“I’d like to converse with one,” said Tom, in his most liberal voice. “He’d git my opinion.”
And now the canoe was ashore, and Rose and her father set out through the woods, and by and by came upon a rude clearing and a rough-looking log-cabin, surrounded with fire-scarred and decaying stumps. The huge wood-pile, as high as the eaves, struck Rose.
“How that makes one think of the terrible cold and the loneliness of winter here,—no books, no company; what can they do?”
“It recalls to me,” said Lyndsay, “the curious use of the word ‘stove’ in Labrador, where, even more than here, it is important. You ask how many people there are, say, at Mingan? The reply is sure to be, ‘Oh, there are twenty-seven stoves.’ But how many people? ‘I don’t know; there are twenty-seven stoves.’”
At the open door Lyndsay knocked, and in a moment came through the gloom within a tall, sallow woman. A soiled and much-mended brown gingham gown hung down from broad but lean shoulders over hips as lean and large. As she came to the door, she hastily buttoned her dress awry across the fleshless meagerness of her figure.
“How do you do, Mrs. Colkett?” said Lyndsay.
“Now, ain’t it Mr. Lyndsay? I’m that wore out I didn’t know you. Set down”; and she wiped a chair and a rickety stool with the skirt of her gown. “I didn’t know you, sir, till you came to speak. Was you wantin’ Joe?”
“No; we came over because Dorothy Maybrook left word your boy was sick. This is my daughter Rose. We brought some lemons and other trifles. The little man might like them.”
As she turned, Rose took note of the unkempt hair, the slight stoop of the woman’s unusually tall figure, and the shoeless, uncovered, and distorted feet. Not less the desolate, comfortless cabin caught her eye,—the rude wooden furniture, and the bed, whence came the hoarse breathing of the sick child. To her surprise, Mrs. Colkett said:
“Dory Maybrook’s always a-fussin’ over other folks’ concerns, ’stead of mindin’ her own affairs.”