LE PETIT NORD UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO 3 1822 01873 4996 LIDRARY Lj UNIVg,ecies can be readily distinguished by the black patch between his eyes about the size of a man's hand. Of the lot I prefer the mos- quito. He at least is open about his evil inten- tions. The black fly darts at you quietly, settles down on an un-get-at-able spot, and sucks your blood. If I did not find my appetite so unim- paired, I should fancy this morning I was suffer- ing from an acute attack of mumps. Mumps is at the moment in our midst, and as [37 1 LE PETIT NORD is generally the case has fallen on the poorest of the community. In this instance it is a widow by the name of Kinsey, who has six children, and lives in a miserable hovel. More of her anon. Her twelve-year-old boy comes to the Home daily to get milk for the wretched baby, whom we had heard was down with the disease. When he came this morning I told him to stay outdoors while we fetched the milk, because I knew how sketchy are the precautions of his ilk against carrying infection. "No fear, miss," he assured me. "The baby was terrible bad last night, but he 's all clear this morning." But to return to the Kinsey parent. She had eight children. The Newfoundlanders are a pro- lific race, and life is consequently doubly hard on the women. Her husband died last fall, leav- ing her without a sou, and no roof over her head. The Mission gave her a sort of shack, and took two of her kiddies into the Home. The place was too crowded at the time to take any more. The [38] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR doctor then wrote to tlie orphanages at the capi- tal presenting the problem, and asldng that they take a consignment of children. The Church of England Orphanage, of which denomination the mother is a member, was full; and the other one, which has just had a gift of beautiful buildings and grounds, "regretted they could not take any of the children, as their orphanage was exclu- sively for their denomination." The mother did not respond to the doctor's ironic suggestion that she should "turncoat" under the press of circumstances. They tell a story here about Kinsey, the late and unlamented. Last spring a steamer heading north on Government business sighted a fishing punt being rowed rapidly towards it, the occu- pant waving a flag. The captain ordered, " Stop her," thinking that some acute emergency had arisen on the land during the long winter. A burly old chap cased in dirt clambered deliber- ately over the rail. [39] LE PETIT NORD "Well, what's up?" asked the captain testily. *' Can't you see you're keeping the steamer?" " Have you got a plug or so of baccy you could I 40 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR give me, skipper? I has n't had any for nigh a month, and it do be wonderful hard." The captain's reply was unrepeatable, but for such short acquaintance it was an accurate re- sume of the character of the applicant. De mor- tuis nil nisi honum is all very well, but it de- pends on the mortuis; and that man's wife and children had been short of food he had "smoked away." I have the greatest admiration for the women of this coast. They work like dogs from morning till nightfall, summer and winter, with "ne'er a spell," as one of them told me quite cheerfully. The men are out on the sea in boats, which at least is a hfe of variety, and in winter they can go into the woods for firewood. The women hang forever over the stove or the washtub, go into the stages to split the fish, or into the gardens to grow "'taties." Yet oddly enough, there is less illiteracy among the women than among the men. [ 41 ] LE PETIT NORD Such a nice girl is here from Adlavik as maid in the hospital. Rhoda Macpherson is her name. She told me the other day that one winter the doctor of the station near her asked the men to clear a trail down a very steep hill leading to the V^-^ village, as the dense trees made the descent dan- gerous for the dogs. Weeks went by and the men did nothing. Finally three girls, with Rhoda as leader, took their axes every Sunday afternoon and went out and worked clearing that road. In a month it was done. The doctor now calls it "Rhoda's Randy." [ 42 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR Yesterday afternoon I was out with my cam- era. (Saturday you will note. I have learned al- ready that to be seen on Sundays in this Sabba- tarian spot, even walking about with that incon- spicuous black box, is anathema.) A crowd of children in a disjointed procession had collected in front of the hospital, and the patients on the balconies were delightedly craning their necks. A biting blast was blowing, but the children, clad in white garments, looked oblivious to wind and weather. It was a Sunday-School picnic. A dear old fisherman was with them, evidently the leader. " What 's it all about? " I asked. "We've come to serenade the sick, miss. 