The Next Thing to be Done
The man stepped forward then and laid a kindly hand upon her arm.
"Shall we go into the house and see if we can get to the bottom of the
mystery?" he asked in such a kind tone that poor, bewildered Nealie gave
way before it and suffered him to lead her into the house with which
they had made so free, believing it to be their father's home, while the
others trooped after them and gathered round the chair in which the man
who called himself Dr. Plumstead had seated her.
"Nealie, Nealie, come quick, my head is on fire!" called Rupert from the
next room, his voice rising to a shriek.
"Who is that?" exclaimed the doctor, looking, if possible, more
astonished than before.
"It is my eldest brother. He is very ill, and when we reached here he
was so bad that we carried him in from the wagon and put him to bed; but
we did not know that we had no right here," said Nealie, her voice
quavering a little, although she held her head at its proudest angle and
tried to look as defiant as possible.
"I will see him," said the doctor quietly, as she jumped up to go to
Rupert, and then he passed into the bedroom with her; but, finding it in
darkness, came back for the lamp, and, with a word of excuse to Sylvia
for leaving her without a light, picked it up and disappeared with it
into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him.
"Sylvia, if that is my father I don't like him at all. Why, he never
even looked at me; there might as well have been no Ducky!" cried the
poor little maiden, who keenly resented being ignored in such a fashion.
"That is not our father at all. Why, it is only a young man; but why he
is here posing as Dr. Plumstead is more than I can imagine, and, oh!
where can our dear father be?" said Sylvia, who was on the verge of
tears, for the day had been a trying one on account of Rupert's illness,
and, as they all agreed, the home-coming was just horrid.
"Buck up, old girl, it is never so bad that it might not be worse!"
exclaimed Rumple in a nervous tone, for well he knew that if Sylvia
broke down in miserable tears Ducky would at once join in, followed by
Billykins, who only rarely cried, but always did the thing thoroughly
when he did begin.
"Shall we have to go somewhere else for to-night, I wonder, or what
shall we do?" Sylvia went on, drawing herself up and setting her teeth
together until she could conquer that weak desire for tears, which would
be sure to lower her dreadfully in the eyes of the boys and would do no
good at all. "The house seemed embarrassingly small at first, but now
that it is a stranger who is master, and not Father at all, why, the
whole thing is impossible."
"We can sleep in and under the wagon, as we have done before; but Rupert
can't, so I guess that we had better wait and see what Nealie decides is
best," replied Rumple. But this was met with a whimper of protest from
Ducky, who demanded to be put to bed somewhere at once.
"Could we not put Ducky on a mattress in the wagon, with Don and
Billykins?" suggested Sylvia. "They would be quite safe and comfortable
there, because the wagon is in enclosed ground and so close to the house
also. Then you and I can wait round here to help if we are wanted."
"Brave old Syllie, I thought that you would find a way out of the
muddle!" cried Rumple, giving her an approving pat on the back, and then
he called to Don to come and help him carry a mattress out to the
wagon, a difficult feat in the dark, but one which was safely
accomplished after some struggles, a few bruises, and one fall that was
happily not a serious one.
Then Sylvia carried Ducky out to the wagon and handed her up to Rumple,
who stowed her inside on the mattress, bidding the two small boys lie
down one on each side of her, and the three were sound asleep before
Sylvia and Rumple had gone back to the house.
They were standing on the threshold of the dark little room, and
wondering what they had better do next, when the door of the sleeping
chamber opened and Nealie came out.
"Sylvia, where are you?" she cried, with such misery in her voice that
Sylvia gave a groan of real dismay.
"What is the matter?" asked Rumple sharply. Of course he was solely to
blame for all this wretched business, he told himself, as none of these
disasters could have happened if he had not forgotten to post that
letter.
"Rupert is very, very ill, Dr. Plumstead says, and we must make a fire
at once and boil water for some kind of fomentations. Could you and
Rumple do that while I help the doctor in the bedroom?"
"Of course we can. I know where the firewood is," said Rumple hastily,
heaving a sigh of satisfaction to think that there was something useful
for him to do.
"If Rumple is going to make the water hot, can't I come into the bedroom
to help you with Rupert?" asked Sylvia, for Nealie looked thoroughly
worn out.
