_In Which it Seems that an Axe and Terry Lute's Finger Are Surely to
Come into Injurious Contact, and Terry Lute is Caught and Carried
Bawling to the Block, While His Mother Holds the Pot of Tar_
In Tom Lute's cottage beyond Come-Along Point of Amen Island they were
ready for the operation. There was a thick, round billet of birch,
upended in the middle of the kitchen floor, to serve as a block for the
amputation; and the axe was sharp, at last--at hand, too, but concealed,
for the moment, behind the pantry door--and a pot of tar was warming on
the kitchen stove.
Sandy Lands had reported for duty, whom nothing but a sense of duty had
drawn to a hand in the surgical assistance--a bit perturbed, as he
contemplated the task of restraining the struggles of a violent little
subject, whose temper he knew, but sturdy and resolved, his resolution
substantiated by a sort of religious austerity.
Black Walt Anderson, a gigantic, phlegmatic fellow, who would have
subdivided into half a dozen little Terry Lutes, also awaited the
signal to pounce upon the Little Fiddler of Amen Island, imprison his
arms, confine his legs, subdue all his little struggles, in short, bear
him to the block and flatten his hand and spread his fingers for the
severing blow.
It was to be a simple operation--a swift descent of the axe and a quick
application of hot tar and bandages to stifle the wound. And that was to
be the end of the finger and the trouble.
There had been a good deal of trouble. Terry Lute's sore finger was a
source of brutal agony. There had been many days of this pain--a
throbbing torture in the finger and hand and arm. And Terry had
practiced deception in an heroic degree.
No pain (said he); but, ah, well, a twinge, now an' again--but nothin'
at all t' make a man complain. An' sure (said he), 'twas better all the
while--improvin' every blessed minute, sir. A day more (said he) would
see the boil yield t' mother's poultice; an' a fortnight would see un
all healed up an' the finger able for labour again.
It was in the night that Terry could conceal the agony no longer--deep
in the night, when his mother sat beside the cot; and then he would
crawl out of bed, stow his slender little body away in his mother's
arms, put his head down and cry and moan without shame until he had
exhausted himself and fallen into a fitful sleep.
No; it was no trifling agony for Terry Lute to withstand. And he knew
all the while, moreover, that the cut of an axe--no more, it might be,
than a flash--would eventually relieve him. Terry Lute was not afraid of
the pain of the thing they wanted to do. That was not the inspiration of
his infuriated rebellion.
There was nothing mistaken in the intention of the axe. It was neither
cruel nor blundering.
Amen Island lies remote: the folk do for themselves--they are nearly
sufficient to themselves, indeed, in all the affairs of life; and when
they fail (they say) and sorrow comes of it--well, there is failure
everywhere, too, and life leaves every man when the spirit is finished
with its habitation. "I done the best I could!" It is epitaph honourable
enough. There was no horror on Amen Island--no furious complaint of the
wrongs of a social arrangement--when catastrophe came through lack of
uncommon means to stave it off.
And so when Tom Lute told old Bob Likely that when he had a job to do he
was accustomed to employ the best means at hand--he expressed in simple
terms the lesson of his habitat. This affair of Terry Lute's finger was
of gravest moment; had the finger gangrened--it must come off in haste,
and the sooner the better; and an axe and a pot of tar were the
serviceable instruments according to the teaching of all experience.
Doubtless doctors were better provided and more able; but as there was
no doctor to be had, and as Terry Lute was loved and greatly desired in
the flesh, and as he was apparently in peril of a sudden departure--and
as he was in desperate pain--and as----
But Terry Lute would not have his finger off. From the corner, where he
stood at bay, roaring in a way to silence the very gale that had now
begun to shake the cottage, he ran to his mother's knee, as though for
better harbour.
And there he sobbed his complaint.
"Ah, Terry, lad," his father pleaded; "'tis only a finger!"
"'Tis on my left hand!"
