The Jug was lonely enough after the departure of David and Andy in
September. Margaret and Jamie missed them, perhaps, more than Thomas,
who was accustomed to the solitude of the trails. Margaret was quite
sure the place would have been well-nigh unbearable but for Doctor
Joe, who went about his work whistling or singing snatches of song,
and who always had a smile or a joke when he breezed into the cabin.
And his evening stories were something to look forward to.
Doctor Joe was bustling about from morning until night, these days,
preparing for his winter’s work. There was no end of work to be done
about the cabin, that all might be made “ship-shape,” as he said, “and
snug for any storm that might blow.”
Thomas was as patient as ever a man with a broken leg could be. But it
was quite natural that he should wish to be up and about. A hundred
times during these weeks he asked Doctor Joe if it were not time to
take the “lashin’s” off his leg, and declared that he was “weary of
dawdlin’ there in bed.” His restlessness was not to be wondered at,
for never before in all his life had Thomas Angus “dawdled” in bed
for a single day. Thomas Angus had always been an uncommonly strong
and healthy man, for which he was duly thankful.
Never once after David and Andy departed did Jamie utter a word of
complaint about the mist in his eyes. They had gone forth to do great
deeds. They would meet, up there in that lonely land of mystery, many
a bitter hardship, and they would have “plenty o’ grit, and keep their
hearts stout, like a man’s,” for they had promised their father and
Jamie they would. Why, then, should he complain? He, too, must keep
plenty o’ grit, and a stout heart, and be brave and patient.
Perhaps, too, Jamie was becoming accustomed to the mist, as one will,
in time, become accustomed to anything. Perhaps the abounding hope of
youth helped him--and with Jamie it was the hope that one day he would
see as well as ever he had--for was not the great doctor to work a
wonderful cure--when summer came again? Jamie’s faith never wavered.
He entertained no doubt that David and Andy and Indian Jake would meet
with success, and bring back with them the furs necessary to meet the
expense of the journey to New York. He never failed to ask for this in
his prayers. Oh, that the faith of childhood, simple, abiding,
unquestioning, might never be shattered! What a blessed consolation is
faith! What a bulwark of strength in time of need!
Jamie often asked Margaret to describe the mountains to him as she saw
them from the cabin windows. It was a vast satisfaction to have the
assurance that they were still there, big and brave and strong,
standing guard over the world beyond the Bay. And sometimes he would
ask her to watch for the moment when the light from the setting sun
tipped their highest peaks with glory, and tell him when God reached
down to kiss the world good night.
* * * * *
“Now that leg!” announced Doctor Joe one day. “We’ll take the splints
off and see what it looks like.”
“I’m wonderful glad t’ have un took off,” said Thomas, his face
brightening visibly.
Doctor Joe laughed, as he went to work, and presently the bandages and
splints were removed, and he surveyed the leg.
“I never saw a better job!” he exclaimed. “Straight and fine! It won’t
be long, Thomas, till you’ll forget you ever had a broken leg!”
“She feels strange,” remarked Thomas.
“Does she, now?” laughed Doctor Joe.
“Aye, she does that! She pricks and hurts, and she wasn’t hurtin’ a
bit when th’ lashin’s were on,” said Thomas.
“That’ll soon pass away. It’s the blood circulating,” Doctor Joe
explained.
And after that it was not long until Thomas was moving about the cabin
on a pair of rude crutches Doctor Joe had made for him, and mightily
pleased he was.
“Plenty t’ be thankful for,” declared Thomas. “Here, now I’ll soon
have as good a pair o’ legs as ever I had, with Doctor Joe’s mendin’,
and if Doctor Joe hadn’t been here ’tis like as not, and liker too,
I’d ha’ been crippled for life.”
Late in October winter snapped down upon them in a night. Everywhere
the great bay was frozen, and there was no longer the sound of lapping
waves upon the beach. Very soon, too, the cheerful voice of Roaring
Brook, tumbling headlong over the rocks, was hushed into silence.
Rime filled the air, and the cabin windows became thick-crusted with a
frost that never melted that livelong winter. Before the end of
November the snow lay a full fathom deep every where, and there was no
going abroad now, save upon snowshoes.
But there was wood enough ranked high in the shed to keep the big
stove roaring and crackling merrily, and the cabin assumed a greater
coziness than ever.
Thomas busied himself making snowshoes for future use, mending dog
harness, and attending to innumerable odd jobs for which ordinarily in
his busy existence he found small leisure.
“’Tis a blessin’ t’ feel I has th’ time for un without neglectin’ and
makin’ a shift of other work,” he declared. Thomas found a blessing
and a reason for thankfulness in everything.
