_From John Grant's Diary_
When I awoke this morning, I was inclined to pinch myself, wondering
whether I was still dreaming. In a moment, however, my recollections were
perfectly clear. Yesterday evening I met people such as I should no more
have expected to find in Sweetapple Cove than in the mountains of the
moon. I am glad that my idea in coming here was not to convert myself
into a hermit; I am afraid I should have been sadly disappointed. Mr.
Jelliffe is a man just beyond middle age, shrewd and inclined to good
nature. His daughter, like the rest of her sex, is probably a problem,
but so far I can only discover in her an exceedingly nice young lady who
dotes on her father and takes rather a sensible view of things.
It appears that they have been all over the world and, like experienced
travelers, understand exceedingly well the art of adapting oneself to all
manners of surroundings. In no time at all they had transformed their
ugly little house into quite a decent dwelling.
Miss Jelliffe is a decidedly attractive young woman. Of course I can
only compare her with Dora Maclennon. They belong to two different
types. The one is a bustling little woman, very earnest, determined and
hard-working, who looks to the world for something which must as yet be
rather indefinitely shaped in her mind, and who is going to find it. The
other, I should say, has no cut and dried aim or ambition. Her father or
grandfather achieved everything for her, and she is as free as air to
follow her every inclination. Both are unquestionably good to look upon,
and, at least for the present, I hope it may not be treasonable to say
that Miss Jelliffe is the more restful of the two. We men are apt to
think that the privilege of striving and pushing forward should be
exclusively ours, and when we see a woman occupied with something of that
sort we are somewhat apt to resent it as an unjustifiable poaching in our
preserves. For a long time I considered Dora's efforts to be something in
the nature of growing pains, which would disappear in the course of time.
Now I am not so sure of this. Yet when I think of the dear little girl my
heart beats faster, and somehow I persist in believing that a day will
come when she will drift towards me, and we will tackle the further
problems of life together.
I must confess I am glad to have met the Jelliffes. Barnett and his wife
have been the only people with whom one could exchange ideas unconnected
with codfish. The parson is a splendid little chap, utterly cocksure of a
lot of things I take good care not to discuss too deeply with him.
Moreover he is away a good part of the time, and composes his sermons
with a painstaking care which must be somewhat wasted on Sweetapple Cove.
I don't believe the people are really interested in the meaning of Greek
texts. When he is in the throes of inspiration none dare go near him and
Mrs. Barnett, the good soul, walks on tiptoe and hushes her brood. I only
meet her at various sick-beds. In her own home she is so tremendously
busy that I feel I have no right to trespass too often. The baby requires
a lot of care, and there are lessons to the others, and family sewing,
and keeping an eye upon the little servant. Worshipping her husband takes
up the rest of her time.
After I had my breakfast I left Sammy's house, where I have an office
which would astonish some of my New York friends. I had scraped my face
and put on fairly decent clothing in deference not only to my own
preferences but also to the feelings of the newcomers.
I was hardly out of the house before Sammy's wife came running after me.
"You's forgot your mitts," she cried. "Here they is. I hung 'em up back
o' th' stove ter dry. It's like ter be cold at sea an' ye'll be wantin'
them."
I thanked the good woman, telling her that I could afford to be careless
since I had her to look after me.
"Oh! Don't be talkin'," she answered, highly pleased.
I stopped for a moment to light my pipe. Mrs. Sammy was now calling upon
her offspring to hasten, for it was a fair drying day. The sun was out
and the ripples glimmered brightly over the cove. The people were
climbing up on their flakes, tall scaffolds built on a foundation of
lender poles, and were spreading out the split, flattened codfish, that
would have to dry many days before it would be fit to trade or sell.
Everywhere in the settlement women and children, and a few old men unfit
for harder labor, were engaged in the same back-breaking occupation. The
spreading out always seems easy enough, for they deal out the fishy slabs
as cards are thrown upon a table, but the picking and turning are arduous
for ancient spines stiffened by years of toil.
