lovely things in cans. I insisted on taking the trout."

"If you continue to squander money in that way I'll have to cut down your allowance," threatened Daddy, whereupon I reminded him that he had never made me one and that I had always sent the bills to him.

He was laughing. I think it's the nicest thing in the world for a girl to be such pals with her father. I wouldn't give one of the nice grey hairs on his temples for all the nobility and gentry of Europe and the millionaires of America. Then I went to get the chess-board and the dear man gave me all the pawns I wanted and proceeded to wipe the floor with me, as Harry says. We played on till it began to get dark and Susie came in with the lamp which she placed in the bracket fastened to the wall.

"Like as not it'll be rainin' soon," she announced. "The swallers is flyin' low and the wind he've turned to sou-east, so belike it'll be pourin' in a while. How's yer leg feelin' the night, Mister, an' is there anythin' else I might be doin' fer yer?"

"No thank you, Susie," he replied.

"So long as parson's comin' I better make hot biscuits too. He's after likin' them, an' I kin open one o' they little white crocks o' jam. He holds more'n what ye'd think a wee bit man the likes o' he would manage to, though he don't never fat up, an' it goes ter show as grub makes brains with some folks, an' blubber in others."

I could make no answer to such highly scientific statements, and in a few moments a knock was heard at the door, upon which our handmaiden precipitated herself.

"Come right in," she said. "Don't take notice if yer boots is muddy fer I'll be scrubbin' th' floor ter-morrer. Yer must have been ter the Widdy Walters, for they is a big puddle afore her door, even this dry weather we've had couple o' days. Come right in an' welcome fer everybody's glad ter see yer."

Having thus amply done the honors Susie backed away and our two guests came in. The parson actually had a dress-suit which smelt most powerfully of camphor balls and Mrs. Barnett wore something that must have been a dear little dress some years ago, in which she looked as sweet as sweet can be. They were both smiling ever so brightly, and the little lump that was rising in my throat at the sight of these pathetic clothes went back to wherever is its proper place.

"Good evening, Mr. Jelliffe," said the parson, and repeated his greeting to me. "It feels a little like rain. I see that you have been playing chess. Dear me, it is such a long time since I have had a game."

I told him that this was a very imprudent remark, for which my father would make him pay dearly. I am afraid his sense of humor is drawn down rather fine, or lying fallow, or something. I had to explain that he would be captured and made to play whether he wanted to or not, whereat he beamed.

Susie came in again to get our little table ready, and brought up the barrel-top which is her latest improvisation of a tray for Daddy's use. I rose to assist in the preparatives but Susie scorned my aid.

"Ye jist set down an' enj'y yerself," she commanded me. "'T ain't every day one has th' parson to talk ter. I kin shift ter do it all an' it's no use havin' a dog an' doin' yer own barkin', like the sayin' is. Th' biscuits is done brown an' th' kittle's on the bile."

She ran out again for our dishes, and Daddy turned to our two friends.

"You are looking at an abject slave and a young lady who is getting fairly tamed, though at times she still rebels. Both of these young women exercise authority over me all day long until the ownership of my own soul has become a moot question. When my leg is properly spliced again I shall take that freak Susie to New York and exhibit her as the greatest natural curiosity I have been able to find on the island."

Mrs. Barnett laughed, ever so pleasantly, and declared that Susie was a good girl whose intentions were of the best.

Then Daddy went on to explain to Mrs. Barnett the mystery of our presence here. He told how our second mate had boasted of the salmon that swarmed in Sweetapple Cove, and how in a moment of folly he had decided to forsake the Tobique for that year and explore new ground. I was the one who had suggested camping out, practically, if we could find a little house, while we sent back the yacht for repairs, at St. John's. We were expecting it soon. The accident, of course, had to be thoroughly described.

"It was a beautiful fish, madam, a perfect beauty," he went on. "A clean run salmon of twenty pounds, if he was an ounce, and as strong as a horse. I had to follow him down stream and, first thing you know, I toppled over those confounded rocks and my leg was broken. The fish went away, towing my best rod and reel towards the Cove."

