My Summer with Dr. Singletary: A Fragment Chapter VI.
by John Greenleaf Whittier
The Skipper's Story.
"Well, what's the news below?" asked the Doctor of his housekeeper,
as she came home from a gossiping visit to the landing one afternoon.
"What new piece of scandal is afloat now?"
"Nothing, except what concerns yourself," answered Widow Matson, tartly.
"Mrs. Nugeon says that you've been to see her neighbor Wait's girl--she
that 's sick with the measles--half a dozen times, and never so much as
left a spoonful of medicine; and she should like to know what a doctor's
good for without physic. Besides, she says Lieutenant Brown would have
got well if you'd minded her, and let him have plenty of thoroughwort
tea, and put a split fowl at the pit of his stomach."
"A split stick on her own tongue would be better," said the Doctor,
with a wicked grimace.
"The Jezebel! Let her look out for herself the next time she gets the
rheumatism; I'll blister her from head to heel. But what else is
going?"
"The schooner Polly Pike is at the landing."
"What, from Labrador? The one Tom Osborne went in?"
"I suppose so; I met Tom down street."
"Good!" said the Doctor, with emphasis. "Poor Widow Osborne's prayers
are answered, and she will see her son before she dies."
"And precious little good will it do her," said the housekeeper.
"There's not a more drunken, swearing rakeshame in town than Tom
Osborne."
"It's too true," responded the Doctor. "But he's her only son; and you
know, Mrs. Matson, the heart of a mother."
The widow's hard face softened; a tender shadow passed over it; the
memory of some old bereavement melted her; and as she passed into the
house I saw her put her checked apron to her eyes.
By this time Skipper Evans, who had been slowly working his way up
street for some minutes, had reached the gate.
"Look here!" said he. "Here's a letter that I've got by the Polly Pike
from one of your old patients that you gave over for a dead man long
ago."
"From the other world, of course," said the Doctor.
"No, not exactly, though it's from Labrador, which is about the last
place the Lord made, I reckon."
"What, from Dick Wilson?"
"Sartin," said the Skipper.
"And how is he?"
"Alive and hearty. I tell you what, Doctor, physicking and blistering
are all well enough, may be; but if you want to set a fellow up when
he's kinder run down, there's nothing like a fishing trip to Labrador,
'specially if he's been bothering himself with studying, and writing,
and such like. There's nothing like fish chowders, hard bunks, and sea
fog to take that nonsense out of him. Now, this chap," (the Skipper
here gave me a thrust in the ribs by way of designation,) "if I could
have him down with me beyond sunset for two or three months, would come
back as hearty as a Bay o' Fundy porpoise."
Assuring him that I would like to try the experiment, with him as
skipper, I begged to know the history of the case he had spoken of.
The old fisherman smiled complacently, hitched up his pantaloons, took a
seat beside us, and, after extracting a jack-knife from one pocket, and
a hand of tobacco from the other, and deliberately supplying himself
with a fresh quid, he mentioned, apologetically, that he supposed the
Doctor had heard it all before.
"Yes, twenty times," said the Doctor; "but never mind; it's a good story
yet. Go ahead, Skipper."
"Well, you see," said the Skipper, "this young Wilson comes down here
from Hanover College, in the spring, as lean as a shad in dog-days. He
had studied himself half blind, and all his blood had got into brains.
So the Doctor tried to help him with his poticary stuff, and the women
with their herbs; but all did no good. At last somebody advised him to
try a fishing cruise down East; and so he persuaded me to take him
aboard my schooner. I knew he'd be right in the way, and poor company
at the best, for all his Greek and Latin; for, as a general thing, I've
noticed that your college chaps swop away their common sense for their
larning, and make a mighty poor bargain of it. Well, he brought his
books with him, and stuck to them so close that I was afraid we should
have to slide him off the plank before we got half way to Labrador. So
I just told him plainly that it would n't do, and that if he 'd a mind
to kill himself ashore I 'd no objection, but he should n't do it aboard
my schooner. 'I'm e'en just a mind,' says I, 'to pitch your books
overboard. A fishing vessel's no place for 'em; they'll spoil all our
luck. Don't go to making a Jonah of yourself down here in your bunk,
but get upon deck, and let your books alone, and go to watching the sea,
and the clouds, and the islands, and the fog-banks, and the fishes, and
the birds; for Natur,' says I, don't lie nor give hearsays, but is
always as true as the Gospels.'
"But 't was no use talking. There he'd lay in his bunk with his books
about him, and I had e'en a'most to drag him on deck to snuff the sea-
air. Howsomever, one day,--it was the hottest of the whole season,--
after we left the Magdalenes, and were running down the Gut of Canso, we
hove in sight of the Gannet Rocks. Thinks I to myself, I'll show him
something now that he can't find in his books. So I goes right down
after him; and when we got on deck he looked towards the northeast, and
if ever I saw a chap wonder-struck, he was. Right ahead of us was a
bold, rocky island, with what looked like a great snow bank on its
southern slope; while the air was full overhead, and all about, of what
seemed a heavy fall of snow. The day was blazing hot, and there was n't
a cloud to be seen.
