I had never seen death come.
In three weeks my rations were exhausted, and, since it would have been ungenerous in me to consume Skipper Tommy’s food, I had the old man harness the dogs and take me home. My only regret was that my food did not last until Skipper Tommy had managed to make Tom Tot laugh. Many a night the old man had tried to no purpose, for Tom Tot would stare him stolidly in the eye, however preposterous the tale to be told. The twins and I had waited in vain—ready to explode at the right moment: but never having the opportunity. The last assault on Tom Tot’s composure had been disastrous to the skipper. When, with highly elaborate detail, he had once more described his plan for training whales, disclosing, at last, his intention of having a wheel-house on what he called the forward deck——
“What about the fo’c’s’le?” Tom Tot solemnly asked.
“Eh?” gasped the skipper. “Fo‘c’s’le?”
“Ay,” said Tom Tot, in a melancholy drawl. “Isn’t you give a thought t’ the crew?”
Skipper Tommy was nonplussed.
“Well,” sighed Tom, “I s’pose you’ll be havin’ t’ fit up Jonah’s quarters for them poor men!”
At home, in the evening, while my mother and father and sister and I were together in the glow of the fire, we delighted to plan the entertainment of the doctor who was coming to cure my mother. He must have the armchair from the best room below, my mother said, that he might sit in comfort, as all doctors should, while he felt her pulse; he must have a refreshing nip from the famous bottle of Jamaica rum, which had lain in untroubled seclusion since before I was born, waiting some occasion of vast importance; and he must surely not take her unaware in a slatternly moment, but must find her lying on the pillows, wearing her prettiest nightgown, which was thereupon newly washed and ironed and stowed away in the bottom drawer of the bureau against his unexpected coming. But while the snow melted from the hills, and the folk returned to the coast for the seal fishing, and the west winds carried the ice to sea, and we waited day by day for the mail-boat, our spirits fell, for my mother was then fast failing. And I discovered this strange circumstance: that while her strength withered, her hope grew large, and she loved to dwell upon the things she would do when the doctor had made her well; and I wondered why that was, but puzzled to no purpose.