“I can have it the day after tomorrow,” he announced upon his return, which Desiré assured him was “not so bad.”
The two days passed very pleasantly. Twice a day, much to René’s delight, they all went in bathing. Playing in the sand became almost as much of a joy to the older ones as to the children, and they laid out wonderful towns across the beach. In the middle of the day, when it was too hot near the water, they spent their time in the grove, and made friends with the squirrels who were busy laying in their stores for the winter. The little creatures got so tame that they would venture into the very laps of the invaders of their domain.
“Now for the road again!” cried Jack, on the evening of the second day, as he put the new wheel on the wagon. “We’ll go to bed early, and get started as soon as it is light.”
Just after daybreak, he came to the wagon where Desiré was collecting supplies for their breakfast.
“Dissy,” he said, “Dolly is very sick!”
“Sick! Oh, Jack, what shall we do!” cried Desiré in dismay. Difficulties did seem to be coming too thick and fast.
“I’ve made her as comfortable as I can, but I don’t know what to do next. I’ll have to go to town for help. Give me a sandwich to eat on the way—I can’t wait for breakfast. You and the children keep away from her until I get back.”
In a few minutes Jack disappeared down the road leading to Lunenburg, puzzling over the finding of a pan half filled with bran mash which he had discovered near Dolly. Since he could not arrive at a satisfactory explanation, he wisely decided to keep the discovery to himself.
Desiré gave the children their breakfast, and sent them out on the sand, she herself remaining where she could watch them and keep an eye on the wagon. It seemed hours after Jack had gone when up the road she could see the broad bulk of a team of oxen plodding slowly toward her. As they came closer, she saw that they were pulling one of the flat wooden wagons used for hauling stone. On the boards sat Jack and another man; the driver was walking at the animals’ heads. Jack got off and came hurriedly toward her, after directing the driver to the end of the field where the sick horse lay.
“The doctor thinks he’ll have to take Dolly to his place; so they brought an ox team along,” he explained. Then before Desiré had time to reply, he dashed off to join the other two men.
Half an hour later poor Dolly, reclining on the ox cart, was ready for her ride to Lunenburg.
“I think she will get well; but not right off. She must have ate something very bad,” said Dr. Myers, a stout German, mopping his brow with a big blue handkerchief. “You come see me—say—next day after tomorrow; then I maybe can tell you how long.” He ran clumsily down the road to join his patient.
Jack sat down beside Desiré, and for a long moment they looked at each other without speaking. The children, who had left their play to become spectators of the moving, had returned to the beach at Desiré’s direction, and were now so busy constructing a sea wall that they were oblivious to all else.
“What next, Jack?” asked Desiré at last, laying her hand over his.
CHAPTER XIX
POOR DOLLY!
“I wish I knew,” was the boy’s sad reply to his sister’s question.
Fired by the sight of his deep depression, Desiré put her wits to work to find a way out of this latest catastrophe.
“Perhaps I could get some work in the shipyards in town,” began her brother before she had arrived at any solution of the problem.
“But if Dolly gets well in a few days, would that pay?”
“I don’t think she will—at least not so as to be ready for the road. You see, Dissy, it’s going to take an awful lot of what we’ve made so far to pay the doctor; and while we’re held up here, nothing is coming in, and living expenses go on.”
“That’s so.”
“If I could get a job in the yards for two or three weeks, it would mean a lot to us.”
“We would stay here, and you’d go back and forth every day?”
“Yes, that is if you wouldn’t be afraid—”
“Of course I shouldn’t!”
“It’s only half an hour’s walk, and we can camp down here cheaper than living in town. In October we should settle down in Wolfville; for it will be altogether too cold to camp after that time. If I could get work for two or three weeks, then we’ll start back for Halifax, and get to—”
“Our house just about in time,” concluded Desiré gaily.
“How proudly you say that,” smiled Jack.
“I am proud of it. Well, we’ll follow out your plan then; and while I get dinner you might tell the children what we’ve decided.”
“Better wait until we see whether I get the job or not,” advised her brother. “It will be hard on you, poor kid, having to manage everything here while I’m gone all day long.”
“Not half so hard, dear, as your having to go to work at something you don’t know anything about. I’m used to my work.”
The following afternoon, Jack returned from town, and immediately sought out Desiré who was sitting under a clump of birches mending one of Priscilla’s dresses.
“Good news, Dissy!” he cried, dropping down at her feet. “I’ve got a job.”
“Oh, Jack, that’s great! Tell me all about it.”
“When I first went into town, I stopped at Dr. Myers’ and saw Dolly. She’s lots better, but Doc said she ought to stay there another week. It’s expensive, but it would be more so if we lost her; so I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Of course not.”
“When she’s ready to come back, he’ll bring her out here; and he said to let her roam about the field for another week, and then drive her half a day at a time for a while. After that, he says she’ll be all right again.”
“Well, that’s better than we feared at first.”
“Yes indeed. I thought for a while that poor old Dolly was a goner. And how hard it would have been to tell good old Simon!”
“And what about your job?” For Jack’s eyes were on the expanse of blue ocean, where the sparkling ripples from a distance looked like silver confetti tossed up into the air and then allowed to fall back upon the restless surface of the water.
“Oh, yes. I asked directions from the doctor, and went over to the shipyard. My, but it’s an interesting and busy place, Dissy! Ships just begun, others with their ribs all showing and looking like the carcass of a chicken used to when the kids got through with it; some being painted, some out in the harbor waiting for masts, and others all ready for the deep sea. I found the man who hires the help, and he didn’t seem at all interested in me—said he wasn’t going to take anyone on at present. I’ll admit I was awfully disappointed—”
“Poor old Jack!” murmured his sister sympathetically, laying down her work to put her arms around him, much as she would have done to René.
“Just as I was leaving, who should come lumbering into the office but Dr. Myers. ‘Did you get it?’ he asked. When I said I did not, he grabbed my arm, turned me around, and marched me back to the desk where Mr. Libermann was sitting. ‘I send you this boy to get a job,’ he cried angrily. ‘For why you not gif him one? I know you haf extra work for these few weeks.’ Mr. Libermann seemed a bit taken back, and stammered—‘I did not know he was friend of yours. I’ll see what I can do if—’ ‘You’d better!’ shouted the doctor, shaking his fist under Herr Libermann’s nose. He got up from the desk and disappeared into some quarters at the back