Chapter 23. Once Burned 

Hetty was the one to keep her head. Though her movements were slow, due to her straitened gait, her mind was quicker than most. Even as the pot hit the floor, Hetty, staring at Mardi, was pushing Paddy from his seat. ‘Run!’ she cried. ‘Run for the healer, Paddy, run as you’ve never run before!’

 ‘Aye!’ Autumn shouted from the floor, over the shrieks of the tot she cradled, and the wails of the babe as Lilac stood frozen in horror. ‘The healer, lad! Run!’

Leaf sat unmoving, as Hetty used her shoulder to lever herself up. ‘The pot,’ she whispered. ‘The handle, I left the handle sticking out where she could grab at it...’ She burst into a torrent of tears. ‘O Mum!’

Hetty, having gained her balance upon her good leg, gave her sister a shake. ‘That does us no good at all,’ she said fiercely. ‘Make yourself useful! Fetch cloth for dressings, and more water from the well!’

She hobbled around the table to Mardi, grabbing at him as he pawed ineffectually at the steaming porridge that stuck to his hands and arms. It seemed at first that she overbalanced, pulling him down, but her aim was true, and she brought him to his knees where the bucket, brimful of fresh, cold water, reposed beside the stove. ‘Quick,’ she said, forcing his porridge-covered hands and arms into the water. ‘In there! It’s burning you, still.’

Mardi said nothing, not even something to the effect that she was stating the obvious. His face was screwed up in agony, and he gave only a low moan as his knuckles brushed the bottom of the bucket.

 ‘Scrape it off!’ Hetty ordered sharply, to her mother as well as herself, scrubbing at Mardi’s arms underwater. Even with the chill of the water, the hot porridge stung her fingers. Autumn followed suit, scraping the splatters of porridge from her granddaughter and herself, to reveal the white blisters already rising, and Lilac laid the baby down, still screaming, in the cradle in the corner and hurried to help Hetty, after a quick glance to see that Autumn had little Violet well in hand.

Leaf came sloshing in, bucket in hand, plonking it down by her mother, and dipped the end of her apron into the water, to hold it to her mother’s splattered arm. ‘That’s right,’ Autumn said, forcing calm, and dipping her own apron in the bucket with her uninjured arm, she applied the cold, wet compress to her granddaughter’s legs as she began to croon a nursery tune.

Once Violet’s screams had settled to sobs, Autumn called, over the baby’s wails, ‘Take him, Lilac! Feed him! Settle him down! I cannot hear my own thoughts at the moment!’

 ‘First help me sit him down at table,’ Hetty added, pushing back a stray curl with a damp, porridge-smeared hand. ‘Then do, go.’

Together they got Mardi onto his feet and managed to seat him on the bench nearest the stove, leaning his back against the table, and then Lilac picked up the wailing babe and carried him out of the kitchen. The wails continued for several minutes more, while she tried to calm herself sufficiently to nurse him, but it was not long before blessed silence reigned, save Mardi’s harsh breathing. He had yet to say a word. He was probably half out of his wits, from the pain and suddenness of it all, Hetty thought, and locking gazes with her mother, she saw that Autumn was of the same mind.

 ‘It’s a good thing there’s plenty of butter,’ Autumn said. ‘Leaf-love, you fetch the rolls of bandages from the linen closet now...’

 ‘How many?’ Leaf said, still gulping back tears.

 ‘All,’ Autumn said crisply, and her daughter winced as if she’d struck her. No use scolding Leaf for her carelessness—more than likely she’d make herself miserable enough for two as it was. There was nothing of dreaminess about the lass now.

With a grimace, Autumn stood up from the floor, lifting little Violet with her, and sank down on the bench next to Mardi. She dipped her fingers in the butter that waited on the table to grace the freshly-baked buns, and smeared the cool, greasy stuff on Violet’s burns, murmuring soothing words all the while. The tot’s sobs petered out as she stared in surprise.

 ‘You butter me?’ she lisped. ‘Me butter?’

 ‘Yes, lovie, butter you indeed,’ Autumn said, proceeding to lay a series of kisses against Violet’s unburnt knee. ‘Yummy yummy yummy! I could eat you up with kisses, I could, my sweet little crumpet!’

Mardi might have been turned to stone, as Leaf and Hetty applied a thick layer of butter from fingertip to elbow, and then bandaged his hands and arms as gently as they could. Autumn poured out the tea and dosed each cup with a large dollop of honey, ‘To regather our wits about us,’ as she said. Somehow Hetty managed to get the healer’s assistant to take a few sips.

 ‘When will the healer come?’ Leaf fussed, getting up to look out the door.
 
 ‘Healer?’ Mardi said faintly, with a puzzled look. ‘Did someone want a healer?’