The parson said grace and we sat down. I am happy to say that they enjoyed Susie's culinary efforts, and we had the nicest chatty time. Just as we finished we all stopped conversing and listened. The rain was pelting down upon our little window panes and the wind came in heavy gusts, while, far away, the thunder was rolling. Then, after a time, we heard steps upon the little porch and I rose to open the door. It was Dr. Grant, engaged in the very necessary formality of removing his dripping oilskins.

"May I come in?" he asked.

"Please do so," I answered. "We didn't expect you back until to-morrow. My father will be delighted to see you, as will your other friends."

He came in and sat down after he had greeted everybody. The poor man looked quite worn and harassed. It was a distinct effort that he made to speak in his usual pleasant way, and I could see that something troubled him.

"I think I will leave you now," he said, after a few moments. "I just wanted to find out how Mr. Jelliffe was getting on. They are expecting me at Sammy's,"

"Oh! Do rest for a moment," I told him. "You look very tired."

He sat down again, looking at his feet.

"The wind died down and the tide was bearing us away," he explained. "We had to take to the oars. Pulled a good fifteen miles. We were rather hurried, for we could see this storm coming up. I'm glad we made the Cove just in time."

We could all hear the rain spattering down violently. Flashes of lightning were nearly continuous and the thunder claps increased in intensity while the wind shook our little house.

"It is all white water outside now," he said, listening. "Well, I'll be off now."

"Yer ain't a goin' ter do nothin' o' the kind," interrupted Susie, who had just entered with another plate. "There's plenty tea left an' if there ain't I kin make more. Ye jist bide there till I brings yer some grub. Ye're dead weary an' needs it bad."

"Do stay," I sought to persuade him.

"Thank you, you are very kind," he said.

One could see that for the moment he didn't care whether he had anything to eat or not, yet he managed to do fair justice to Susie's cooking.

"I am feeling a great deal better now," he soon announced. "I think I was rather fagged out. We came back so early because I found I was no longer needed. I am ever so much obliged to you. I'm afraid I am not very good company to-night and I will be back early in the morning. That plaster cast is getting a little loose. We will split it down to-morrow and have a good look at things."

Mrs. Barnett had risen also and was looking at him. In her eyes I detected something that was a very sweet, motherly sympathy. Her quick intuition had shown her that something had gone entirely wrong. Her smile was so kind and friendly that it seemed to dissolve away something hard that had come over the surface of the man.

"Isn't there anything that we can do for you?" she asked.

"Nothing!" he exclaimed. "What can any one expect to do? What is the use of keeping on trying when one has to be forever bucking against ignorance and stupidity? There is nothing the matter with me. Just a dead woman and baby, that is all. Just a poor, hard-working creature that has scarcely known a moment of real happiness in this world. She had five little ones already, clinging to her skirts, and a lot of stupid neighbors. I know the kind of advice she got from those silly old women. 'No use callin' in th' doctor. Them things comes on all right if yer has patience. They doctors does dreadful things. I's had seven an' here I be, an' no doctor ever nigh me.' Oh! I can hear the poor fools speaking, and naturally she took their advice. Then, of course, when she was gasping for breath and beginning to grow cold they sent for me, thirty miles away, and when I landed they told me it was all over, and I found them moaning, with a wild-eyed man huddled up in a corner hardly able to understand, and a lot of little ones crying for food."

He stopped and wiped his brow with his handkerchief, and looked around him, without appearing to see any of us. It was like a pent-up stream that had burst from its dam, and the flood was not yet exhausted.

"I felt like cursing the lot of them," he continued, "and giving them the tongue-lashing of their lives. But much good it would have done, and I managed to hold myself back! I couldn't help telling them that they should have sent for me three days ago, when things began to go wrong. They know well enough how to weep over their misery, but no one can make them use their silly heads. They keep on coming with infected gurry sores as if arms could be saved after they've nearly rotted away, and send for me to see the dying, as if I could raise them from their beds."

