Candace McCarthy Read Online Free PDF Page A

instruments and tools, and attempted to make the barren back rooms into a home.
    As the Reverend Whitely had said, Miriam knew all the places to find herbs and other medicinal plants that grew wild in and around the mission. The two women spent an entire afternoon roaming through the forest, identifying and gathering medicinal plants.
    Three days after their arrival, Amelia saw her father’s first patient at the infirmary. It was a young woman, a missionary wife. She had burned herself while cooking when the grease from a cook fire had popped and splattered across her hand. It wasn’t a serious burn as far as burns go, but Dr. Dempsey treated it carefully, because even the most simplest injury could fester if not tended properly. The woman was pregnant, which meant careful monitoring of the wound, as John Dempsey wanted no injury to the mother to endanger either woman or child.
    Amelia saw her father’s face as he ministered to Mary Black’s hand, and recognized a happiness in his expression that she’d not seen in a long time. Later, when she men-tioned it to him, he’d looked at her and admitted that he felt he could do more good in this remote area than he ever could in a city the size of Baltimore, Maryland, where people rarely appreciated the assistance he gave them, while others treated him as their personal physician, becoming angry when he wasn’t immediately available for their sole use.
    “As if I was a possession instead of a human being,” her father said.
    Amelia placed her hand on her father’s shoulder. “I never realized they treated you that way.”
    There was new spring to John Dempsey’s step, a new interest in life. Amelia thought that it was worth giving up their comfortable lifestyle in Baltimore to see the utter contentment on her father’s face.
    If it was rough on Amelia to make the adjustment to a life that was much different than the one she’d left behind, she didn’t mind it at all. She missed her sister and wondered how she was doing. She missed Aunt Bess and the gruff woman’s warm, generous affection. But she was here with her father, and her love for him and her enjoyment of working beside him overshadowed the sadness of leaving her old life behind.
    “Amelia,” her father called from the front room, “do we have any camphor? I can’t find it.”
    She entered the infirmary and went right to the appropriate shelf in the cabinet. If it were any closer to her father, it would have jumped up and bitten him.
    “Right there, was it?” John said with a smile. He patted his daughter’s arm awkwardly. “What would I do without you, daughter?”
    Amelia grinned. “I don’t know, Father, but I suspect you’d manage to get along just fine … just as you’d done before you married Mother.”
    A look of sadness entered John’s deep brown eyes. “Wonderful woman, your mother. I miss her.”
    “She looked like Rachel does now, didn’t she, Father?” Which meant she was not only a kindhearted woman, but a beautiful one as well.
    John nodded. “But you’ve got her heart, girl.” He smiled as he reminisced. “Such a kind and giving heart it is, too.”
    Yet I haven’t found a man more interested in a kind heart than a pretty face, Amelia thought.
    “It looks like we need a few supplies, Father. I’ll take Miriam with me to Keller’s Outpost.” She glanced around the otherwise tidy room and was satisfied that everything was as it should be. “Will you be needing me this morning or shall I go ahead and leave with Miriam?”
    “Go, daughter. I’ll be fine here alone.” His gaze held genuine affection. “See if Jack has any of that maple syrup he let us taste the last time we were in.”
    Amelia nodded. “Anything else?”
    “I could use another one of these,” he said as he held a pair of forceps. “Find out from Daniel Trahern how much it’ll cost for him to make one of these for me.”
    Amelia stiffened. “He’s probably extremely busy,” she hedged. She