CHAPTER XIII

Sundry Herbs and Simples

Stephen Hopkins and his son drew no nearer together as the days went by.

Hurt and angry, Giles would not bend his stiff young neck to humble himself, checking any impulse to do so by reminding himself that his father had been unjust to him.

Yet Doctor Fuller, good, kind, and wise, had the right of it when he said to the lad one day, laying his arm across Giles's shoulders, caressingly:

"Remember, lad, that who is right, or who is wrong in a quarrel, or an estrangement, matters little, since we are all insects of a day and our dignity at best a poor thing, measured by Infinite standards. But he is always right who ends a quarrel; ten thousand times right if he does it at the sacrifice of his own sense of injury, laying down his pride to lift a far greater possession. There may be a difference of opinion as to which is right when two have fallen out, but however that be, the situation is in itself wrong beyond dispute, and all the honour is his who ends it."

Giles heard him with lowered head, and knit brows, but he did not resent the brief sermon. Doctor Fuller was a gentle spirit; all his days were given over to healing and helping; he was free from the condemnatory sternness of most of the colonists, and Giles, as all others did, loved him.

Giles kicked at the pebbles in the way, the slow colour mounting in his face. Then he threw back his head and looked the good doctor squarely in the eyes.

"Ah, well, Doctor Fuller," he said. "I'd welcome peace, but what would you? My father condemns me, sees no good in me, nor would he welcome back the old days when we were close friends. There will be a ship come here from home some time on which I can sail back to England. It will be better to rid my father of my hateful presence; yet should I hate to leave Sis--Constance."

"May the ship never leave the runway that shall take you from us, Giles, lad," said the doctor. "You are blind not to see that it is too-great love for thee that ails thy father! It often works to cross purposes, our unreasonable human affection. But the case is by no means past curing when love awry is the disease. Do your part, Giles, and all will be well."

But Giles did not alter his course, and when Captain Myles Standish said to Stephen Hopkins: "We set forth on the eighteenth of September to explore the Massachusetts. I shall take ten men of our colour, and three red men, two besides Squanto. Let me have your lad for one of my band, old friend. I think it will be his remedy." Stephen Hopkins welcomed the suggestion, as Giles himself did, and it was settled. The Plymouth company sailed away in their shallop on a beautiful, sunshiny morning when the sun had scarcely come up out of the sea.

Giles and his father had shaken hands on parting, and Stephen Hopkins had given the boy his blessing; both were conscious that it might be a final parting, since no one could be sure what would befall the small band among untried savages.

Yet there was no further reconciliation than this, no apology on the one side, nor proffered pardon on the other.

Constance clung long around her brother's neck in the dusk in which she had risen to prepare his breakfast; she did not go down to see the start, being heavy hearted at Giles's going, and going without lifting the cloud completely between him and his father. She bade him good-bye in the long low room under the rear of the lean-to, where wood was piled and water buckets were set and storage made of supplies.

"Oh, Giles, Giles, my dearest, may God keep you and bring you back!" Constance whispered, and then let her brother go.

She went about her household tasks that morning with lagging step and unsmiling lips. Damaris followed her, wistfully, much depressed by the unusual dejection of Constance, who, in spite of her stepmother's disapproval of anything like merriment, ordinarily contrived to entertain Damaris to the top of her bent when the household tasks were getting done.

"Will Giles never come home again, Connie?" the child asked at last, and Constance cried with a catch in her voice:

"Yes, oh yes, little sister! We know he will, because we so want him!"

"There must be a better ground for hope than our poor desires, Damaris," Dame Eliza was beginning, speaking over the child at Constance; when opportunely a shadow fell across the floor through the open door and Constance turned to see Doctor Fuller smiling at her.

"Good morning, Mistress Hopkins; good morning little Damaris; and good morning to you, Constance lass!" he said. "Is this a day of especial business? Are you too busy for charity to your neighbours, beginning with me, and indirectly reaching out to our entire community?"

Constance smiled at him with that swift brightening of her face that was one of her chief attractions; her expression was always playing between grave and gay.

