“I take a contract,” said Mr. Latham flatly. “I pay men to dig. No Work, no pay. What’s the fever to me?”
“While your men are off, you’re at steady expense for rentals of machinery and keep of animals,” argued the other. “Don’t you reckon in the accrued interest on the money tied up? The fever is your liability.”
Genter Latham grunted. But he was impressed. This young chap had a practical side to him.
Mrs. Jerrold, who had left them to their man-talk, now returned with a pouting complaint that the gentlemen were monopolizing Dr. Amlie, and that she would like a word with him, herself. The Squire issued a humorous warning.
“On guard with Mrs. Jerrold. There’s Quaker blood in her veins. She’ll get something for nothing of you if she can.”
Mrs. Jerrold’s still pretty face twisted itself into a momentary grimace. “My husband will have his little jest,” she complained to his departing back, and immediately justified his forecast by beginning, “I am worried about my little daughter, Dr. Amlie, lest she fall into a decline.”
“She seems healthy enough,” said he, privately reflecting that if anything ailed the child it was too much rather than too little vitality.
“I thought you might tell me,” pursued the mother, “speaking as a friend” (rather rushing the acquaintanceship, this! thought the young man) “is it good for her to take so many baths?”
“How many?”
“One every day. I cannot break her of it.”
Dr. Amlie assumed his most judicial expression. “I do not forebode that it will impair her health,” he pronounced, “if she uses plenty of soap.”
The mother sighed. “A strange creature. I hardly know her for our own. Another untoward habit, she will not sleep in a room that has not a window open to the night air winter or summer.”
“Some authorities hold that fresh air in moderation is beneficial.”
“But, night air,” protested the mother. “Surely it is perilous to breathe the night air.”
“What else is there to breathe at night?” he inquired mildly.
Mrs. Jerrold giggled. “I never thought of that. The almanachs all warn against night air. Which almanach do you prefer, Dr. Amlie?”
At first he did not get her drift. “One is as good as another, I should suppose. The stars in their appointed courses …”
“But they differ so widely in their advice.”
“Advice? Oh!” He was enlightened. “Medical advice, you mean.”
“Yes. The Temperance Almanach contradicts the Masonic, and the Arbiter of Health in the Family sometimes says quite the opposite from the Household Guide in the Friends. Oh, Dr. Amlie, do you think that oaken ashes in old cider are as efficacious as Lee’s Antibilious Pills for gripes?”
Dr. Amlie was wearying of this. “I should consider one as useless as the other,” said he.
She misinterpreted. “I think so, too. I frequently administer both. You would hardly believe it, Dr. Amlie, but my husband says it is all stuff and nonsense. Setting up his opinion against our wisest writers! I call it almost sacrilegious.”
“Isn’t Dr. Murchison your family adviser?”
“Yes. He’s very sympathetic. Sometimes he talks to me about my symptoms for hours. But my daughter positively dislikes him. So I am often reduced to medicating her myself.”
“Out of the almanach?”
“I have my own selection of favorite cures,” she answered smugly. “Would you care to look at them?”
She led him to a glassed-in porch whose shelves, intended for winter growth of plants, were ranged with half the advertised quackeries of the day. After a panegyric on her special favorites among the panaceas, the hostess went off on another tack.
“Araminta is inveterate. She reads day and night whenever I take my eyes off her. Don’t you think, Dr. Amlie, that too much reading dulls one’s interest in life?”
“I hadn’t noticed it in your daughter’s case,” he said dryly.
“Perhaps you would come with me and admonish her against this dangerous habit.”
Between amusement and annoyance, the young man followed his hostess, wondering how much further she would push her endeavors to get medical advice at the price of a supper. She called out, “Araminta! Dr. Amlie is here.” She opened the door.
Dinty was propped on her pillows, with a slender magazine in her hand. A taper, floating in a bowl beside her, dispensed a steady light. The eyes which she turned upon the invaders of her privacy were consciously angelic. The observant physician noticed a nervous motion of her left knee, close to which, beneath the bedclothes there was a slight protrusion. Mrs. Jerrold spoke. “Dr. Amlie will tell you that reading in bed is injurious to health.”
