Part 30 (1/2)

”Try Hamilton Inlet. Touches there 10:48. Time of arrival at Topmast Tickle uncertain. No use waiting up. SNOW, Clerk.”

”By Jove!” exclaimed the doctor. ”That's jolly! Touches Hamilton Inlet at 10:48.” He consulted his watch. ”It's now 10:43 and a half. We've just four and a half minutes. I'll get a message off at once. Where's that confounded pen? Ha! Here we are. Now--what is it you want for Sammy and mama?”

The three little Jutts were suddenly thrown into a fearful state of excitement. They tried to talk all at once; but not one of them could frame a coherent sentence. It was most distressful to see.

”The Exterminator!” Martha managed to jerk out, at last.

”Oh, ay!” cried Jimmie Jutt. ”Quick, zur! Write un down. Pine's Prompt Pain Exterminator. Warranted to cure. Please, zur, make haste.”

The doctor stared at Jimmie.

”Oh, zur,” groaned Martha, ”don't be starin' like that! Write, zur!

'Twas all in the paper the prospector left last summer. Pine's Prompt Pain Exterminator. Cures boils, rheumatism, pains in the back an' chest, sore throat, an' all they things, an' warts on the hands by a simple application with brown paper. We wants it for the rheumatiz, zur. Oh, zur----”

”None genuine without the label,” Jimmie put in, in an excited rattle.

”Money refunded if no cure. Get a bottle with the label.”

The doctor laughed--laughed aloud, and laughed again. ”By Jove!” he roared, ”you'll get it. It's odd, but--ha, ha!--by Jove, he has it in stock!”

The laughter and repeated a.s.surance seemed vastly to encourage Jimmie and Martha--the doctor wrote like mad while he talked--but not little Sammy. All that he lisped, all that he shouted, all that he screamed, had gone unheeded. As though unable to put up with the neglect any longer, he limped over the floor to Martha, and tugged her sleeve, and pulled at Jimmie's coat-tail, and jogged the doctor's arm, until, at last, he attracted a measure of attention. Notwithstanding his mother's protests--notwithstanding her giggles and waving hands--notwithstanding that she blushed as red as ink (until, as I perceived, her freckles were all lost to sight)--notwithstanding that she threw her ap.r.o.n over her head and rushed headlong from the room, to the imminent danger of the door-posts--little Sammy insisted that his mother's gift should be named in the letter of request.

”Quick!” cried the doctor. ”What is it? We've but half a minute left.”

Sammy began to stutter.

”Make haste, b'y!” cried Jimmie.

”One--bottle--of--the--Magic--Egyptian--Beautifier,” said Sammy, quite distinctly for the first time in his life.

The doctor looked blank; but he doggedly nodded his head, nevertheless, and wrote it down; and off went the letter at precisely 10:47.45, as the doctor said.

Later--when the excitement had all subsided and we sat dreaming in the warmth and glow--the doctor took little Sammy in his lap, and told him he was a very good boy, and looked deep in his eyes, and stroked his hair, and, at last, very tenderly bared his knee. Sammy flinched at that; and he said ”Ouch!” once, and screwed up his face, when the doctor--his gruffness all gone, his eyes gentle and sad, his hand as light as a mother's--worked the joint, and felt the knee-cap and socket with the tips of his fingers.

”And is this the rheumatiz the Prompt Exterminator is to cure, Sammy?”

he asked.

”Ith, zur.”

”Ah, is _that_ where it hurts you? Right on the point of the bone, there?”

”Ith, zur.”

”And was there no fall on the rock, at all? Oh, there _was_ a fall? And the bruise was just there--where it hurts so much? And it's very hard to bear, isn't it?”