"It is not a day of especial business, Doctor Fuller," she said, "or at least all our days are especial ones where there is everything yet to be done. But I could give it over to charity better than some other days, and if it were charity to you--though I fear there is nothing for such as I to do for such as you--then how gladly would I do it, if only to pay a tittle of the debt we all owe to you."

"Good child!" said the doctor. "I need help and comradeship in my herb gathering; it is to be done to-day, if you will be that helper. There is no wind, and there is that benignity of sun and sky that hath always seemed to me to impart special virtue to herbs gathered under it. So will you come with me? We will gather the morning long, and this afternoon I purpose distilling, in which necessary work your deft fingers will be of the greatest assistance to me."

"Gladly will I go," cried Constance, flushing with pleasure. "I will fetch my basket and shears, put on my bonnet, and be ready in a trice. Shall I prepare a lunch, or shall I be at home again for dinner?"

"Neither, Constance; there is yet another alternative." Doctor Fuller looked with great satisfaction at Constance's happier face as he spoke; she had been so melancholy when he had come. "I have arranged that you shall be my guest at dinner in my house, and after it we will to work in my substitute for a laboratory. Mistress Hopkins, Constance will be quite safe, be assured; and you, I trust, will not mind a quiet day with Damaris and Oceanus to bear you company?"

"And if I did mind it, would that prevent it?" demanded Dame Eliza with a toss of her head. "Not even with a 'by your leave' does Constantia Hopkins arrange her goings and comings."

"Which was wholly my fault in not first putting my question to you, instead of to Constance directly," said Doctor Fuller. "And surely there is no excuse for my blundering, I who am trained to feel pulses and look at tongues! But since it is thus happily concluded, and your stepmother is glad to let you have a sort of holiday, come then; hasten, Constance girl!"

Constance ran upstairs to hide her laughing face. She came down almost at once with that face shaded by a deep bonnet, a basket hung on her arm, shears sticking up out of it, pulling on long-armed half-gloves as she came.

As they walked down the narrow street Constance glanced up at Doctor Fuller, interrogatively.

"And----?" the doctor hinted.

"And I was wondering whether you were not treating me to-day as your patient?" Constance said. "A patient with a trouble of the mind, and also a heart complaint?"

"Which means----?" The doctor again waited for Constance to fill out his question.

"Which means that you knew I was sorely troubled about Giles; that he had gone without better drawing to his father; that I was anxious about him, even while wishing him to go; and that you gave me this day in the woods with you for my healing," Constance answered.

"At least not for your harm, little maid," said the doctor. "It hath been my experience that the gatherer of herbs gets a healing of spirit that is not set down in our books among the beneficial qualities of the plants, but which may, under conditions, be their best attribute. Although the singing of brooks and birds, the sweetness of the winds, the solemn nobility of the trees, the vastness of the sky, the over-brooding presence of God in His creation are compounded with the herbs, and impart their powers to us with that of the plants."

"That is true," said Constance. "I feel my vexations go from me as if my soul were bathed in a miraculous elixir, when I go troubled to the woods and sit in them awhile."

"Of a certainty," agreed the doctor, bending his tall, thin figure to pick a small leaf which he held up to Constance. "See this, with its likeness to the halberd at its base? This is vervain, which is called 'Simpler's Joy,' because of the good it yields to those who, like us to-day, are simplers, gatherers of simple herbs for mankind's benefit. Now let us hope that this single plant is a forerunner of many of its kind, for it hath been a sacred herb among the ancients, as among Christians, and it should be an augury of good to us to find it. Look you, Constance, I do not mind confessing it to you, for you are not only young, but of that happy sort who yield to imagination something of its due. I like my omens to be favourable, not in superstition, though our brethren would condemn me thus, but from a sense of harmony and the satisfaction of it."

"How pleasant a hearing is that, Doctor Fuller!" laughed Constance. "I love to have the new moon aright, though well I know the moon and I have naught in common! And though I do not believe in fairies, yet do I like to make due allowance for them!"

"It is the poetry of these things, and children like you and me, my dear, are not to be deprived of poetry by mere facts and common sense," said the doctor, sticking in the band of his hat the sprig of blue vervain which his sharp eyes had discovered.

