If my Uncle Horace is not my Uncle Horace any More, what is he?
(DINTY’S DIARY)
Justice befell the siren-voiced labor-stealers of the Montezuma district. Mysteriously quiescent for months, the fever returned there in exaggerated virulence. Half the working force was laid off. Several deaths were reported. Lock Port and the Western Section still held out their lures, but there, too, malaria appeared. Palmyra deserters began to drift back from both directions to their old jobs. They found the village almost free of sickness. Horace Amlie was doing a good job.
Not without opposition, however. Lawyer Upcraft threatened him with the law. Crabbed old J. Evernghim menaced him with a blunderbuss. T. Lay barricaded himself within his brookside privy and announced that if any man tried to interfere with his rights, he’d squib him like a fowl. Mr. Levering, himself, in spite of his official position, mounted guard over the assorted fragrance of his backyard compost heap, and Horace was obliged to level it at dead of night and in careful secrecy. All of which did not add to his popularity.
“How would you like to be appointed special constable?” asked Genter Latham.
“What for?”
“To give you official authority.”
“I’ll need it.”
“Don’t overdo it. You’re getting yourself disliked already.”
“So are the flies,” grinned Horace.
Only the fact that they had suffered so bad a scare induced the grudging trustees to make the appointment. Thus Horace Amlie, M.D., became the first public health official in the United States. Genter Latham lent him prestige by permitting a dam across his noisome brooklet, since it was no money out of the Latham purse.
Dinty, hearing the news, wrote from Albany where she was not too happily settled in school.
Will you wear a uniform? And carry a staff? I shall be more afraid of you than ever. Do hasten with your old canal so that Wealthy and I may come back on it soon. This is a plaguey fine city, the home of Culture, Refinement and Fashion, and there are many Estimable Young Gentlemen who are admitted to pay their respects at the Academy, on the occasion of our Social Saturday Evening. But the forest is far away, Hudson’s Raging Waters roll between, and the Night Watch stalks abroad.
Golden prophecies to the contrary, there was no prospect of any better method than that of the coach for the accommodation of the two little exiles. Still the progress of the canal had become almost normal again. Of the hundred and fifty men sought by Squire Jerrold, more than one hundred answered his call, and Genter Latham was compelled to raise wages to a parity with the rate paid by his neighbor, which he did with a very ill grace. To the east, around Lyons and Clyde, the work still lagged, but the reaches along Ganargwa Valley steadily deepened and leveled.
Inspectors arrived, representing the Canal Commission. Palmyra held its breath. Rumor solidified into authentic good news when the Canal Advocate abandoned its basic principle of printing nothing of local interest to announce that the waters would be let in simultaneously from the Genesee River, Thomas’s Brook, and the Canandaigua Outlet, and that, before the end of September the eyes of the citizenry would be gladdened by a nautical pageant, followed by a banquet and a ball.
It was a great day when the Queen of the Waters, painted and ribboned like any tavern-hussy, took its first charter party of merrymakers to the Gerundigut Embankment and the marvelous aqueduct across the Genesee, built by convict labor from Auburn State Prison. Work was rushed on a dozen other craft in near-by towns and news came from Pompey of a steamboat which was to plow the waves at the incredible speed of ten miles per hour. (It never did, because the Commission inconsiderately put a five-mile limit on all canal craft.)
Full of patriotism and pride, Genter Latham, who had been to New York City on a business trip, stopped at Albany to pick up two joyous young creatures, freed for the occasion from scholastic trammels. Both were objects of marked attention from several of the male coach-fares, to Mr. Latham’s surprised enlightenment and their own manifest satisfaction. He had not bargained for chaperonage to a brace of maturing spinsters.
They arrived in time for the girls, very much bedizened, to take part in the pageant, Dinty as the Spirit of Erie, Wealthia as the Muse of Transportation. The banquet which followed was the most elegant in the history of the town. Squire Jerrold, the toastmaster, struck the keynote in his initial proposal, “Palmyra, the Beacon City of Internal Improvements.”
“Westward the star of empire takes its way,” he proclaimed. “I venture to assert without fear of successful confutation that Divine Providence has appointed our community to become the metropolis of the western region and eventually a second capital of the Empire State.”