'T is little enough pleasure 'em has. Now, children, sing up"; and the "serenade" began. It was "Asleep in Jesus," and the patients loved it! I got my picture, "sketched them off," as the old fellow expressed it. In the many weeks since I saw you — and it [43] LE PETIT NORD seems a lifetime — I have forgotten to mention one important item of news. Every properly ap- pointed settlement along this coast has its ceme- tery. This place boasts two. With your predilec- tion for epitaphs you would be content. The pre- vailing mode appears to be clasped hands under a bristling crown; but all the same that sort of thing makes a more "cheerful" graveyard than those gloomily beautiful monuments with their hopeless "%ai/3eTe " that you remember in the mu- seum at Athens. There is one here which reads; Memory of John Hill who Died December 30th. 1889 Weep not, dear Parents, For your loss *t is My etarnal gain May Christ you all take up the Cross that we Should meat again. The spelling may not always be according to Webster, but the sentiments portray the love [ 44 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR and hope of a God-fearing people unspoiled by the roughening touch of civihzation. I must to bed. Stupidly enough, this climate gives me insomnia. Probably it is the mixture of the cold and the long twilight (I can read at 9.30), and the ridiculous habit of growing light again at about three in the morning. I am be- ginning to have a fellow feeling with the chick- ens of Norway, poor dears ! [ 45 LE PETIT NORD August 9 I WANT to violently controvert your disparaging remarks about this "insignificant little island." Do you realize that this same "insignificant little island" is four times bigger than Scot- land, and that it has under its dominion a large section of Labrador? If, as the local people say, " God made the world in five days, made Labra- dor on the sixth, and spent the seventh throwing stones at it," then a goodly portion of those stones landed by mischance in St. Antoine. In- deed, Le Petit Nord and Labrador are so much ahke in cUmate, people, and conditions that this part of the island is often designated locally as Labrador (never has it been my lot to see a more desolate, bleak, and barren sp>ot). The traveller who described Newfoundland as a country composed chiefly of ponds with a little land to divide them from the sea, at least cannot be impeached for unveracity. In this northern [46 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR part even that little is rendered almost impene- trable in the summer-time by the thick under- brush, known as "tuckamore," and the formida- ble swarms of mosquitoes and black flies. All the inhabitants live on the coast, and the interior is only travelled over in the winter with komatik and dogs. No, I am not living in the midst of Indians or Eskimos. Please be good enough to scatter this information broadcast, for each letter from Eng- land reveals the fear that I am in imminent dan- ger of being scalped alive or buried in an igloo. There are a few scattered Eskimos on Le Petit Nord, but for the most part the inhabitants are whites and half-breeds. The Indians hve almost entirely in the interior of Labrador and the Es- kimos around the Moravian stations. I am Uv- ing amongst the descendants of the fishermen of Dorset and Devon who came out about two hun- dred years ago and settled on this coast for the cod-fishery. Those who Hve in the south are [47] LE PETIT NORD comparatively well off, but many in the north are in great poverty and often on the verge of starvation. When I look about me and see this poverty, the ignorance born of lack of opportunity, the suffering, the dirt, and degradation which are in so large a measure no fault of these poor folk, I am overwhelmed at the wealth of opportunities. Here at least every talent one has to offer counts for double what it would at home. Thousands of fishermen come from the south each spring to take part in the summer's fishery. The Labrador "liveyeres," who remain on the coast all the year round, often have only little one-roomed huts made of wood and covered with sods. In the winter the northern people move up the bays and go "furring." Both the Indians and Eskimos are diminishing in num- bers, and the former at the present time do not amount to more than three or four thousand persons — and of these the Montagnais tribe [ 48 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR make up more than half. The Moravian mission- aries have toiled untiringly amongst the Eski- mos, and assuredly not for any earthly reward. They go out as young men and practically spend their whole life on the coast, their wives being selected and sent out to them from home! The work of this Mission is among the white settlers. In the Home we have only one pure Eskimo, a few half-breeds (Indians and Es- kimo), and the remainder are of English de- scent. Almost all are from Labrador. I often fancy that I must surely have slept the sleep of Rip Van Winkle. When he woke he found that the world had marched ahead a hun- dred years. With me the process is reversed. I