I also looked out upon the cove, where a few men in dories were engaged
in jigging for squid, pulling in the wriggling things which had been
attracted by a piece of red rag, their tentacles caught upon the upturned
needles of the jig. They were dropped with a sharp, jerky motion on the
slimy mass of their fellows, all blotched with the inky discharge. Out
beyond the rocky headlands, in the open sea, the little two-masted smacks
were hurrying to anchor or already bobbing up and down with furled
canvas, rising, falling and yawing to the pull of the sea. At times, by
looking sharply, one could catch the gleam of a fish being pulled in, and
sometimes one could hear the muffled thump of the muckle, when the fish
was a big one.
The air was good indeed to breathe. The dull griminess of the village, so
utterly dismal in the rain and fog of yesterday, had given place to
something akin to cheerfulness. On the tops of the cliffs the scanty
herbage, closely cropped by the goats, was very green, of the deep
beautiful hue one only finds in lands drenched by frequent downpours. The
sea was restless with long gentle swells which now only broke when they
reached the bottoms of the rocks which they pounded, intermittently, with
great puffs of white spray.
The goats were briskly clambering among the boulders; the dogs looked
cheerful; the few chickens, no longer sad and bedraggled, scratched with
renewed energy. At the entrance of the cove a few gannets wheeled,
heavily, while further away a troop of black-headed terns screamed and
darted about, gracefully, on long, slender, swallow-like pinions.
Even the houses, bathed in rejuvenating sunlight, looked more attractive.
A few poor flowers in rare window-boxes perked up their heads. The
puddles in the road were draining off into rocky crannies, and the very
air seemed to have been washed of some of its all-pervading reek of
fish.
I was thoroughly refreshed after a night during which I had slept so
soundly that Mrs. Sammy, obeying instructions, had been compelled to
enter my room and regretfully shake me into consciousness. Then I had
poured much cold water over myself and used my best razor. Coffee and
pancakes, with large rashers of bacon, were awaiting me, and I soon
departed for the home of my new patient. Children called good morning,
and a few ancient dames too old even for work upon the flakes nodded
their palsied heads at me.
The house tenanted by the Jelliffes belongs to a man who is off to the
Labrador, trapping cod with a crew of sons and neighbors. His wife has
been only too glad to rent it to these very grand people from that
amazing yacht, who have come all the way from New York, to the wonderment
of the whole population, for the mere purpose of catching salmon. Her
eldest daughter has been engaged as maid of all work by the tenants, and
will doubtless compensate, in cheerful willingness, for her utterly
primitive idea of the duties incumbent upon her.
Miss Jelliffe was sitting upon the porch. Wisps of her rich chestnut hair
were being blown about by the pleasant breeze, and there is no doubt that
her white shirtwaist with the rather mannish collar and tie, the tweed
skirt with wide leather belt, and the serviceable low tanned shoes made a
vision such as I had not expected to behold in Sweetapple Cove.
She smiled brightly as I came up and bade me good morning. Her pretty
face had lost the worried, tearful look of the day before. I expressed
the hope that her father had been able to obtain some rest.
"I am under the impression that Daddy slept rather better than I could,"
she answered, cheerfully. "Such a concert as I was treated to! I had
always had an idea that my father was rather appalling, but your ancient
sea-faring friend was positively extraordinary. After you left I read
just a little to Daddy, and the hypnotic quality of my voice had rapid
effect. After this Captain Sammy curled up on the floor, just like one of
the local dogs, and spurned my offer of rugs and pillows with the
specious excuse that if he made himself too comfortable and chanced to
fall asleep he would never wake up. I went to my room to write a letter
and presently the walls began to shake. You never heard such a duet."
"Is Mr. Jelliffe still asleep?" I asked.
"No, indeed! He has already clamored for his breakfast and is at present
occupied with a bowl of oatmeal and some coffee."
Just then Frenchy came up, lifting his cap to the young lady. In one of
his big paws he held his little boy's hand.
"Tak aff you cap to ze yong lady lak I tole you," he said, gravely. "Heem
tink you a leetle sauvage."
The wide-eyed little chap obeyed the big sailor, his yellow curls falling
over his eyes. He continued to stare at her, with a fat thumb tucked in a
corner of his mouth.
"Me come say heem Beel Atkins heem go aff to St. Jean to-day. Heem got
load of feesh."
"That is important news, Miss Jelliffe. Civilization is opening its arms
to you," I told her. "Atkins can take letters and messages for you, and
may be trusted to bring back anything you need, providing you write it
all down carefully. This is also an opportunity of obtaining other
surgical advice for your father."
