Dr. Le Baron and his daughters; a story of the Old Colony

Front matter

Class

Book

-

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. “ Don’t be in a Hurry, Widow ” . . . . 1

II. Silver-Head Tom 8

CHAPTER I. “ don’t be in a hurry, widow ! ”

There was a funeral in Elkanah Cushman’s new house on Court Street, corner of Court Square as we now say, although in those days the old folk still spoke of the Great Gutter, while the modish young people called it Framing Green, because the Gutter had been leveled and smoothed into a grass plot convenient for laying together the frame of a house.

Elkanah himself called it Framing Green, when he told Lydia Bradford that he had bought of Parson Leonard the house on its northerly corner, and asked her to come and be its mistress.

Lydia was barely nineteen, and had always lived in Kingston, so that the idea of becoming suzeraine of a big house on the corner of Framing Green and Court Street, Plymouth, was rather attractive ; and she had no dislike to Elkanah Cushman, though she privately thought him too old for love or marriage, his two-and-thirty years having done themselves full justice upon the stooping figure and lengthy face of the suitor.

David Bradford, with his large family and small income, was also quite alive to the advantage of marrying a daughter into the wealthy Cushman connection ; and the mother, as she kissed her child good-by upon the wedding day, said, with a smile and a tear, —

“Well, daughter Cushman, I shall often be over to see you, for Plymouth is more home to me than Kingston, for all I ’ve married out o’ town ! ”

So Elkanah brought home his bride to the goodly house he had prepared for her, and when in another year a baby Elkanah came to help fill its lonely chambers, Lydia felt that life had really something to offer worth the living for ; but then the silent, reserved husband sickened and died, and to-day he was buried.

The dreary memory of all these things mingled itself with Parson Leonard’s drearier prayer in the young widow’s ears, as she sat in the little room dedicated to the chief mourners, and wept some natural tears, but not enough to satisfy Mrs. Elkanah Cushman senior, who sternly watched her daughter-in-law, and would have been glad to attend her to some modified form of suttee.

The prayer, following the usual course, did justice to the good qualities of the deceased, and they were many, and carefully avoided all mention of, or all petition for, the state of the departed soul ; for, so fearful were the colonists of Roman error in the matter of masses for the dead or purgatorial interference, that it was only of late any religious services at all had been held at funerals } and now, when the parson, softening his Calvinistic voice, alluded with as much tenderness as was in him to the young widow and fatherless child, Lydia raised her heavy eyes, and cast one look of affectionate regret toward the coffin visible through the open door, with the spare figure of the preacher at its head. Behind him, however, stood another man, and as the widow’s tearful eyes met his, a gleam of gratitude and childish appeal

“DON’T BE IN A HURRY, WIDOW /»• 3

shot through the tears, and softened the lines of the pretty baby mouth quivering so piteously.

Lazarus LeBaron caught the expression, read it truly, and cast his own eyes thoughtfully down upon the pinched features of the dead man lying so quietly in the midst.

He had done all that in him lay to save this man’s life, and he was glad to remember it now. He had not liked him nor pretended to, but he had watched by his bedside night and day with unremitting care ; nay, he had stolen from the hours of needful repose the time to con over and over not only the medical books his father had found sufficient for every need, but those imported by himself from London, Paris, and Germany.

He had expend Q d upon this case all the care and all the skill at his command ; and these were no ordinary gifts, for not only was Lazarus LeBaron a born physician, but he was son of that Francis LeBaron described as A Nameless Nobleman because of the mystery that shrouded his origin, but of whom it was soon discovered with absolute certainty that he was possessed of extraordinary medical and surgical skill, besides knowing how to hold his tongue more persistently than any other man on record, at least in the annals of the Old Colony.

The mantle of the father’s skill had fallen squarely upon the shoulders of the son, and Doctor Lazarus Le- Baron was a recognized power for life and death anywhere inside a hundred miles from Plymouth.

Moreover, since his widowerhood, now some twelve months old, many a woman, maid or widow, within that radius, had quietly noted the doctor’s stalwart, deepchested figure, fresh coloring, and noble if haughty head.