Twenty-two toasts were responded to, and, as appropriate and usual, the guests got patriotically tipsy and helped one another home.
Horace Amlie stayed sober, not from lack of community spirit, but because he had a busy morning in prospect, including an operation for the stone which would be agonizing for the patient and a corresponding nerve-strain for the surgeon. He finished it, successful but limp, and was about to restore himself with a needed dram, when the note of Silverhorn Ramsey’s bugle warned him of that flamboyant person’s imminent arrival. The young captain was in town for the festivities, Horace surmised. The door was pushed open and the graceful figure lounged in.
“I’ve come for my bill of clearance.”
Horace caught a whiff. “You’ve been drinking,” said he.
“Now, by the bowels of Beelzebub! Can’t a man take a single nip without being scathed for it?”
“How can you expect favorable results if you don’t follow directions?”
“Damn your directions, you harping Hippocrates! I’m cured.”
“I hear you say so. We’ll see.”
Horace went over him carefully. “You’re improved,” he admitted.
“Fit for the merry wedding bells and the parson’s blessing,” insisted the young blade.
“Not yet.” Horace leaned forward to touch the other on the knee. “Make no mistake as to my meaning what I said about that, Ramsey,” he added sternly.
“Oh, the rib! Don’t worry. I’ve got other projects,” was the careless reply.
“As many as you like, so they don’t include marriage.”
“What’s that to you? It’s not your patient, I tell you. Our agreement covers only her. Isn’t that true?”
Horace was constrained to admit it.
“Then keep your damned hands off!” He laughed. “Oh, well! Don’t look so sour over it. Shall I tell you what ails you, young Æsculapius? You’re carrying other people’s consciences on your shoulders. Where’s the profit in that? What do you get out of it?”
“Nothing that you’d understand.”
Silverhorn looked about him. “They tell me you’ve got the witch’s bastard from Poverty’s Pinch in tow.”
“I’ve taken on the Crego boy as my apprentice.”
“Going to make a sawbones out of him?”
Horace looked hard into the derisive eyes opposite. “Take these powders as directed, Captain Ramsey. Come for further examination in ten days.”
Silverhorn declined to be squelched. He pocketed the preparation, slid a half dollar across the table and observed,
“The brat ought to take kindly to medicine. That old she-wolf knows some useful things.”
Gossip to that effect had already reached the physician’s ears. “Such as what?”
“Ask the Settlement girls.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Going to try and put her in jail, too?”
“I’m going to put a stop to any illegal practices that I discover.”
“Blueskin!” commented Silverhorn and followed it with a resounding “gardaloo” which, from his full lips bore a particularly rich measure of contempt. “You won’t discover it from me. If Quaila helps a poor girl out of trouble once in a while, where’s the harm?”
“You’ve had medical education. You should know.”
“Phutt to you and all your blue-nosed kind! I say she’s a good witch as far as that business goes. It’s a line of practice I thought of taking up, myself, if I’d finished my medics.”
“I’ll live to see you hanged, yet,” said Horace hopefully.
“Maybe. But I’ll have had my fun, which is more than you will, old sourgut. I’ll be singing in hell when you’re itching in heaven.”
“Don’t let me keep you from your occupations,” said Horace politely. “Is the Firefly tied up here?”
“No more Firefly. Haven’t you heard?”
“No. You’re not quitting the canal?”
“I’m captain and owner now. The Jolly Roger. She’s a Durham, clipper-built. Makes her five miles against wind and current. Drop around this evening at Palmer & Jessup’s Basin for a dram, and if you don’t admit she’s as trim a craft as ever took water, I’ll be a hoggee and dust the towpath.”
Curious as to the change of fortune, the physician accepted. At the basin he had no difficulty in picking out the Jolly Roger. The skull and crossbones of blatant piracy flew at the forepeak. Although but a freighter, she carried all the style of a packet; a cedar deck, two reflecting lamps at the prow, boat’s name and owner’s name in colors, fore and aft, a carved tiller-bar; every appurtenance in the whole seventy-foot length shipshape and of the smartest.