***

Paddy Grubb ran faster than he ever had run in his life, ran until he thought his lungs would burst, and yet he was only halfway to Whitwell! A fierce stitch took him in the side, but he did not stop running. He jammed his hands into his side, bent over, put his head down, and kept running, hearing Mardi’s cry echo in his ears. He’d been burned, once, a little burn, years ago it was, yet he remembered the pain of it. And that had been just a little burn, incautiously brushing against the edge of a baking pan fresh from the oven. He couldn’t imagine...

There was a hail behind him, and he looked around, blowing like a bellows, to see the welcome sight of riders on two ponies.

 ‘Where are ye going?’ Pearl Took hailed him. She and Pervinca shared a seat on a sway-backed plough pony, long retired from the fields but, old and gentle, kept for the young ones to ride. Pimpernel and her cousin Rosemary sat upon the latter’s fine mare.

 ‘Healer!’ Paddy gasped. ‘Burns... bad burns...’

 ‘Nell, slide down,’ Pearl ordered at once. ‘Ride with us, as we always do, and Rosie can take Paddy to town.’

 ‘My thanks...’ Paddy gasped, but Pearl silenced him.

 ‘No time for that,’ she said, even as Pimpernel’s feet hit the ground.

Paddy took the hand Rosie held out to him, fumbled his foot into the stirrup she’d kicked free, and hauled himself up into the saddle behind her, one arm about her waist while the other hand kneaded the stitch in his side.

 ‘Go, Windfoot, go!’ she cried, leaning forward, and Paddy’s grip tightened instinctively as the mare put her head down and broke into a fast pace that lengthened into a gallop as the lass called to her again.

It seemed almost no time at all before they were racing through the streets of Whitwell, past outraged hobbits who scattered before them, and then the mare pulled up dancing before the healer’s little smial.

Paddy had caught his breath in the meantime, and he jumped from the pony’s back, bounded over the gate, and ran to the door, shouting for Woodruff.

Beryl came to the door, mortar and pestle in her hands, for she’d been grinding herbs while Woodruff slept. ‘Here now,’ she said sharply. ‘What is it, Paddy Grubb, that has you shouting so? Mardi left for your farm an hour ago, didn’t you know?’

 ‘Just came from the farm,’ Paddy said, craning past Beryl. ‘It’s Mardi—there’s been a terrible accident...’

 ‘Mardi!’ Beryl gasped, clutching mortar to her heart. ‘What sort of accident?’

Paddy had caught sight of Woodruff, emerging from the rear of the smial, hair mussed but eyes bright and aware. ‘Healer Woodruff!’

 ‘I heard,’ Woodruff said, crossing quickly to place a calming hand on Beryl’s shoulder. ‘What accident?’

 ‘Burned,’ Paddy said, ‘and burned bad. The porridge, ‘twas boilin’, and Letty, she was... and Mardi, well, he caught it just as it went over, and...’

Somehow Woodruff followed this excited gabble, and though her face paled, she grabbed up her bag, lying ready by the door, and said, ‘Then we must run!’

 ‘Take my pony!’ Rosemary called from the gate she’d swung open. She’d slid from the saddle and was holding the reins loosely as the excited mare pranced. ‘She’ll get you there faster!’

Woodruff stopped only long enough to turn to Beryl. ‘Tell your mum and da,’ she said. ‘They’ll know what needs doing.’

Beryl stammered a reply, looking as if she were about to faint. Paddy steadied the lass, saying, ‘Don’t worry about anything here. Go!’

Without so much as a nod, Woodruff whirled and ran to the gateway. ‘Good lass,’ she murmured to the pony. Rosemary held the bag while she mounted, and Woodruff, her throat tight with dread, could only nod her thanks as she took the bag and turned the pony’s face back in the direction of the Grubbses’ farm. She needed only to tighten her legs and the pony was off again, racing with a clatter over the cobblestones of Whitwell. Hobbits, seeing the healer on the pony’s back, understood now the reason for haste, and called questions to each other.

Beryl sagged in Paddy’s grasp. ‘Steady,’ the teen said urgently.

 ‘Mardi,’ she whispered, raising tear-filled eyes to his face. ‘How... how bad?’

 ‘Come,’ Paddy said, taking mortar and pestle and laying them upon the doorstep. ‘You’re to tell your parents, so they’ll know what needs to be done.’ And he and Rosemary led her gently to Tru and Mira Took’s smial, not far away.

The pony flew over the two miles of road as if she had wings, passing Paladin’s three daughters on their plough pony before they’d even reached the lane leading to Whittacres Farm, for they’d need another pony before riding to Whitwell to fetch Rosemary again, and their father ought to be informed of the neighbours’ difficulties, in case more help might be needed. “Bad burns” could result from any number of possible disasters, a fire in one of the buildings, even, though no smoke blotted the bright summer sky.

