The Doctor's Apprentice

by Ann Walsh

  In spite of my vow, I still glanced at the surgery each time I passed it and I did so again today, flicking my eyes away almost immediately. Then I looked a second time. The door was open, wide open, as were the curtains. The “Closed” sign had gone and someone had swept away the clumps of dirt from the front step. I hesitated, unsure whether to continue on to Mason and Daly’s store or whether to go to the surgery and see if maybe…

  “Good morning, Ted. I need your help most desperately. In my absence, the dust has grown thick and the mice have made meals of many of my books. Come on, lad. To work. To work.” The doctor called to me from the doorway, smiling, his smile as wide and as happy as it had ever been.

  “J.B.? You are back? You are well?”

  “As well as ever I was, Ted, and perhaps even better. My enforced rest has done me good but, ah, it was a difficult time. Doctor Bell is a demanding physician, and I believe that I have recovered in spite of myself purely to get away from his ministrations. Yes, I am back. It is good to see you, Ted.”

  “Welcome, J.B. I have missed you a great deal.”

  “You mean that you have been moping miserably while I malingered? Well, I malinger no more.”

  Ma’s errands could wait. I stepped eagerly into the surgery. J.B. reached out his hand to clasp mine then, the handshake forgotten, put his arms around me in a warm embrace.

  “It does my heart good to see you, my friend. It is a pleasure to see anyone who is not a product of my own twisted nightmares and hallucinations. But it is especially good to see you.”

  He released me from the bear-hug, clapping me on the shoulder and smiling broadly.

  “Are you sure you are recovered?” I asked. Although J.B. smiled I could see that there were tears in his eyes and I was not at all sure that he was completely well.

  “Yes, I have mended. I am well. I have returned from another journey and although it was a difficult one, I am back.”

  “You have been away on a trip?” I asked. “I did not know you had been away.”

  “No, my body stayed in one place. Only my mind travelled, taking over and over again every step of that journey with Sophia Cameron.”

  “With Mrs. Cameron? You mean, you… you went with Cariboo Cameron when…”

  “Yes, I thought you knew.”

  No, I hadn’t known, not until now. This was the rest of the story, the part my mother would not let Pa tell me. J.B. had been one of the men who carried Mrs. Cameron’s body away from the goldfields.

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “It… it must have been very difficult for you.”

  “It was, Ted. Sometimes I still feel the weight of her coffin.” J.B. reached up and rubbed at his left shoulder as if it were tender. He realized what he was doing, put his arm down and smiled at me, but the smile quivered around the edges.

  “She rested on my shoulders, Ted, but it is my heart which still pains me. At times it is too much for me to bear—the weight and the dreams. Can you understand that?”

  I understood very well. I now knew that J.B. had earned his nightmares, as much as I had earned mine.

  Ten

  July came, and with it the thick heat of summer as well as blackflies, horseflies, houseflies, deer flies, gnats, and wasps. J.B treated heatstroke, rashes, broken legs, and sprained ankles. Patients complained of the heat, complained of the dust, complained about everything, although none of the complaints were very serious. J.B. listened a lot, offered much advice and recommended spruce tea for almost every ailment. I brewed spruce tea by the kettleful, improving on the doctor’s recipe with a bit of sugar and a few drops of oil of peppermint, and J.B. claimed that his patients were thriving on the tonic. He told me that I had the instincts of a great healer, so I did more reading in medical books and decided that perhaps oil of cloves and a touch of anise would help the taste and the effectiveness of the colic medicine the twins consumed regularly. Both anise seed and cloves were frequently recommended for improving digestion. Mrs. Fraser claimed that my new mixture gave the babies much relief, and I proudly wrote the recipe down for J.B., adding it to his files.