"I need a lot of things," she exclaimed, "and there will be a message to
our captain to hurry matters at that dry-dock. But I will have to consult
my father."
"We go to-day?" Yves asked me, pointing towards Will's Island.
"Yes, Dick needs a lot of care yet," I answered. "But you will wait here
and take some orders to Atkins first."
"Oui, orright, me wait," he said.
Miss Jelliffe had gone indoors and the man sat down on the porch, with
the little chap beside him, and they gravely watched the gulls circling
over the water. Yves is very big and rough looking, and his black beard
is impressive. He gives one rather the idea of what the men must have
been, who manned the ships of William the Conqueror, than the notion of a
conventional Frenchman. Yet there is in him something very soft and
tender, which appears when he looks at that child, with deep dark eyes
that always seem to behold things beyond the ordinary ranges of vision.
"Ah! Glad to see you!" exclaimed Mr. Jelliffe as I entered the room. "A
broken leg is no fun, but I can say that I got on rather better than I
expected to. The pain has been no more than I can stand. I'll be through
with this in a minute."
He swallowed his last mouthful of coffee, and Susie Sweetapple, the
improvised domestic, took away a flat board with which she had made a
tray.
"Is you real sure you got enough?" she enquired solicitously. "Them
porridges doesn't stick long to folks' ribs, but if yer stummick gits ter
teasin' yer afore dinner time jist bawl out. 'Tain't never no trouble ter
bile th' kittle again."
"Thank you," said Mr. Jelliffe, as the girl left the room. "I have not
yet decided, Doctor, whether that young female is an unmitigated nuisance
or a pearl of great price. At any rate we couldn't get along without
her."
In a few minutes I was allowed to inspect the broken leg, which was
resting properly on the pillow. The swelling was not too great, and the
patient declared that the confounded thing was doubtless as comfortable
as such a beastly affair could be. Mr. Jelliffe possesses some notions of
philosophy.
"A schooner is leaving to-day for St. John's, Mr. Jelliffe," I told him.
"It will return in a few days, depending on the weather, and we could
probably prevail upon one of the best surgeons there to come back with
it."
My patient's eyes narrowed a little and he wrinkled his brow. He was
looking at me keenly, like one long accustomed to gauging men with the
utmost care.
"What is your own advice?" he finally asked.
I could not help smiling a little.
"Your fracture is not at all a complicated affair, and it looks to me as
if the ends could easily be maintained in proper position. On the other
hand I am still a young man, and desire to make no special claim to
eminence in my profession."
"At any rate you are the local doctor."
"I suppose I represent all that this community can afford," I replied.
"If I were you I would send for a consultant."
"The community doesn't seem to me to be so very badly off, as far as its
doctor is concerned," said Mr. Jelliffe, slowly. "The other chap will
come and undo this thing, and hurt me a lot more. I'm inclined to let
things slide. This practice of yours ought to be a great thing for a
stout man needing a reducing diet. How the deuce do you keep from
starving to death?"
"Mrs. Sammy feeds me rather well," I replied.
My patient smiled.
"You're a smart boy," he said. "I'll admit you don't look very hungry.
But how about the appetite for other things, for success in life, for the
appreciation of intelligent men and for their companionship? Is there no
danger of what you fellows call atrophy? Men's intellects can only
maintain a proper level by rubbing up against others."
For a moment he stopped, and then went on again.
"I beg your pardon, Doctor. I'm afraid that all this is none of my
business. I am sure you will take excellent care of me, and I don't see
the need of sending for any one else."
"I will do my best for you, Mr. Jelliffe," I answered.
He held his hand out to me, in the friendliest way. I think we are going
to get on together very well. It is pleasant to meet people who are so
secure in their position that they do not feel the slightest need for
snobbishness.
I soon left for Will's Island, where I remained for some hours. Frenchy's
boy came with us. He's a lovable little fellow, and manifested his
admiration for "_la belle dame_" as he calls Miss Jelliffe. He is an
infant of discriminating taste.
It was very encouraging to note a real improvement in the fisherman's
condition, and I returned in a cheerful state of mind. In the afternoon I
again called on the Jelliffes, and was chatting with the old gentleman
when Mrs. Barnett, with her two oldest clinging to her skirts, put her
head in at the door and cheerfully asked how the invalid was getting on.
