THE WINTER'S WANING.
Dirk's little one was not the only fever-stricken sleeper that was
laid to rest in the dreary little burying-ground that winter. The
fever, born of want and filth and exposure, lingered among the
wretched huts, taking down the strong men and wasting the lives of the
little ones, till, after weary lingering, they flickered out. Of
course the sick ones had but the poorest of care and the rudest of
medical aid. The people were disheartened and apathetic, and seemed to
have no idea of cleansing their habitations or reforming their way of
living. Noll once ventured to hint to Dirk, with whom he was more
intimately acquainted than the others, that cleanliness and care might
do much toward ridding them of the haunting fever. The fisherman
stared blankly at this suggestion, and replied,--
"It mought do fur the like o' ye, lad; but we be poor folks, an' I
don't think 'tw'u'd do the good ye think. The fever be come, an' it be
goin' to stay till we be all lyin' up in the sand yender."
So the sickness lingered, meeting no resistance and no attempts to
check its progress. It smote heaviest the little ones just toddling
about, and who had not enough of strength and endurance in their
little bodies to resist the slowly-destroying fever. So Dirk's
treasure did not sleep alone in the sand, for many another father's
was there to keep it company. Oh! the weariness of the days, the slow
dragging of the weeks! When the sickness seemed to have spent itself,
and hope was beginning to flicker up, back came the destroyer and fell
upon some little one whom father and mother had fondly hoped to
save,--for these Culm people, dull and ignorant though they were, had
a strong and passionate love for their children that showed itself
most vividly in these days of death,--and then the people settled into
their old apathetic despair and found no light nor comfort for their
souls.
Was it any wonder that--with all this misery and death about him, and
the sight of it distressing him--Noll should grow sick at heart? The
gloom of the old stone house and the desolateness of his new home,
when compared with the one which he had left, had, at first, been all
that his fresh young spirits could bear; and, having grown to like his
new abode in a measure, he found, even then, that it would not do to
remember Hastings and his friends too often; and now, in these dreary
days, the boy began to grow less cheerful and to feel an unconquerable
desire to go back to those who loved him and whose homes knew nothing
of dreariness or gloom. This longing for friends he kept bravely to
himself, because he thought it was a part of his work--the work which
it seemed to him was God's--to be as brave and cheerful as possible
before Uncle Richard, and win him out of his gloom and moroseness. So
this yearning and desire for brighter scenes and faces was kept a
secret, and Trafford suspected nothing of it. His keen eyes, however,
detected that Noll was graver and less talkative than usual, and he
began to look about for a reason. Some dim knowledge of the sickness
and death in the village had crept in to him through Noll's and
Hagar's talk, and a sudden fear chilled him lest his nephew, too, was
to be stricken down with the lingering fever. What if it should be so?
What if even now the boy was oppressed with the languor and depression
which precedes illness? With this thought torturing him, he called to
Noll one afternoon from the library window, as the boy was idly
walking up and down the frozen sand. After a few minutes of waiting,
Noll made his appearance at the library door, looking a little
surprised, perhaps, at this unusual summons. Trafford bade him come up
to his chair, and Noll obeyed.
"Where were you all the forenoon?" questioned the uncle. "I saw you
but once after breakfast."
Noll looked as if he had much rather refrain from answering, but said,
after a few seconds of hesitation, "Over at Culm, Uncle Richard."
"At Culm!" exclaimed Trafford, sternly. "Isn't the fever raging
there?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you have been exposing yourself? Speak, Noll!"
"Why--yes--I suppose so, Uncle Richard. I was in the room where Hark
Darby's little boy was sick."
Trafford stamped upon the floor with impatience. "What were you there
for?" he cried.
"To carry something that Hagar made for it to drink. There's no
doctor, you know; and they're terribly poor, Uncle Richard. Oh! if you
could only--"
"Stop! I wish to hear naught of those fish-folks," cried Trafford.
"Oh! you careless lad, what can I do with you? Are you determined to
catch the fever? Are you bound to be always in danger?"
"No; but it's terrible over there, and--and they're dying with the
sickness, and nothing to make them comfortable! Oh! how can I help it,
Uncle Richard?"
Trafford looked into the lad's earnest eyes and sighed. "Would you
like to take the fever and be buried with the rest up there in the
sand?" he asked.
Noll shivered a little, and answered, "No, I don't want to die, Uncle
Richard. But I think I ought to help them all I can, over there, for
all that. And it's such a little--such a _very_ little--that I can do!
Oh! Uncle Richard, don't you think it is terrible to see them so
wretched, and no one to help them?"
"I don't see them!" said Trafford; "I should know nothing of it but
for you, and I don't want you to see them or know aught of the misery
or the sickness. Do you understand?"
Noll looked at his uncle as if he failed to comprehend.
"You don't mean that I'm not to go there any more?" he said.
"Yes, since you are not disposed to incline to my wishes, I must
command you. You are not to go near--"
This time it was Noll who interrupted. Before Trafford could finish
his command, the boy had taken two or three quick steps forward and
clasped his arms so quickly and convulsively about the stern man's
neck that he was startled into silence.
"Don't, don't say that, Uncle Richard!" cried Noll; "I couldn't mind
you if you did! It wouldn't be right,--when they're all sick and
almost starving,--and I couldn't do it, and it is not as papa told me
to do! And--"
Trafford endeavored to release Noll's hold, but the boy only clung the
tighter, exclaiming,--
"No, no! don't say it, Uncle Richard, for I couldn't mind you! Papa
never would wish me to! And oh, why don't _you_ help those poor, dying
people? Why don't you help them, Uncle Richard? Why don't you,--why
_don't_ you?"