“You’ve got a boat there!” said the visitor admiringly.
“Twelve hundred dollars as she came off the ways.”
“Didn’t hit the grand lottery, did you?”
“Easier than that. I borrowed the stake against my marriage.”
Horace frowned. “Must I tell you again …?”
“Sheer off,” the captain interrupted. “You’re my doctor, not my parson. You jammed my tiller with the Latham rib.” His face darkened; his eyes looked angry and hungry. “Let that content you.”
“Who is the lucky bride?” asked Horace grimly.
“A widow lady from Utica. A cut above you, I expect,” answered Silverhorn with a patronizing smile. “Thirty-five if she’s a day, and seamy as a toad’s pelt. But moneybags, my boy, moneybags!” He smiled. “I’ll be sleeping in a berth more often than in a bed when through navigation opens. Well, keep your weather eye peeled and your towrope taut. I’ll see you at the ball, later on.”
Horace stared hard at him. “You’re going?”
“Why not?” was the bland reply. “Silverhorn’s a good little boy now. Fit for any society.”
It was no fault of Dinty’s that she had not seen her Uncle Horace immediately upon her return. On the pretext of a small and assiduously cultivated pimple on her rounded chin, she had twice visited his new quarters. Both times he was out. On her second call she elected to wait, but vainly. Admitted by Unk Zeb, she inspected the premises with a critical eye which observed dust in places beyond male discernment. Plainly her attentions were needed. To her satisfaction, the sampler worked by her youthful hands had a place of honor on the office wall, between the Hamilton sheepskin and the State Medical certificate. The more interesting of his medical books, however, as she discovered to her resentful disappointment, were under lock and key. Now that she was growing up, there was matter in some of these volumes, she felt sure, that would be profitable for her to know. It was mean of Uncle Horace to keep them segregated.
On the day before the cotillion Horace had his first conversation with her. She was sitting in the bay window of the Jerrold household, as he came in sight on Fleetfoot, having attended an accident at the ropewalk. She had been reading Gilpin’s Monument of Parental Affection, a most improving treatise but not her habitual choice in literature. This might mean any one of several things, the most likely being that it was an imposition of penance for breach of domestic discipline. Upon catching sight of the doctor, she flung Gilpin into a corner and rushed to the door, yoo-hooing in what her mother afterward stigmatized as an unmaidenly and hoydenish manner.
Horace vaulted out of the saddle, leaving Fleetfoot “hitched to the grass,” and went to meet her. It was cleaning day and, although the Jerrolds kept a living-in, seven-day hired girl, the daughter of the household was expected to help, wherefore she was still in apron and kilted-up skirts, and looked to Horace but little older than the Tilly Tomboy who had first amended the Widow Harte’s frowsty housewifery. She hurled herself upon him.
“Oh, Uncle Horace!” she bubbled. “I am so glad to see you! Am I much changed?” She preened herself, expectant.
“Not a bit, thank Heaven!”
“You wouldn’t notice, anyway,” she pouted. She felt for the pimple, but it was, unfortunately, gone. Her skin was like the inner curve of a roseleaf. “Are you going to the ball?”
“I hadn’t given it much thought.”
“Do,” she urged. “Think about me. too. You could invite me to dance.”
“Wouldn’t that make young Mr. Marcus Dillard jealous?” he teased.
“Oh, Mark!” She tossed her head. “Two young gentlemen from Albany of the highest respectability have come up on purpose to attend Wealthia and me,” she said complacently.
Picturing the highly respectable young gentlemen as callow schoolboys, Horace smiled indulgently.
“You will come, won’t you, Uncle Horace?” she pleaded. “I’ve got a mint-new frock, all frills and fluffs and flounces. It’s as costly as Wealthy’s. You’ll see her, too. Maybe you’ll become enamored of her. She’s more beautiful than ever. There will be many a shattered heart in the path of those dainty feet.”
“Dinty,” said Horace earnestly, “if you don’t quit talking like the poetry corner in the Advocate, I’ll smack you.”
Dinty pouted. “I worked so hard at school on Elegant Conversation, and now you don’t like it. You’re mean to me, Uncle Horace. Anyway, you must wear your elegantest coat to the ball. I do think you look so nice when you’re dressed up in your dinktum best.”