"You're not left-handed, son," Tom Lute argued, patiently. "You've no
real need o' four fingers there. Why, sonny, boy, once I knowed a
man----"
"'Tis one o' my fiddle fingers."
Tom Lute sighed. "Fiddle fingers, son!" said he. "Ah, now, boy! You've
said that so often, an' so foolishly, that I----"
"I'll not have it off!"
"But----"
"Isn't no _use_ in havin' it off," Terry complained, "an' I can't spare
it. This here boil----"
"'Tisn't a boil, son. 'Tis mortification. An'----"
"'Tis not mortification."
Again Tom sighed.
"Is you afeared, Terry?" said he. "Surely you isn't a pullin' little
coward, is you? A finger! 'Tis such a simple little thing t' suffer----"
"I'm not afeared neither!"
"Well, then----"
"You may cut any finger you likes off my right hand," Terry boasted,
"an' I'll not whimper a peep."
"I don't want a finger off your right hand, Terry."
"I won't have it!"
"'Tis no pleasure t' me t'----"
"I won't have a finger off my left hand!"
"I tells you, Terry, you isn't left-handed. I've told you that a
thousand times. What in the name o'----"
"I tells you I won't have it!"
Black Walt Anderson looked to Tom Lute for a signal. Sandy Lands rose.
"Now?" he seemed to inquire.
Tom Lute shook his head.
"That's the way we done aboard the _Royal Bloodhound_," the Little
Fiddler's grandfather put in. He began to pace the floor. The tap-tap of
his wooden leg was furious and his voice was as gusty as the gale
outside. "Now, you mark me!" he ran on. "We chopped Cap'n Sam Small's
foot off with a axe an' plugged it with b'ilin' tar. 'Twas
mortification. I knows mortification when I sees it. An' Sam Small got
well."
He was bawling, by this time, like a skipper in a gale--being deaf, the
old man was accustomed to raise his voice, a gradual _crescendo_, until
he had come as near hearing himself as possible.
"Yes, sir--you mark me! That's what we done aboard the _Royal
Bloodhound_ the year I shipped for the seals along o' Small Sam Small.
We chopped it clean off with a meat axe an' plugged it with b'ilin' tar.
If Small Sam Small had clung t' that member for another day he would
have died. Mark me! Small Sam Small would have been dropped over the
side o' the _Royal Bloodhound_ an' left t' shift for hisself in a sack
an' a Union Jack!"
He paused before Terry Lute and shook a lean finger under the little
boy's nose.
"Now," he roared, "you mark me!"
"I isn't aboard the _Royal Bloodhound_!" Terry sobbed.
"Ah, Terry!" This was Terry's mother. She was crying bitterly. "You'll
die an you don't have that finger off!"
"I'll die an I got to!"
"Oh, Terry, Terry!"
"I isn't afeared t' die."
"Ah, Terry, dear, whatever would I do----"
"I'll die afore I gives up one o' my fiddle fingers."
"But you isn't got----"
"Never you mind about that!"
"If you had----"
"You jus' wait till I grows up!"
Again Sandy Lands inquired for the signal. Tom Lute lifted a hand to
forbid.
"Terry, son," said he, gravely, "once an' for all, now, will you----"
"No!" Terry roared.
"Oh, oh, Terry, dear!" the mother wailed, observing the preparations
that were making behind Terry's back. "If you'd only----"
Terry screamed in a furious passion:
"Have done, woman! I tells you I won't have none o' my fiddle fingers
cut off!"
It was the end. Tom Lute gave the signal. Sandy Lands and Black Walt
Anderson pounced upon little Terry Lute and carried him bawling and
struggling from his mother's knee towards the block of birch in the
middle of the kitchen floor. Tom Lute stood waiting there with the axe.
As for Terry Lute's mother, she flew to the stove, tears streaming from
her eyes, her mouth grim, and fetched the pot of tar. And then all at
once the Little Fiddler of Amen Island wriggled out of the clutches of
his captors--they were too tender with him--and dived under the kitchen
table.