Grit A-Plenty

“All right,” said Doctor Joe, “let’s go to it.”

Below the house Thomas had built of stones and logs a short jetty, which served as a wharf for loading and unloading his big boat. The barrels of fish were rolled down to the jetty, and the boat brought alongside.

“Now,” said Thomas, “’twill be easy work. Davy and Andy can roll the barrels to us, Doctor Joe, whilst you and I lifts un down into the boat and stows un. They’re a bit heavy, but we can manage without troubling with a rope t’ lower un down, and ’twill save time.”

“All right,” agreed Doctor Joe. “Let them come, boys.”

“Aye,” laughed Davy, “we’ll let un come fast as ever you and Pop can lift un.”

And so they were doing well enough, and making quick work of it, until the last barrel came, and the boat was so crowded with cargo that the standing room for Thomas and Doctor Joe was narrow and cramped.

“Have you a good footing there?” asked Doctor Joe, when the barrel was balanced on the end of the jetty and they were ready for the lift.

“’Tis all right,” said Thomas, “let her come.”

And then Thomas slipped, and though Doctor Joe did his best to prevent it, the barrel crashed down upon Thomas’s leg, and when Doctor Joe and David lifted it and released him, Thomas discovered that he could not stand upon the leg.

“She’ll soon be all right,” said Thomas. “She’s just numbed a bit with the weight.”

“Let me feel of it,” suggested Doctor Joe, proceeding to examine the leg.

“Aye, feel of un, and rub th’ numbness out,” said Thomas.

“Too bad! Too bad!” exclaimed Doctor Joe, presently. “The leg is broken.”

And so indeed it proved.

Doctor Joe and the boys carried Thomas to the house and laid him in his bunk. Then Doctor Joe cut some sticks of proper length and size and wrapped them with pieces of old blanket, and with David’s[Pg 31]

[Pg 32] help set the leg and deftly bound the splints into place with bandages which Margaret had quickly prepared under his direction as he worked.

“There you are,” he said, finally, standing up and surveying his work. “Does it feel comfortable, Tom?”

“Not so bad,” answered Thomas. “Will th’ lashin’s hold, now?”

“I’ll warrant that!” assured Doctor Joe.

“And is she like t’ be straight and stout again when she heals?” asked Thomas anxiously.

“Straight and stout as ever she was,” promised Doctor Joe, “but you’ll have to lie still for a month or six weeks, and then you’ll be on crutches for a time. I’ll look after you, Tom.”

“And I can’t go to my trappin’ grounds, then, before th’ New Year, whatever?” Thomas asked anxiously.

“No—not before the New Year—whatever—nor after the New Year—not this winter—I’m afraid,” said Dr. Joe, reluctantly.

A shadow passed over Thomas’s face, but he said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” sympathized Doctor Joe.

“’Twere a blessin’ you were here t’ mend un,” said Tom.

“Yes,” agreed Doctor Joe, “it was well I was here to set it.”

“I wouldn’t mind so much if ’tweren’t for Jamie,” continued Thomas. “How, now, can we ever get th’ money t’ pay th’ lad’s way t’ have th’ great doctor cure him?”

But this was a question Doctor Joe could not answer, and he was sorely troubled.

“Pop,” said Jamie, who had come close to his father’s bed, “we’ll keep our grit, both of us, now.”

“Aye, lad, we’ll keep our grit, you and me,” and there was a choke in Thomas’s voice as he reached for Jamie’s hand, which Jamie gave him after passing it before his eyes in a vain effort to brush the mist away, which was a habit with him of late.

III

DOCTOR JOE

DOCTOR Joe’s usually jovial face had suddenly become drawn and tired. He had not answered Thomas’s question, “How, now, can we ever get th’ money t’ pay th’ lad’s way t’ have th’ great doctor cure him?” How, indeed, could they get the necessary money? What could they do to save Jamie’s eyes without money? And he was thinking of the years before he came to The Labrador—of what he had once been—of the years that he had spent on The Labrador as a hunter and fisherman. Had his life been wasted? he asked himself.

“We’re in a tight pinch, but hard luck is bound to come now and again,” said Thomas, at length, startling Doctor Joe out of his reveries, “and we’ll try not to worry about un. If ’tweren’t for Jamie’s eyes needin’ t’ be cured ’twouldn’t be so bad.”