“You’ve only one pair of eyes, you know,” said he. “How would you like to wear ugly, steel-rimmed spectacles for life?”
“I’d like it. People who wear spectacles look so wise.”
Squire Jerrold’s voice sounded from the hallway, summoning his wife. As she excused herself and left, Dr. Amlie bent forward to make out the title of the magazine which the reader had laid down.
“The Bower of Taste,” he read. “ ‘Edited by Mrs. Katherine A. Ware, for the Improvement of the Mind, Morals and Manners of Old and Young.’ Is this your chosen style of self-entertainment?”
“Yes, sir,” cooed Dinty. “Sometimes I read The Whole Duty of Woman, and sometimes I con my hymns and texts.”
“Very laudable. And what is that under the sheet?”
A convulsive and involuntary motion of the leg threw a protection over the concealed object. “Sometimes I take my doll to bed with me,” said Dinty.
“A square doll?” He threw back the covers and took out the book.
“Snoop!” she said. “I hate you.”
He turned the volume in his hand. The title leapt to his eyes: The Fatal Effects of Passion, or the Spanish Grandee.
“Hymns and texts,” he observed.
Dinty wept. “Go and tell Ma. I don’t care.”
He set the book down. “I’d rather see you reading this than the magazine.”
Lips and eyes widened in surprise. “Why?” she breathed.
“It’s better print.”
“Then you won’t tell Ma?”
“No.”
“I love you,” said Dinty.
“Nevertheless, I shouldn’t read too much in bed,” he advised.
“I won’t any more. When do you move in at Mrs. Harte’s?”
“Tomorrow.” He had made a composition with L. St. John on his hotel reservation.
“Let me come and fix up the room for you,” she wheedled. “Wealthy and I. We’d admire to do it. Even Ma allows that I’m a clever house-hussey.”
“Mrs. Harte is looking after me very nicely, thank you.”
“Mrs. Harte! Pooh! She’s a sluttish housekeeper. Men are so dumb! They don’t know when a room’s tidy and when it’s messy. Old Murch’s office is a pigsty. You don’t want to be like him. Do you know Old Murch?”
“I have met Dr. Murchison.”
“I wish you were our doctor instead of him. He puffs and he snuffles. He says, ‘Protrude the unruly member’ when he wants me to stick out my tongue. Silly!”
“Little girls should not judge their elders.”
“Oh, deary me! Are you going to be like that? I’m disappointed. Ma says I must be respectful toward you. Must I? I’d much rather be your little friend.”
Horace struggled with a twitching lip. “Your mother knows best. But you may keep your specially respectful manners for Dr. Murchison.”
“Do you know what Old Murch said to Ma about you? He said you could find plenty of practice for your queer theories in Poverty’s Pinch. Have you got queer theories, Dr. Amlie?”
“Some people might consider them queer.”
“Are you trying them on the Pinch?”
“I don’t know much about the Pinch yet.”
“I’ve got a friend there, Tip Crego.”
“I love Tip. He’s teaching me things about birds and beasts and plants and flowers. He knows more about the woods than anybody in the world. Did you know that a fresh poultice of joe-pye weed will draw the poison out of a snakebite? Tip’s aunt taught him that. Do you think she’s a witch?”
“There are no such things as witches.”
“So Tip says. He says wicked people call Mistress Crego a witch just to put a bad name on her. I’ve watched our broom when she came into the kitchen to sell herbs and it never twitched a bit. That’s a sure sign. Unk Zeb Helms lives at the Pinch. You fixed his sore eyes, didn’t you?”
“How do you know that?”
“Unk Zeb told me. He says you’re a kind young Christian gentleman. You look kind.” She peered shyly up into his face. “Would you do something kind for me, Dr. Amlie?”
“I wouldn’t wonder a bit, Dinty.”
“Tip got his hand hurt. Would you go down to the Pinch and fix it?”
“Certainly. I’ll stop in when I go to see Unk Zeb tomorrow.”
“Old Murch wouldn’t. I asked him. He makes speeches and says we ought to succor the sick and poor. But he only succors the sick and rich. There’s always fever at the Pinch. Mr. Latham says it would be better for Palmyra if the fever took off every soul down there.”
