Doctor Dave
AT daybreak the next morning the barking of a dog wakened the sleeping
camp. Mr. Black pulled on his clothes and went sleepily down to the
water's edge, where Onota, Dave's yellow dog, was running madly about,
uttering excited yelps.
"Heem glad for got home," explained Dave, who had beached his canoe and
was gathering up its contents.
"What have you got?" asked Mr. Black.
Dave displayed a small doe, not yet skinned.
"Dose bigges' one--som' beeg buck, Ah'm t'ink--she ees bus' up ma
trap," Dave complained, "so Ah'm snare dose li'le doe. He ees good
meat, all right."
"Dave, you scalawag, you ought to be in jail. I'll wager there isn't a
game law that you haven't broken."
"He ees mos' all for you," assured Dave, ingratiatingly. "You got fine
dinner off heem ver' soon--I skeen heem for you, bam-bye. She's good
meat, dose young-lady deer."
"I _ought_ to tell the game warden on you. Don't you _know_ that you're
breaking game laws?"
"Ah'm t'ink maybe Ah'm crack dose law som'," admitted Dave; "but me, Ah
mus' eat li'le deer meat som' tam', halso dose par_tridge_, maybe som'
duck, too."
"Well," warned Mr. Black, helplessly, "don't expect me to help you
out if you get caught. And now, Dave, I wish you'd stay right here
for awhile; I've got a job for you. I want you to go to Lakeville
to-day--we've a sick boy up there and we need a doctor."
"Seeck boy?" queried Dave. "W'ere you got her from? W'at she ees seeck
on herself wit'?"
Mr. Black explained.
"Dat's all right," Dave said. "Bad cold on her long (lung). Ah cook you
som't'ing w'at feex her pooty good."
"No, no," protested Mr. Black, "we want a doctor and a lot of other
things. You _must_ go to Lakeville. I'll--yes, I'll give you two
dollars."
"Maybe Ah go behind dinner," promised Dave, uncertainly. "Ah mus'
sleep, me, for two-t'ree hour--Ah'm chase dose deer hall night. Tell
dose Jean, dose Bet_tee_, dose Mabelle, and dose Henriette, eef he ees
com' roun' pooty soon, Ah show heem how to skeen dose deer."
Notwithstanding the fact that his medical services had been declined,
Dave began almost at once to search for herbs, dig for roots, and
gather certain pungent leaves and twigs. These he covered carefully
with water and placed over a slow fire in a most repulsive saucepan.
By half-past eight o'clock, by which time the castaways were eating
breakfast, Dave had obtained about half a pint of a queer-smelling,
most unattractive-looking, greenish-black fluid. He carried this
strange brew carefully to the clearing, peered cautiously into Mrs.
Crane's unguarded tent, entered noiselessly, and dropped the flap.
Then, kneeling beside the helpless lad, the half-breed raised him
gently and poured the contents of his blackened tin cup, a little at a
time, down the boy's throat. This accomplished successfully, Dave, much
pleased with himself, emerged just in time to meet startled Mrs. Crane,
returning to look at her charge.
"Dave," she shrieked, noting the empty, not over-clean cup, "what
_have_ you done?"
"Das all right, Mees Crane," assured Dave. "Dose boy, she swallow good.
Ev'rybody wait fi--seex hour. Dose boy sweat lak' horse bam-bye--wake
up weak like babee--open hees eye. Maybe she's dead then, maybe she's
get well. You geeve her queek som' brot'--bouillon--w'at you call
heem--soup, hey?--behin' dos beeg sweat. For mak' her strong, dose
seeck boy."
"Dave," moaned Mrs. Crane, who had seized the cup and was smelling it,
"you've surely killed that poor child!"
"Nong, nong," protested Dave. "Dose ees ver' goo' medicine--Ah'm got
her off ma gran'modder."
"Well," growled Mr. Black, finding it difficult to be stern, with five
amused little girls giggling at his back. "If you get any more medicine
off your grandmother I'll throw you into the lake."
"Hee ees been dead long tam'--dose gran'modder."
"Took her own medicine, I suppose," said Mr. Black. "Was she French or
Indian?"
"Ojibway; som' squaw--som' Injun lady; ma fadaire, he French, from
Canadaw--speak no Englise. Ma modder Injun, sam' lak ma gran'modder; he
mak' dose medicine, too. Bot' dead, dose fadaire, dose modder."
"No wonder," breathed Henrietta.
"Mees Bet_tee_," said Dave, turning to go, "you breeng dose odder
girl--Ah show you how to skeen som' deer. Maybe Ah'm geeve you dose
tail. Dose liver--vaire fine meat, dose liver--ees for Jean."