Accepting her as his social arbitress, Horace arrayed himself in the lastest masculine confection from the shop of Tailor Burr Butler, paid his half-dollar at the door, and entered the specially decorated Big Room of the Eagle. His first impression was that the assemblage was portioned into two groups of masculine youth. The one nearest the door centered upon Wealthia Latham, of whose dark, imperious and animated beauty he caught a glimpse as he passed. The other circle, quite as large and equally devoted in attitude, opened up to disclose Dinty Jerrold.
She waved a languid fan at him. He proceeded to the platform to pay his respects to the Lady Members of the Committee. A young stranger, detaching himself from Dinty’s entourage, approached and stood, waiting for Horace to finish his polite and weatherish conversation with Mrs. Macy. He was not at all the callow youth of Horace’s expectations, but a fine, upstanding young elegant with a promising whisker, in the glittering uniform of the Albany Riflemen.
“Are you Dr. Amlie, sir?”
“I am.”
“My respects, and I am instructed to say that Miss Jerrold would like a word with you.”
Misunderstanding him, Horace looked about in surprise. What could Mrs. Dorcas Jerrold want of him? Was this a gesture preliminary to peace between them? And where was she?
“I don’t see Mrs. Jerrold present,” said he to the messenger.
“Not Mrs. Jerrold. Miss Jerrold.”
(Miss Jerrold? Miss Jerrold. Well, good God! Dinty!)
Horace composed his face to solemnity.
“My compliments to Miss Jerrold and I will have the honor of waiting upon her shortly.”
Upon his arrival Dinty gave him a smile which she had been rehearsing all afternoon before her looking glass.
“I thought you were never coming,” said she in her best party accent.
Horace said, looking about him, “You seem to be pleasantly occupied.”
“Well enough,” she answered complacently. “Aren’t you going to offer me refreshment? Why are you looking at me so queerly?”
“Nothing,” said Horace hastily. “I mean, I’m not. Refreshment? Yes, by all means. What shall it be? Shrub? Lemon syrup? Prepared soda water?”
“I should prefer,” said Dinty with decision, “a glass of the elderberry wine punch.”
Rising, she took his arm with the aplomb of a dowager and passed through the lowering circle of youths. There was a commotion at the door. A rough voice vociferated.
“I ain’t a-goin’ to pay no four shillin’. I want Doc Amlie.”
“Here,” called Horace.
The woodsman, in his crude and stinking leathers, pushed past the pay-table and strode up to them.
“Sam Bowen’s been clawed by a she-bear.”
“Bowen up on Paddy’s Nose?”
“Yes. How quick can you git there?”
Horace hesitated, glancing at his partner. “Is it bad?”
“His belly’s ripped open.”
“I’ll be there inside the half-hour.”
“Oh, Uncle Horace!” Dinty was a little girl again. She looked as if she were going to cry. “Do you have to go?”
“I can’t leave the man to die, Dinty.”
“No. It wouldn’t be you if you did.” Not so much the little girl now. “Will you come back?”
“As soon as I can.”
“I’ll wait till the last candle.”
The last candle was long snuffed out when Horace left the dead man’s bedside and wearily remounted Fleetfoot. He had made a good fight for it, but Sam Bowen was too badly mutilated. The best he could do was to assuage the pain of the passing. He was profoundly dejected. Not yet had he achieved the immunity to emotion which is the armor of the experienced physician.
The darkened windows of the Eagle contributed to his gloom. What could he expect, he asked himself reasonably. Here it was, three o’clock in the morning; for a ball to continue after midnight verged upon indecency. Dinty would have been long abed and asleep.
Dinty. Confusion beset his tired mind at the thought of her. She had left for Albany, a stubby, chubby hoyden, little different from the child who had broomed out his dingy office, traded his barter fees for him, marched beneath that ghastly placard which blatantly advertised Dr. Amlie to be the best doctor in Palmyra. And now, this bewildering changeling, fined down to gracious slenderness, flushed and laughing and lovely within the crescent of her admiring swains.
Horace’s peculiar reaction was dismay.