Horace frowned. “Who made Mr. Latham judge of what people are fit to live?”
Dinty beckoned him nearer. “They’re waiting in the parlor,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“The youth and beauty of our fair village,” said she romantically.
“What are they waiting for?”
“You, of course. Don’t be so dumb. Ma sent for ’em. There’s Miss Margaret Van Wie and Miss Thankful Upcraft and Miss Agatha Levering.”
“I’ve seen Miss Levering,” said he incautiously.
“I s’pose you think she’s bee-yootiful. All the young gentlemen do. She’s awfly uppity with them. Now you must set your neckcloth straight and unrumple your hair and go out and let them see whether they want to marry you or not.”
“God bless my soul!” said the startled young man. “You go to sleep, you little owl.”
“Tomorrow you tell me which you like best, and I’ll tell you whether you’re right or wrong,” said Dinty. “Good night respectfully, dear Dr. Amlie.”
Mint juleps perfumed the air as Horace rejoined the two men, Mrs. Jerrold having retired to her room. Serving the newcomer, Squire Jerrold brought up the subject of his wife’s pet nostrums, with which, it appeared, she habitually dosed not only herself but her daughter.
“Sometimes I wonder whether it’s good for the child,” reflected the father vaguely. “What is your opinion, Dr. Amlie?”
“Half of the stuff is unmitigated bilge and the other half diluted poison,” replied Horace, whose inwards were warming to the potent julep.
“Do you tell me so! What would you do with the stuff?”
“Set the bottles up for a cockshy,” said Horace, accepting a refill of his tall tumbler.
“A sporting proposition,” declared Genter Latham. “Twenty paces distance and sixpence a hit.”
Although he had not expected to be taken so literally, Horace was game for the test. They heaped a clothes hamper full of the cures, carried it out back of the barn where there was a convenient stone pile and set up their impromptu gallery. Rendered expert by four years of snowfights at Hamilton, Horace exhibited prodigies of marksmanship. At the end, not a bottle was left unshivered and the stranger was five shillings to the good when he went in to make his manners to the waiting young ladies.
In process of moving his belongings next day, Horace was accosted by the Squire who was on his way to the tavern for a morning dram.
“You shy as neat a rock, sir, as I ever expect to see,” said the gentleman. “But my wife is not speaking to me.”
“And to me?” asked Horace.
“I shouldn’t try,” advised the Squire earnestly.
Horace had made an enemy.
– 5 –
It is our Christian Duty to Love and Cherish the Poor. They smell.
(DINTY’S DIARY)
Ganargwa Creek narrows and shallows a quarter mile above Van Wie’s sawmill. On the south side gathered the lower stratum of the local populace, the lees and detritus of prosperity, crowded in the huddle of huts, shelters and tents termed Poverty’s Pinch. Here lived the casuals of the vicinity, practicing odds and ends of outdoor labor for an occasional pittance, picking up bounties on furred or feathered vermin, fishing, grubbing for sang, saxifrage, snakeroot, henbane, mandrake, horsegentian and other salable roots, easily fed and comforted in the long, soft summers, wretched refugees from the bitter winters. In the hot months, the populace was augmented by degenerate whites, runaway apprentices, escaped convicts, newly freed Negroes, and crossbreeds of various degree.
Here dwelt Unk Zeb Helms, Horace Amlie’s first charity patient. He hobbled forth from his miserable lean-to to welcome the kind doctor. Horace treated his eyes and asked for young Crego. Oh, yes, the old Negro knew the boy well—a smart boy, a kind-hearted boy who had been good to po’ ol’ Unk Zeb when he was sick and helpless, had fetched him fish and birds and wild fruits. Tip’s hurt came from the side-slip of a tree which he had been helping to fell. Unk Zeb was of opinion that it was mortifying.
He conducted Horace to a rough but comparatively clean shanty, before which a cooking-fire smoldered in a well-constructed stone oven. An aging and haggard woman sat near it, cleaning a mudfish. A boy of thirteen approached, dragging a bit of firewood with his left hand. Horace recognized the vendor of pennyroyal to the canal camp.
“This Tip Crego,” said Unk Zeb in his elliptical way of speech. “Show yo’ han’, boy.”
