The Pearl by John Steinbeck Page B

of Kino’s brush fence and came to his door. And Kino saw that one was the doctor and the other the servant who had opened the gate in the morning. The split knuckles on Kino’s right hand burned when he saw who they were.
    The doctor said, “I was not in when you came this morning. But now, at the first chance, I have come to see the baby.”
    Kino stood in the door, filling it, and hatred raged and flamed in the back of his eyes, and fear too, for the hundreds of years of subjugation were cut deep in him.
    “The baby is nearly well now,” he said curtly.
    The doctor smiled, but his eyes in their little lymphlined hammocks did not smile.
    He said, “Sometimes, my friend, the scorpion sting has a curious effect. There will be apparent improvement, and then without warning—pouf!” He pursed his lips and made a little explosion to show how quick it could be, and he shifted his small black doctor’s bag about so that the light of the lamp fell upon it, for he knew that Kino’s race love the tools of any craft and trust them. “Sometimes,” the doctor went on in a liquid tone, “sometimes there will be a withered leg or a blind eye or a crumpled back. Oh, I know the sting of the scorpion, my friend, and I can cure it.”
    Kino felt the rage and hatred melting toward fear. Hedid not know, and perhaps this doctor did. And he could not take the chance of pitting his certain ignorance against this man’s possible knowledge. He was trapped as his people were always trapped, and would be until, as he had said, they could be sure that the things in the books were really in the books. He could not take a chance—not with the life or with the straightness of Coyotito. He stood aside and let the doctor and his man enter the brush hut.
    Juana stood up from the fire and backed away as he entered, and she covered the baby’s face with the fringe of her shawl. And when the doctor went to her and held out his hand, she clutched the baby tight and looked at Kino where he stood with the fire shadows leaping on his face.
    Kino nodded, and only then did she let the doctor take the baby.
    “Hold the light,” the doctor said, and when the servant held the lantern high, the doctor looked for a moment at the wound on the baby’s shoulder. He was thoughtful for a moment and then he rolled back the baby’s eyelid and looked at the eyeball. He nodded his head while Coyotito struggled against him.
    “It is as I thought,” he said. “The poison has gone inward and it will strike soon. Come look!” He held the eyelid down. “See—it is blue.” And Kino, looking anxiously, saw that indeed it was a little blue. And he didn’t know whether or not it was always a little blue. But the trap was set. He couldn’t take the chance.
    The doctor’s eyes watered in their little hammocks. “I will give him something to try to turn the poison aside,” he said. And he handed the baby to Kino.
    Then from his bag he took a little bottle of white powder and a capsule of gelatine. He filled the capsule with thepowder and closed it, and then around the first capsule he fitted a second capsule and closed it. Then he worked very deftly. He took the baby and pinched its lower lip until it opened its mouth. His fat fingers placed the capsule far back on the baby’s tongue, back of the point where he could spit it out, and then from the floor he picked up the little pitcher of pulque and gave Coyotito a drink, and it was done. He looked again at the baby’s eyeball and he pursed his lips and seemed to think.
    At last he handed the baby back to Juana, and he turned to Kino. “I think the poison will attack within the hour,” he said. “The medicine may save the baby from hurt, but I will come back in an hour. Perhaps I am in time to save him.” He took a deep breath and went out of the hut, and his servant followed him with the lantern.
    Now Juana had the baby under her shawl, and she stared at it with anxiety and fear. Kino came to her, and he