Many an one, too, had discussed the color and meaning of the steady eyes, whose power all had felt in one way or another, but in what different ways !

Elkanah Cushman had known them keen, thoughtful, and peremptory ; Lydia, in her sorrow and bereavement, had found them the kindest, gentlest, most encouraging eyes she had ever met ; her mother-in-law, Mrs. Cushman senior, felt them to be sarcastic, quizzical, mocking, or, as she briefly phrased it, hateful. His late wife had found them very patient, but generally very inscrutable eyes, and his children knew them to be affectionate, humorous, and occasionally stern.

And now Parson Leonard had finished his prayer with a grewsome warning to all present that, however strong or well or young they might be to-day, the time was short ere they must follow their deceased brother to the silent tomb, and after that to judgment.

Then he drew back to the doctor’s side, and six men, carefully selected as contemporary with Elkanah Cushman, came forward, and raising the coffin laid it upon the hand-bier waiting at the door, for a hearse had never yet been seen in Plymouth. The procession, of men only, was formed, and, preceded by the bier with its relay of bearers, passed solemnly through the village, turned up through Town Square, q,nd, painfully climbing Burying Hill, paused at the grave dug near that great ancestor of the dead man, the famous Elder, whose modern monument is so dwarfed by the ancient gravestone beside it.

Here they laid Elkanah, third of the name, to his rest ; and when all was done, Doctor LeBaron quietly detached himself from the crowd, and, passing on in a southerly direction, stood for a few moments beside a gray headstone, whose recent inscription told that here reposed

“DON'T BE IN A HURRY \ WIDOW !” 5

“Lydia, wife of Doctor Lazarus LeBaron,” hardly a twelvemonth dead. Long he looked, and perhaps that expression of patience and sadness Lydia Bartlett so well had known was strongest among the many that passed across his face ; but at the last he stooped to gather a weed from out the turf over that unquiet heart, and muttered, “ Poor girl ! Poor girl ! It cannot fret thee now.”

A few steps beyond lay his father’s grave, and beside it a more recent one, telling that here slept Mary Wilder, who, having married Return Waite as a second husband, had on her death-bed pleaded to be laid in her last sleep beside her first love, her true husband.

Reading the brief lines that seem framed to avoid confession of this faithful infidelity, Lazarus shook his head.

“ Poor mother ! ” whispered he, “ thou hadst better been content with thy widowhood ! Perhaps one happy marriage is all that is granted — howbeit ” —

And with the air of one whose mind is resolved the doctor strode along the brow of the hill, turned down its northern slope, and, crossing the Great Gutter near its head, approached the house of the widow Cushman, as Lydia was already called, from the rear. Here in the horse-shed, then hospitably provided for the use of his guests by every householder, stood the doctor’s horse munching his measure of oats, while the saddle and saddle-bags hung upon a hook above the rack, the merciful man being merciful to his beast then as now.

“ Come, Pegasus ! Leave the rest for another day, boy! We ’re wanted in Plympton before night.”

And the doctor, who like his father was a little given to soliloquy, as indeed are most men not quite in sympathy with their surroundings, led out Pegasus, still munching the last of the oats, and proceeded to bridle and saddle him upon the grass patch close behind the house. Before the operation was complete the back door opened, and a very black woman, her face preternaturally solemn, as befitted a house of mourning, came forward.

“ Mist’ss says, Mas’r Doctor, you had n’t ought to go furder widout ’freshments. Please fer ter walk in de dining-room where dey ’s laid out fer de mourners.”

“ Oh, thank you, Violet. Tell Mrs. Cushman that I cannot wait ” —

But here a window was softly raised, and a blond head quaintly adorned with a widow’s cap appeared. The doctor looked up and took off his hat, but the apology upon his ftps was forestalled.

“ Surely, Doctor, you won’t refuse a glass of wine and a mouthful of meat before your long ride. You will not be so unfriendly, I hope.”

The sweet voice had a tremble in it which made it irresistible, and Doctor Lazarus answered by throwing the bridle over a hook set for that purpose at the door of the shed.

