A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [58]
“Well, you would think so, wouldn’t you?” I said. “Unfortunately not. But I won’t give you an enema,” I assured him. “We need to see whether you truly do have the worms, to begin with, and if so, there’s a medicine I can mix up for you that will poison them directly.”
“Oh.” He looked a little happier at that. “How d’ye mean to see, then, mum?” He glanced narrowly at the counter, where the assortment of clamps and suture jars were still laid out.
“Couldn’t be simpler,” I assured him. “I do a process called fecal sedimentation to concentrate the stool, then look for the eggs under the microscope.”
He nodded, plainly not following. I smiled kindly at him.
“All you have to do, Bobby, is shit.”
His face was a study in doubt and apprehension.
“If it’s all the same to you, mum,” he said, “I think I’ll keep the worms.”
12
FURTHER MYSTERIES
OF SCIENCE
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, Roger MacKenzie came back from the cooper’s shop to discover his wife deep in contemplation of an object sitting on his dinner table.
“What is that? Some type of prehistoric Christmas tinned goods?” Roger extended a ginger forefinger toward a squat jar made of greenish glass and sealed with a cork, the latter covered with a stout layer of red wax. An amorphous chunk of something was visible inside, evidently submerged in liquid.
“Ho ho,” said his wife tolerantly, moving the jar out of his reach. “You think you’re being funny. It’s white phosphorus—a present from Lord John.”
He glanced at her; she was excited, the tip of her nose gone pink and bits of red hair pulled loose and waving in the breeze; like her father, she was inclined to run her hands through her hair when thinking.
“And you intend to do . . . what with it?” he asked, trying to keep any note of foreboding from his voice. He had the vaguest memories of hearing about the properties of phosphorus in his distant school days; he thought either it made you glow in the dark or it blew up. Neither prospect was reassuring.
“Wellll . . . make matches. Maybe.” Her upper teeth fastened momentarily in the flesh of her lower lip as she considered the jar. “I know how—in theory. But it might be a little tricky in practice.”
“Why is that?” he asked warily.
“Well, it bursts into flame if you expose it to air,” she explained. “That’s why it’s packed in water. Don’t touch, Jem! It’s poisonous.” Grabbing Jemmy round the middle, she pulled him down from the table, where he had been eyeing the jar with greedy curiosity.
“Oh, well, why worry about that? It will explode in his face before he has a chance to get it in his mouth.” Roger picked up the jar for safekeeping, holding it as though it might go off in his hands. He wanted to ask whether she were insane, but had been married long enough to know the price of injudicious rhetorical questions.
“Where d’ye mean to keep it?” He cast an eloquent glance round the confines of the cabin, which in terms of storage boasted a blanket chest, a small shelf for books and papers, another for comb, toothbrushes, and Brianna’s small cache of personal belongings, and a pie hutch. Jemmy had been able to open the pie hutch since the age of seven months or so.
“I’m thinking I’d better put it in Mama’s surgery,” she replied, keeping an absentminded grip on Jem, who was struggling with single-minded energy to get at the pretty thing. “Nobody touches anything in there.”
That was true enough; the people who were not afraid of Claire Fraser personally were generally terrified of the contents of her surgery, these featuring fearsomely painful-looking implements, mysterious murky brews, and vile-smelling medicines. In addition, the surgery had cupboards too high for even a determined climber like Jem to reach.
“Good idea,” Roger said, anxious to get the jar out of Jem’s vicinity. “I’ll take it up now, shall I?”
Before Brianna could answer, a knock came at the door, followed immediately by Jamie Fraser. Jem instantly ceased trying to get