Sweetapple Cove

by George Van Schaick

  CHAPTER II

  _From John Grant's Diary_

  Four weeks ago, this evening, I sat with Dora in that bright dining roomat the Rochambeau. My description of that last meeting of ours is arather flippant one, I fancy, but some feminine faces are improved bypowder, and some men's sentiments by a veneer of assumed cheerfulness.That cut of mine has not the slightest intention of healing by firstintention; it is gaping as widely as ever, as far as I can judge. Yet Iam glad I made no further effort. I suppose a man had better stop beforehe gets himself disliked.

  Yesterday morning I came out of a dilapidated dwelling in which I hadspent the whole night, and scrambled away over some rocks. When I satdown my legs were hanging over a chasm at the foot of which grandlyrolling waves burst into foam, keeping up the warfare waged during amillion years against our sturdy cliffs.

  Rays of dulled crimson sought to penetrate, feebly, through the fog, asif the sun knew only too well how often it had been defeated in itscontest against the murky vapors of this hazy land.

  My meeting with Mr. Barnett on the _Rosalind_ was a most fortunateaccident. The earnest little clergyman sat next to me at the table, andimmediately engaged me in conversation. I gathered from him that he hadbeen begging in the great city and had managed to collect a very fewhundred dollars for his little church. He spoke most cheerfully of allthat he meant to achieve with all this wealth.

  "I am going to have the steeple finished," he said. "It will take but afew feet of lumber, and we still have half a keg of nails. Some day Iexpect to have a little reading room, and perhaps a magic lantern. I willtry to give them some short lectures. I am ambitious, and hope that I amnot expecting too much. We are really doing very nicely at SweetappleCove."

  "Where is that?" I asked him.

  The little parson gave me the desired geographical information and,finding me interested, began to speak of his work.

  He was one of the small band of devoted men whose lives are spent on thecoast, engaged in serving their fellow-men to the best of theirabilities. The extent of his parish was scarcely limited by the abilityof a fishing boat to travel a day's journey, and he spoke very modestlyof some rather narrow escapes from storm and ice.

  "If we only had a doctor!" he sighed. "Mrs. Barnett and I do our best.Things are sometimes just heartrending."

  At once I manifested interest, and angled for further information. Thiswas just the sort of place I had in mind. It appeared that the nearestdoctor was more than a day's travel away, and that the population wasrather too poor to afford the luxury of professional advice.

  "We sometimes feel very hopeless," he told me.

  "How do you reach Sweetapple Cove?" I asked him.

  "There will be a little schooner in a few days," he answered.

  "I am a physician," I announced, "and am looking for exactly that kind ofa practice."

  We were strolling on the deck at this time. Mr. Barnett turned quicklyand grasped my arm.

  "There is hardly a dollar there for you," he said. "No sane man wouldcome to such a place to practice. And there is a little hardship in thatsort of work. You don't realize it."

  "I am under the impression that it is just the place for me," I told him.

  "There is really good salmon fishing in Sweetapple River," he began,excitedly, "and you can get caribou within a day's walk, and there arelots of trout, and..."

  I could see that he was eager to find some redeeming points forSweetapple Cove.

  "Behold the tempter," I laughed.

  "Dear me! Of course I did not mean to tempt you," he said, flushing likea girl. "And I'm afraid you would have to live in some fisherman's house,and to furnish medicines as well as your services. Of course they mightpay you something if the fishing happened to be good. It sometimes is,you know."

  As soon as we arrived in St. John's I made many and sundry purchases,with a proper discount for cash, and three days later we sailed out ofthe harbor on a tiny schooner laden with salt, barrels of flour andvarious other provisions. In less than forty-eight hours we arrived inSweetapple Cove. The delighted reception I received from Mrs. Barnett, asweet lovable woman, exalted my ideas of the value of my profession. Shesimply gloated over me and patted her husband on the back as if hissuperior genius had been the true cause of my arrival. At once she madearrangements for my living with Captain Sammy Moore, an ancient of thesea whose nice old wife accepted with tremulous pride the honor ofsheltering me. The inhabitants and their offspring, the dogs and thegoats, the fowls and the solitary cow, trooped about me for closerinspection, and my practice became at once established.

  I have taken some formidable walks over the barrens back inland, and haveangled with distinguished success. The days are becoming fairly crowdedones.

  Shortly after sunrise, the day before yesterday, I was called upon to goto a little island several miles out at sea. Captain Sammy and a mancalled Frenchy took me out there. Their little fishing smack is the cab Iuse for running my remoter errands. I found a man nearly dying from a badseptic wound of his right arm. I judged that he might possibly survive anamputation, but that the loss of the breadwinner's limb would have beenjust as bad, as far as his family was concerned, as the death of thepatient. There was nothing to do but grit one's teeth and take chances. Iremained with him throughout the night, and in the morning was glad todetect some slight improvement.

  The keen breeze that expanded my lungs as I sat on the rocks did me agreat deal of good. It rested me after the dreary vigil and presently Ireturned to my patient. I'm afraid that we men are poor nurses. We cankeep on fighting and struggling and trying, but when we have to sit stilland watch with folded arms the iron enters our souls, while theconsciousness of helpless waiting is after all the bitterest thing we cancontend against. Women are far more patient and enduring.