"I will call you if we want more help, meanwhile you might make the poor
doctor some tea, for I do not believe he has had a real meal since
breakfast, and it is very hard for him to find his home invaded in such
a fashion. But where are the children?" asked Nealie, looking round in a
bewildered fashion.
"We have put them to bed in the wagon; they were so very tired,"
answered Sylvia. "Now I will get the doctor man such a nice supper that
he will feel he is to be congratulated on his household of visitors,
even though one of them is in possession of the only bed in the house.
Oh, Nealie, what an awful situation it is, and whatever shall we do if
we can't find dear Father?"
"Don't, dear, I dare not think about that or anything else until Rupert
is better, and then God will show us what to do," said Nealie, putting
her hand out with such an imploring gesture that Sylvia was instantly
ashamed of herself, and set about being as cheerful as possible in order
to keep up the courage of her sister.
"Oh, we shall get through all right of course, and after all it is just
a part of our adventures; anything is better than stagnating I think,
and we have not been in much danger of that lately!"
Nealie went back to the bedroom, while Sylvia and Rumple did their very
best in the outer chamber, where the confusion almost defied
description. But their days of living in the wagon had fitted them for
managing comfortably where anyone else would have been bothered by the
muddle all around.
As it was, Rumple's fire was burning in grand style, and the various
pots and kettles on the stove were beginning to show signs of being
nearly ready to boil, when the doctor came out of the inner room to get
something from the medicine cupboard in the corner.
"Will you please sit down and take your supper, now that you are here?"
asked Sylvia rather timidly, for to her way of thinking this doctor had
a very disagreeable face; but that was, perhaps, because she was
prejudiced against him through the dreadful disappointment which had met
them at the end of their journey.
"I do not think that I can stay for food just now; your brother needs
me," he began, in a tone which certainly was brusque, although perhaps
he did not mean it to be so.
"Oh, please, do!" she pleaded. "Because then I shall not feel so
worried, and I am sure that Rupert will not take much harm for half an
hour, while you will feel far more fit when you have had a meal."
"It is very kind of you to be so insistent, and I really am very
hungry," he replied, smiling broadly now, for the supper which Sylvia
had cooked for him from their own stores smelled exceedingly good, and
she was already pouring a cup of tea out for him and doing her very best
to make him feel how grateful they were to him for all his kindness to
Rupert.
"But won't you sit down and have something to eat also?" he asked, as
she hovered about ready to anticipate his wants.
"No, thank you, we had supper before you came, when we were waiting for
Father," she said, with a choke in her voice, which made her turn
hastily away and knock a tin pan over, so that in the sudden clatter he
might not notice how near she was to booing like a baby.
He frowned heavily, as he wondered what the guardians of this family
could have been thinking of not to write and make sure that the father
was in a position to receive them, before sending seven irresponsible
young people halfway round the world, on the off chance of finding their
father when they reached the end of the journey.
"It has really been very hard for you, and we must do our best to help
you out of the muddle," he said quite kindly, as he enjoyed the results
of Sylvia's handiwork and began to feel all the better for his supper.
"Do you know where Father has gone?" she asked, putting the question
which Nealie lacked the courage to ask.
"When Dr. Plumstead passed the practice over to me, eighteen months ago,
he said that he was going to Mostyn, and that letters from England were
to be forwarded to the Post Office there, but that nothing else was to
be sent on," the doctor answered.
"If your name is the same as Father's, how would you know which were
your letters and which were his?" Sylvia asked in a wondering tone, for
to her it seemed of all things most strange that there should be two
doctors of one name, and that not a common one, in a small town like
Hammerville.
"Oh, that was easy enough! I am an Australian, educated in Germany, and
I have not a single correspondent in England. But only one letter has
come for your father, and that arrived about two weeks ago, so I
forwarded it to Mostyn at once," said the doctor.
"Where is Mostyn?" asked Sylvia.
"It is away in the back country, about fifty miles from everywhere, I
imagine. It is a boom town; that is to say, they have found gold there
in paying quantities, and so it will grow like a mushroom until the gold
gives out, and then, unless they come across anything else of value, it
will fizzle out as rapidly as it sprang to life. It is a little way we
have of doing things in this part of the world," said the doctor as he
finished his supper, and then he asked, in a tone of grave concern:
"Pray, where can you go to sleep? There is certainly no sense in your
sitting up all night. Your sister will stay up to help me with the sick
boy, and then in the morning she will want to rest, and you must be
ready to take her place."