  That summer there was also a great demand for salve to relieve insect bites and sunburns, but I could not find a better substitute for the turpentine which J.B. insisted I use. Camphor was less strong smelling, but it did not offer the same relief, according to our patients. I also grew adept at concocting smelling salts which my mother said were the most effective she had ever used. Women were very prone to fainting in the summer, as they worked long hours over hot stoves, canning vegetables, meat, and fish for the winter, and boiling fruits for jellies and preserves.

  J.B. taught me how to apply a mustard plaster for the lingering summer coughs and chest congestion which afflicted many in the goldfields, and once I successfully tended to a bloody finger (without the slightest bit of light-headedness) while J.B. was busy with another patient. I continued to read, to learn, to keep busy. Life in the doctor’s surgery was much the same, but yet it was much, much different. For one thing, J.B. no longer stocked opium, no longer prescribed it, and I no longer prepared laudanum.

  “There are other physicians who will give you that drug, if you feel you must have it,” I heard him say, over and over to his patients. “I have no wish to have opium nor any of its relatives under my roof ever again. It will prove a false friend, no matter how much you believe it will relieve your pain.” Some patients switched to other doctors, but many did not. Oddly, those that needed relief from pain claimed that they did just as well with an infusion of willow bark which J.B. now had me concocting and which he dispensed freely. It was another recipe he had learned from a Shuswap wise-man or shaman, and we were both pleased with how effective it was.

  All that summer, with the sun rising early and not setting before ten in the evening, I worked at J.B.’s side. Yet never once did he speak to me about his long absence, never did he tell me where he had been or who, besides Doctor Bell, had cared for him during his illness. He also never spoke of how he had suffered. But I knew that he had suffered and I could see that he had changed. It wasn’t only his refusal to keep opium in his medicinal supplies, it was a quietness which he carried about him, a stillness, as if he were listening to soft, distant voices. He still laughed, but less often, and his smile carried a sadness in it which had not been there before he became ill. He was there with me, yet he was not. He was absent-minded and, although never short-tempered, he spoke less and made fewer jokes. I worried about him, fearing that some part of him still was ill, that perhaps he would never again be whole.

  I only left his side to go home to bed. All through the month of July, through the heat and through the week of torrential rains which brought cooler nights and also a new crop of mosquitoes, I stayed as close to J.B. as I could. When he went on a house call, I accompanied him, whether he wished me to or not. I took my noon meal with him, and also my evening meal, leaving the surgery only when he insisted. I arrived early in the morning, usually before he was awake, and made sure there was hot coffee ready when he arose.

  “You have become one of my guardian angels, Ted,” he said once. Then he smiled. “But you do not need to hover so.”

  “I am not ‘hovering,’” I said, indignantly. “I am only trying to be of as much help as possible and to…”

  “To keep me safe from myself as well, I assume. You are doing a grand job of that, Ted. I have scarcely had a moment alone since I returned from… since I recovered from my trouble. For that I thank you.”

  “No need to give me thanks.”

  “But I do thank you, my friend. However, I would appreciate it if tonight you could return home to eat as I have an appointment to meet Bridget for a meal and later to go dancing.”

  “Bridget? From the Hotel de France? The one who helped you deliver the twins?”

  “Yes. She is also one of my guardian angels. She has taken me under her wing and makes sure that I am not alone at night—well, some nights, anyway.”

  “She stays h
ere all night?”

  “No, Ted, that would not be proper and you know it. But I often visit her. Bridget cared for me in her home while I was ill and…”

  “Bridget? You were with her? The whole time?”

  “Yes. She nursed me through my black days, through the darkness—well, that is over. Now I would like to take her dancing. Guardian angels can also dance.”

  “I can stay with you if you are lonely. There is no need to go to her.”

  “Ted, I am very fond of you. I treasure our friendship and am grateful for the concern you have for my well-being. But you do not have graceful feet on the dance floor, nor do you make biscuits so light they melt in one’s mouth.”

  “Why do your stomach and your feet mean so much to you?”

  He smiled. “You will understand better in a few years. Between you and Bridget, I am lucky to have received both the best of care and the best of friendship, but tonight I wish to kick up my heels and dance. So do not get angry, but please go home. After all, I must not neglect my social responsibilities.”

