James Ellis - Shawn of Skarrow

"Oh Shawn!"

It was a shrill voice calling from the bank above the river.

"You can holler till dark, but I ain't goin' to answer you while a blue-channel cat is nibblin' at this line."

Through the short and chubby fingers a stout sea-grass line was running out to the accumulated driftwood in the eddy below the wharf-boat. Suddenly there came a spasmodic jerk of the line.

"He bluffed that time."

The front finger tapped the line, as an expert telegraph operator taps his key.

"He's coming back for that crawfish tail now." The line went taut. The freckled arms executed a series of lightning-like movements and the catfish lay on the shore, a five-pounder, beating the sands with his flashing tail.

"Oh Shawn!"

"I'm a-comin' now; come on, Coaly." The little brown dog wagged his tail and got up from his resting place in the sand. They went up the hill toward the little frame building on the bank.

The boy's mother met him at the door. She was a frail-looking woman, upon whose face was a sorrowful and melancholy expression.

"Shawn, Mrs. Alden has sent for you, and wants you to come up to the big house; get on your cottonade pants and wash your face and comb your hair, and when you go up there, don't scratch your shins together, and don't forget to say yes mam ."

It was a matter of but a few moments for Shawn to array himself in his best clothes. As he turned to go, his mother wearily took his face between her hands and kissed him on the lips. The black eyes beamed tenderly upon her, and over the sun-tanned features flashed a smile of cheerfulness and love.

"Take that fish to Mrs. Alden, Shawn."

"It's for you, mammy."

"No, take it to her."

Shawn climbed the hill and went up through the alley, going around to the side entrance of the Alden home. There was something about the great house which always filled him with a spirit of awe, and as he glanced over toward the long garden and orchard, there came into his heart a yearning such as he had never known before.

A servant opened the door, and Shawn held up his fish: "This is for Mrs. Alden; she sent for me." The servant took the fish and said, "You will find Mrs. Alden in the next room. Leave your dog outside." Shawn walked into the room. A woman with a sweet spiritual face sat in an invalid's rolling-chair.

Extending her thin white hand to Shawn, she bestowed upon him a smile of tenderness.

"I am glad you came, Shawn; take that chair." Shawn was striving hard to remember his mother's parting injunction in regard to his shins.

"How old are you, Shawn?"

"Yes, mam, fourteen past in March."

"How long have you attended school?" The black eyelashes fell and the smile vanished. "I went to old 'fesser Barker up to Christmas twice."

"Why did you stop?"

"I put red pepper on his plug tobacker!"

"Did you go to any other school?"

"Yes, mam, I went to Miss Julie Bean six months."

"Did you quit that school?"

"Yes, mam, I put cuckle burrs in her bonnet."

"Weren't you sorry for it?"

"Yes, mam, but too late."

"You spend a good part of your time fishing, don't you?"

"Yes, mam, but I catches them."

"Isn't there anything you would rather do than fish?" A long silence followed, then the eyes suddenly brightened:

"Yes, mam."

"What is it?"

"I'd rather blow up hog bladders with a quill and bust 'em!"

"Shawn, have you ever thought of what you would like to do in life; what you would like to make of yourself as you grow to manhood?"

"Yes, mam, I'm goin' to be a doctor!"

"Indeed!"

"Yes, mam, indeed, I help doctor Hissong roll pills now, and he helps me in my books more than I learned at school."

"Shawn, I am going to ask you to begin with the term of school which opens soon. I will furnish you with books and tuition and will help you in every way."

"Will it help me to be a doctor?"

"It will help you in everything."

"Could I take Coaly with me?"

"I hardly think so."

Shawn gazed out of the window. The fleecy clouds were moving majestically above the river, along the old haunts he loved so well, but something in the kind blue eyes of the good woman sitting there with folded hands, touched his innermost being, and he arose and turning squarely to face his benefactress, said: "I'll do it, Mrs. Alden."

"I thank you, Shawn."

"Yes, mam, but I did not ketch that fish I brought you for niggers to eat; they never told you I brought it."

Mrs. Alden rolled her chair near him, and placing her hand on his shoulder, said, "I appreciate your bringing it very much and will remember it."

As Shawn left the porch he turned to his little dog and said, "Oh, Lord, Coaly, we're goin' to school!"

"So you are going to school, Shawn?"

"Yes, sir, I promised Mrs. Alden."

"That's the best promise you ever made, and to the best woman that God ever made."

Old Doctor Hissong sat in his big armchair, his spectacles tilted high on his nose as he looked at Shawn, who was leaning against the mantel-board. Old Brad, a negro who had been the doctor's servant for many years, sat in a hickory chair near the back door. Brad, aside from taking care of the doctor's office, gave some of his time to preaching, although it was a matter of some speculation as to whether his general habits warranted his ministerial fulfillments.

The old office was dingy with its medicine bottles ranging along the shelves, and cobwebs and dust were in evidence all about them. Over in the corner was a pair of saddlebags, and a pair of jean legging hung over a chair. In another corner was a tall book-case, the glass front broken out, and the books scattered about on the shelves. On the top of the book-case was an object which had long been a source of discomfort to Shawn and Brad – a grinning skull.

A doctor's office, in the old days, without a skull peering out from some hidden recess, was not considered complete – it contributed a kind of mysterious power to the man of medicine, and lent the impression that he had dipped deeply into the science of healing.

"Look at the slate, Shawn."

Shawn went out and took down the slate which hung by the office door. "Old man Stivers has been writing on the slate," said Shawn.

"Huh," said Brad, "I reckun he 'cided to cum an' git you to cum out an' see his wife, now dat he done rin up a bill wid ole doc' Poleen, an' carn't git him to cum no mo'."

"Yes, Brad, it's strange – the man who loses sleep and health to save others has a hard time getting his pay. They look to the doctor mighty anxiously in the hour of trouble, and in the hour of suffering and death the doctor is a power of comfort."

"I see dat Bill Hugers scratchin' on de slate las' night," said Brad, "yo' hain' gwine to see him no mo', is yo', wid him owin' yo' a big bill?"

"Bill was one of my best friends when I made the race for the Legislature," said the doctor.

Brad scratched his head. He recalled the time when the doctor went to Frankfort as the representative of his county, and he remembered the scuffling he had to do during the doctor's absence – the yearning for many comforts which did not come. He recalled how the doctors picked up old Hissong's practice while he was away, and he had not forgotten the mean things they had said about him when he returned to be nursed through a spell of "too much liquor."

"Yo' hain' never gwine run no mo', is yo', doc?"

"I can't say, Brad."

"Brad, didn't you hear somebody holler outside? Go out and see who it is." Brad opened the door.

"Is the doc in thar?"

"Yes, sah, cum in."

A tall, double-jointed farm-hand came blustering into the room, his face covered with a yarn comforter. He slowly unwound the rag and brought to view the side of his face, swollen to a frightful size.