am almost inclined to yield a grudging agree- ment to the transmigrationalists, and believe that I am re-living one of my former existences. For the part of the country in which I have awakened is a generation or so behind the world in which we live. There is no education worthy [49] LE PETIT NORD of the name, in many places no schools at all, and in others half -educated teachers eking out a miserable existence on a mere pittance. This is chiefly due to the antediluvian custom of divid- ing the Government educational grant on a de- nominational basis. A large proportion of the people can neither read nor write. There are no roads, no means of communication, no doctors or hospitals (save the Mission ones), no oppor- tunities for improvement, no industrial work, practically no domestic animals, and on Labra- dor, taxation without representation! There is only one hospital provided by the Government for the whole of this island, and that one is at St. John's, which is inaccessible to these northern people for the greater part of the year. No pro- vision whatever is made by the Government for hospitals for the Labrador. Again the only ones are those maintained by this Mission. Lack of education, lack of opportunity, and abundance of overwhelming poverty make up the lot of the [50] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR majority of people in this north part of the country. Little wonder from their point of view, that one youth, returning to this land after see- ing others, declared that the man he desired above all others to shoot was John Cabot, the discoverer of Newfoundland. [51 ] LE PETIT NORD August 15 You complain that I have told you almost noth- ing about these children, and you want to know what they are like. And I wish you to know, so that you will stop sending dolls to Mary who is sixteen, and cakes of scented soap to David who hates above all else to be washed. I find these children very difficult in some ways; many of them are mentally deficient, but it appears that no provision is made by the Government for deal- ing with such cases, and so there is nothing to do but take them in or let them starve. Some are very wild and none have the slightest idea of obedience when they first arrive. One girl I have christened "Topsy," and I only wish you could see her when she is in one of her tantrums, which she has at frequent inter- vals. With her flashing black eyes, straight, jet- black hair, square, squat shoulders, she looks the very embodiment of the Evil One. She is I 52 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR twelve, but shows neither abihty nor desire to learn. Her habits are disgusting, and unless closely watched she will be found filling her pockets with the contents of the garbage pail — and this in spite of the fact that we are no longer dining off one herring. She says that her ambi- tion in life is to become like a fat pig ! Last night, [53] LE PETIT NORD when the children were safely tucked in bed and I had sat down to write to you, piercing shrieks were heard resounding through the stillness of the house. A tour of investigation revealed Topsy creeping from bed to bed in the darkness, pretending to cut the throats of the girls with a large carving-knife which she had stolen for this purpose. To-day Topsy is going around with her hands tied behind her back as a punishment, and in the hope that without the use of her hands we may have one day of peace at least. Poor Topsy, kindness and severity alike seem unavailing. She steals and lies with the greatest readiness, and one wonders what life holds in store for her. [54] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR We have just admitted three children, so we now number more than the three dozen. One Httle mite of five was found last winter in a Labrador hut, deserted, half -starved, and nearly frozen to death. She was kept by a kindly neigh- bour until the ice conditions allowed of her being brought here. The other two, brother and sister, were found, the girl clothed in a sack, her one and only garment, and the boy in bed, minus even that covering. This is the type of child who comes to us. The doctor in charge has just paid me a visit. He says there is an epidemic of smallp>ox in the island, and he wants all the children to be vac- cinated. The number of cases of smallpox this year in this "insignificant little island" is greater 'pro rata than in any other country of the world. So two o'clock this afternoon is the time set apart for the massacre of the innocents. The laugh is against me ! Two of our boys fell ill with a mysterious sickness, and tenderly and [55] LE PETIT NORD carefully were they nursed by me and fed with dehcate portions from the king's table. I later learned with much chagrin that "chewing to- bacco" (strictly forbidden) was the cause of this sudden onset. My sense of humour alone saved the situation for them! [56 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR The Children's Home August 19 In response to my frantic