The window was closed as softly as it had been raised, and when Violet showed the guest through the great homely kitchen into the dining-room, he found it deserted, although a door at the other side of the room closed as he entered. A small smile brightened the somewhat sombre eyes that observed the incident, but the doctor said nothing until he had hastily swallowed some of the food and wine profusely set forth by way of “ funeral baked meats,” and rose to depart. Then, hat in hand, he too passed through the door in question, and

DON'T BE IN A HURRY, WIDOW l found himself in the family sitting-room. Here, in a low chair beside the hearth, sat Lydia Cushman, some of her cumbrous mourning laid aside, and little Elkanah upon her knees. At sight of her guest, however, she put the child upon his feet, and rose, with a pretty flush in her cheeks.

“ I hope you took something — I knew you would excuse me — mother Cushman says I can’t be too particular now that I am left alone — but — I hope you won’t be a stranger, Doctor ” —

The fluttering voice died away in a little sob, and Doctor Lazarus took the soft white hand in his own.

“ I sha’n’t come unless I am needed, and mother Cushman need not be alarmed — but — don't be in a hurry , widow ! ”

And with this somewhat enigmatical advice Doctor Lazarus took his departure, nor crossed that threshold again for several months.

“ She’s sly enough for anything,” said mother Cushman.

CHAPTER n.

SILVER-HEAD TOM.

Pegasus trotted steadily on, occasionally indulging in a canter on some inviting bit of descent, and subsiding to a walk upon the steep ascents, until within the borders of Kingston his hoofs clattered over the bridge spanning Jones River, and a salt breath of the incoming tide fell refreshingly upon the doctor’s cheek.

Drawing rein, he sat for a moment gazing upon the fair scene which a century and well nigh a half has hardly changed : the calm river sliding seaward between its grassy banks, the wide marshes bourgeoning into glory as the sun’s level rays strike athwart their ripe wet grasses, the verdure of Clark’s Island in the offing, the graceful Gurnet, the fair green slopes of Captain’s Hill, where Standish lived and died, curving far out into the bay, and beneath all and over all the soothing blue of sea and sky, out of whose hollow ever flows that sweet salt breath, pungent and wooing as the kiss of an Amazon.

The doctor threw back his shoulders and inhaled it eagerly, then smiled in a dry, whimsical fashion all his own, and as he tightened the rein muttered behind his teeth a line of Virgil, to the effect that men, who call themselves the head of creation, are but impertinent ephemera, flitting for a brief moment through the external spaces of nature’s stability.

SILVER-HEAD TOM.

From which one infers that love was not as yet lord of all in the doctor’s life.

A mile or two beyond the bridge, as Pegasus trotted stolidly past a lonely farmhouse, his progress was arrested by a sturdy little fellow, perhaps six years old, who, rushing down the path from the door to the bars, shouted, —

“Ma’am wants Mister Doctor! She says stop a minute.”

“ What ’s the matter, Sim ? Does ma’am want some senna-and-salts for you ? ”

“ No, sir. I ain’t ailing,” replied Simeon, with a grin and a puppy-like twist of his fat little body. “ May be it ’s Silver-head Tom. He was talking to ma’am about you — here ’s ma’am ! ”

And to be sure, a comely young matron now appeared upon the scene, an apron thrown over her head, and a baby in her arms.

“ Oh, Doctor, I hope you ’ll excuse my stopping you, and I hope Simeon has said naught amiss ” —

“ Not he ! Sim ’s one of my greatest friends, and by and by shall marry one of my daughters ; for he ’ll make his way in the world, and that ’s more than ever I did, or shall.”

“ More than his own father has done, and that ’s not joking, as you are, Doctor,” said Mary Samson in rather an offended tone ; for nothing irritates really unfortunate people like the mock humilty of those whom they believe more happy.

“ Nay, then, goodwife, but what do you hear from Peleg ? I know Captain John Winslow sent home letters the other day from the West Indies, and I dare say one was for you.’

