Two row boats carried the doctor, his son Nick and Uncle George across the bay to the beach. The boats were rowed by Indians. As they reached the beach Uncle George started smoking his cigar and offered the Indians also. From the beach they walked up through the meadow. The young Indian carried a lantern to show the way. Then they went into the woods and followed a trail leading .As they approached the shanties the dogs came barking at them and were shooed off by the Indians. An old woman stood at the doorway of the shanty nearest to the road.
Inside the shanty a young woman lay on a berth who was trying to have a baby and her husband lay on the upper berth and smoked as he had cut his foot three days ago. The woman screamed as the doctor entered. The doctor asked the old woman to boil water. He told his son that the woman was in labor pain and so she was screaming. The son wanted his father to give her something to stop her scream. The husband in the upper berth rolled over against the wall. He was very upset.
The doctor put several things he unwrapped from a handkerchief into the water and left them to boil. He scrubbed his hand with hot water and soap. Nick watched his father as he was explaining him how babies are supposed to be born head first but when the position changes the trouble starts. He told him that he might have to operate on the lady. Uncle George and three Indian men held the women still. Nick held the basin for his father. At last the doctor picked up the baby slapped it to make it breathe and handed it over to the old women. Then the doc sewed up the incisor he had made. The woman who had been operated was calm now. The doctor promised to come back in the morning and said that the nurse would be there.
He was happy that he had performed a miracle by doing a caesarian with a jack knife and sewed with a nine foot tapered gut leaders. When he turned to tend the father, he found that the man had cut his throat from ear to ear and the open razor lay near by. Nick too had seen it. Doctor regretted having brought his son there. The father explained Nick that the women did not always have hard time but this was an exceptional case. He also said that some fathers kill themselves in such conditions out of guilt.