He had stopped suddenly, and looked embarrassed.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I should not have spoken of these things. They are all a part of the game. I daresay I ought to have gone up on the hill, back of the cliffs, and had a good bout of bad language all to myself, where none could hear me."

Neither the parson nor his wife appeared to be the least bit shocked at this. They knew from long experience the things that try men's souls.

"I'm glad you've spoken," I told him. "It has relieved you, I'm sure, and we all sympathize with you."

Long ago, Aunt Jennie, you told me that a man is nothing but a grown-up boy. This one looked around the room. Daddy was smiling at him in his dear friendly fashion, and the other two were kindliness itself.

"A fellow doesn't always take his medicine like a little man," he said, apologetically, "and you're all ever so good."

Then he left, still looking just a little bit ashamed of himself, as I've seen fellows do in a defeated crew when they have sunk down for a moment on their sliding seats.

"I think the boy feels alone, sometimes," said Mrs. Barnett. "He has really a great deal to contend with. But he is a splendid fellow, and I'm sorry for him. Every one loves him in Sweetapple Cove, you know."

Presently the two left us, after I had promised to go to the little church on the next day. Susie had come in with a lighted lantern, clad to her feet in an ancient oilskin coat, and insisted on seeing them home. They thanked us very charmingly and I watched their departure, the reflections of the light playing over the deep puddles on the road.

Then I sat down by Daddy's bed, pondering.

"A penny for your thoughts, daughter," he said.

"I was thinking that men are very interesting," I told him. "Dr. Grant always looks like such a strong man."

"And now you think you have discovered the feet of clay?"

"Well, it seemed quite strange, Daddy."

"I'll tell you one thing, girly," he said. "Never make the fatal error of thinking any one is perfect. It is a mistake that young people are rather apt to indulge in. There are little weak points, and sometimes big ones, in all of us."

"I suppose so," I assented, "but these were such dreadful things he told us about. It seems so terrible that they should happen at all. It has made me feel unhappy. I thought that doctors got used to such things."

"There are a lot of things a fellow never gets used to, my dear," answered Daddy. "This one is young yet, but he will probably never get over the sense of rebellion which comes over a man, a real man, who finds himself butting his head against stupidity and ignorance. Don't you make any mistake about that fellow Grant! The poorest kind of chap is the one who is always letting things slide. This is a tough, square-jawed, earnest chap, of the sort who put their hearts and souls into things, right or wrong. The man who has never felt or shown weakness is a contemptible egotist. The cocksure fools always have perfect faith in themselves. Those two men, the big and the little one, are both pretty fine specimens, and in their own ways they are equally strong. They're made of the right stuff."

I don't exactly know why, but I felt greatly pleased. Daddy is a mighty keen man of the world, and his judgment of others has been one of his great assets.

"I wish we could help too, Daddy," I told him.

"We may, if we find a way," he answered. "I'm going to investigate the matter."

When Daddy says he is to investigate, something is going to drop, with a dull thud. At least that's the way Harry Lawrence puts it. By the way, Aunt Jennie, what has become of him, and why hasn't he written to me?

Your loving HELEN.



CHAPTER X

From John Grant's Diary

I slept rather late, this morning, and came out of the house feeling very fit. Had it not been for my blistered hands nothing would have remained to show what a hard pull we had yesterday, excepting the unpleasant feeling that I made rather a donkey of myself last evening. My only excuse, and a mighty poor one, is that I was rather played out and developed a silly grouch.

I had only gone a little way when I met Mrs. Barnett. She came towards me with her hand outstretched, smiling in her usual pleasant way.

"Right again and topside up," she exclaimed, brightly. "Sammy was just telling me what a hard time you had to make the cove, yesterday. Those broad shoulders of yours give you an advantage over my husband. He would have had to go off towards North Cove. It is fine to be as strong and big as you."