“ Yes, Doctor, I got a scrape of the pen ; but my poor man is no penman at the best, and he hardly said more than that he was sick and had been nigh unto death with yellow fever, caught in one of those dreadful nigger holes ” —

“ Niggers don’t often have yellow fever. Jack likes white meat better,” said the doctor absently ; and Mrs. Samson, with rather a toss of the head, turned toward the house. The doctor followed, but happily refrained from speaking aloud his thought, which was, “ I wish Winslow would bring me home a case of Yellow Jack. I ’d like to try conclusions with him ! ”

“ Well, there, now,” cried the soldier’s wife, turning round on the doorstep, once a millstone, and smiling as good-humoredly as ever, “ I ’ve never told you yet why I hailed you. It’s Silver-head Tom, and here he is. Come in, and sit down a minute with him.”

Following the wave of her hand, the doctor entered the great cool kitchen of the farmhouse, and confronted a patriarchal old man who stood leaning upon a crutchstick and anxiously watching the door. As the doctor approached he made a tremulous reverence, touched his white hair, and said : —

“ I ’m proud to see you, sir. I ’ve always laid out to go to Plymouth some day, just to look at your father’s son.”

“ My father ! Did you know him ? ” cried Doctor Lazarus eagerly, and with an air of interest not many subjects could call to his face.

“ Know him ! I guess I did, young man. Why, I was a fool, and he cured me ! ”

“And never left the prescription for curing fools behind him to make his son’s fortune ! ” murmured the

SILVER-HEAD TOM.

doctor. “ Come, now, sit down and tell me the whole story, grandsir. What name did Mrs. Samson give you, but now ? ”

“ Perhaps she said Silver-head Tom, for that ’s what I ’m mostly called,” replied the old man, with an air of injured dignity. “ But my name ’s Clark, — Thomas Clark.”

“ And why do they call you Silver-head, Mr. Clark ? for your hair is no whiter than that of most men at your age.”

“ That ’s the peth of the whole matter, Doctor. That ’s why I wanted to get speech of you all these years.”

And the old man chuckled so immoderately over his little jest that he coughed nearly as long, and Mary Samson came to bring him a cocoanut shell of water, to thump his back, and to say reprovingly, —

“ Now, grandsir, now ! You ’d ought to know better than set yourself off that way, — an old man like you ! ”

“ There, there, that ’ll do, woman ! ” gasped the old man at last. “ I ’m right enough now, and the doctor ’s heerd a man cough before to-day, hain’t you, Doctor ? ”

“ To be sure I have. Well, then ? ”

“ Well, when I was a boy my folks lived over to Plymouth, Eel River way, you know. Do they call it Eel River now ? ”

“Yes, just the same. Well ? ”

“ Well, ’twas in the time of the Injun troubles along about — well, about ” —

“ About 1676, perhaps ? ”

“Yes, along about there. I never had no head for numbers, and it holds to reason the French doctor could n’t give me what I never had before.”

“ That is Doctor Francis LeBaron, — my father ? ” asked Doctor Lazarus suggestively.

“ The same, though he was n’t round in these parts when I got the wownd. Guess he was in France, or may be he was n’t born ” —

“ Never mind which, grandsir, but get on with your story, for I ’m in haste.”

“Well, I was just a-saying it was in the time of the Injun troubles, and uncle Clark’s house was a kind of garrison, where the neighbors could run in, or leave the women and children, case o’ danger.

“ ’T was of a Sunday it happened, and father and mother ’d gone to Plymouth to meeting, and left us young ones into the garrison, with a whole lot more, women and children and old folks. Then them red divvies, Totoson and Tispequin’s band it was, they got their chance somehow, and first we knew — Lord ! ’T seems as though I heerd ’em now — how they screeched and how they yelled — Lord ! ”

And the old man’s voice quavered, while the piteous tears of old age rose in the rheumy caverns of the past, and coursed idly down the cheeks so ashen, so seamed, so sunken.

“ Don’t mind that part, grandsir,” said Mary Samson gently. “ Here, now, take a sup of cider, and mind you that it ’s all long gone by.”