"Yonder on the side of that sandy hill shall we find mints, pennyroyal, and the close cousin of it, which is blue curls. There is the prunelle, and welcome to it! Gather all you can of it, Constance. That is self-heal, and a sovereign remedy for quinsy. So is it a balm for wounds of iron and steel tools, and for both these sorts of afflictions, what with our winter climate as to quinsy and our hard labour as to wounds, I am like to need abundant self-heal."

Thus pleasantly chatting Doctor Fuller led the way, first up the sandy hill where grew the pennyroyal, all along the border of the woods where self-heal abounded. They found many plants unexpectedly, which the doctor always hailed with the joy of one who loved them, rather more than of the medical man who required them, and Constance busily snipped the stems, listening to the doctor's wise and kindly talk, loving him for his goodness and kindness to her in making her heart light and giving her on this day, which had promised to be sad, of his own abundant peace.

"Now, Constance, I shall lead you to a secret of my own," announced the doctor as the sun mounted high above them, and noon drew near. "Come with me. But do not forget to rejoice in this wealth of bloom, purple and blue, these asters along the wayside. They are the glory of our new country, and for them let us praise God who sets beauty so lavishly around us, having no use but to praise Him, for not to any other purpose are these asters here, and yet, though I cannot use them, am I humbly thankful for them. And for these plumes of golden and silver flowers beside them, which we did not know across the seas. Now, Constance, what say you to that?"

He pointed triumphantly to a small group of plants with heart-shaped leaves, having small leaves at their base, and which twisted as they grew around their neighbouring plants, or climbed a short distance on small shrubs. Groups of drooping berries of brilliant, translucent scarlet lighted up the little plant settlement, hanging as gracefully as jewels set by a skilful goldsmith for a fair lady's adornment.

"I think they are wonderfully beautiful. They are like ornaments for a beautiful lady! What are they?" cried Constance.

"They are themselves the beautiful lady," Doctor Fuller said, with a pleased laugh. "That is their name--belladonna, which means 'beautiful lady.' They are _Atropa Belladonna_, to give them their full title. But their beauty is only in appearance. If they are a belle dame, then she is the _belle dame sans merci_, a cruel beauty if you cross her. You must never taste these berries, Constance. I myself planted these vines. I brought them with me, carefully set in soil. The beautiful lady can be cruel if you take liberties with her, but she is capable of kindness. I shall gather the belladonna now and distil it. In case any one among us ate of poisonous toadstools, and were seized with severe spasms of the nature of the effect of toadstools, belladonna alone would save them. Nightshade, we also call this plant. See, I will myself gather this, by your leave, my assistant, and place it in my own herb wallet."

The doctor suited the action to the word, arose from his knees and carefully brushed them. "When Mistress Fuller comes, which is a weary day awaiting, I hope she may not find me fallen into untidiness," he said, whimsically. "Constance, the ship is due that will bring my wife and child, if my longing be a calendar!"

"Indeed, dear Doctor Fuller, I often think of it," said Constance. "You who are so good to us all are lonely and heavy of heart, but none is made to feel it. The comfort is that Mistress Fuller and your little one are safe and you will yet see them, while so many of the women who came hither in our ship are not here now, and those who loved them will never see them in this world again."

"Surely, my child. I am not repining, for, though I am opposed to the extreme strict views of some of our community, and they look askance upon me for it at times, yet do I not oppose the will of God," said the doctor, simply.

"Who of them fulfils it as you do?" cried Constance. "You who go out to minister to the sick savages, not content to heal your own brethren?"

"And are not the savages also our brothers?" asked the doctor, taking up his wallet. "Come then, child; we will go home, and this afternoon shall you learn something of distilling, as you have, I hope, this morning learned something of selecting herbs for remedies."

Constance went along at the doctor's side, swinging her bonnet, not afraid of the hot September sun upon her face. It lighted up her disordered hair, and turned it into the semblance of burnished metal, upon which the doctor's eyes rested with the same satisfaction that had warmed them as he looked on the generous beauty of aster and goldenrod, and he saw with pleasure that Constance's face was also shining, its brightness returned, and he was well content with the effect of his prescription for this patient.