  “Although you neglect your friends,” I said. “Unless they happen to be female.” I slammed the door on my way out. How could he prefer Bridget’s companionship to mine? How could he have been at her house the whole time he was ill while I was not told where he was? Why did no one tell me anything?

  J.B. was standing in the doorway of the surgery when I took a quick look back. He grinned and waved. I ignored him and continued on my way home, walking tall and hoping I looked dignified.

  I probably didn’t.

  J.B. continued to see Bridget most evenings and, after refusing the invitation several times, I went with him. He was right. She did make excellent biscuits and she was a good companion. After my first visit, I found that I enjoyed being with them both. There was always much laughter and J.B. was more like his old self after a visit with Bridget. I went back often. They seemed to welcome my company, but they would not yet allow me to go with them when they went dancing at one of the saloons. Bridget had promised to teach me to dance, once my mother gave her permission. However, I knew that it would be a long time yet before my mother would allow me to enter a saloon, so I didn’t feel too disgruntled at being excluded.

  Although the days stayed hot and dry the first frost arrived in early August, a mild one but sufficient to destroy my mother’s flower bed and some of the less hardy garden crops. The cottonwood leaves began to edge into colour, losing the dusty green of the summer and the garden produce was ready to gather. My mother’s potatoes did well, and she also had an unfortunately large turnip crop. I am not fond of turnips, and the thought of eating them regularly throughout the coming winter was not something I looked forward to.

  August 8 was the anniversary of James Barry’s death, but the day passed before I realized its significance. I seldom thought of him at all anymore, seldom rushed past the place on the road where his laugh had so frightened me. That part of my life was over. My nightmares had ended, as J.B. had said they would.

  When September arrived it too was hot and dusty, but the nights grew much colder. The month reached the mid-point and the colours on the trees deepened; some leaves began to fall and even those that remained green had a dry sound to them as they rustled in the wind. People began abandoning the goldfields, heading for warmer climates in which to spend the winter. Some shops were closed, more would be closing soon, and nearly every stagecoach leaving Barkerville was full.

  Moses usually went to Victoria for the coldest months, returning to Barkerville in the spring when the creeks began to thaw and the deep accumulation of snow had almost disappeared from between the buildings. He was already making preparations for his journey and looking forward to the time he would spend on the Pacific Coast. My family would not be leaving this year; we would stay and see the winter through, and hope it would not be a bad one.

  September 16, a day no one in Barkerville would ever forget, dawned cold, colder than one would expect considering how hot and dry the weather had been for so many weeks. When I walked down the hill to go to work, the road was frozen. In the ruts left by the wagons and stagecoaches faint traces of ice nestled, and frost coated the bushes and grass beside the road. I was wearing my heavy winter jacket, but knew that well before noon it would be so warm that I would have removed the jacket and would be wishing that I did not have to work but could be out in the sunlight, enjoying the last days of summer.

  Summer comes slowly here in the goldfields, but it always leaves in a hurry. From broiling heat and clouds of mosquitoes to frost on the grass tips and the crunch of frozen ground underfoot—the fall arrives overnight. I sighed, thinking of the long winter ahead and of the endless hours of dark which would come with it. All through the winter months, the sun would set in the late afternoon and not return until morning was half gone. I would grow tired of lamplight at both breakfast and the evening meal; tired of filling buckets with snow for Ma to melt so she could do the washing; tired of fighting through the night winds to bring in yet another load of wood for the stove.

  Pulling my jacket tighter around me, I tried not to think of winter. It would arrive soon enough, whether I wished it to or not.

