Sweetapple Cove.

by George van Schaick.

CHAPTER I

_From John Grant's Diary_

Have I shown wisdom or made an arrant, egregious fool of myself? This, I suppose, is a question every man puts to himself after taking a sudden decision upon which a great deal depends.

I have shaken the dust of the great city by the Hudson and forsaken its rich laboratories, its vast hospitals, the earnest workers who were beginning to show some slight interest in me. It was done not after mature consideration but owing to the whim of a moment, to a sudden desire to change the trend of things I felt I could no longer contend with.

Now I live in a little house, among people who speak with an accent that has become unfamiliar to the great outside world. They have given up their two best rooms to me, at a rental so small that I am somewhat ashamed to tender it, at the end of every week. I also obtain the constant care and the pleasant smiles of a good old housewife who appears to take a certain amount of pride in her lodger. As far as I know I am the only boarder in Sweetapple Cove, as well as the only doctor. For a day or two after my arrival I accompanied the local parson, Mr. Barnett, on visits to people he considered to be in need of my ministrations. Now they are coming in droves, and many scattered dwellers on the bleak coast have heard of me. Little fishing-smacks meeting others from farther outports have spread the amazing news that there is a doctor at the Cove.

With other pomps and vanities I have given up white shirts and collars, and my recent purchases include oilskins and long boots. This is fashionable apparel here, and my wearing them appears to impart confidence in my ability.

My only reason for writing this is that the Barnetts go to bed early.

Doubtless I may also acquire the habit, in good time. Moreover, there is always a danger of disturbing some important sermon-writing. In common decency I can't bother these delightful people every evening, although they have begged me to consider their home as my own. Mrs. Barnett is a most charming woman, and never in my life have I known anything like the welcome she impulsively extended, but she works hard and I cannot intrude too much. Hence the hours after nine are exceedingly long, when it chances that there are no sick people to look after. At first, of course, I just mooned around, and called myself all sorts of names, honestly considering myself the most stupendous fool ever permitted to exist in freedom from restraint. I plunged into books and devoured the medical weeklies which the irregular mails of the place brought me, yet this did not entirely suffice, and now I have begun to write. It may help the time to pa.s.s away, and prevent the attacks of mold and rust. Later on, if things do not shape themselves according to my hopes, these dangers will be of little import. These sheets may then mildew with the dampness of this land, or fly away to sea with the shrewd breezes that sweep over our coast, for all I shall care. At any rate they will have served their purpose.

Of course I am trying to swallow my medicine like a little man. If there is a being I despise it is the fellow who whimpers. There is little that is admirable in professional pugilism, saving the smile often seen on a fighter's face after he has just received a particularly hard and crushing blow. Indeed, that smile is the bruiser's apology for his life.

Lest it be inferred that I have been fighting, I hasten to declare that it was a rather one-sided contest in which I was defeated, lock, stock and barrel, by a mere slip of a girl towards whom I had only lifted up my hands in supplication.

"We are both very young, John," she explained to me, with an exasperating, if unconscious, imitation of the doctors she had observed as they announced very disagreeable things to their patients. "Our lives are practically only beginning. Until now we have been like the vegetables that are brought up in little wooden boxes. We are to be taken up and planted in a field, where we are to grow up into something useful."

"And we shall enjoy a great advantage over the young cabbages and lettuces," I chimed in. "We shall have the inestimable privilege of being permitted to select the particular farm or enclosure that pleases us best."

"Of course," said Dora Maclennon, cheerfully.

"But I should be ever so glad to have you select for the two of us," I told her. "I guarantee to follow you blindly."

She put her hand on my arm and patted it in the abominably soothing way she has doubtless acquired in the babies' ward. In my case it was about as effectual as the traditional red rag to a bull.

"Don't you dare touch me like that," I resented. "I'm quite through with the mumps and measles. My complaint is one you don't understand at all.

You are unable to sympathize with me because love, to you, is a mere theoretical thing. You've heard of it, perhaps you are even ready to admit that some people suffer from such an ailment, but you don't really know anything about it. It has not been a part of your curriculum. I've been trying to inoculate you with this distemper but it won't take."

"I suppose I'm a poor sort of soil for that kind of culture," she replied, rather wistfully.

"There is no finer soil in the world," I protested, doggedly.

Every man in the world and at least half the women would have agreed with me. The grace of her charming figure, her smiles and that one little dimple, the waving abundance of her silken hair, the rich inflections of her voice, each and all contradicted that foolish supposition of hers.

"Well, I thought this was an invitation to dinner," remarked Dora, sweetly, with all the brutal talent of her s.e.x for changing the drift of conversation. "Of course they fed us well at the hospital, when we had time to eat, but...."

"Is that your last word?" I asked, trying to subdue the eagerness of my voice.

"If you don't really care to go...."

I rose and sought my hat and overcoat, while Dora wandered about my unpretentious office.

"Your landlady could take lessons from Paddy's pig in cleanliness," she declared, running a finger over my bookcase and contemplating it with horror. "I wonder that you, a surgeon, should be an accomplice to such a mess."

"It's pretty bad," I admitted, "but the poor thing has weak eyes, and she has seen better days."

"She deserves the bad ones, then," Dora exclaimed.

"As in the case of many other maladies, we have as yet been unable to discover the microbe of woman's inhumanity to woman," I observed.

"When doggies meet they commonly growl," said Dora, "and when p.u.s.s.ies meet they usually spit and scratch. Each according to his or her nature.

And it seems to me that you could afford a new overcoat. That one is positively becoming green."

"I do believe I have another one, somewhere," I admitted.

"Then go and find it," she commanded. "You need some one to look after you."

I turned on her like the proverbial flash, or perhaps like the Downtrodden worm.

"Isn't that just what I've been gnashing my teeth over?" I asked. "I'm glad you have the grace to admit it."

"I'll admit anything you like," she said. "But, John dear, we can't really be sure yet that I'm the one who ought to do it. And--and maybe there will be no room at the tables unless we hurry a little."

She was b.u.t.toning up her gloves again, quite coolly, and cast approving glances at some radiographic prints on my wall.

"That must have been a splendid fracture," she commented.

"You are a few million years old in the ways of Eve," I told her, "but you are still young in the practice of trained nursing. To you broken legs and, perhaps, broken hearts, are as yet but interesting cases."

She turned her shapely head towards me, and for an instant her eyes searched mine.

"Do you really believe that?" she asked, in a very low-sweet voice.

I stood before her, penitently.

"I don't suppose I do," I acknowledged. "Let us say that it was just some of the growling of the dog. He doesn't usually mean anything by it."

"You're an awfully good fellow, John," said the little nurse, pleasantly.

"I know I've been hurting you a bit. Please, I'm sorry the medicine tastes so badly."

The only thing I could do was to lift up one of her hands and kiss a white kid glove, _faute de mieux_. It was stretched over her fingers, however, and hence was part of her.

When we reached the restaurant she selected a table and placed herself so that she might see as many diners as possible. If there had been people outside of Paradise, Eve would certainly have peeped through the palings.

I handed her the bill of fare and she begged for Cape Cods.

"You order the rest of it," she commanded. "I'm going to look."

While I discussed dishes with the waiter her eyes wandered over the big room, taking in pretty dresses and becoming coiffures. Then she watched the leader of the little orchestra, who certainly wielded a masterful bow, and gave a little sigh of content.

"We really could afford this at least once or twice a week," I sought to tempt her, "and the theatre besides, and--and--"