Regret erroneous report. Mistake of a clerk in the Bureau of
Information. Santa Claus got away at 9:36. Wind blowing due south,
strong and fresh.
SNOW, Chief Clerk.
Then there was a great outburst of glee. It was the doctor who raised
the first cheer. Three times three and a tiger! And what a tiger it was!
What with the treble of Sammy, which was of the thinnest description,
and the treble of Martha, which was full and sure, and the treble of
Jimmie, which dangerously bordered on a cracked bass, and what with
Matilda's cackle and Skipper Jonas's croak and my own hoorays and the
doctor's gutteral uproar (which might have been mistaken for a very
double bass)--what with all this, as you may be sure, the shout of the
wind was nowhere. Then we joined hands--it was the doctor who began it
by catching Martha and Matilda--and danced the table round, shaking our
feet and tossing our arms, the glee ever more uproarious--danced until
we were breathless, every one, save little Sammy, who was not asked to
join the gambol, but sat still in his chair, and seemed to expect no
invitation.
"Wind blowing due south, strong and fresh," gasped Jimmie, when, at
last, we sat down. "He'll be down in a hurry, with they swift deer. My!
but he'll just _whizz_ in this gale!"
"But 'tis sad 'tis too late t' get word to un," said Martha, the smile
gone from her face.
"Sad, is it?" cried the doctor. "Sad! What's the word you want to send?"
"'Tis something for Sammy, zur."
Sammy gave Martha a quick dig in the ribs. "'N' mama," he lisped,
reproachfully.
"Ay, zur; we're wantin' it bad. An' does you think us could get word to
un? For Sammy, zur?"
"'N' mama," Sammy insisted.
"We can try, at any rate," the doctor answered, doubtfully. "Maybe we
can catch him on the way down. Where's that pen? Here we are. Now!"
He scribbled rapidly, folded the letter in great haste, and dispatched
it to Santa Claus's clerk by the simple process of throwing it in the
fire. As before, he went to his pack in the shed, taking the candle with
him--the errand appeared to be really most trivial--and stayed so long
that the little Jutts, who now loved him very much (as I could see),
wished that the need would not arise again. But, all in good time, he
returned, and sat to watch for the reply, intent as any of them; and,
presently, he snatched the stove door open, creating great confusion in
the act, as before; and before the little Jutts could recover from the
sudden surprise, he held up a smoking letter. Then he read aloud:
"Try Hamilton Inlet. Touches there 10:48. Time of arrival at Topmast
Tickle uncertain. No use waiting up. SNOW, Clerk."
"By Jove!" exclaimed the doctor. "That's jolly! Touches Hamilton Inlet
at 10:48." He consulted his watch. "It's now 10:43 and a half. We've
just four and a half minutes. I'll get a message off at once. Where's
that confounded pen? Ha! Here we are. Now--what is it you want for Sammy
and mama?"
The three little Jutts were suddenly thrown into a fearful state of
excitement. They tried to talk all at once; but not one of them could
frame a coherent sentence. It was most distressful to see.
"The Exterminator!" Martha managed to jerk out, at last.
"Oh, ay!" cried Jimmie Jutt. "Quick, zur! Write un down. Pine's Prompt
Pain Exterminator. Warranted to cure. Please, zur, make haste."
The doctor stared at Jimmie.
"Oh, zur," groaned Martha, "don't be starin' like that! Write, zur!
'Twas all in the paper the prospector left last summer. Pine's Prompt
Pain Exterminator. Cures boils, rheumatism, pains in the back an' chest,
sore throat, an' all they things, an' warts on the hands by a simple
application with brown paper. We wants it for the rheumatiz, zur. Oh,
zur----"
"None genuine without the label," Jimmie put in, in an excited rattle.
"Money refunded if no cure. Get a bottle with the label."
The doctor laughed--laughed aloud, and laughed again. "By Jove!" he
roared, "you'll get it. It's odd, but--ha, ha!--by Jove, he has it in
stock!"
The laughter and repeated assurance seemed vastly to encourage Jimmie
and Martha--the doctor wrote like mad while he talked--but not little
Sammy. All that he lisped, all that he shouted, all that he screamed,
had gone unheeded. As though unable to put up with the neglect any
longer, he limped over the floor to Martha, and tugged her sleeve, and
pulled at Jimmie's coat-tail, and jogged the doctor's arm, until, at
last, he attracted a measure of attention. Notwithstanding his mother's
protests--notwithstanding her giggles and waving hands--notwithstanding
that she blushed as red as ink (until, as I perceived, her freckles were
all lost to sight)--notwithstanding that she threw her apron over her
head and rushed headlong from the room, to the imminent danger of the
door-posts--little Sammy insisted that his mother's gift should be named
in the letter of request.