  As I walked through Chinatown I saw that the water pipes, the flumes which carried water high across Barkerville’s main street, were festooned with icicles. Overnight, as water had dripped through the joints which held the wooden pipes together, it had frozen. The sun caught one of the flumes, Barker’s flume as most called it, and the icicles gleamed as if they were polished silver. I stopped for a moment and stared, knowing that the sight would not last long. Last night there had been the Northern Lights, a display which was more spectacular than any I had ever seen, curtains of vivid colour waving across the sky for hours. This morning Jack Frost seemed to be trying to do his part to beautify the world.

  A robin lit on Barker’s flume and an icicle, jarred by the weight of the bird, fell to the ground. Other icicles would follow as the sun’s heat grew stronger, and soon the flumes would be bare except for the constant dripping of water.

  I took one last look at the glint of the sun on the icicles, and stepped inside J.B.’s surgery. “Good morning,” I said. “And it is one, a very, very good morning. Have you seen the icicles on the water pipes?”

  “I have seen both the frozen flumes and the flickering fireworks,” said J.B. “I mean, of course, the Aurora Borealis which provided us with such spectacular entertainment last night. You, unfortunate lad, were not here, but the saloons emptied and people stood silently in the streets for hours, just watching.”

  “They left the saloons? I am sorry I missed that, J.B. It seems close to a miracle.”

  “It was, Ted, it was. For miners to abandon their beverages and stand shivering in the cold merely to pay homage to nature’s display was indeed something near a miracle.”

  “I saw the Northern Lights, too,” I said. “My parents and I watched for hours.”

  “Ah, then you were up past your usual time for bed and would welcome a less strenuous day’s work, would you not?”

  “I’m fine. I wasn’t that late, besides I don’t need as much sleep anymore now that I’m—”

  “Yes, yes, now that you’re a grown man of fourteen.”

  “I only meant that now I sleep without nightmares, and so I sleep well. I was not referring to my age.”

  “Of course not. I apologize. However, I have a chore for you today—no, not a chore, rather a most important assignment—which will also allow you time to rest.”

  “I don’t understand. Don’t you need me in the dispensary? Have you no patient records which you wish me to update, no medications to prepare?”

  “That will keep, Ted. I am not sure you will want to undertake this assignment, but I can not do it and someone needs to. Sit down and hear me out.”

  His words made me nervous. I moved a pile of books from a chair, replacing them on the shelves where they had been tidily stored when I left last night, and sat down, wo
ndering why I felt so uneasy.

  “Well? What is it you want me to do? Please, no jokes about me delivering babies. I did not find that amusing.”

  “No, Ted. No jokes. I want you to sit with a sick friend— well, an acquaintance, if not a close friend.”

  “One of our patients, J.B.?”

  “No. Yan Quan is not a patient. He doctors himself in the way of his countrymen. But he is ill, very ill. Somehow he has upset the others of the Chinese community. No one will stay with him, no one will even speak his name aloud and no one will tell me what he did to make his friends so angry. Although they bring him food and medicine, he is left alone to die.”

  “To die?”

  “I fear so. Already he has been taken to the Peace House, although I suspect he finds little peace there.”

  The Peace House. The tiny cabin behind the Tong building! I had never set foot inside that building, nor did I ever wish to.

  “Well, Ted? There will be little for you to do—bring a book to read. Here, take the one on anatomy which you have been wanting to peruse. I am sure your mother will not mind, especially if she does not discover that you have been reading it.”

  J.B. rummaged on the other chair and found what he wanted. He handed the heavy book, Anatomy of the Human Body, to me, but I shook my head. I had long since taken a good look at the more interesting illustrations in that volume, without either J.B.’s or my mother’s knowledge.

  “Very well, then,” said J.B. “Select other reading material to keep you occupied. Here, take my new reference book. It has just been published, after a thorough revision, and I received it not two days ago. This invaluable little volume is full of the latest information, everything a modern man of medicine needs to know. A truly comprehensive manual; one I could not do without. Here. See for yourself.”

  He proudly handed me a thick book, pocket sized, titled The Physician’s Vade Mecum.

  “What does ‘Vade Mecum’ mean?” I asked, taking the book. “Is it Latin?”