"Mrs. Barnett," I said, fervently, "you are an awful humbug."

She cocked her head a little to one side, with a pretty motion she sometimes unconsciously affects.

"Out with it," she said. "Explain yourself so that I may repent and be forgiven."

"There is nothing to be forgiven you," I declared. "I would like to place you on a pedestal and direct the proper worshipping of you. None but the most superior kind of a woman can take a fool chap and turn his folly around so that he may be rather pleased with it. I expected a good wigging from you, and deserve it."

"That sort of thing is one of the most important functions and privileges of a woman," she answered. "Men need it all the time for the smoothing out of their ruffled feelings."

"The men shouldn't allow them to get ruffled," I said.

"There speaks the wise man," she laughed, "nor should the sea permit itself to get stormy. Were you not explaining to me the other day that the wind allows the climbing up of the sap in swaying trees, and that the stirring of the waters keeps them pure and fit to maintain the unending life beneath them?"

"It seems to me that I did."

"Well, I suppose that a little storminess now and then serves some useful purpose in a man, and if he only can have a woman about him, to see that it doesn't go too far, it will do him a lot of good. You should get married."

"Of course I ought to," I replied, "and moreover I would give everything in the world if only...."

I interrupted myself, considering that since Dora Maclennon and I are not engaged, and that she merely represents to me a longing which I often consider as a hopeless one, I have no right to discuss her, even with this dear kind woman.

"You have already found the girl?" asked Mrs. Barnett, her eyes filled with the interested sympathy always shown by the gentler sex in such matters.

"I have found her," I replied, "but she is very far away from me, and it is just a case of having to grin and bear it."

Then her blue eyes opened widely, and with an exquisitely gentle touch she placed her hand on my arm.

"You poor dear boy!" she said, with the sweetest little inflection of voice, that held a world of friendliness and compassion.

"I am afraid you will think I am in a perpetually disgruntled state," I told her. "Nothing of the kind! I eat the squarest kind of square meals every day and really enjoy the work here. If it were not a bit trying, from time to time, it wouldn't be worth a man's while to tackle it."

"That is the way to talk," approved Mrs. Barnett.

So we shook hands again and I left her, thinking what a splendid thing it must be for a fellow to have such a tower of gentle strength to lean upon.

I went over to the Jelliffes' and cut down the plaster dressing. The broken leg is doing very well, as was to be expected, and I was much pleased.

"That's doing splendidly," I told him. "A little more patience for a couple of weeks and we'll have you walking up and down the village, a living advertisement of my accomplishments."

"A couple of weeks!" exclaimed Mr. Jelliffe. "That sounds like three or four. I know you fellows. No one ever managed to get anything definite out of a doctor, with the possible exception of his bill."

I laughed, but refused to commit myself by making any hard and fast promises, and Miss Jelliffe came in.

"Daddy enjoyed himself ever so much last evening," she said. "He likes Mr. Barnett and grows enthusiastic when he speaks of Mrs. Barnett. I must say that I share his views."

"They are made of the salt of the earth," I asserted.

"Yes, there can be no doubt of that," she said. "But doesn't it seem dreadful that a gently nurtured woman should be placed in such surroundings, with no means of obtaining anything but the barest needs of existence? She has to stand all the worries of her own household and, in addition, is compelled to listen to the woes of all the others."

"And any help that she can extend to them," I added, "saving that of sympathy and kind words, is always at the cost of depriving herself and her little ones. And yet she is doing it unceasingly, and goes about in shocking clothes and with a smile on her face, cheerfully, as if her path in life lay over a bed of roses."

"That's what I call a fine woman, and a good one," said Mr. Jelliffe, "but I'm sure it is her devotion to that little man that has brought out all her fine points. His people are her people and she has adopted his ideals."