"I won't come in," she said, "my little chaps would soon turn the place
upside down."
"Do bring them in," urged Miss Jelliffe. "Daddy is ever so fond of
children."
The parson's wife accepted the invitation.
"I daresay I will be able to hold them in for a few minutes," she said.
Miss Jelliffe is certainly a bright girl. I am positive that she
recognized at once in Mrs. Barnett a woman who would adorn any gathering
of refined people. The homemade dress mattered nothing, nor the garb of
the little ones, which showed infinite toil combined with scanty means
for accomplishment. It was delightful to observe the positive deference
and admiration that were mingled with the perfect ease of the young
woman's manner.
At their mother's bidding the little fellows said their greeting very
politely. Miss Jelliffe kissed them and at once insured their further
behavior by sitting on the floor with them, armed with chocolates and
magazine pictures.
"You are exceedingly kind to visit us, Mrs. Barnett," Mr. Jelliffe
assured her. "I hope I may have the pleasure of meeting your husband
soon."
"I expect him back to-morrow," she answered. "He's away on a short trip.
Sometimes he goes quite a distance up and down the coast, and
occasionally it is--it is rather hard at home, when the weather gets very
bad."
She looked out of the window, with a movement that was nearly mechanical,
and which had become habitual during long hours of waiting.
"But he likes it," she continued. "He says it is a good work and makes
one feel that one is worth one's bread and salt. And so, of course, we
are very happy."
I noticed that Miss Jelliffe was studying her. A look of wonder seemed to
be rising on the girl's face, as if it surprised her to find that this
cultured, refined woman could be contented in such a place.
"Yes, I think I am getting along very well," said Mr. Jelliffe, in answer
to a question. "This young man seems to know his business. I was just
hinting to him, this morning, that such a village as this can offer but a
poor scope for his ability."
"Gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Barnett, laughingly. "Please don't let him
hear you. I have no doubt that what you say is perfectly true, but we
could never do without him now. He has only been here a short time, and
it has made such a difference. Before that we had no doctor, and--and it
was awful, sometimes. You can't realize how often Mr. Barnett and I have
stood helplessly by some bedside, wringing our hands and wishing so hard,
so dreadfully hard, for a man like Dr. Grant to help us. Once we sent for
a doctor, far away, and he came as soon as he could, but my little Lottie
was already..."
A spasm of pain passed over her face, and there was a quickly indrawn
breath. Then she was quiet again.
"I hope he will never leave us," she said. "He may miss many things here,
but it is a man's work."
"I don't feel like leaving," I told her, and she rewarded me by one of
those charming smiles of hers.
Presently she took leave, and Miss Jelliffe looked at her father.
"Isn't she wonderful!" she exclaimed. "I can hardly understand it at
all."
"It isn't only in the big places that people do big things," he answered.
"What about that child she referred to, Doctor?"
I told him how the little one had been taken ill, and how they had been
obliged to take her to the head of the cove, over the ice, until they
were able to find a place where a pick could bite into the ground. Miss
Jelliffe stared at me, as I spoke, and I could see her beautiful eyes
becoming shiny with gathering tears.
On the next day, as I was doing something to the plaster dressing, she
came into the room, hurriedly.
"I've been out there," she said. "What a poor desolate place in which to
leave one's loved ones. Won't you let me help? I think I am getting on
very well with my untrained nursing. I want as much practice as I can
get."
"I am bound hand and foot," complained the patient. "These women are
taking all sorts of unfair advantages of me. And, by the way, Helen, I
want you to go out more. You are remaining indoors so much that you are
beginning to lose all your fine color."
"I look like an Indian," she protested laughing.
"Then I don't want you to get bleached out. You must go out walking more,
or try some fishing, but be careful about those slippery rocks. I can
play no other part now than that of a dreadful example."
"I am not going to budge from this room," declared Miss Jelliffe. "You
know that you can't get along without me. Besides, there are no places
that one can walk to."
"I insist that you must get plenty of fresh air," persisted her father.