"'What in the world, Skipper, does this mean?' says he. 'We're sailing
right into a snow-storm in dog-days and in a clear sky.'
"By this time we had got near enough to hear a great rushing noise in
the air, every moment growing louder and louder.
"'It's only a storm of gannets,' says I.
"'Sure enough!' says he; 'but I wouldn't have believed it possible.'
"When we got fairly off against the island I fired a gun at it: and such
a fluttering and screaming you can't imagine. The great snow-banks
shook, trembled, loosened, and became all alive, whirling away into the
air like drifts in a nor'wester. Millions of birds went up, wheeling
and zigzagging about, their white bodies and blacktipped wings crossing
and recrossing and mixing together into a thick grayish-white haze above
us.
"'You're right, Skipper,' says Wilson to me;
Nature is better than books.'
"And from that time he was on deck as much as his health would allow of,
and took a deal of notice of everything new and uncommon. But, for all
that, the poor fellow was so sick, and pale, and peaking, that we all
thought we should have to heave him overboard some day or bury him in
Labrador moss."
"But he did n't die after all, did he?" said I.
"Die? No!" cried the Skipper; "not he!"
"And so your fishing voyage really cured him?"
"I can't say as it did, exactly," returned the Skipper, shifting his
quid from one cheek to the other, with a sly wink at the Doctor. "The
fact is, after the doctors and the old herb-women had given him up at
home, he got cured by a little black-eyed French girl on the Labrador
coast."
"A very agreeable prescription, no doubt," quoth the Doctor, turning to
me. "How do you think it would suit your case?"
"It does n't become the patient to choose his own nostrums," said I,
laughing. "But I wonder, Doctor, that you have n't long ago tested the
value of this by an experiment upon yourself."
"Physicians are proverbially shy of their own medicines," said he.
"Well, you see," continued the Skipper, "we had a rough run down the
Labrador shore; rainstorms and fogs so thick you could cut 'em up into
junks with your jack-knife. At last we reached a small fishing station
away down where the sun does n't sleep in summer, but just takes a bit
of a nap at midnight. Here Wilson went ashore, more dead than alive,
and found comfortable lodgings with a little, dingy French oil merchant,
who had a snug, warm house, and a garden patch, where he raised a few
potatoes and turnips in the short summers, and a tolerable field of
grass, which kept his two cows alive through the winter. The country
all about was dismal enough; as far as you could see there was nothing
but moss, and rocks, and bare hills, and ponds of shallow water, with
now and then a patch of stunted firs. But it doubtless looked pleasant
to our poor sick passenger, who for some days had been longing for land.
The Frenchman gave him a neat little room looking out on the harbor, all
alive with fishermen and Indians hunting seals; and to my notion no
place is very dull where you can see the salt-water and the ships at
anchor on it, or scudding over it with sails set in a stiff breeze, and
where you can watch its changes of lights and colors in fair and foul
weather, morning and night. The family was made up of the Frenchman,
his wife, and his daughter,--a little witch of a girl, with bright black
eyes lighting up her brown, good-natured face like lamps in a binnacle.
They all took a mighty liking to young Wilson, and were ready to do
anything for him. He was soon able to walk about; and we used to see
him with the Frenchman's daughter strolling along the shore and among
the mosses, talking with her in her own language. Many and many a time,
as we sat in our boats under the rocks, we could hear her merry laugh
ringing down to us.
"We stayed at the station about three weeks; and when we got ready to
sail I called at the Frenchman's to let Wilson know when to come aboard.
He really seemed sorry to leave; for the two old people urged him to
remain with them, and poor little Lucille would n't hear a word of his
going. She said he would be sick and die on board the vessel, but that
if he stayed with them he would soon be well and strong; that they
should have plenty of milk and eggs for him in the winter; and he should
ride in the dog-sledge with her, and she would take care of him as if he
was her brother. She hid his cap and great-coat; and what with crying,
and scolding, and coaxing, she fairly carried her point.
"'You see I 'm a prisoner,' says he; 'they won't let me go.'
"'Well,' says I, 'you don't seem to be troubled about it. I tell you
what, young man,' says I, 'it's mighty pretty now to stroll round here,
and pick mosses, and hunt birds' eggs with that gal; but wait till
November comes, and everything freezes up stiff and dead except white
bears And Ingens, and there's no daylight left to speak of, and you 'll
be sick enough of your choice. You won't live the winter out; and it 's
an awful place to die in, where the ground freezes so hard that they
can't bury you.'
"'Lucille says,' says he, 'that God is as near us in the winter as in
the summer. The fact is, Skipper, I've no nearer relative left in the
States than a married brother, who thinks more of his family and
business than of me; and if it is God's will that I shall die, I may as
well wait His call here as anywhere. I have found kind friends here;
they will do all they can for me; and for the rest I trust Providence.'