“ Yes, long gone by, and I ’m a-going too. May be I ’ll see little Lois the way she used to be, and not — well, well, it don’t do for me to picter it out too partikeler, or I could n’t tell what comes after. But just as I was running to catch Lois out o’ that red divvle’s hand, another feller’s tommyhawk ketched me right atop of my head, and I did n’t know no more. No, nor did n’t know no more for most twenty year ; I was a fool, same as any fool up to the poor-farm, or anywhere you like.

SILVER-HEAD TOM.

You see that there tommyhawk had split a piece offen my skull, and it had kind o’ settled down onter the brain, and that made a fool out o' one o’ the smartest boys ever you see.’*

“Yes, and then?” asked the doctor eagerly, as the old man paused to chuckle feebly and rub his hands.

“ W ell, the doctor came, — all the doctor there was, one Brown ; but he wa’n’t more ’n half-wit himself, and he never found out what was the real matter, only healed up the scalp-wownd and called it done, and there was I a fool ! All this, mind you, is hearsay, for I don’t know nothing about it, not the first thing after I see my little sister hanging over that Injun’s arm, the blood running down her yaller curls ” —

“ And my father found you so ! ”

“ No, he did n’t find me, but my folks heerd of the great French doctor over to Plymouth, for they ’d moved to Kingston then, and father was dead; but mother she heerd tell of how he ’d cured Mis’ Hunter, and many a one more, and she sot her mind on trying if he could n’t help her poor fool, for I ’d been such a bright boy, you see, and ’t was most a pity, now, wa’n’t it ? ”

“The poor mother, — yes,” replied the doctor softly, as he bent forward, his arm upon his knee, his eyes eagerly fixed upon the old man’s face, while a tenderer smile than usual played around his thin lips.

“ Well, she harnessed up the old horse, for she was pretty poor since father died, and she did n’t have no hired man to help her, and she got me in the cart, a kind of a drag it was, and kep’ me there with apples ; for I was such a fool that if I see a bright blow on the roadside, or anything else I wanted, like as not I ’d pitch nght out after it, — a real reg’lar fool, mind you ” —

“ I see, yes.”

“ Well, we got to the doctor’s, so ma’am used to say, and she told him all about it, and got me to set down and let him feel of my head. Then he looked inter my eyes, and took my pulse, and so forth and so on, and fin’lly he told my mother that ef she ’d resk it, he ’d perform an operation that might cure me, and then ag’in might kill, but he rather thought it ’d turn out all right. Well, ma’am she was an awful spunky woman, and not used to backing out when once she ’d got under way for a p’int, so after thinking it over some, she said she ’d resk it, for a man might as well be dead as be a fool. The doctor he said she was some kind of a mother — ma’am never could call to mind just what kind, but ’twa’n’t French, though you ’d suppose he ’d kind o’ favored his own native talk, but she was main sure it wa’n’t French ; and then he said he could n’t do it right off, for he ’d got to hev some things from Boston to do it with, and he could n’t get ’em till some one was going, or he went himself, and then he asked her if she could afford to pay what it would cost.

“Well, that was kind o’ discouraging to mother, for like as not she had n’t over a fo’pence-ha’penny in her pocket that minute, and wa’n’t dead sure where she ’d get the next one. But she kep’ a stiff upper lip, and she says she did n’t know as ’t would be right convenient to pay the whole expense to once, but if the doctor could wait a little, or if he ’d take it out in truck, her apples was as good as anybody’s, ’specially the high-top sweetings ; — yes, I see you ’re in a hurry, Doctor, so the long and the short on ’t is, your father he said he ’d leave it that last way, and he ’d come and get the apples, or whatever, along as he wanted ’em ; and sure ’nough, while

SILVER-HEAD TOM.

mother lived, and that wa’n’t hut two-three years, the French doctor ’d come riding up same as you did to-day, and he ’d set and eat an apple and have a drink of cider, for he said that was apples too, and mabbe he’d put half a dozen or so of high-tops into his saddle-bags and carry home for Mis’ LeBaron to bake ; and I do suppose he took up most two shillin’ of his bill that way, and as fer the rest, — why, the Lord ’s a good paymaster.”

