Thus sanctioned, Mrs. Sackville returned to the cottage, whispered to the children their father's acquiescence, and then saying aloud, “I leave you to make all the arrangements with Mrs. Barton,” she left them.
We shall not attempt to describe the poor woman's gratitude, which overflowed in words and tears, nor the children's noisy joy when they heard they were to go down the lake with their friends. Suffice it to say, that in the course of two hours, and just as the steam-boat appeared in sight, heavily plying down from Lewistown, Mrs. Barton was on the wharf with her children, as clean and nice as soap and water and fresh and well-patched clothes could make them, and looking so grateful and joyful, that Mr. Morris, who, like the good vicar of Wakefield, ‘loved happy human faces,’ forgot all his objections to the procedure, and shaking the good woman's hand heartily, said, he “was glad they were to be fellow-passengers.”
Our friends, with many others, were now impatiently waiting a conveyance to the steam-boat, which had stopped near the opposite shore. The wharf exhibited the usual signs of a small garrisoned town. Half drunken soldiers were idling about, and sentinels were posting to and fro, stationed there to prevent the desertion of the soldiers to the opposite side, a crime which the vicinity and hospitable habits of the State render very common. Edward accosted one of the sentinels, and asked him if the captain of the steam-boat sent his small boat ashore. “Fraquently he does, and fraquently he don't,” replied the fellow, rather surlily. “Does the boat stop at fort Niagara?”
“Indeed sir, and that is what I cannot tell you.”
“Well,” pursued Edward with simplicity, “do you think they will send ashore to-day?”
“Indeed master, and it's what I am not thinking about.”
Edward turned away, making a mental comparison between this man and his own civil countrymen, greatly to the disadvantage of the former, when his attention was attracted by the approach of a boat which came skimming over the water like a bird, and as it neared the shore, a little tight-built sailor leaped on to the wharf, and announced himself as Jemmy Chapman, the captain's mate. While the baggage was arranging in the boat, Edward seized the favorable moment to make the best bargain he could with the mate for his protegée.
But the mate averred he had no power to transact that business, and referred him to his captain. “You may safely trust to him, my young man,” said he, “for captain Vaughan is not a man to take advantage of a ship in distress.”
And so it proved—for the captain, (as every body knows, who ever crossed the lake in the steam-boat Ontario) was a man of distinguished humanity; and pleased with the good appearance of Mrs. Barton and her children, and the zeal of her youthful protectors, he said, that if she had brought her thread and needles a-board, she might work her passage to Ogdensburg, for he and some of his men were sadly out at elbows. The good woman's eyes glistened with delight, at the thought of paying her way thus far, and she seated herself directly to put new pockets in an old coat of Jemmy's, when a sudden attack of tooth-ache put a stop to her progress.
The children were soon acquainted with her malady, for they were continually hovering about her, and Julia procured some camphor and laudanum from an invalid passenger, and gave them to her. She applied them, but the horrible pangs were not allayed, when Jemmy Chapman was attracted by the report of her distress. “Stand away, all,” said he; “stand away—fall back, my young man; and you, my little lady, and give place to me. I am the seventh son of a seventh son, and I can cure any body's tooth-ache but my own.” Mrs. Barton was not free from the superstition which pervades her class, and she gladly permitted him to stroke her face, which he did with a gravity that evinced perfect faith in his own powers; and in the course of fifteen minutes, she declared herself completely relieved, and cheerfully resumed her labors. Julia ran to announce the cure to her mother.