Surprised at this unusual vehemence on the part of his nephew,
Trafford was silent, hardly knowing whether to be angry or
indifferent. That this matter lay very near the boy's heart, he had no
longer any doubt. What could he do with him?
"Noll," said he after a long silence, "do you mean that you will not
obey me?"
The boy hesitated. "In everything else, Uncle Richard," he answered,
with red cheeks and downcast eyes; "but this--but this--oh, how can
you ask me to stop? There isn't any one else to do anything, and it
helps a little, and they look for me to come every day; and if I did
not--oh, Uncle Richard, it would be too cruel! I can't do it! Do _you_
think papa would be pleased?"
"But you are mine, now, not his," said Trafford; with something like
displeasure in his tone; "aren't you aware of it?"
Noll said not a word, but stood with his eyes turned away from his
uncle's, and his cheeks crimsoning, while his breath came quick and
fast.
"Will you obey me or not?" Trafford asked, sternly.
Noll turned around and met his uncle's eye. He began to plead. His awe
of his uncle seemed to have vanished for the time, and Trafford was
astonished at the boy's earnestness and vehemence. Two or three times
he was about to put up his hand to command silence, but Noll redoubled
his pleading, and he continued to listen. All the remembrances of the
past dreary weeks--the want, the slow wasting, the flickering out of
life, the dismal laying away of the poor body in the sand--came to
Noll as vividly as the reality which he had witnessed, and made him
pray for relief with an earnestness and entreaty which ordinarily were
not his.
"Just think, Uncle Richard," said he, in conclusion, "papa would have
gone to their aid long ago. He bade me do all the good I could, and
you won't forbid me?--oh, I know you will not!--and won't you help me
to do more,--won't you, Uncle Richard?"
Trafford gloomily pushed his nephew away.
"Go!" he said; "I do not care to see you any more this afternoon."
Hardly had the boy turned away, however, before the quick thought
flashed into his mind that he had failed to ask him the question for
which he had called him. He might even now be ill, and he was sending
him away in anger!
"Noll!" exclaimed Trafford, "come back. Are you ill, my boy?"
"No, sir."
"Why are you so grave and sober of late?"
"I didn't know that I was, Uncle Richard."
Trafford looked keenly in his nephew's face, and at last drew him
toward himself. What if the fever should get a hold of the boy? he
thought, anxiously. There was no aid, no succor!
"Oh, Noll," he said, as tenderly as he might, "you cannot know what a
blow it would be to me to lose you. Won't you be careful for my sake?"
"Yes, Uncle Richard; I don't think there is much danger, though. It is
only the weak, half-starved ones that are ill."
A long silence followed. Then Noll asked, softly,--
"Do you give me permission to help them all I can, Uncle Richard?"
Trafford drew a great sigh, as if he felt himself to be yielding,
perhaps, the boy's very life, and answered, "Yes."
"And you'll help me, too?" said Noll, brightly.
"No! Isn't this enough? What more would you have?"
"I thought that--that perhaps you would help a little, too,--you can
do so much more than I," said Noll.
Trafford shook his head, gloomily. "No," he said; "I can give you
nothing but money. I have no heart for the work. And now I think of
it, you've had no allowance since you came here, Noll. I had not
thought of it before. Brother Noll and I always had spending-money."
"But I've no use for it," said Noll, with a little laugh; "I couldn't
spend it if I tried, Uncle Richard!"
"You may find a use for it when the 'Gull' begins her trips again,"
said his uncle; "at any rate, you shall have an allowance. You will
find it on your study table every Monday morning."
Noll thanked his uncle for this kindness, but at the time, was much at
a loss what to do with his weekly allowance which every Monday morning
brought him. He found a use for it, however, as time will show.
After this long talk, Noll felt somewhat lighter-hearted, if for no
other reason than because he had received Uncle Richard's permission
to go on with his work of aid. Spring was not far off, and with its
coming the fever would most likely flee, and then, he thought, there
would be some hope of doing something for the Culm people. And was he
not already doing something?
To Noll, it seemed but the merest trifle; in the eyes of the poor
fish-folk, his deeds were great and wonderful. All unconsciously, the
boy was accomplishing one of the most difficult portions of the task
which he had set for himself,--the winning of those rough, untaught
hearts. Many an uncouth blessing was called down upon the lad's head
as he made his appearance day after day at the doors of the
habitations which the fever had entered. His cheery, gladsome
presence, the Culm folk thought, was like a ray of sunshine in the
gloom of their hovels. It was curious to see how those great brawny
men confided in him, and watched to see him coming down the sands of a
morning-time, with his basket of delicacies on one arm, balanced by a
basket of more substantial food on the other. Not one of the men but
what, in their hearts, loved the boy and blessed the day which brought
him to Culm Rock. And, quite before he was aware of it, Noll had
accomplished one great object, and won the love and confidence of the
fish-folk.
The snow melted and ran into the sea, the ice in the rock hollows
trickled its life away, and warmer winds and sunnier clouds gave token
of the spring's coming; and Noll grew happier every day and looked
gleefully forward to the coming of the "Gull," and the tidings which
she would bring. Often in these days, when returning from his morning
round, it seemed to the boy as if his own father's blessing rested
upon his heart, it was so light and glad, and that God's love was all
about him and smiling over the barren Rock and the far, wide sea.