Grit A-Plenty Part 24

"I'm wonderful glad t' have un took off," said Thomas, his face brightening visibly.

Doctor Joe laughed, as he went to work, and presently the bandages and splints were removed, and he surveyed the leg.

"I never saw a better job!" he exclaimed. "Straight and fine! It won't be long, Thomas, till you'll forget you ever had a broken leg!"

"She feels strange," remarked Thomas.

"Does she, now?" laughed Doctor Joe.

"Aye, she does that! She p.r.i.c.ks and hurts, and she wasn't hurtin' a bit when th' lashin's were on," said Thomas.

"That'll soon pa.s.s away. It's the blood circulating," Doctor Joe explained.

And after that it was not long until Thomas was moving about the cabin on a pair of rude crutches Doctor Joe had made for him, and mightily pleased he was.

"Plenty t' be thankful for," declared Thomas. "Here, now I'll soon have as good a pair o' legs as ever I had, with Doctor Joe's mendin', and if Doctor Joe hadn't been here 'tis like as not, and liker too, I'd ha' been crippled for life."

Late in October winter snapped down upon them in a night. Everywhere the great bay was frozen, and there was no longer the sound of lapping waves upon the beach. Very soon, too, the cheerful voice of Roaring Brook, tumbling headlong over the rocks, was hushed into silence.

Rime filled the air, and the cabin windows became thick-crusted with a frost that never melted that livelong winter. Before the end of November the snow lay a full fathom deep every where, and there was no going abroad now, save upon snowshoes.

But there was wood enough ranked high in the shed to keep the big stove roaring and crackling merrily, and the cabin a.s.sumed a greater coziness than ever.

Thomas busied himself making snowshoes for future use, mending dog harness, and attending to innumerable odd jobs for which ordinarily in his busy existence he found small leisure.

"'Tis a blessin' t' feel I has th' time for un without neglectin' and makin' a shift of other work," he declared. Thomas found a blessing and a reason for thankfulness in everything.

Each morning almost before the break of dawn Doctor Joe would steal away into the cold, dreary gloom of the silent forest, and each night, as dusk was settling, they would hear his cheery call as he returned. This was the brightest hour of the day for Jamie and Margaret, aye and Thomas, too.

But following the fur trails from morning till night, and day after day, was hard and wearisome work for Doctor Joe. His success as a trapper was indifferent. He was not born and bred to it as were Thomas and the boys. There were days and days when he returned of nights empty handed, but he always wore a cheerful face and a smile when he entered the lighted cabin, no matter how gloomy it may have been in the dark woods. And if Thomas, perchance, had permitted himself to grow down-hearted, Doctor Joe's smile and cheerfulness raised his spirits and drove the gloom away. There is no tonic more potent than a smile and a cheerful face. 'Tis a great mender of a sore heart.

Doctor Joe, however, in spite of his brave front, was deeply troubled at his lack of success on the trail. It was of vital importance that sufficient furs should be had to pay the way for Jamie's operation, and he was not in the least certain of the result of David's and Andy's winter hunt, or altogether satisfied as to their safety. He could never quite clear his mind of doubts as to Indian Jake's responsibility and integrity. So much depended upon the boys and Indian Jake! Jamie's whole future depended upon them or so Doctor Joe believed. He was watching Jamie's eyes carefully and constantly, and there was no doubt that the mist was gradually but constantly thickening.

When the northern posts are ice-bound the last autumn mail for the coast is left by the mail boat each year at a post three hundred miles to the southward, and carried thence to its destination by dog sledge.

Customarily this mail reaches the Hudson Bay Post in Eskimo Bay on the evening of the twenty-second or twenty-third of December. Doctor Joe was keenly anxious for its arrival this year, for he was confident it would contain the hoped-for reply from the great New York surgeon, and as the time approached he was indeed in a state of nervous expectancy.

There was still the uncertainty as to whether or no the surgeon would be in New York the following summer. Doctor Joe had promised that he would be there, or at least held out such strong hopes that Jamie and Thomas and Margaret were depending upon them as a promise, and with the utmost faith. Doctor Joe felt the responsibility keenly, and as the weeks wore away this feeling of personal responsibility increased.

He did not dare to think of Jamie's future should his plans fail, and when the thought did force itself upon him a strange panic seized him.

Doctor Joe's anxiety was so keen that he must needs lose no time in receiving the letter that he hoped would come to him, and two days before Christmas, when he came home from the trail in the evening, he announced that he was to go to the Post the following morning.

"How would you like to take the cruise with me, Margaret?" he asked.

"You haven't been away from The Jug in six months."

"Oh, 'twould be fine!" exclaimed Margaret, delighted at the prospect.

"I'd like so much t' go!"

"Then I'll drive the dogs over, and take you," said Doctor Joe. "Your father and Jamie will do very well without you for one day, and I'm not going out on my trail on Christmas eve. Besides, we're very apt to meet Santa Claus, and we mustn't miss seeing him, for he may have something for Jamie, and the old rascal would like as not go right on and never leave it, if we don't remind him."

Doctor Joe gave a quizzical glance toward Jamie, who was immediately intensely excited.

"Jamie and I'll do fine alone for _one_ day," declared Thomas, "though I don't know how we'd ever do without Margaret longer than that. It never would do to miss old Santa Claus, though, and Margaret must go along."