Fern came out the door as Woodruff pulled up on the lathered pony. She had missed the better part of the disaster, as she had been out “seeing a hobbit about a pony” and had heard not a thing, until she returned in time to help butter and dress Mardi’s second arm, though it made her queasy. She was glad for the excuse to go out of doors into the fresh air.

  ‘I’ll take her!’ she called, stepping forward to seize the reins. ‘Go on in,’ she said. ‘This-un’ll need walking to cool her out... we don’t need her to founder, not with all the other trouble of the day.’ The mare, blowing heavily, followed her as she began to walk in circles around the yard. Trying to keep her mind from what was undoubtedly happening within the smial—Woodruff unwrapping the dressings to see the wounds, no doubt—she walked the pony until the little mare was completely cool and breathing slowly, and then Fern tied her to the fence and gave her a thorough grooming.

So long as the healer was in the smial, Fern would remain with the pony. The air was definitely fresher, with a gentle breeze, and there were no upsetting sights to worry about. Though she was glad to be of some help, with this hard-ridden pony that had brought Healer Woodruff so quickly, Fern wished she could be of more help. Still, it wouldn’t do Mardi any good if she were to faint, there in the smial, which is what she’d so nearly come to, before Woodruff’s arrival.

Woodruff entered the smial, where the smell of fresh-baked bread still hung in the air. ‘Mardi?’ she said, seeing her assistant sitting, just sitting, on the bench, his back leaning against the table, with Autumn and Hetty flanking him. Autumn was trying to get him to drink the cooling tea.

 ‘Mistress,’ he said, blinking, and made as if to rise. ‘I... I was supposed to return at once. Beryl said you left a list as long as my arm...’ He looked down at his bandaged arms with a puzzled expression, tried to raise a hand to his muddled head, and grimaced.

 ‘Don’t try to move, lad,’ Woodruff said, as if he were a dozen years her junior instead of only a few. ‘Let us see what is what.’ A quick glance showed her the porridge pan on the floor nearby, spatters radiating out in all directions, and blistered burns on Autumn’s arm, not yet dressed.

 ‘Letty grabbed at the saucepan on the stove,’ Autumn said, following the healer’s glance. ‘Mardi kept it from upsetting onto her head. It would’ve...’ Trembling with reaction, she couldn’t continue.

 ‘You’re burned,’ Woodruff said. ‘You ought to keep a cold compress on that for a while longer.’ She carefully unfastened the bandage wrapping one of Mardi’s arms and began to unwrap it.

 ‘I’m all right,’ Autumn murmured. ‘I’d like you to take a look at little Violet, though. The porridge splattered her legs when it fell... I laid her down with her mama after we dressed the burns, but she’s whimpering with the pain of it.’

Woodruff had bared the skin, and she was breathing shallowly as she tried to contain her alarm. ‘Butter?’ she whispered. ‘You buttered the burns?’

 ‘Aye, that’s right,’ Hetty said. ‘It’s what Gran always did for burns. We used a whole pound—he’s burned from fingertip to elbow, both arms!’

 ‘O Mardi,’ Woodruff said.

 ‘Did we do wrong, then?’ Autumn said, and Hetty stared, open-mouthed, at the dismay in the healer’s tone.

Mardi turned his head slowly toward Woodruff and said only, ‘Meant to come right back... meant to... but for some reason...’ His face was grey and shining with sweat, and he was breathing shallowly.

 ‘Don’t faint on me, now,’ Woodruff said. ‘Tea, plenty of honey...’

 ‘Here,’ Autumn said, proffering Mardi’s cup with a wince as the movement jarred her burned arm.

Woodruff took the cup, sipped at it, reached to spoon another generous helping of honey into the cup and a pinch of salt from the salt cellar for good measure, and stirred it briskly before holding it to Mardi’s lips. ‘Drink, Mardi,’ she said. ‘I brewed it especially for you.’

Mardi sipped and made a face. ‘It’s awful,’ he said faintly.

 ‘Of course it is,’ Woodruff said briskly. ‘That is why you have got to drink it down, right smart.’ Somehow she got it into him, and then she turned to Autumn.

 ‘Not butter,’ she said. ‘Not for burns. Honey is what’s needed.’

 ‘We’ve honey a-plenty,’ Autumn said eagerly, rising to go to the pantry.

Woodruff stopped her. ‘But first,’ she said, ‘we have got to get all this butter off. It’ll fester the wounds, and keep the honey from doing its good.’

 ‘If only I’d known,’ Autumn mourned, but she was not one to cry over milk when it’s already spilt. She raised her voice. ‘Leaf! Leaf!’

Leaf entered from where she’d been helping Lilac soothe Violet. ‘Fetch us pots of honey, there’s a love,’ Autumn said.

 ‘Pots?’ Leaf asked.

 ‘Pots,’ Autumn said firmly. ‘All three pots from the pantry, and then go down to the cellar and fetch up all the rest.’