The front door was widely opened on this pleasant day, and, as I was finishing the dressing, Miss Jelliffe was dreamily looking out over the cove and following the circling gulls. I think that, like myself, she wondered at the simplicity of it all. A woman loved a man and clung to him, and from that moment their personalities merged, and their thoughts were shared, and a rough, rock-bound, fog-enwrapped land became, for all its hardships, a place where a man could do great work while the woman developed to the utmost her glorious faculties of helpfulness and tender unselfishness.

To me there could be no doubt that this couple had made of their union something very noble in achievement, though they were so quiet and simple about it all. In so many marriages the partnership is but a poor doggerel, while in others it is a poem of entrancing beauty, filling hearts with happiness and heads with generous thought.

"You have been staring at me for a whole minute, Doctor," said Mr. Jelliffe, suddenly. "Anything particularly wrong or fatal in my general appearance?"

"I'm sure I beg your pardon," I said, in some confusion. "You are looking ever so well and I wish I could hurry your leg on a little faster. Nature has ordained that bones will take just about so long to mend. And now I am going away to play. Practice happens to be quite slack to-day and Frenchy should be waiting outside with my rod. I am going to see whether I cannot deceive an innocent salmon into swallowing a little bunch of feathers."

"How dare you speak of such things to an inveterate old angler, after tying him up by one leg!" exclaimed my patient, shaking his fist at me. "You fill my heart with envy and all manner of uncharitableness. I call it the meanest thing I ever heard of on the part of a doctor. Here I am, without even a new Wall Street report wherewith to possess my soul in patience. Run away before I throw something at you, and good luck to you!"

"I haven't dared to ask Miss Jelliffe whether she would like to cast a fly also," I said. "I suppose she will have to stay and nurse your wounded feelings."

"She has stuck to me like a leech since yesterday morning," complained the old gentleman, "excepting for the short time when she went to church. I don't seem to be able to get rid of her. Wish you would take her away with you and get me some salmon that doesn't come in cans. She will doubtless have plenty of rainy days during which she will be compelled to stay indoors with me, whether I like it or not."

"I have a half a mind to take you at your word, to punish you," said Miss Jelliffe.

"This should be a great day for a rise," I sought to tempt her.

"I suppose I can be back in time for lunch?" she asked.

"Certainly. You can come back whenever you want to," I assured her.

"Don't you really care, Daddy?" she asked her father.

"What I care for is broiled salmon, fresh caught and such as has not been drowned in a net like a vulgar herring," answered the latter.

We were away in a few minutes, walking briskly down to the cove, where we entered a dory which Frenchy propelled. Our craft was soon beached at the mouth of the small river and we walked up the bank by the side of the brawling water. When we reached the first pool we sat down on the rocks while I moistened a long leader and opened my fly-book.

"I think we will begin with a Jock Scott," I proposed.

"No, let us try a Silver Doctor," she urged me. "It seems best adapted to present company. It's just a fancy I have, and I'm generally lucky."

As we were speaking a silver crescent leaped from the still surface, flashed for a second in the sunlight and came down again to disappear in the ruffled water.

"Heem a saumon magnifique!" exclaimed Yves.

"You must try for him, Miss Jelliffe," I said. "You are to make good that statement that you are lucky. There is a big rock under the water, just over there where you see that dark spot. He will be likely to rest there. It is a beautiful clean run fish. Now take my rod and cast well up stream and draw your fly back so that it will pass over that spot."

"Oh, no, you try," she said, eagerly. "Isn't he a beauty!"

But I insisted and she took the rod, a fourteen-foot split bamboo. She looked behind her, to see that the coast was clear. There were no bushes for her to hook and no rise of ground to look out for.

"Steady, Miss Jelliffe," I said. "Don't get nervous. If he rises don't try to strike. They will hook themselves as often as not. Begin by casting away from that place until you get out enough line, then get your fly a little beyond that spot and draw in gently."

"I've caught plenty of big trout," she said, excitedly, "but I've never landed a salmon. I am nearly hoping that he won't take the fly. I won't know what to do."