“No, if ’tweren’t for Jamie’s eyes it wouldn’t be so bad. If ’tweren’t for Jamie’s eyes,” said Doctor Joe.

And then he turned and went out of doors and down to the beach, and for a little while paced up and down, with his head bent in thought.

There is no regret in life so bitter as regret for indiscretions that have ruined a career and ended life’s hopes and ambitions. The world is a desolate place indeed for a man to live in when he has no ambition and no goal of attainment. He is simply existing—a clog in the moving throng of doers. The man who does not go forward must of necessity go backward. There is no room in the hustle and bustle and jostle along the trail of life for one to stand still.

Now, as Doctor Joe paced the beach, he was thinking of these things and looking in retrospection upon his own life. What a wreck he had made of it! Once he had all but gained his life’s ambition, and a noble ambition it was. Through years of toil and tireless effort he had ascended the ladder of attainment. He had reached a high place in the world. In those days he was strong and able and self-reliant. The top round of the high ladder which he had climbed so tediously was within his grasp. Then came a day when he lost his balance and slipped and fell to the very bottom. In an hour all that he had worked for and hoped for and won was lost, and with it his courage and ambition.

Doctor Joe, contemplating his past and reviewing the train of circumstances which had ended his career, showered upon himself bitter denunciation and condemnation. He had indulged in appetites which had seemed innocent and harmless enough at first, but which had gradually and insidiously wormed their way into his soul until they had gained possession of him and had become his master. Then they had mercilessly ruined him and wrecked his life. Even the little fortune he had accumulated was lost. If he had only clung to that, at least, he would now be in position to meet the expense of Jamie’s necessary surgical operation.

“Oh God!” he moaned. “This boy’s future and happiness are in my hands! What can I do? What can the impotent wreck that I am, do?”

What, indeed, could Doctor Joe do? He was so indifferent a trapper that his earnings barely served to supply him with the ordinary comforts and necessities of life. The journey to New York would be an expensive one, and there appeared to him no other way by which Jamie’s sight could be saved.

Through the mist of departed years Doctor Joe turned back in fancy to his own boyhood home. He saw his father’s house, where he had grown to young manhood, and had planned the great things he was to do in the world. That was when life and the world with all their possibilities lay before him. Now they were behind him. There were no hopes or prospects for the future beyond a hand-to-mouth living from day to day, with a gray shadow upon the past.

He saw the path leading up from the village street to the door of his father’s cottage, and the green, well-kept lawn on either side, and his mother’s flower beds which she loved so well and nurtured with her own dear hands. He was there again in fancy. An odor of roses and sweet peas and honeysuckles came to his nostrils. He could see the fat, saucy robins hopping about upon the grass. And there was his mother at the door! How gentle and loving she always was. How she used to tuck him into bed and kiss him good night, when he was little. What plans she built for him, and how she always told him that he must be a generous and noble man when he grew up.

And then he passed on to the years when he helped his father, after school hours, in the little store around the corner, and the terrible day when his father died quickly, to be soon followed by his mother. How desolate the world seemed then! What a lonely struggle lay before him!

And when his father’s estate was settled, and the store and the home were sold, and he left the village, he had barely enough money in his pocket to meet his first year’s expenses at college. But he had vowed to make his way, as his mother had wished, and also to be her ideal of a man.

The years that followed were years of struggle, for it was not easy with bare hands to finish his education. But in those days he had brains and hope and courage, and the basic tenacity that will not surrender. And he was inspired in those early years by a profound belief that his mother was near him. He could not see her, but her spirit walked with him and watched over him. It gave him courage to feel her near him, and kept him straight when he was tempted to do wrong, for he would permit himself then to do nothing of which his mother would disapprove.

But somehow, later on in life, he had drifted away from her. He did not think of her so often, and with passing years her memory dimmed, and sometimes he forgot to be true to himself and to her ideals.

Doctor Joe’s thoughts dwelt for a time on the thing which had caused his downfall. What a friend it had seemed at first, but how, when it gained possession of him it tortured and finally ruined him. And here he was now—just a bit of human driftwood, cast up by the tide of events upon a far shore.

“Well,” said Doctor Joe, finally, lifting his head and looking about him, “there’s one consolation. Driftwood in this land may be used as firewood, to help warm freezing fingers. It’s a better fate than falling into a city sewer, or being cast upon a city’s garbage heap.”