At this the girls found it hard not to laugh outright, because, as
they very well knew, Jean heartily disliked liver of any kind. But
gentle-mannered Jean, who was always careful not to hurt any other
person's feelings, managed to say, prettily:
"Thank you, Dave; you're very good to me."
"You pooty nice girl," returned Dave. "Ah mak' som' med'cine for dose
sunburn hon your face."
"Thank you," faltered Jean, "but I--but I _like_ to be sunburned. I'll
be such a fine color after I've lost _all_ my skin."
"Dear me," groaned Mrs. Crane, when the girls had trooped away at
Dave's heels, "I was almost sure, this morning, that that boy was
better. I put my hand on his forehead very early--when Dave's dog
barked, and it felt cool and even a little damp--as if the fever had
left him for just a moment or two. And now Dave has probably finished
him. That boy must have had a fine constitution to start with or that
fever would have ended him yesterday. That horrible medicine on top of
everything else he's gone through----"
"Well," returned Mr. Black, "we won't gain anything by worrying
about it. We'll get Dave started after a real doctor as soon as
possible--I'll write a note to Doctor Bennett, so he can bring the
proper medicines with him. Make out your list and put the girls at
theirs as soon as they return--I'll go after them presently. That
rascal said he'd start 'behind dinner.'"
It was considerably "behind" the noon meal when Dave was ready to
begin his long walk; but at last, with a little food tied in a soiled
red handkerchief that dangled from a stick resting on his shoulder,
he departed. Although Dave never looked particularly clean, although
he was not especially handsome, there were moments when, because of
his picturesqueness, he decidedly pleased the eye. Now, with the
touch of dangling scarlet at his back, all the rest of him except his
rather long black hair an even, woodsy brown, Dave and the landscape,
harmoniously combined, made a truly attractive picture. But not for
long. The leaves at the edge of the grassy clearing closed suddenly
behind him; the castaways could not discover his trail; but Dave must
have guessed that they were trying to find it, for his laugh, always
an unexpectedly musical sound, floated back to the searchers.
"I hope," said Jean, "that he won't be gone as long _this_ time. Mrs.
Crane is almost as worried about this boy as she was about Rosa Marie
with the measles--perhaps more, because she had the doctor to help her
then."
"Dave helped her this time," said Marjory.
"_I_ hope he'll hurry, too," returned Henrietta. "It seems a _year_
since I ate the last crumb of candy out of my box."
"And we can't make any," mourned Marjory, "because the sugar's all but
gone."
"There's only a little butter," added Bettie, "and less than half a
loaf of rye bread; but luckily we've plenty of flour and cornmeal.
Biscuits and johnny-cake help a lot."
"It's a good thing," said Mabel, "that Mrs. Crane thought of sending
for that old tin oven. I'd hate to be obliged to go hungry with the
kind of appetite I've got _now_. I believe I could eat raw potatoes
this minute."
"You won't have to," assured Jean. "There's plenty of oatmeal and rice
and a lot of things in packages. Oh, yes, and _beans_--a great big bag
of dried ones."
"Wouldn't it be nice," suggested Bettie, "to surprise Mr. Black and
Mrs. Crane with baked beans for supper!"
"But they'd see us cooking them," objected Jean.
"We could build a stone oven, the way Dave showed us, on the beach,"
said practical Bettie. "Of course, if we used the tin one here in the
clearing, they'd see what we were doing. Marjory, you're so small they
won't notice you, so you slip into the provision tent and get the
beans. How many? Why--I don't know."
"Seven hundred," said Henrietta, promptly. "A hundred apiece--Anthony
prefers fish-tails."
"I guess," protested Marjory, "I'm not going to _count_ those
beans--they come in _pounds_, not dozens."
"They swell a lot," said Bettie. "I think that about four cupfuls would
be enough--bring them down in one of those round pudding pans--we'll
bake 'em in that."
"It seems to me," said Jean, when Marjory had successfully captured the
beans, "that we ought to wash them. But we haven't any colander--one of
those things with holes in it."
"Never mind," said Henrietta, "we'll use the lake--it's big enough,
anyway. I'll wade in with the beans----"
"I guess not," retorted Mabel. "Your feet and beans all in together!"
"That's so," agreed Henrietta. "Well, we'll dig out a basin in the hard
clean sand and wash them in that."
The basin grew larger than the girls meant to make it, and the slippery
white beans, turned loose in this little pond, proved remarkably
elusive. But finally the last one was captured and placed in a pan of
water with a pinch of salt; the pan was placed in the oven that the
girls had built, and a fire was started under it.
"They'll be surprised, won't they?" giggled the happy conspirators, far
from suspecting that they themselves were to be the surprised persons;
for this was their first experience with cooking dried beans, and of
course, since they couldn't consult Mrs. Crane without betraying the
secret, there was no one to ask for very necessary instructions.