"There has to be a first time in everything," I told her. "Just imagine you're after a big trout."

She appeared to become cooler and more confident, letting out a little line, retrieving it nicely, and lengthening her cast straight across the stream. The rod was going back expertly, just slightly over her right shoulder, and the line whizzed overhead.

"Easy," I advised her; "it is a longer rod than you are used to."

She waited properly until the line had straightened out behind her, and cast again.

"That is plenty, now for that rock, Miss Jelliffe," I said.

There was another cast, with a slight twist of her supple waist. The fly flew out, falling two or three yards beyond the rock and she pulled back, gently, her lure rippling the dark surface. Then came a faint splash, a vision of a silvery gleam upon the water, which smoothed down again while the line came back as light as ever.

"Easy, easy, don't cast again in the same place," I advised.

She obeyed, but sore disappointment was in her eyes.

"Did I do anything wrong?" she asked, eagerly.

"Not a bit. He never touched the fly. But I always like to wait a minute before casting again after a rise, and I think we will put on a smaller Doctor. His attention has been awakened and he will be more likely to take it."

I quickly changed the fly and Miss Jelliffe, with grim determination, went to work again. Soon she brought the lure over the exact spot but met with no response. Once more without the faintest sign of a rise. A third time, and suddenly the reel sang out and a gleaming bolt shot out of the water.

"Now steady, Miss Jelliffe! Easy on his mouth. Let him run. If he slackens reel in. That's the way! We'll have to follow him a little, but try to keep him from going down stream too far."

Her eyes were eager and her face flushed with the excitement. The wisps of her glorious hair were floating in the wind as she stepped along the bank, steadily, while I stood at her side without touching her, but with a hand ready in case of a slip or a misstep. Frenchy followed us, carrying a big landing-net and a gaff. His face bore a wide grin and he was jumping with excitement.

The fish turned and took a run up the pool, again shooting out of the water in a splendid leap. Then he turned once more, giving Miss Jelliffe a chance to reel in some line. For a short time he swam about slowly, as if deeply considering a plan of conduct. At any rate this was followed by furious fighting; he was up in the air again, and down to the bottom of the pool, and dashing hither and yon, the line cleaving the water. At times he seemed to try to shake his jaws free from the hook. Miss Jelliffe was now pale from the excitement of it. Her teeth were close set, excepting when she uttered sharp little exclamations of fear and renewed hope. But always she met his every move, deftly, and was quick to follow my words of advice. Then followed a period of sulking, when he went down deep and refused to budge, with the tense line vibrating a little with the push of the current. I began to meditate on the wisdom or folly of throwing a stone in the water to make him move, but suddenly he cut short my cogitations and shot away again, heading up-stream.

"Fight him just a bit harder, Miss Jelliffe," I advised. "Don't allow him to get rested and try to put a little more strain on the rod; it can stand it and I'm sure he's well hooked."

"But my arms are getting paralyzed," she complained, with a little tense laugh. "They are beginning to feel as if they would never move again."

"I should be glad to take the rod," I said, "but afterwards you would never forgive me. I know that you want to land that fish yourself."

Her little look of determination increased. She was flushed now. Under the slightly increased effort she made the salmon began to yield, taking short darts from side to side, which began to grow shorter.

"Walk down a little with him, to bring him into shallower water," I advised, and took the gaff from Yves. Then I waded in until I was knee deep and kept very still, but the fish took another run.

"Never mind," I cried, "keep on fighting even if your arms are ready to drop. A steady pull on him. That's fine! Bring him again a little nearer. That's the way! He is mighty tired now; just a bit nearer. Good enough!"

The iron of the gaff disappeared under water. Miss Jelliffe was giving him the butt, and her lips quivered. Then I made a quick move and a splashing mass of silver rose out of the stream with mighty struggling. I hurried ashore with it and held it up.