  Constantly I renewed the dressings, and bathed the limb in antiseptics,and gave a few stimulating drugs. Then I would watch the man's hurriedbreathing and feverish pulse. But I could not remain with idle hands verylong at a time, and frequently strolled out to breathe the sea-scentedair, in some place well to windward of the poor little fishhouses thatreeked infamously with the scattered offal of cod. A disconsolate man wastrying to mend a badly frayed net and a few ragged children, gaunt andunderfed, followed me about, curiously, whispering among themselves.

  The sick man's wife sat most of the time, near the bed, hour after hour,a picture of intense, stolid misery. From time to time she wailed becausethere was no more tea. Always she hastened to obey my slightest request,clumsily, faithfully, like some humble dog to which some hard andscarcely understood task might have been given. One could see that shereally had no hope. The usual way was for the men to fail to return, someday, when they went out and were caught in a bad storm, or when theice-floes drifted out to sea, and then the women would wait, patiently,until the certainty of their bereavement had entered their souls. Thisone had the sad privilege of witnessing the tragedy. It was all happeningin the little house of disjointed planks, and perhaps she took somecomfort in the idea that she would be there at the last moment. It waseasy to see, however, that she considered my efforts as some sort of ritewhich, at most, might comfort the dying.

  Before noon, when the haze had lifted before the sweep of a north eastwind, one of the children called. The mother went out, hurriedly, while Istood at the open door. About a mile away a stunning white schooner wassteaming towards the entrance of Sweetapple Cove.

  "I'm a-wonderin' what she be doin' here," said the woman, dully. "Sheain't no ship of our parts. I never seen the like o' she."

  There was a glinting of light cast forth by bright brasses, and I couldsee a red spot which appeared to indicate the presence of a woman onboard, clad perhaps in a crimson cape or shawl.

  We kept on staring at her for some time, as people do in forsaken placeswhen a stranger passes by, and we returned to the bedside.

  The day stretched out its interminable length, but the night was longerstill. The children had been put to bed i
n dark corners, after a meal offish and hard bread. The smallest had clamored for some tea.

  "There ain't no more," said the mother.

  I had noticed that she had put aside a very small package of this luxury,on a high shelf.

  "Why don't you give them some?" I asked. "You forget that you have alittle laid aside."

  "There won't be none left fer you," she answered.

  I ordered her to put the kettle on the fire at once and make tea for heryoung ones, and bade her take some also.

  "I told Sammy Moore to bring some to-morrow," I told her.

  I am afraid that I dozed a good many times, that night, on the little lowstool near the bed. There was not much to be done. Gradually it dawnedupon me that the man was getting better. The stimulants had produced somereaction, and the hot dry skin was becoming moister. I feared it might bebut a temporary improvement, and hardly dared mention it. Yet the man wasno longer delirious. Several times he asked for water, and once looked atme curiously, with a faint attempt at a smile, before his head again sankdown on the pillow.

  Finally the sunlight came again, shortly after the smoky lamp had beenextinguished, and I went out of the house, when the chill of the earlymorning seized me so that for a moment my teeth chattered. The womanfollowed me.

  "He do be a dreadful long time dyin'," she said, miserably.

  I suppose that I was nervous and weary with the two long nights ofwatching, and lost mastery over myself. To me those words soundedheartless, although now I realize they came from the depth of her woe.

  "You have no right to say such things," I reproved her sharply. "I don'tthink he is going to die. I believe that we have saved him."

  Then she sank on the ground, grasping one of my chilly hands and weepingover it. These were the first tears she had shed and I saw how grievouslyI had erred. As gently as I could I lifted her to her feet.

  "I'm sorry I spoke so gruffly," I said. "But I really believe that we aregoing to pull him through, and that we shall save his arm."

  At noon-time we saw the white yacht coming out of Sweetapple Cove. Shewas speeding away in the direction of St. John's. The weather wasbeginning to spoil, and at the foot of the seaward cliffs the great seas,smooth and oily, boomed with great crashes that portended a coming storm.

  Early in the afternoon the wind was coming in black squalls, accompaniedby a rolling mist. As I looked towards the mainland I saw a fishing boatcoming, leaning hard to the strong gale. An hour later Sammy and his manlanded in the tiny cove and the old fellow came rushing towards me.

  "You is wanted to come ter onst," he said. "They is a man come yisterdayon that white yacht. He went up th' river fur salmon, jist after his boatleft, and bruk the leg o' he slippin' on the rocks. Yer got to come rightnow,"

  I took the small package he brought me and rushed up to the house with itThe improvement had continued, and I gave careful directions in regard tocontinuing the treatment. After this I descended to the tiny beach wherethe boat was waiting.

  "She be nasty when yer gets from the lee o' the island," Sammy informedme. "I mistrust its gettin' worse and some fog rollin' in wid' it. Mebbeyer doesn't jist feel like reskin' it?"

  "How about your wife and children, Sammy?" I asked. "There is no onedepending on me."

  He took a long look, quietly gauging the possibilities.

  "I'm a-thinkin' we's like to make it all right," he finally told me.

  "And what about you and the little boy, Frenchy?" I asked the other man.

  "Me go orright," he answered. "Me see heem baby again."

  So we jumped aboard. The tiny cove was so sheltered that we had to give afew strokes of the oars before, suddenly, the little ship heeled to theblow.