"Quick!" cried the doctor. "What is it? We've but half a minute left."
Sammy began to stutter.
"Make haste, b'y!" cried Jimmie.
"One--bottle--of--the--Magic--Egyptian--Beautifier," said Sammy, quite
distinctly for the first time in his life.
The doctor looked blank; but he doggedly nodded his head, nevertheless,
and wrote it down; and off went the letter at precisely 10:47.45, as the
doctor said.
* * * * *
Later--when the excitement had all subsided and we sat dreaming in the
warmth and glow--the doctor took little Sammy in his lap, and told him
he was a very good boy, and looked deep in his eyes, and stroked his
hair, and, at last, very tenderly bared his knee. Sammy flinched at
that; and he said "Ouch!" once, and screwed up his face, when the
doctor--his gruffness all gone, his eyes gentle and sad, his hand as
light as a mother's--worked the joint, and felt the knee-cap and socket
with the tips of his fingers.
"And is this the rheumatiz the Prompt Exterminator is to cure, Sammy?"
he asked.
"Ith, zur."
"Ah, is _that_ where it hurts you? Right on the point of the bone,
there?"
"Ith, zur."
"And was there no fall on the rock, at all? Oh, there _was_ a fall? And
the bruise was just there--where it hurts so much? And it's very hard to
bear, isn't it?"
Sammy shook his head.
"No? But it hurts a good deal, sometimes, does it not? That's too bad.
That's very sad, indeed. But, perhaps--perhaps, Sammy--I can cure it for
you, if you are brave. And are you brave? No? Oh, I think you are. And
you'll try to be, at any rate, won't you? Of course! That's a good boy."
And so, with his sharp little knives, the doctor cured Sammy Jutt's
knee, while the lad lay white and still on the kitchen table. And 'twas
not hard to do; but had not the doctor chanced that way, Sammy Jutt
would have been a cripple all his life.
* * * * *
"Doctor, zur," said Matilda Jutt, when the children were put to bed,
with Martha to watch by Sammy, who was still very sick, "is you really
got a bottle o' Pine's Prompt?"
The doctor laughed. "An empty bottle," said he. "I picked it up at
Poverty Cove. Thought it might come useful. I'll put Sammy's medicine in
that. They'll not know the difference. And you'll treat the knee with it
as I've told you. That's all. We must turn in at once; for we must be
gone before the children wake in the morning."
"Oh, ay, zur; an'----" she began: but hesitated, much embarrassed.
"Well?" the doctor asked, with a smile.
"Would you mind puttin' some queer lookin' stuff in one o' they bottles
o' yours?"
"Not in the least," in surprise.
"An' writin' something on a bit o' paper," she went on, pulling at her
apron, and looking down, "an' gluin' it t' the bottle?"
"Not at all. But what shall I write?"
She flushed. "'Magic Egyptian Beautifier,' zur," she answered; "for I'm
thinkin' 'twould please little Sammy t' think that Sandy Claws left
something--for me--too."
* * * * *
If you think that the three little Jutts found nothing but bottles of
medicine in their stockings, when they got down-stairs on Christmas
morning, you are very much mistaken. Indeed, there was much more than
that--a great deal more than that. I will not tell you what it was; for
you might sniff, and say, "Huh! That's little enough!" But there _was_
more than medicine. No man--rich man, poor man, beggarman nor thief,
doctor, lawyer nor merchant chief--ever yet left a Hudson's Bay
Company's post, stared in the face by the chance of having to seek
hospitality of a Christmas Eve--no right-feeling man, I say, ever yet
left a Hudson's Bay Company's post, under such circumstances, without
putting something more than medicine in his pack. I chance to know, at
any rate, that upon this occasion Doctor Luke did not. And I know,
too--you may be interested to learn it--that as we floundered through
the deep snow, homeward bound, soon after dawn, the next day, he was
glad enough that he hadn't. No merry shouts came over the white miles
from the cottage of Jonas Jutt, though I am sure that they rang there
most heartily; but the doctor did not care: he shouted merrily enough
for himself, for he was very happy. And that's the way _you'd_ feel,
too, if you spent _your_ days hunting good deeds to do.