"Ask he--ask he--if you sees he, now, t' bring me a knife!" exclaimed Jamie, vastly excited. "A huntin' knife! When th' mist leaves my eyes I'll have un t' use when I goes huntin' with Pop. Tell he that, and he'll sure give un to me!"

"Very well," agreed Doctor Joe, "we'll tell him. But supposing he has no hunting knives? He may be all out of them. Then what shall he bring you?"

"A jackknife," said Jamie, with prompt decision. "A jackknife that'll be all my own."

Accordingly the following morning Doctor Joe made ready the sledge and harnessed the eight big dogs, and when Margaret heard the dogs yelping in eagerness to be away she came running out, all bundled up, her eyes sparkling and face aglow with the prospect of the journey. When she had seated herself in a big box on the rear of the sledge, Doctor Joe wrapped caribou skins about her and tucked her in as snug and warm as could be. Then he seized the front of the komatik, as they called the sledge, jerked it sharply toward him to break it loose from the snow, and as he did so shouted "Oo-isht! Oo-isht!" With a creak the sledge was freed and the dogs, straining at their traces, shot ahead at a gallop down the steep slope to the ice.

The sledge once in motion coasted after the dogs at a mad pace. Doctor Joe, throwing himself upon it, with his feet extending forward and over the side, drove his heels into the snow in rapid succession, while he pulled back with all his might in an effort to r.e.t.a.r.d the speed. Margaret, enveloped by the cloud of snow which Doctor Joe kicked up, clung desperately to the swaying box. It was exciting and thrilling. At the foot of the slope was a ma.s.s of ice hummocks, piled up by the tide, and as the dogs and sledge dashed among them the speed slackened. Here, with quick, agile jerks upon the front of the runners, Doctor Joe steered them safely to the smooth white surface of the Bay.

Now the dogs settled to a comfortable trot. Doctor Joe seated himself upon the sledge, and looking back he and Margaret waved their hands gaily to Thomas and Jamie, who were standing at the cabin door, while Thomas told Jamie what was taking place.

It was dusk when the howl of eager dogs announced the return of Doctor Joe and Margaret. Thomas and Jamie hastened to the door, and were in time to greet them as the sledge drew up the incline.

"Oh, we had a fine trip!" exclaimed Margaret enthusiastically, as she threw off the caribou skins and stepped lightly from the box, quite as pleased and excited with her journey and visit to the trading post as any country girl in our land would be with a journey of a hundred miles and a visit to a great city.

"Did you see Santa Claus?" asked Jamie in high expectation.

"Oh, yes, we saw him!" answered Margaret gaily.

"And is he t' come here?" and Jamie was on tiptoe with excitement.

"He's t' come here!" declared Margaret. "He'll not be pa.s.sing _here_, _what_ever!"

"We told him that he must come _here_, whatever he did!" called Doctor Joe, who was unharnessing the dogs. "We told him 'twould be a sorry day for him if he pa.s.sed The Jug without stopping."

"O-h-h!" breathed Jamie.

And presently, when Doctor Joe had turned the dogs loose and fed them, he came stamping into the cabin all aglow with the good news of a letter from the great doctor, who had written that he would cut the mist away from Jamie's eyes. That in itself was the greatest Christmas present that could have come to any of them. Jamie asked a hundred questions about it, and they all declared that they were never before in all their lives made so glad of a Christmas eve.

That night, with faith complete, Jamie hung up his stocking, and sure enough on Christmas morning it contained not only the coveted knife but a little package of candy. And to Margaret's great surprise, for she had not in the least expected to be remembered, Santa Claus had brought her a beautiful knitted sweater to wear about when the cabin was chilly, and she was no less happy with the gift than was Jamie with his.

And Thomas and Doctor Joe were as happy as either of them. Santa Claus must be a very happy old man indeed, for the greatest happiness in the world comes from making others happy. And it is not the worth of a gift in money, either, that counts for value, but the depth of love that goes with it. And after all, every one who does his best to make others happy at Christmas time or at any other time is a Santa Claus.

As the weeks pa.s.sed the mist in Jamie's eyes grew so thick that at length he ceased his old pathetic habit of brushing his hand before them to drive it away. It hurt Margaret's sympathetic heart solely to see him groping for things that were usually near at hand, but which he could not find.

Thomas, who had long since abandoned his crutches, and was as busy as ever, was openly worried over Jamie's condition, and more than once Margaret discovered Doctor Joe staring long and steadily at Jamie with what she thought was a look of fear in his face, and it startled her.

Was it possible, she asked herself, that the blindness might come too soon for the great doctor to work his marvelous cure?

But Doctor Joe said there was no cause for worry, on that score, and for the most part he was outwardly cheerful enough. There was still time, he declared--unless the eyes darkened much more rapidly in the coming weeks than they had during the early winter, and there was no reason to expect that they would.

"It all depends now upon the furs the boys and Indian Jake bring out,"

he said, "and they'll surely bring enough between them to pay expenses. Four hundred dollars will be plenty, and if we have three hundred I'll take Jamie, anyhow. My little hunt will fetch a hundred, and they'll be certain to have enough to make up the balance."

"O, aye, they'll sure have that much," and Thomas brightened.