Tip loosed the injured member from its rope-and-rag sling, disclosing some aromatic-smelling leaves which swathed badly swollen and discolored flesh. The physician manipulated the fingers gently.
“Does it hurt much?”
“Some.”
“Who put on the dressings?”
The woman looked up from her work. “I did.”
“These fingers must be reduced.”
“I tried to set them.”
“It is no task for a layman,” said the doctor austerely. “Do you wish me to undertake it?”
The woman hesitated. “We got no money,” she said sullenly.
Horace Amlie nodded. “This will be painful,” he warned the patient.
As he set to work, the boy’s lips compressed over grinding teeth. He drew one deep, tremulous sigh, then submitted to the agony, silent and motionless.
“You are brave,” said Amlie when it was over.
“It’s his Tuscarora blood,” said the woman. She went into the hut.
“Is she your mother?” Amlie asked the lad.
“No. She’s my aunt. But when I say that in the village, folks laugh,” he said gravely.
Amlie considered his patient. He was thin of frame, but hard-muscled and hard-weathered. For all his stoicism, the face was surprisingly fine and sensitive, the dark-hued eyes wide-set, intelligent and thoughtful to match the quiet voice.
“You’ve had schooling,” said the doctor, interested.
“What I could get.”
“I must see that hand again soon.”
“She told you—there is no money.”
“Have I asked you for money?”
“Dr. Murchison did. I wanted to pay him in barter, but he turned me away.”
“What kind of barter?” asked the doctor, curiously.
“Simples. I gather them for my Aunt Quaila. She blends them into—” he hesitated for a moment—“into medicaments.”
Wondering what he had intended to say, Amlie asked, “You know the local plants?”
“Oh, yes!” Tip was speaking with eagerness now. “I know where to find them all. I know their uses, too. Red birthroot that st
ops nosebleed. Cocasse for canker-sore. Evans root that stays fluxes. Cuckold-leaf for the evil disease. Gorget to soften and discharge ulcers. Arse-smart for the making of blisters. White elivir ointment that allays the itch. Lungwort for cough and …”
Laughing, Dr. Amlie checked the flow of plant lore. “The lad has swallowed the pharmacopoeia. Are you a budding medico or a botanist?”
“I hope to study and go to college and become a naturalist,” replied the boy seriously.
“You have made a good start.”
Like so many country doctors of his day, Horace Amlie was an ardent student of nature. It was men like Amlie who, almost alone, broadened the boundaries of science in the new world, keeping alight the fires of enthusiasm until the arrival of the specialists. But for their extra-professional devotion, science in the Americas would have lost a century of advance. With the sympathetic intelligence of his kind, Amlie perceived in the boy a fellow spirit, however callow and undeveloped, and resolved to keep an eye on him. But what of the “aunt”? Had not one of the loosetongues of the smithy given her an evil name?
“Bring me some of your simples,” said he kindly. “That will be my payment in full.”
Now that he was in the Pinch, he might as well look around. The largest of the buildings was a rough log cabin, windowless, chimneyless, and with no door in the low orifice giving entry and exit. At least three generations appeared to be in possession, the oldest representative being a withered crone who rocked in the broad sunlight, sunning rheumatic bones and dipping snuff to her gums with a peach twig while keeping an eye on an idiot urchin in his teens. On the shady side hunched a girl of eighteen with a vacant, happy face, giving suck to a bear cub. Unk Zeb explained that she had lost her love-child the week before and had returned from night wandering in the forest with this queer nursling. From the next shack a man with a demijohn made signs to her to join him, tipping the mouth enticingly, but she shook her head, brooding downward at the cub. An urchin with eyes inflamed to blindness groped his way toward her and fondled the animal, which growled. An itinerant blade-sharpener in the last stage of grinder’s rot coughed and spat blood.
Close to the verge of the creek, a patchwork tent had been pitched by a bevy of vagrants from Stone Arabia on the hills back of the far Mohawk. Throughout the state the Stone Arabia folk had a name as treasure seekers. Their picks and spades were neatly stacked, together with the wands which dip when gold lies beneath their sensitive tips. Over their fire a groundhog was roasting.
Canal Town Page 7
