Rolf in the Woods

Chapter 59. Van Cortlandt's Drugs

"AIN'T ye feelin' all right?" said Rolf, one bright, calomel morning, as he saw Van Cortlandt preparing his daily physic.

"Why, yes; I'm feeling fine; I'm better every day," was the jovial reply.

"Course I don't know, but my mother used to say: 'Med'cine's the stuff makes a sick man well, an' a well man sick."'

"My mother and your mother would have fought at sight, as you may judge. B-u-t," he added with reflective slowness, and a merry twinkle in his eye, "if things were to be judged by their product, I am afraid your mother would win easily," and he laid his long, thin, scrawny hand beside the broad, strong hand of the growing youth.

"Old Sylvanne wasn't far astray when he said: 'There aren't any sick, 'cept them as thinks they are,"' said Rolf. "I suppose I ought to begin to taper off," was the reply. But the tapering was very sudden. Before a week went by, it seemed desirable to go back for the stuff left in cache on the Schroon, where, of course, it was subject to several risks. There seemed no object in taking Van Cortlandt back, but they could not well leave him alone. He went. He had kept time with fair regularity—calomel, rhubarb; calomel, rhubarb; calomel, rhubarb, squills—but Rolf's remarks had sunk into his intelligence, as a red-hot shot will sink through shingles, letting in light and creating revolution.

This was a rhubarb morning. He drank his potion, then, carefully stoppering the bottle, he placed it with its companions in a box and stowed that near the middle of the canoe. "I'll be glad when it's finished," he said reflectively; "I don't believe I need it now. I wish sometimes I could run short of it all."

That was what Rolf had been hoping for. Without such a remark, he would not have dared do as he did. He threw the tent cover over the canoe amidships, causing the unstable craft to cant: "That won't do," he remarked, and took out several articles, including the medicine chest, put them ashore under the bushes, and, when he replaced them, contrived that the medicine should be forgotten.

Next morning Van Cortlandt, rising to prepare his calomel, got a shock to find it not.

"It strikes me," says Rolf, "the last time I saw that, it was on the bank when we trimmed the canoe." Yes, there could be no doubt of it. Van must live his life in utter druglessness for a time. It gave him somewhat of a scare, much like that a young swimmer gets when he finds he has drifted away from his floats; and, like that same beginner, it braced him to help himself. So Van found that he could swim without corks.

They made a rapid journey down, and in a week they were back with the load.

There was the potion chest where they had left it. Van Cortlandt picked it up with a sheepish smile, and they sat down for evening meal. Presently Rolf said: "I mind once I seen three little hawks in a nest together. The mother was teaching them to fly. Two of them started off all right, and pretty soon were scooting among the treetops. The other was scared. He says: 'No, mother, I never did fly, and I'm scared I'd get killed if I tried.' At last the mother got mad and shoved him over. As soon as he felt he was gone, he spread out his wings to save himself. The wings were all right enough, and long before he struck the ground, he was flying."