He was one of the small band of devoted men whose lives are spent on the coast, engaged in serving their fellow-men to the best of their abilities.  The extent of his parish was scarcely limited by the ability of a fishing boat to travel a day’s journey, and he spoke very modestly of some rather narrow escapes from storm and ice.

“If we only had a doctor!” he sighed.  “Mrs. Barnett and I do our best.  Things are sometimes just heartrending.”

At once I manifested interest, and angled for further information.  This was just the sort of place I had in mind.  It appeared that the nearest doctor was more than a day’s travel away, and that the population was rather too poor to afford the luxury of professional advice.

“We sometimes feel very hopeless,” he told me.

“How do you reach Sweetapple Cove?” I asked him.

“There will be a little schooner in a few days,” he answered.

“I am a physician,” I announced, “and am looking for exactly that kind of a practice.”

We were strolling on the deck at this time.  Mr. Barnett turned quickly and grasped my arm.

“There is hardly a dollar there for you,” he said.  “No sane man would come to such a place to practice.  And there is a little hardship in that sort of work.  You don’t realize it.”

“I am under the impression that it is just the place for me,” I told him.

“There is really good salmon fishing in Sweetapple River,” he began, excitedly, “and you can get caribou within a day’s walk, and there are lots of trout, and...”

I could see that he was eager to find some redeeming points for Sweetapple Cove.

“Behold the tempter,” I laughed.

“Dear me!  Of course I did not mean to tempt you,” he said, flushing like a girl.  “And I’m afraid you would have to live in some fisherman’s house, and to furnish medicines as well as your services.  Of course they might pay you something if the fishing happened to be good.  It sometimes is, you know.”

As soon as we arrived in St. John’s I made many and sundry purchases, with a proper discount for cash, and three days later we sailed out of the harbor on a tiny schooner laden with salt, barrels of flour and various other provisions.  In less than forty-eight hours we arrived in Sweetapple Cove.  The delighted reception I received from Mrs. Barnett, a sweet lovable woman, exalted my ideas of the value of my profession.  She simply gloated over me and patted her husband on the back as if his superior genius had been the true cause of my arrival.  At once she made arrangements for my living with Captain Sammy Moore, an ancient of the sea whose nice old wife accepted with tremulous pride the honor of sheltering me.  The inhabitants and their offspring, the dogs and the goats, the fowls and the solitary cow, trooped about me for closer inspection, and my practice became at once established.

I have taken some formidable walks over the barrens back inland, and have angled with distinguished success.  The days are becoming fairly crowded ones.