"There is no fresh air here," she objected. "It is a compound of oxygen,
nitrogen and fish, mostly very ripe fish. One has to breathe cod, and eat
it, and quintals are the only subjects of conversation. Codfish of
assorted sizes flop up in one's dreams. Last night one of them, about the
length of a whale, apparently mistook me for a squid, or some such horrid
thing, and was in the very act of swallowing me when I awoke. I'm afraid,
Daddy dear, that the fresh air of Sweetapple Cove is a dreadful fiction.
But it must be lovely outside."
She was looking through the door, which stood widely opened, towards the
places where the long smooth rollers broke upon the rocks, and beyond
them at brown sails and screaming birds darting about in quest of prey.
"You are hungering for a breath of the sea, Miss Jelliffe," I told her.
"Sammy and Frenchy are waiting for me to go to Will's Island again. With
this wind it will be only a matter of three or four hours there and back.
Could you stand a trip in a fishing boat?"
"Just the thing for her. No danger, is there, Doctor?" asked Mr.
Jelliffe.
"Not on a day like this," I replied. Miss Jelliffe made a few further
objections, which were quickly overruled. Finally she gave Susie all
sorts of directions, kissed her father affectionately, and was ready to
go.
"We'll be back soon, Daddy. You are a dear to be always thinking about
me. I know I am very mean to leave you."
"The young lady'll be well took care of, sir," declared Captain Sammy,
who had come in to say that the boat was ready.
So we went down to the cove where Frenchy, already apprised that such a
distinguished passenger was coming, was feverishly scrubbing the craft
and soaking the footboards, endeavoring, with scant success, to remove
all traces of fish and bait.
"It's dreadful, isn't it?" said Miss Jelliffe as we passed by the
fishhouses. "I know that when I get back home I shall never eat another
fish-cake. And just look at the awful swarms of flies and blue-bottles.
And the smell of it all! It is all undoubtedly picturesque, but it is
unspeakably smelly."
The men were busily working, and girls and boys of all sizes, and one
heard the sound of sharp knives ripping the fish, and the whirring of
grindstones, and the flopping of offal in the water. These people were
clad in ancient oilskins, stiff and evil with blood and slime, but they
lifted gruesome hands to their forelocks as Miss Jelliffe went by and she
did her best to smile in answer.
"Couldn't they be taught to be a little cleaner?" she asked me. "Isn't
it awfully unhealthy for them?"
"It is rather bad," I admitted, "and they are always cutting their hands
and fingers and getting abominably infected sores. They only come to me
when they are in a more or less desperate condition. Yet one can hardly
blame them for following the ways of their fathers, when you consider the
lack of facilities. They can't clean the fish on board their little
boats, as the bankers do on the larger schooners, and there is no place
in which they can dispose of the refuse save in the waters of the cove.
They don't even have any cultivable land where they could spread it to
fertilize the ground. It must drift here and there, to go out with the
ebb of the tide or be devoured by other fishes, or else it gets cast up
on the shingle. The smell is a part of their lives, and I am nearly sure
that they are usually quite unconscious of it. Moreover, they are always
harassed for time. If the fishing is good the men at work in the
fish-houses ought to be out fishing, and the girls should be out upon the
flakes. They often work at night till they are ready to drop. And then
perhaps comes a spell of rain, days and weeks of it, during which the
fish spoils and all their work goes for nothing. Then they have to try
again and again, with hunger and debt spurring them on. And the finest
part of it is that they never seem to lose courage."
"I wonder they don't go elsewhere and try some other kind of work,"
suggested Miss Jelliffe.
"I dare say they are fitted for little else," I replied. "And besides,
like so many other people all over the face of the earth they are
attached to their own land, and many get homesick who are transplanted to
other places. They seem to have taken root in the cracks between these
barren rocks, and the tearing them away is hard. So they keep on, in
spite of all the hardships. They get lost in storms and fogs; they get
drowned or are frozen to death on the ice-pans, nearly every spring, at
the sealing, for which they are paid in shares. This naturally means that
if the ship is unsuccessful they get nothing for all their terrible toil
and exposure. Indeed, Miss Jelliffe, they are brave people and hard
workers, who never get more than the scantiest rewards. I think I am
becoming very fond of them. I'm a Newfoundlander, you know."
"Was it home-sickness that brought you back?" she asked.
"It may have been sickness of some sort," I answered.
She looked at me, without saying anything more, and we stepped on board
the boat, after I had guided her over the precarious footing of a loose
plank which, however, she tackled bravely.