cables your box reached here safely, but it has not reached me. Picture if you can my amazed incredulity yes- terday to see an exact replica of myself as I once was, walking on the dock. I rubbed my eyes and stared. Yes, it was my purple gown. My first impulse was to jerk it off the culprit, but I de- cided on more diplomatic tactics. A very little detective work elucidated the mystery. You had addressed the box in care of the Mission, think- ing doubtless, in your far-sighted, Scotch way, that if sent to an individual, the said individual would have duty to pay. Knowing all too well the chronic state of my pocket-book, you antici- pated untoward complications. Now, none of the Mission staff pay duties. The contents of the box were mistaken for reinforcements for the charity clothing store, and to-day my purple chambray gown, "to memory dear,'* walks the [57 1 LE PETIT NORD street on another. Sic transit. I should add that one of the modernists of our harbour has chosen it. The old conservatives regard our collarless necks and abbreviated skirts with horror. What with the loss en route of several necessary arti- cles of apparel, and the discovery of this further depletion of my wardrobe, I regard the oncom- ing winter with some misgivings. One of the crew on the Northern Light, alias the Prophet, so-called because he is spirit brother to the Prophet of Doom, took a keen relish in my discomfiture, or I fancied he did. He it was who put the question in the doctor's Bible class, "Is it religious to wear overalls to church? " The house oflScer had carefully saved a pair of clean khaki trousers to honour the Sunday serv- ices, but in the local judgment they were no fit garment for the Lord's house. Local judgment, I may add, was not so drastic in its strictures on boudoir caps. Some very pretty ones came to service on the heads of the choir, but the verdict [58 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR was a unanimously favourable one. A nomadic Ladies* Home Journal was responsible for their origin. "Out of the mouths of babes," etc. I have been trying to teach the Httle ones the thir- 59 ] LE PETIT NORD teenth chapter of Corinthians. Whilst undress- ing Solomon the other night I had occasion, or it seemed to me that I had, to speak somewhat sharply to one of the others. When I turned my attention again to Solomon, he enunciated sol- emnly in his baby tones, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass and a tin- khng cymbal/* You complain most unjustly that I do not give a chronological account of events. I give you the incidents which punctuate my days, and as for the background, nothing could be simpler than to fill it in. To divert your mind from such adverse criti- cism, let me tell you that there is a strong sus- picion abroad that I am a devout adherent of the Roman Church. Rumours of this have been com- ing to me from time to time, but I determined to withhold the news till its source was less in ques- tion. Now I have it on the undeniable authority [CO] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR of the Propliet. I have candles, lighted ones, on the dining-room table at dinner. Post hoc, prop- ter hoc — and what further proof is needed! Ananias has broken yet another window. • \ 1 7J : % & i| When I questioned him as to when the deed had been committed, he rephed pohtely, but mourn- fully, that he really could not tell me how many YEARS ago it was, as if I were seeking to xinearth some long undiscovered crime. [61 1 LE PETIT NORD August 25 The other day Topsy had the misfortune to fall out of bed and hit her two front teeth such a vio- lent blow on the iron bar of the cot beside hers that bits of ivory flew about the dormitory. This necessitated a prompt matutinal visit to Dr. B., the dentist. As we waited our turn in the Con- valescent Room, I overheard one patient-to-be remark to his neighbour, "They do be shockin' hard on us poor sailors. They says I've got to take a bath when I comes into hospital. Why, B'y> I bas n't had a bath since my mother washed me!" The ethics of dentistry here are so mixed that one needs a Solomon to disentangle them. Mrs. "Uncle Life" — her husband is Uncle Eliphalet — recently had all her teeth pulled out, or, to be more accurate, all her remaining teeth. As the operation involved considerable time, labour, and novocaine, she was charged for the benefit [ C2 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR of the hospital. When two shining sets, uppers and lowers, were ready for her, she was as pleased as a boy with his first jack-knife; but not so Uncle Life. He considered it a work of supererogation that not only must one pay to have the old teeth removed, but for the new ones to replace them. Did I ever write you about our chamber- maid's feet — the new one? Her name is Ase-> nath, and she is so perfectly spherical that if you were to start her rolhng down a plank she could no more stop than can those humpty-dumpty weighted dolls. 