"Lucille begged that I would let him stay; for she said God would hear
her prayers, and he would get well. I told her I would n't urge him any
more; for if I was as young as he was, and had such a pretty nurse to
take care of me, I should be willing to winter at the North Pole.
Wilson gave me a letter for his brother; and we shook hands, and I left
him. When we were getting under way he and Lucille stood on the
landing-place, and I hailed him for the last time, and made signs of
sending the boat for him. The little French girl understood me; she
shook her head, and pointed to her father's house; and then they both
turned back, now and then stopping to wave their handkerchiefs to us. I
felt sorry to leave him there; but for the life of me I could n't blame
him."
"I'm sure I don't," said the Doctor.
"Well, next year I was at Nitisquam Harbor; and, although I was doing
pretty well in the way of fishing, I could n't feel easy without running
away north to 'Brador to see what had become of my sick passenger. It
was rather early in the season, and there was ice still in the harbor;
but we managed to work in at last; when who should I see on shore but
young Wilson, so stout and hearty that I should scarcely have known,
him. He took me up to his lodgings and told me that he had never spent
a happier winter; that he was well and strong, and could fish and hunt
like a native; that he was now a partner with the Frenchman in trade,
and only waited the coming of the priest from the Magdalenes, on his
yearly visit to the settlements, to marry his daughter. Lucille was as
pretty, merry, and happy as ever; and the old Frenchman and his wife
seemed to love Wilson as if he was their son. I've never seen him
since; but he now writes me that he is married, and has prospered in
health and property, and thinks Labrador would be the finest country in
the world if it only had heavy timber-trees."
"One cannot but admire," said the Doctor, "that wise and beneficent
ordination of Providence whereby the spirit of man asserts its power
over circumstances, moulding the rough forms of matter to its fine
ideal, bringing harmony out of discord,--coloring, warming, and lighting
up everything within the circle of its horizon. A loving heart carries
with it, under every parallel of latitude, the warmth and light of the
tropics. It plants its Eden in the wilderness and solitary place, and
sows with flowers the gray desolation of rocks and mosses. Wherever
love goes, there springs the true heart's-ease, rooting itself even in
the polar ices. To the young invalid of the Skipper's story, the dreary
waste of what Moore calls, as you remember,
'the dismal shore
Of cold and pitiless Labrador,'
looked beautiful and inviting; for he saw it softened and irradiated in
an atmosphere of love. Its bare hills, bleak rocks, and misty sky were
but the setting and background of the sweetest picture in the gallery of
life. Apart from this, however, in Labrador, as in every conceivable
locality, the evils of soil and climate have their compensations and
alleviations. The long nights of winter are brilliant with moonlight,
and the changing colors of the northern lights are reflected on the
snow. The summer of Labrador has a beauty of its own, far unlike that
of more genial climates, but which its inhabitants would not forego for
the warm life and lavish luxuriance of tropical landscapes. The dwarf
fir-trees throw from the ends of their branches yellow tufts of stamina,
like small lamps decorating green pyramids for the festival of spring;
and if green grass is in a great measure wanting, its place is supplied
by delicate mosses of the most brilliant colors. The truth is, every
season and climate has its peculiar beauties and comforts; the
footprints of the good and merciful God are found everywhere; and we
should be willing thankfully to own that 'He has made all things
beautiful in their time' if we were not a race of envious, selfish,
ungrateful grumblers."
"Doctor! Doctor!" cried a ragged, dirty-faced boy, running breathless
into the yard.
"What's the matter, my lad?" said the Doctor.
"Mother wants you to come right over to our house. Father's tumbled off
the hay-cart; and when they got him up he didn't know nothing; but they
gin him some rum, and that kinder brought him to."
"No doubt, no doubt," said the Doctor, rising to go. "Similia similibus
curantur. Nothing like hair of the dog that bites you."
"The Doctor talks well," said the Skipper, who had listened rather
dubiously to his friend's commentaries on his story; "but he carries too
much sail for me sometimes, and I can't exactly keep alongside of him.
I told Elder. Staples once that I did n't see but that the Doctor could
beat him at preaching. 'Very likely,' says the Elder, says he; 'for you
know, Skipper, I must stick to my text; but the Doctor's Bible is all
creation.'"
"Yes," said the Elder, who had joined us a few moments before, "the
Doctor takes a wide range, or, as the farmers say, carries a wide swath,
and has some notions of things which in my view have as little
foundation in true philosophy as they have warrant in Scripture; but,
if he sometimes speculates falsely, he lives truly, which is by far
the most important matter. The mere dead letter of a creed, however
carefully preserved and reverently cherished, may be of no more
spiritual or moral efficacy than an African fetish or an Indian
medicine-bag. What we want is, orthodoxy in practice,--the dry bones
clothed with warm, generous, holy life. It is one thing to hold fast
the robust faith of our fathers,--the creed of the freedom-loving
Puritan and Huguenot,--and quite another to set up the five points of
Calvinism, like so many thunder-rods, over a bad life, in the insane
hope of averting the Divine displeasure from sin."