“ And what did he do to you, my friend? ” asked Doctor Lazarus, with infinite patience in his voice.

“ Lord, yes, I was nigh forgetting that part, — kind o’ lost my landfall. Well, after a while he sent word to mother to fetch me over and leave me for two-three days and his wife would take keer of me, for I ’d need be kep’ very quiet after the operation ; an’ mother she done it, only she asked Mis’ LeBaron to let her stop too, and do some work or ’nother to pay for her board, and she give her word she would n’t interfere with what the doctor see fit to do, let it be what it might. She had good grit, ma’am had, and the doctor see it, and he let her stop right through ; but I never could get her to tell me about it very clear, for the thought on ’t always made her feel faint and squalmish ; but as near as I can make out, the doctor strapped me down tight on a kind of frame he ’d fixed, and then he took and sawed a piece right outen my skull, and then he poked in and got the piece o’ bone that had caved in and laid onter my brain all them years, and pulled it out and showed it to ma’am. Then he took a silver plate he ’d got all ready there, and just kivered the whole right over and pegged it down, and there ’tis to-day.”

Arriving at which climax, Silver-head Tom pulled off the little black cap he always wore in the house, and dis* played a silver plate glistening with ghastly effect upon the crown of his bald head.

Doctor Lazarus examined it with breathless interest and admiration.

“ I am proud once more of my father. Forty years ago or more, and few men w r ould do as well to-day ! But here are letters engraved upon the silver.”

“ Ay, all one, my old woman used to say, as if ’t was a coffin plate,” replied Silver-head Tom rather resentfully. “ ’T is his name, and the year, and some gibberish of doctor’s talk, they tell me, for I never see the top of my own head yet.”

“Oh, ay, — ‘F. LeB. fecit 1699,’ — plain enough, and more like a monument, my friend, than like a coffin plate, for it tells not of the emptiness that lies beneath, but of something better, gone before. And now, Silver-head Tom, for the sake of that story, and for my father’s sake, I am your friend and your physician for the rest of your life. Never shall you lack for tobacco when you ’re well, nor physic when you ’re sick, and when you die I promise you a silver coffin plate twice as big as that upon your head.”

“ There, now, grandsir, now you ’re wholefooted, ain’t you ! ” exclaimed Mary Samson, well pleased, as the old man choked and gurgled his thanks. “ You see, Doctor, he ’s a man that ’s been unfortunate, and all his folks are dead, and he ’s got no means left and no home, and so for old times’ sake — for the Clarks and the Rings and the Samsons have always been neighbor-folk — Peleg and I we asked him to make his home with us, and kind o’ chore round a little. I ’m glad to do what I can for the old man, and I guess he ’s pretty contented, ain’t you, grandsir ? ”

SILVER-HEAD TOM.

IT

“ Yes, — oh, yes, I s’pose I be, Mis’ Samson. I ’d like well enough to have a glass o’ grog sarved out a leetle oftener” —

But Doctor Lazarus, rising to take his leave, caught a warning glance shot over the speaker’s head, and he answered promptly : —

“ Oh, no, Clark, not grog for a man with a silver plate in his head. Why, man, it ’s sure death for you, soon or late. Cider, now, cider ’s the drink for you, and I know Mistress Samson has a capital brew of cider on tap, but even that you must take in moderation, Tom. A man with a silver plate in his head has got to be careful. And now good-day to you both, for really I must be in Plympton. Sim, my boy, here ’s a penny for you, and mind you grow up straight and handsome for one of my girls ! ”

Chapter III. Bathsheba Crewe’s Lover

“ Now, then, Pegasus, we must make up for lost time,” remarked the doctor, gathering up the reins and touching the good horse with his heel, a liberty Pegasus resented by boring forward at the rate of twelve miles an hour, and carrying his master out of Kingston and into Plympton almost before he was saddle-fast. The twilight had already fallen, and as the doctor turned a sharp corner into the narrow and wooded lane leading to the Widow Crewe’s lonely farmhouse, both he and Pegasus were startled by the sudden whinny of another horse, who, quietly feeding along the roadside, narrowly escaped collision with the doctor’s steed.