'Senath's temper is exemplary, and her intentions of the best; in fact, she will turn into a model maid. But the process of turning is in progress at the moment. It began with our cook, a pattern of neatness and all the virtues, coming into my office and complaining, "One^of us '11 have to go, miss." "What? Which?" I enquired, da-zed by the 163] LE PETIT NORD abruptness of this decision, and wondering whether she were referring to me. "This morning, miss, you know how hot it was? Well, 'Senath comes into the kitchen and says to me, *Tryphena, I finds my feet some- thing wonderful.' *Wash them, and change your stockings,' I says. ' Wash them ! Why, Try- phena, I 'se feared to do that. I might get a chill as would strike in.' " In a few well-chosen sentences I have ex- plained to 'Senath the basic rules of hygiene and of this house regarding water and its uses. She has decided to stay and accept the inevitable weekly bath, but she warns me fairly that if she goes "into a decline," I must take the respon- sibihty with her parents! With your zeal for gardens, and your attach- ment to angle-worms — which you will recall I do not share — you would be interested in our efforts along these lines — the gardens, not the worms. In tliis climate a garden is a lottery, and [ 64 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR in ten seasons to one a spiteful summer frost will fall upon the promising potatoes and kill the lot just as they are ripening. The Eskimos at the Moravian stations put their vegetal charges to bed each night with long covers over the rows. The other day, in an old journal about the coun- try, I came upon this passage, and it struck me **How history does repeat itself." It runs: "The soyle along the coast is not deep of earth, but bringing forth abundantly peason small, peason which our countrymen have sowen have come up f aire, of which our Generall had a present ac- ceptable for the rarenesse, being the first fruits coming up by art and industrie in that desolate and dishabited land." I can assure you that the sight of a "peason," however small, if it did not come out of a tin can, would be an acceptable offering to your friend. Even in summer we get no fresh vegetables or fruits with the exception of occasional lettuce or local berries. The epit- ome of this spot is a tin ! Li the same old journal [65 1 LE PETIT NORD Whitboume goes on to say that "Nature had recompensed that only defect and incommoditie of some sharpe cold by many benefits — with in- credible quantitie and no less varietie of kindes of fish in the sea and fresh water, of trouts and salmons and other fish to us unknowen." I have eaten fish (interspersed liberally with tinned stuff) and drunken fish and thought and spoken and dreamt fish ever since I arrived. But don't pity me for imaginary hardships. I Hke fish better than I do meat, and for that matter our winter meat supply is walking past my window this minute. He goes by the name of "Billy the Ox"; and I am informed that as soon as it begins to freeze, he is to be killed and frozen in toto, for the winter consumption of the staff, patients, and children. So our winter is not to consist of one long Friday. [ 66] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR August 28 You already know the worst about my leanings to Papacy; but to-day I propose to set your mind at rest on an idea with which you have hypnotized yourself — namely, that I am go- ing to die of malnutrition during what you are pleased to term the "long Arctic winter." I have no intention of starving, and as for the "long Arctic winter,'* I do not believe there is any such beast, as the farmer said when he looked at the kangaroo in the circus. I was sitting by my window quietly sewing the other day (that sentence alone should reveal to you how many miles I have travelled from your tutelage) when I overheard one of the chil- dren stoutly defending what I took at first to be my character. The next sentence disabused me — it was my figure under discussion. "She's not fat!" averred Topsy. "I'll smack you if you says it again.'* [67 1 LE PETIT NORD "Well," muttered David, the light of reason being thus forcibly borne in upon him, "she may not be *zactly fat, but she 's fine and hearty.'* If this is the case, and my mirror all too plainly confirms the verdict, and the summer has not waned, what will the "last estate of that woman be," after the winter has passed over her? They tell me that every one here puts on fat in the cold weather as a kind of windproof jacket. I enclose a photograph of me on land- ing, so you may remember me as I was. No, you need not worry either over communi- [68] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR cations in the winter. You really ought to have an intimate acquaintance with our telegraph service, after you have, so to speak, subsidized it during the past three months. It runs in win- ter as well as summer; and I see no prospect of its closing if you keep it on such a sound finan- cial basis. Moreover, the building is devoted to the administration