 ‘Soap and water,’ Woodruff said as she unwrapped more bandage. ‘We’ll use soft soap, if you’ve any—it’s gentler...’ She gulped to see the damage uncovered. ‘O Mardi,’ she said again. ‘If only I had some fine soap...’

 ‘You need fine soap?’ Hetty said at once, struggling to her feet. ‘I’ve got some!’

 ‘I’ll fetch fresh water,’ Autumn said, taking up the buckets though it pained her burned arm.

 ‘You oughtn’t,’ Woodruff began.

 ‘Don’t mind me,’ Autumn said. ‘You tend to Mardi, there. Do you want the water warmed, or cold from the well?’

Warm, soapy water would do a better job of removing the butter, but warm water on burned skin, now...

 ‘Cold,’ Woodruff said firmly.

Hetty returned with remarkable haste, a fine-milled bar in her hand with a pretty flower stamped upon its face. Woodruff took it and lifted it to her nose to sniff, but there was no delicate fragrance, as she expected to find.

 ‘It’s old,’ Hetty said, ‘ever so old. A kind gentlehobbit gave it to me in the market at Waymeet, once, when my leg wouldn’t hold me and I fell down on the stones. She stopped to pick up all the greens that spilled out of my basket, and took this out of a box she was carrying, all nicely tied up with ribbon. I haven’t the faintest notion why, but it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever had, and I’ve kept it to this day.’

 ‘It’s the best I can imagine,’ Woodruff said, running her fingers lightly over the silky surface. ‘Soft and mild; it’ll take the butter off without hurting him as badly as homemade lye soap would.’

 ‘Well then,’ Hetty said. ‘What do we do?’

Woodruff explained; without a quiver Hetty took a sharp blade and sliced her treasure into slivers, and at Woodruff’s instruction poured boiling water over to turn the soap to jelly.

It was slow, cautious and painful work to wash the butter from Mardi’s arms, though he was very brave about the whole affair and managed to keep from fainting by sheer power of will. At last the butter was gone, and most of the remaining skin with it, leaving raw flesh behind. ‘We’d’ve had to take the skin off anyhow,’ Woodruff said quietly as she took a handful of honey and began to smear it generously over Mardi’s arm. He gasped at the touch and steeled himself to endure. ‘You’ll be growing new skin to take its place.’

 ‘Will I?’ Mardi hissed, though it was difficult to form the words.

 ‘You will,’ Woodruff said. She looked up from the work of her hands, to meet his agonised glance. ‘We will save your hands, Mardi. I swear it.’

It was a rash promise for a healer to make, but Woodruff had never been so determined in her life.

Mardi blinked. He’d seen a hobbit in Tuckborough, who’d suffered similar burns. His burns had healed, true, but the flesh of the fingers had grown together, fused, leaving him with useless claws instead of hands. He’d been helpless, unable to do much of anything for himself, dependent upon others for the smallest of actions.

 ‘Trust me,’ Woodruff said, her eyes demanding some response from him.

 ‘I do,’ he found himself saying, even as he began to tremble with a chill. His body was failing him, he realised. He was on the ragged edge, about to fall off.

 ‘Stay with me, just a little longer, Mardi,’ Woodruff said, resuming her work. She coated his arm with the honey, and then his hand, and then each individual finger, and taking fresh linen from her bag, she laid dressings over the coated skin, and then began to wrap the bandages again.

But unlike anything Mardi had seen before—and he’d never seen honey used to treat burns—Woodruff wrapped each finger in a separate dressing, and bandaged them separately, instead of wrapping them all together.

 ‘That’s not how you do it,’ Mardi murmured.

 ‘It’s not?’ Woodruff replied. ‘Fancy that,’ and she proceeded to do the same with his other hand and arm, while Hetty treated Autumn’s burns with honey and then retreated into the bedroom to do the same for little Violet.

 ‘I’ve a bed ready for him,’ Hetty said, coming out into the kitchen again.

 ‘I wouldn’t want to put you out,’ Mardi said, rising unsteadily. ‘I’ve my own bed at the livery.’

 ‘I don’t think you’ll be sleeping on the straw for a while,’ Woodruff said. ‘I’d like to get you back to Whitwell, where I can keep an eye on you, but...’

 ‘My dad will bring him to Whitwell, once he’s back from Waymeet,’ Hetty said. ‘But for now, he’d better lie down before he falls down.’ As if summoned by her words, there was the sound of a pony and waggon pulling up in the yard.

 ‘They’re back early!’ Autumn exclaimed. ‘I wonder if they sold the whole waggonload at once, then...’

But it was Tru Took who appeared in the doorway, to say, ‘Beryl told us what happened, and I borrowed a waggon... Come, Mardi,’ and he stepped forward to take the injured hobbit under the arm, to steady him and help him walk. ‘We’ve come to take you home with us.’