After she had carefully bandaged the arm, she said: "There now, are you more comfortable?"
"Yes, thank you, ma'am," he replied.
"Now you must remain in bed for a time in order to give it every chance," she said; "for if you go about with it inflammation may set in and you may lose it. Here is a book which you may read when the time seems long."
He glanced at the title.
"The Pilgrim's Progress," he said, giving a sly wink at one of his friends. "Shure an I'll be purty hard up for somethin' to do when I read the like o' that."
"It is not so bad as it looks, Andrew," she said, good-naturedly, as she shook hands with him on leaving.
Soon the messenger of mercy and healing was flying along the road to Paul Mousseau's shanty, where she found poor old Paul at the gate in tears.
"What is the matter, Mousseau?" she said, as she tied her pony to a tree.
"Le charbon, Madame, le charbon; ma bonne femme, I fear she no get well again."
The charbon was a disease which afflicted many of the French settlers in Canada at that time. A small black spot would appear on the body, resembling a piece of charcoal, which soon spread until the whole body was affected. The only remedy known was to cut out the affected part as soon as it appeared. It was supposed that it was contracted through skinning and eating the flesh of cadaverous animals.