of the law in all its branches. One half of it is the post and telegraph office, while the other serves as the jail. The whole structure is within a stone's throw of the church and school, as if the corrective institutions of the place beheved in intensive cultivation. But to return to the jail. The walls are very thin, and every sound from it can be plainly heard in the telegraph office adjoining. Friday morning the operator, a capable and long-suffering young woman, came over to complain to the doctor that she really found it impossible to carry out the duties of her office, if the feeble-minded Delilah Freak was to be incarcerated only six [69] LE PETIT NORD inches distant from her ear. It seems that Deli- lah spends her days yelhng at the top of her Imigs, and IVIiss Dennis states that she prefers to take telegraphic messages down in competi- tion with the mail steamer's winch rather than with Delilah's "bawling." I know all about competition in noises after trying to write in this house. The ceilings are low and thin, and the walls are near and thin, and the children are omnipresent and not thin, and their wants and their joys and their quarrels are as numerous as the fishes [70] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR ia the sea, and there you have the problem in a nutshell. Now I must "hapse the door," and hie me to bed. As a matter of fact the people here are far too honest for us to lock the doors. Such a thing as theft is unheard of. Some may call it uncivi- lized. I call it the millennium! [71] LE PETIT NORD August 31 I BELIEVE that the writer who described the cli- mate of this country as being "nine months snow and three months winter" was not far from the truth. In June the temperature of our rooms registered just above freezing point, in July we were enveloped in continuous fog, and in August we are having snow. Such a tragic event has occurred. Our lettuce has been eaten by the Mission cow! You know how hard it is to get anything to grow here. Well, after having nearly killed ourselves in making a square inch of ground into something resembling a bed, we had watched this lettuce grow from day to day as the little green shoots struggled bravely against the frost and cold. Then a few nights ago I was awakened by the tinkle of a bell beneath my window. Hastily flinging on wrapper and shoes I fled to save our one and only ewe lamb. But all the morning [ 72 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR light revealed was a desperate cold in the head, and an empty bed from which the glory had departed. Topsy has just been amusing herself by turn- ing on the corridor taps to watch the water run downstairs ! Oh ! Topsy, "'T is thine to teach us what dull hearts forget How near of kin we are to springing flowers." News has just reached us that the mail boat from St. Barbe to St. Antoine has gone ashore on the rocks and is a total wreck. Happily no lives were lost, but unhappily wrecks are of such fre- quent occurrence on this dangerous coast as to excite little comment. Drusilla, aged five, has been to my door to en- quire if the children may play with their dolls in the house. I believe in open-air treatment, so I replied with kindness, but firmly withal, that "out of doors " was the order of the day. I was a little electrified to hear her return to the play- room and announce that *' Teacher says you are [ 73 ] LE PETIT NORD to go out, every darned one of you!" I was equally electrified the other day to overhear Drusilla enquiring of her fellow philosophers which they liked the best, "Teacher, the Doc- tor, or the Lord Jesus Christ." In the midst of writing to you I was called away to interview a young man from the other side of the harbour. He wanted me to give him some of the milk used in the Home, for his baby, as at the hospital they could only furnish him with canned milk, guaranteed by the label, he claimed, to give "typhoid, diphtheria, and scar- let fever"! [74] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR September 7 It is a windy, rainy night, and I have told Topsy, who has a cold, that she cannot come with us to church. After a wild outburst of anger she was heard to mutter that "Teacher would n't let her go to church because she wa3 afraid she would get too good." The fall of the year is coming on and the eve- nings are made wonderful by two phenomena — the departure of the cannibalistic flies, and the Northern lights. Twice at home I remember seeing an attenuated aurora and thinking it wonderful. No words can describe this display on these crisp and lovely nights. There is a tang and snap in the air, and the earth beneath and the heavens above seem vibrating with un- earthly life. The Eskimos say that the Northern lights are the spirits of the dead at play, but I like to think of them, too, as the translated souls of the icebergs which have gone south and met a [75] LE PETIT NORD too warm and watery death in the Gulf Stream. Certainly all the colours of those lovely mon- archs of the