Constance had a gift of forgetting herself in an ecstasy that seized her when the weight of her new surroundings was lifted. With Doctor Fuller she felt perfect sympathy, and her utter delight in this lovely day bubbled up and found expression.

Doctor Fuller heard her singing one of her little improvised songs, softly, under her breath, to a crooning air that was less an air than a succession of sweet sounds. It was the sort of little song with which Constance often amused the children of the settlement, and Doctor Fuller, that childlike soul, listened to her with much of their pleasure in it.

"Blossom, and berry, and herb of grace; Purple and blue and gold lighting each place; Herbs for our body and bloom for our heart-- Beauty and healing, for each hath its part. Under the sunshine and in the starlight, Warp and woof weareth the pattern aright. Shineth the fabric when summer's at end: The garment scarce hiding the Heart of our Friend,"

Constance sang, nor did the doctor interrupt her simple Te Deum by a word.

At the doctor's house dinner awaited them, kept hot, for they were tardy. After it, and when Constance had helped to put away all signs of its having been, the doctor said to her:

"Now for my laboratory, such as it is, and for our task, my apprentice in medicine!" He conducted Constance into a small room, at the rear of the house where he had set up tables of various sizes of his own manufacture, and where were ranged on the shelves running around three sides of the room at different heights, bowls, glasses of odd shapes--the uses of which were not known to Constance--and small, delicate tools, knives, weights, and piles of strips of linen, neatly rolled and placed in assorted widths in an accessible corner.

"Mount this stool, Constance, and watch," the doctor bade her. "Pay strict attention to what I shall do and tell you. Take this paper and quill and note names, or special instructions. I am serious in wishing you to know something of my work. I need assistance; there is no man to be spared from man's work in the plantation, and, to speak the truth, your brain is quicker to apprehend me, as your hand is more skilful to execute for me in the matters upon which I engage than are those of any of the lads who are with us. So mount this high stool, my lass, and learn your lesson."

Constance obeyed him. Breathlessly she watched the beginnings of the distillation of the belladonna which she had seen gathered.

As the small drops fell slowly into the glass which the doctor had set for them, he began to teach Constance other things, while the distillation went on.

"These are my phials, Constance," he said. "Commit to memory the names of their contents, and note their positions. See, on these shelves are my drugs. Do you see this dark phial? That is for my belladonna. Now note where it is to stand. In that line are poisons. Their phials are dark, to prevent mistaking them for less harmful drugs, which are on this other shelf, in white containers."

The doctor taught, and Constance obediently repeated her lesson, till the sound of the horn that summoned the settlers to their homes for supper, and the level rays of the sun across the floor, warned the doctor and his pupil that their pleasant day was over.

"But you must return, till you are letter perfect in your knowledge, Constance," the doctor said. "I have decided that there must be one person among us whom I could dispatch to bring me what I needed in case I were detained, and could not come myself."

"I will gladly learn, Doctor Fuller," said Constance, her face confirming her assurance. "I have no words to tell you how happy it makes me to hope that I may one day be useful in such great matters."

"As you will be," the doctor said. "But remember, my child, the lesson of the fields: It does not concern us whether great or small affairs are given us to do; the one thing is to do well what comes our way; to be content to fill the background of the picture, or to be a figure in the foreground, as we may be required. Aster, goldenrod, herb, all are doing their portion."

"Indeed you have helped me to see that, dear Doctor Fuller," said Constance, gently. "It is not ambition, but the remembrance of last winter's hardships, when there was so little aid, that makes me wish I could one day help."

"Yes, Constance; I know. Good-night, my child, and thank you for your patient attention, for your help; most of all for your sweet companionship," said the doctor.

"Oh, as to that, I am grateful enough to you! You made to-day a happy girl out of a doleful one!" cried Constance. "Good-night, Doctor Fuller!"

She ran down the street, singing softly:

"Flower, and berry, and herb of grace;"

till she reached her home and silenced her song with a kiss on eager Damaris's cheek.