The Doctor’s Big Fee
by
A crowd of visitors had landed from the fortnightly mail boat, and had come up to see the sights of our little harbour while our mails and freight were being landed and the usual two hours were allowed to collect and put aboard any return packages or letters. The island on which the station stands is a very small one, attractions are naturally few, and custom has reconciled us to the experience, strange enough at first, of being included in the list of “sights.”
A nice, cheerful group had just “done the hospital” and its appendages, and were resting on the rocky hilltop, after seeing the winter dog-team and examining the hospital reservoir. The ever-recurrent questions had been asked, and patiently answered–yes, the ice was cold, but not always wet; the glare of the snow was hard on the eyes; dogs do delight to bite; and so on. Conversation flagged a little till some one enquired the names of the headlands and bays stretching away in succession beneath our view.
“It all looks so grim and cold, and the people seem so scattered and so poor. Surely they can’t pay a doctor’s fees?” some one asked.
“That depends on what you mean by a fee. We don’t expect to get blood out of a stone.”
“Is all your work done for nothing, then?”
“No, not exactly for nothing. There is no produce of the coast which has not been used to express gratitude, and ‘to help the hospital along.’ Codfish is a common fee. Sealskins, venison, wild ducks, beadwork, embroidered skinwork, feathers, firewood–nothing is too bizarre to offer.”
“Do they never pay money?”
“Yes, sometimes. Of late years, a little more each year. But when we began work, they practically never got any with which to pay. The fur-trading companies settled in kind, values were often measured, not by so many dollars, but by so many pelts. The traders gave out supplies on credit, took the fish or fur from their planters in return, and made up the balance, when there was any, in goods. Even barter was quite unusual, though some traders had a ‘cash price’ for produce paid down at once, besides the credit price.”
“Do you think it a sound policy to be providing services, drugs, and nursing free?” chimed in a grey-bearded old fellow, evidently the philosopher of the party.
“Sometimes, sir, policies must be adopted which are rendered necessary for the time by conditions. Besides, as I have said, the people pay what they can, and, after all, it is they who catch the fish and fur, reaping harvests for the world’s benefit–for not much return.”
“Well, I’m glad that you don’t do it for nothing, anyhow. That would be an imposition on the workers as well as on the subscribers.”
The old gentleman seemed a bit disgruntled, so I ventured to put my viewpoint in a different way.
“Do you see that steep, rocky cape over there?” I asked. “It is the most northerly you can distinguish.”
“A great landmark, and worth the journey up here only to look at it,” he answered with an enthusiasm which showed that he had a tender spot for Nature’s beauties, and that even if the shell was hard, the kernel was soft.
“There is a little village just behind that head. It is hidden away in a rift in the mountain which forms a tiny cove for a safe anchorage. I had as big a fee there only two days ago as ever I received when I was practising in London.”
The company looked up in astonishment, but like Brer Rabbit, I lay low to see if they cared for an explanation. I thought I saw a twinkle in my critic’s eye as it caught mine.
“Go ahead,” was all that he said, however.
* * * * *