North are reflected dimly in the heavens. The lights move about so constantly that one fancies that the soul of the berg, freed at last from its long prison, is showing the aston- ished worlds of what it is capable. The odd thing was that when I first saw them on a clear night, the stars shone through them, only they looked like Coleridge's "wan stars which danced be- tween." I can vouch for the truth of another "side- Hght," though from only one experience. One night last week, clear and frosty, I had just gone to my room at about eleven o'clock when the doctor called me to come out and "hear the lights." I thought surely I must have misun- derstood, but on reaching the balcony and lis- tening, I could distinctly hear the swish of the "spirits" as they rushed across the sky. It sounds like a diminished silk petticoat which \ 76 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR has lost its blatancy, but retains its person- ality. Little did I realize at the time my good for- tune in arriving here in daylight. It seems that it is the invariable habit of all coastal steamers to reach here at night, and dump the dumbly resenting passengers in the darkness into the tiny punts which cluster around the ship's side. Since my arrival every single boat has appeared shortly before midnight, or shortly after. In either case it means that the men of the Mis- sion must work all night landing patients and freight, and the next day there is a chastened and sleepy community to meet the forthcoming tasks. It is especially hard on the hospital folk, for the steamer only takes about twenty hours to go to the end of her run and return, and they try and send those cases which do not have to be admitted back by the same boat on her southern journey. This means an all-night clinic. But I can say to the credit of the patients and staff [ 77 1 LE PETIT NORD that I have never heard one word of complaint. That is certainly a charming feature about this life. There are plenty of things to growl about, but one is so reduced to essentials that the ones selected are of more importance than those which afford such fruitful topics in civilization. I have just overheard Gabriel informing the other children that "Satan was once an angel, but he got real saucy, so God turned him out of heaven." Paradise Lost in a sentence! The night after the audible lights a furious rain and wind storm broke over us. No wonder the trees have such a struggle for existence, if these storms are frequent. They do not last long, but they are the real thing while they are in progress. I used to smile when I was told that the Home was riveted with iron bolts to the solid bedrock, but that night when I lay wide awake, combating an incipient feehng of mal de mer as my bed rocked with the force of the gale, I thanked the fates for the foresight of the build- [78] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR ers. Never before had I believed in the tale of the church having been blown bodily into the har- bour; but during those wild hours of darkness I was certain at each succeeding gust that we were going to follow its example. Dawn — a pale affair looking out suspiciously on the chastened world — broke at last, and I "histed" my window (to quote the estimable *Senath). The rain had stopped. The cheated wind was whistling around the corners of the old wooden buildings, and taking out its spite on any passers-by who must venture forth to work. The harbour, usually so peaceful and so shel- tered, was lashed into a cauldron of boiling white foam, and the rocks were swept so clean that they at least had "shining morning faces." I dressed quickly and ran down to the wharf to enquire as to the health of the Northern Light. The first person I met was the Prophet. He was positively elate. If I were a pantheist [79 J LE PETIT NORD I should think him a relative of the northeast wind. The storm of the previous night had been exactly to his liking. All his worst prognostica- tions had been fulfilled, and quite a bit thrown in par dessus le marche. He told me that a tiny, rickety house across the harbour had first been unroofed, and then one of the walls blown in. It is a real disaster for the family, for they are poor enough without having Xismet thus descend upon them. The hospital boat had held on safely, but several little craft were driven ashore. Natu- rally the children love the aftermath of such an event, for the world is turned for them into one large, entrancing puddle, bordered with em- bryo mud pies. Topsy again ! I am informed that she has tried to convert her Sunday best into a hobble skirt, reducing it in the process to something hopelessly ludicrous. It can never, never be worn again. [80] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR My arm aches and I cannot decide whether it is from much orphan scrubbing or from much writing, but in either case I must bid you au revoir. [81] LE PETIT NORD September 25 Last niglit I was awakened by a terrific noise proceeding from the lower regions. