The fishing season was at an end, and Thomas and the boys had made a good catch. They had nearly enough salmon and trout salted in barrels to pay for their winter’s supply of flour and pork, in barter, at the post. This had never happened before, but this year there had been an uncommon run of salmon.
“We’ll load un in th’ boat and take un to the post tomorrow,” said Thomas, as they sat at tea on the evening when the last barrel was headed. “’Tis a clever catch, and we has un when we needs un th’ most.”
“And I hopes,” said David, dipping a spoonful of molasses into his tea, “’Twill be a fine year for fur, and us and Doctor Joe’ll sure get th’ fur t’ pay for Jamie goin’ for th’ cure.”
“Pop’ll get th’ fur--Pop and Uncle Joe,” broke in Andy. “_Pop’s_ a wonderful hunter.”
“We’ll get un if ’tis t’ be got,” declared Thomas. “Oh, aye, we’ll get un.”
“There comes Doctor Joe,” Andy announced, as Doctor Joe, walking up from the landing place, passed the window, singing in a rich tenor voice:
“The worst of my foes are worries and woes, And all about troubles that never come true. And all about troubles that never come true. The worst of my foes are worries and woes, And all about troubles that never come true.”
“I wonder, now,” said Thomas, “if ’taint true--that song Doctor Joe is singin’.”
Just then the door opened and in walked Doctor Joe himself.
“Set in! Set in!” said Thomas heartily, visibly cheered by Doctor Joe’s coming.
“That I will,” accepted Doctor Joe. “I was lonely at Break Cove alone, and I pulled over in the skiff for a chat, and to spend the night--and to have a look at Jamie’s eyes.”
It was always a treat to have Doctor Joe with them for a night. When he and Thomas lighted their pipes in the evening, and the big box stove was crackling cheerily, he thrilled them with stories of other and far-off lands. Thomas was no less interested than Margaret and the boys in his wonderful tales of the great outside world, and of the great city in which he had once lived--of the mighty buildings that towered high, high up into the skies--of the rushing railway trains--and their wonderful speed--of people so numerous that they crowded one another on the streets, and where you might meet thousands and thousands of people and never know one by name, and where half a hundred families might live in a single house.