Each morning almost before the break of dawn Doctor Joe would steal
away into the cold, dreary gloom of the silent forest, and each
night, as dusk was settling, they would hear his cheery call as he
returned. This was the brightest hour of the day for Jamie and
Margaret, aye and Thomas, too.
But following the fur trails from morning till night, and day after
day, was hard and wearisome work for Doctor Joe. His success as a
trapper was indifferent. He was not born and bred to it as were Thomas
and the boys. There were days and days when he returned of nights
empty handed, but he always wore a cheerful face and a smile when he
entered the lighted cabin, no matter how gloomy it may have been in
the dark woods. And if Thomas, perchance, had permitted himself to
grow down-hearted, Doctor Joe’s smile and cheerfulness raised his
spirits and drove the gloom away. There is no tonic more potent than a
smile and a cheerful face. ’Tis a great mender of a sore heart.
Doctor Joe, however, in spite of his brave front, was deeply troubled
at his lack of success on the trail. It was of vital importance that
sufficient furs should be had to pay the way for Jamie’s operation,
and he was not in the least certain of the result of David’s and
Andy’s winter hunt, or altogether satisfied as to their safety. He
could never quite clear his mind of doubts as to Indian Jake’s
responsibility and integrity. So much depended upon the boys and
Indian Jake! Jamie’s whole future depended upon them or so Doctor Joe
believed. He was watching Jamie’s eyes carefully and constantly, and
there was no doubt that the mist was gradually but constantly
thickening.
When the northern posts are ice-bound the last autumn mail for the
coast is left by the mail boat each year at a post three hundred miles
to the southward, and carried thence to its destination by dog sledge.
Customarily this mail reaches the Hudson Bay Post in Eskimo Bay on the
evening of the twenty-second or twenty-third of December. Doctor Joe
was keenly anxious for its arrival this year, for he was confident it
would contain the hoped-for reply from the great New York surgeon, and
as the time approached he was indeed in a state of nervous expectancy.
There was still the uncertainty as to whether or no the surgeon would
be in New York the following summer. Doctor Joe had promised that he
would be there, or at least held out such strong hopes that Jamie and
Thomas and Margaret were depending upon them as a promise, and with
the utmost faith. Doctor Joe felt the responsibility keenly, and as
the weeks wore away this feeling of personal responsibility increased.
He did not dare to think of Jamie’s future should his plans fail, and
when the thought did force itself upon him a strange panic seized him.
Doctor Joe’s anxiety was so keen that he must needs lose no time in
receiving the letter that he hoped would come to him, and two days
before Christmas, when he came home from the trail in the evening, he
announced that he was to go to the Post the following morning.
“How would you like to take the cruise with me, Margaret?” he asked.
“You haven’t been away from The Jug in six months.”
“Oh, ’twould be fine!” exclaimed Margaret, delighted at the prospect.
“I’d like so much t’ go!”
“Then I’ll drive the dogs over, and take you,” said Doctor Joe. “Your
father and Jamie will do very well without you for one day, and I’m
not going out on my trail on Christmas eve. Besides, we’re very apt to
meet Santa Claus, and we mustn’t miss seeing him, for he may have
something for Jamie, and the old rascal would like as not go right on
and never leave it, if we don’t remind him.”
Doctor Joe gave a quizzical glance toward Jamie, who was immediately
intensely excited.
“Jamie and I’ll do fine alone for _one_ day,” declared Thomas, “though
I don’t know how we’d ever do without Margaret longer than that. It
never would do to miss old Santa Claus, though, and Margaret must go
along.”
“Ask he--ask he--if you sees he, now, t’ bring me a knife!” exclaimed
Jamie, vastly excited. “A huntin’ knife! When th’ mist leaves my eyes
I’ll have un t’ use when I goes huntin’ with Pop. Tell he that, and
he’ll sure give un to me!”
“Very well,” agreed Doctor Joe, “we’ll tell him. But supposing he has
no hunting knives? He may be all out of them. Then what shall he bring
you?”
“A jackknife,” said Jamie, with prompt decision. “A jackknife that’ll
be all my own.”
Accordingly the following morning Doctor Joe made ready the sledge and
harnessed the eight big dogs, and when Margaret heard the dogs yelping
in eagerness to be away she came running out, all bundled up, her eyes
sparkling and face aglow with the prospect of the journey. When she
had seated herself in a big box on the rear of the sledge, Doctor Joe
wrapped caribou skins about her and tucked her in as snug and warm as
could be. Then he seized the front of the komatik, as they called the
sledge, jerked it sharply toward him to break it loose from the snow,
and as he did so shouted “Oo-isht! Oo-isht!” With a creak the sledge
was freed and the dogs, straining at their traces, shot ahead at a
gallop down the steep slope to the ice.
