CHAPTER III
In Which Little Jimmie Grimm Goes Lame and His Mother Discovers the Whereabouts of a Cure
Little Jimmie Grimm was then ten years old. He had been an active, merry lad, before the night of the assault of Tog and the two wolves––inclined to scamper and shout, given to pranks of a kindly sort. His affectionate, light-hearted disposition had made him the light of his mother’s eyes, and of his father’s, too, for, child though he was, lonely Jim Grimm found him a comforting companion. But he was now taken with what the folk of Buccaneer Cove called “rheumatiz o’ the knee.” There were days when he walked in comfort; but there were also times when he fell to the ground in a sudden agony and had to be carried home. There were weeks when he could not walk at all. He was not now so merry as he had been. He was more affectionate; but his eyes did not flash in the old way, nor were 34 his cheeks so fat and rosy. Jim Grimm and the lad’s mother greatly desired to have him cured.
“’Twould be like old times,” Jim Grimm said once, when Jimmie was put to bed, “if Jimmie was only well.”
“I’m afeared,” the mother sighed, “that he’ll never be well again.”
“For fear you’re right, mum,” said Jim Grimm, “we must make him happy every hour he’s with us. Hush, mother! Don’t cry, or I’ll be cryin’, too!”
Nobody connected Jimmie Grimm’s affliction with the savage teeth of Tog.
It was Jimmie’s mother who discovered the whereabouts of a cure. Hook’s Kurepain was the thing to do it! Who could deny the virtues of that “healing balm”? They were set forth in print, in type both large and small, on a creased and dirty remnant of the Montreal Weekly Globe and Family Messenger, which had providentially strayed into that far port of the Labrador. Who could dispute the works of “the invaluable discovery”? Was it not a positive cure for bruises, sprains, chilblains, cracked hands, stiffness of the joints, contraction 35 of the muscles, numbness of the limbs, neuralgia, rheumatism, pains in the chest, warts, frost bites, sore throat, quinsy, croup, and various other ills? Was it not an excellent hair restorer, as well? If it had cured millions (and apparently it had), why shouldn’t it cure little Jimmie Grimm? So Jimmie’s mother longed with her whole heart for a bottle of the “boon to suffering humanity.”
“I’ve found something, Jim Grimm,” said she, a teasing twinkle in her eye, when, that night, Jimmie’s father came in from the snowy wilderness, where he had made the round of his fox traps.