"Oh, I can sit round in a chair and doze a little when I am not wanted!"
replied Sylvia in that happy-go-lucky way she had of saying things, and
which as a rule no one heeded. But the doctor frowned heavily as he
said: "That will not do at all; young people cannot get on without
proper sleep, and you must be fresh and fit to take your sister's place
in the morning, for your brother is going to want a lot of nursing to
pull him through. What have you done with the younger children?"
"We put them to bed in the wagon. It is just outside, you know, and we
thought that they would be out of the way," answered Sylvia.
"An excellent idea. Now suppose that you go and put yourself to bed
with them, and they will be sure to wake you bright and early in the
morning," he said, smiling now, because there really seemed a way out of
the difficulty.
"But you will want someone to keep the fire in for you to-night,"
protested Sylvia, who did not like the idea of being sent off to bed
with the children, even though she was so sleepy that she could scarcely
keep her eyes open.
"That other brother of yours will do that for me. What is his name, by
the way?" asked the doctor, as Rumple disappeared from the room in
search of more firewood.
"He is Dalrymple, only we always call him Rumple, because it suits him
so well and is affectionate too. But you will certainly never keep him
awake. He will mean not to go to sleep, for he is really a very good
sort, and crammed full of the best intentions, but he simply can't keep
his eyes open when he is very tired; so presently, when you least expect
it, he will just double up and fall asleep, and you will not be able to
wake him up however much you try. We Plumsteads are all like that, and
sometimes it is very awkward," said Sylvia earnestly.
"I will risk it; only you must go to bed now," said the doctor, laughing
broadly at her description of the Plumstead weakness in the matter of
popping off to sleep at inconvenient times; and then he called to
Rumple and asked him to see his sister safely into the wagon, and to
keep an eye on it during the remainder of the night.
Poor Rumple! He honestly meant to do just what the doctor asked of him,
for he was just as grateful as a boy could be for what was being done
for Rupert and also for the way in which the doctor was treating the
girls, so he trotted backwards and forwards for another hour, bringing
in wood, stoking the stove, making kettles boil, fetching water from a
crazy old pump in the next garden, falling over the tangled vegetation
_en route_, and getting hopelessly muddled in the darkness. Then he
suddenly became so sleepy that it seemed to him he would snore as he
walked about; his feet became heavier and heavier, until the effort to
lift them grew beyond his power. He could not see out of his eyes, and,
collapsing on to the floor between the door and the stove, he lay there,
happily unconscious of everything.
The doctor found him on one of his journeys out to the stove for fresh
boiling water, and would certainly have thought him to be in a fit but
for Sylvia's explanation of the family peculiarity. So he only smiled to
himself, and, lifting Rumple, laid him more at ease in the farther
corner of the room, covering him over with a rug; and then he went back
to the bedroom, where Nealie was busy helping him with Rupert, and said,
in a laughing tone: "I have just picked that brother of yours up from
the floor, where he lay as fast asleep as if he were on the softest bed
that had ever been made."
"Poor Rumple! His intentions about keeping awake are always so good that
it is very hard on him to be bowled over in such a fashion," said
Nealie, with a wan little smile, and then for a few minutes she was very
busy helping the doctor put fresh fomentations on Rupert. But when this
was finished, and the sufferer lay quiet from the comfort of it all, and
there was leisure to think of other things, Nealie spoke again: "How
soon will it be safe for me to leave Rupert?"
The doctor looked at her in surprise; but thinking she was tired out,
and longing for sleep, he said kindly:
"You can go off to the wagon now for a sleep if you like. I should not
have suggested your staying all night, only that I thought it would be
good for your brother to have one of his own about him; but as he seems
inclined to sleep now, it will not really matter."
"Oh, I did not mean that I wanted to go to bed!" said Nealie quickly.
"This is not the first time I have stayed up all night. Whenever the
children have been ill I have stayed with them. Indeed I am quite used
to watching and being on guard. But I want to know how soon you think
that it will be fit for me to leave Rupert to the care of Sylvia, so
that I may go to find Father."