The sledge once in motion coasted after the dogs at a mad pace. Doctor
Joe, throwing himself upon it, with his feet extending forward and
over the side, drove his heels into the snow in rapid succession,
while he pulled back with all his might in an effort to retard the
speed. Margaret, enveloped by the cloud of snow which Doctor Joe
kicked up, clung desperately to the swaying box. It was exciting and
thrilling. At the foot of the slope was a mass of ice hummocks, piled
up by the tide, and as the dogs and sledge dashed among them the
speed slackened. Here, with quick, agile jerks upon the front of the
runners, Doctor Joe steered them safely to the smooth white surface of
the Bay.
Now the dogs settled to a comfortable trot. Doctor Joe seated himself
upon the sledge, and looking back he and Margaret waved their hands
gaily to Thomas and Jamie, who were standing at the cabin door, while
Thomas told Jamie what was taking place.
It was dusk when the howl of eager dogs announced the return of Doctor
Joe and Margaret. Thomas and Jamie hastened to the door, and were in
time to greet them as the sledge drew up the incline.
“Oh, we had a fine trip!” exclaimed Margaret enthusiastically, as she
threw off the caribou skins and stepped lightly from the box, quite as
pleased and excited with her journey and visit to the trading post as
any country girl in our land would be with a journey of a hundred
miles and a visit to a great city.
“Did you see Santa Claus?” asked Jamie in high expectation.
“Oh, yes, we saw him!” answered Margaret gaily.
“And is he t’ come here?” and Jamie was on tiptoe with excitement.
“He’s t’ come here!” declared Margaret. “He’ll not be passing _here_,
_what_ever!”
“We told him that he must come _here_, whatever he did!” called
Doctor Joe, who was unharnessing the dogs. “We told him ’twould be a
sorry day for him if he passed The Jug without stopping.”
“O-h-h!” breathed Jamie.
And presently, when Doctor Joe had turned the dogs loose and fed them,
he came stamping into the cabin all aglow with the good news of a
letter from the great doctor, who had written that he would cut the
mist away from Jamie’s eyes. That in itself was the greatest Christmas
present that could have come to any of them. Jamie asked a hundred
questions about it, and they all declared that they were never before
in all their lives made so glad of a Christmas eve.
That night, with faith complete, Jamie hung up his stocking, and sure
enough on Christmas morning it contained not only the coveted knife
but a little package of candy. And to Margaret’s great surprise, for
she had not in the least expected to be remembered, Santa Claus had
brought her a beautiful knitted sweater to wear about when the cabin
was chilly, and she was no less happy with the gift than was Jamie
with his.
And Thomas and Doctor Joe were as happy as either of them. Santa Claus
must be a very happy old man indeed, for the greatest happiness in the
world comes from making others happy. And it is not the worth of a
gift in money, either, that counts for value, but the depth of love
that goes with it. And after all, every one who does his best to make
others happy at Christmas time or at any other time is a Santa Claus.
As the weeks passed the mist in Jamie’s eyes grew so thick that at
length he ceased his old pathetic habit of brushing his hand before
them to drive it away. It hurt Margaret’s sympathetic heart solely to
see him groping for things that were usually near at hand, but which
he could not find.
Thomas, who had long since abandoned his crutches, and was as busy as
ever, was openly worried over Jamie’s condition, and more than once
Margaret discovered Doctor Joe staring long and steadily at Jamie with
what she thought was a look of fear in his face, and it startled her.
Was it possible, she asked herself, that the blindness might come too
soon for the great doctor to work his marvelous cure?
But Doctor Joe said there was no cause for worry, on that score, and
for the most part he was outwardly cheerful enough. There was still
time, he declared--unless the eyes darkened much more rapidly in the
coming weeks than they had during the early winter, and there was no
reason to expect that they would.
“It all depends now upon the furs the boys and Indian Jake bring out,”
he said, “and they’ll surely bring enough between them to pay
expenses. Four hundred dollars will be plenty, and if we have three
hundred I’ll take Jamie, anyhow. My little hunt will fetch a hundred,
and they’ll be certain to have enough to make up the balance.”
“O, aye, they’ll sure have that much,” and Thomas brightened.
“The boys should be out the first of June, and Jamie and I will go on
the first mail boat, the last of the month,” said Doctor Joe. “It all
depends on our getting the furs. We _must_ have the furs, and there’s
no reason to doubt we’ll have them.”
Jamie had faith, and plenty o’ grit, too. _He_ had no doubt that David
and Andy would come home with a fine lot of furs.
And so they all waited and watched hopefully and expectantly for the
return of the hunters, never once dreaming of disappointment or
failure, or how strangely awry their plans were to go, as so often is
the case with the best laid plans.