The great contest was over. Miss Jelliffe put down the rod and her arms sank down to her side, wearily, yet in another moment she knelt down upon the mossy grass beside the beautiful salmon.

"Oh! Isn't it a beauty!" she cried. "Thank you ever so much! Wasn't it a wonderful fight he made! I could never have managed it without your help. You're a very good teacher, you know, and I can understand now why you men just get crazy over salmon fishing. I'll be just as crazy as any one from now on. How much does he weigh?"

I pulled out my spring scale and hooked up the fish. We all watched eagerly as the pointer went down.

"Twenty-two; no, it's twenty-three and just a little bit over. I know it is the best fish taken from Sweetapple River this year. They haven't been running any larger," I said.

Then we all sat down again and admired the fish. Frenchy and I lighted our pipes, and I took the little Silver Doctor from the leader. It was just the least bit frayed but still very pretty and bright, with its golden floss and silver tinsel, its gold pheasant tips, blue hackles and multicolored wings.

"I will be glad if you will keep this fly," I told Miss Jelliffe. "You must hold it as a souvenir of your first salmon."

"Thank you! I will keep it always," she answered, brightly. "It will be a reminder of much kindness on your part, and of this beautiful day. Just look there, above the pool, where the little spruces and firs are reflected in the water that sings at their feet on its way down. How still it is and peaceful. Oh! It has been a glorious day!"

I must acknowledge that she was very charming in the expression of her enjoyment. There is nothing blase about this handsome young girl. I followed the hand she was pointing. The river above was like some shining road with edges jewelled in green and silvery gems. High up a great osprey was sailing in the blue, while around us the impudent Canada jays were clamoring. From this spot one could see no houses, owing to a bend in the river, and we were alone in a vastness of wilderness beauty, with none but Frenchy near us, who looked like a benign good soul whose gentle eyes shared in our appreciation.

"I think it is your turn to try the pool," Miss Jelliffe finally said.

"Not this morning," I answered. "You have no idea how the time has gone by, and how much I have enjoyed the sport. We will leave the pool now and go back. You know you were anxious to return in time for your father's lunch. From now henceforth we will know this as the Lady's Pool, and I hope to see you whip it again on many mornings, before you sail away."

"Please don't speak of sailing away just now," she said.

I took up the rod and the gaff, while Frenchy took charge of the salmon and the landing-net, and we walked down stream, past the first little rapids, to the place where we had left the dory.

"Won't Daddy be delighted!" exclaimed Miss Jelliffe.

"He will have good reason," I answered.

By this time we could see the cove and its rocky edges, upon which the rickety fish-houses and flakes were insecurely perched on slender stilts. A couple of blunt-bowed little schooners were at anchor, and some men in boats were catching squid for bait.

"This is picturesque enough," said Miss Jelliffe, "but I miss the beauty of all that we have just left."

"I'm sure you do," I answered, "yet this view also is worth looking at. It is not like the peaceful slumbering villages of more prosperous lands. It represents the struggle and striving for things that will never be attained, the hopes of those yet young and the reminiscences of others becoming too old to keep up the fight. In many ways it is better than a big town, for here the people all know one another, and no one can starve as long as his neighbor has a handful of flour. Sweetapple Cove is a fine place, for sometimes the winds of heaven sweep away its smells of fish and fill deep the chests of sturdy men who fight the sea and gale instead of fighting one another, as men so often must, in the big cities, to retain their hold upon the loaves and fishes."

"I suppose we all look for things that can never be attained," she repeated after me, with a look of very charming, frank friendliness.

I sometimes wonder whether I wear my heart upon my sleeve for those pleasant daws to peck at. At any rate they do it gently, and both Mrs. Barnett and this young lady are birds of a very fine feather.

So we entered the boat and were rowed over to the landing-place, but a few hundred yards away, where the Frenchman's little fellow was waiting, patiently, with one arm around a woolly pup with which he seemed to be great friends. As soon as we were ashore he left the dog and came up to Miss Jelliffe.