A More Intractable,
Outrageous, IM-Patient I Never Had The Ill-Fortune To Nurse.
During The Cold Fit, He Did
Nothing but swear at the cold, and
wished himself roasting; and during the fever, he swore at the heat,
and
Wished that he was sitting, in no other garment than his shirt,
on the north side of an iceberg. And when the fit at last left him,
he got up, and ate such quantities of fat pork, and drank so much
whiskey-punch, that you would have imagined he had just arrived
from a long journey, and had not tasted food for a couple of days.
He would not believe that fishing in the cold night-air upon the water
had made him ill, but raved that it was all my fault for having laid
my baby down on his bed while it was shaking with the ague.
Yet, if there were the least tenderness mixed up in his iron nature,
it was the affection he displayed for that young child. Dunbar was
just twenty months old, with bright, dark eyes, dimpled cheeks, and
soft, flowing, golden hair, which fell round his infant face in rich
curls. The merry, confiding little creature formed such a contrast
to his own surly, unyielding temper, that, perhaps, that very
circumstance made the bond of union between them. When in the house,
the little boy was seldom out of his arms, and whatever were
Malcolm's faults, he had none in the eyes of the child, who used to
cling around his neck, and kiss his rough, unshaven cheeks with the
greatest fondness.
"If I could afford it, Moodie," he said one day to my husband,
"I should like to marry. I want some one upon whom I could vent
my affections." And wanting that some one in the form of woman,
he contented himself with venting them upon the child.
As the spring advanced, and after Jacob left us, he seemed ashamed
of sitting in the house doing nothing, and therefore undertook to
make us a garden, or "to make garden," as the Canadians term
preparing a few vegetables for the season. I procured the necessary
seeds, and watched with no small surprise the industry with which
our strange visitor commenced operations. He repaired the broken
fence, dug the ground with the greatest care, and laid it out with a
skill and neatness of which I had believed him perfectly incapable.
In less than three weeks, the whole plot presented a very pleasing
prospect, and he was really elated by his success.
"At any rate," he said, "we shall no longer be starved on bad flour
and potatoes. We shall have peas, and beans, and beets, and carrots,
and cabbage in abundance; besides the plot I have reserved for
cucumbers and melons."
"Ah," thought I; "does he, indeed, mean to stay with us until the
melons are ripe?" and my heart died within me, for he not only was a
great additional expense, but he gave a great deal of additional
trouble, and entirely robbed us of all privacy, as our very parlour
was converted into a bed-room for his accommodation; besides that, a
man of his singularly dirty habits made a very disagreeable inmate.
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