"You could not go to a place like Mostyn alone, and the best way will be
for you to send and ask your father to come here for you," replied the
doctor gravely.
But to this suggestion Nealie shook her head. "I heard what you said to
Sylvia about Father, and I have the feeling that he needs us very badly
indeed. Why did he give up the practice here?"
Dr. Plumstead hedged this question as best he could, for he simply could
not tell this girl with the pathetic eyes that an old rumour had risen,
which made it necessary for the doctor to go farther afield, and so the
practice had been disposed of to the first person who was willing to
give a little money for it.
But Nealie was shrewd enough to understand without telling, and, looking
the doctor straight in the face, she asked: "Was it that affair of
Father taking off the man's arm which was brought up against him?"
"Something of the kind, I think," said the doctor reluctantly. He was
saying to himself how hard it was that this young girl should have so
many hard things to bear when she seemed just made for joy and
happiness, when, to his amazement, she broke into a low ripple of happy
laughter, and softly clapped her hands.
"I thought it was that," she cried. "Strangely enough, since we landed
in New South Wales I have stumbled upon the very man whose arm it was
that Father took off, and someone told me that this man says it was the
greatest blessing of his life that he was thrust out into the world
maimed, to make his own way, and sink or swim as best he could. Now,
when I have found my father I am going to ask him to communicate with
this man, and to make the man set him right before the world; for why
should my dear father have to suffer so heavily for having merely done
his duty, and saved the man's life in spite of everything? It is a
doctor's duty to save life at all costs, and no consideration of any
other kind should make him do otherwise. Father was quite sure that the
man would die if his arm were not taken off, and that was why he
performed the operation in spite of the disapproval of the man's
friends."
"It was, as you say, his duty to do his best for his patient, and it is
hard lines that he should have to suffer for just having done his duty,"
said the doctor. "But why can you not put this in a letter, and let me
send it to Mostyn for you the first thing in the morning?"
"Because I am afraid that Father would not read it," admitted Nealie,
first flushing and then paling, as she looked up at the doctor with her
fearless gaze. "I think that Father is so beaten by everything that he
has had to bear that he just feels as if he will give up and not trouble
about anything more. So that to know all his big family have suddenly
been dumped upon him will be a sort of a shock; but if I am there to
assure him that we shall be more help than hindrance he may feel better
about it all. Of course there are a lot of us, and we have fearfully big
appetites too, except Rupert, but there are so many ways of earning
one's living here that I think we shall soon be able to support
ourselves, that is, Sylvia, Rupert, and I, for of course the others will
have to go to school."
"You are very courageous, and I think perhaps you are right in wanting
to go to your father, and if you will leave it to me I will see what
arrangements I can make for your journey," said the doctor, and Nealie
thanked him, feeling that bad as things were they might easily have been
worse if they had not found a friend like her father's successor, who by
such a strange coincidence bore the same name.
Rupert had experienced such relief from the fomentations that he lay in
a quiet sleep, and Nealie, with her head on the pillow at his side,
slumbered also; but the doctor had gone to the outer room, and was very
busy looking up his case book and trying to make up his mind whether he
dared leave his patients long enough to go with Nealie to find her
father.
His private fear was that when she reached Mostyn she would find that
her father had gone somewhere else. Doctors in mining camps were apt to
be nomadic creatures, that is, they had to go to their patients, and it
was no use to stay where the people were all well, when perhaps at some
place fifty or a hundred miles distant men and women might be dying like
flies from some contagious disease with never a doctor to help them. It
was life at its roughest and wildest in that back country, and he could
not let Nealie venture alone in her youth and ignorance where so many
perils might beset her path.
Day was beginning to dawn when he heard Rupert speaking, and then with a
tap at the door he entered to see how it fared with his patient.
"I am better, thank you, and I am very much obliged to you for all that
you have done for me," said Rupert weakly.
"Ah, I think that you will do now, by the look of you," said the doctor
in a cheerful tone. "And now, with your consent, I am going to take your
sister to hunt up your father, for I don't feel equal to all seven of
you singlehanded," and he burst into a hearty laugh at his own small
joke.