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Show 132 She crawled down and hopped over the cold floor to Caribou's bunk. "The tea-the tea didn't work," she cried, shaking him. "James has scurvy!" Caribou bolted from his bed, and they both leaned over me. "Light the candle, fast!" Caribou said. It wasn't scurvy. It was good old pneumonia. For days Caribou sat by my bedside, wrapped in a fur robe, blaming himself. He said he never should have let me work like a man in a dark, damp mine. After all, I was still a growing boy. He moaned and groaned until I thought he was sick. He rubbed my back with St. Jacob' s Oil and ladled out big doses of Perry Davis Painkiller. Three times a day he applied his master treatment-a mustard plaster. He stirred up a yellow concoction and spread it on a square of old flannel underwear. "This is going to hurt me raore than you," he said each time, and slapped it on my bare chest. "It's burning," I yelled. "You must have the wrong recipe." "No," he said. He rubbed his hand through his hair, streaking it yellow. "A heaping tablespoon of mustard to a heaping cup of flour. And boiling water. No recipe to it." It' s strange vhat you remember when you think you are dying. I remembered the last note from Snorin' Sam when he told me about the fraction. He had also said he was sick. I was sorry I had not cared enough to check on him. I wanted to now, and I hooed |
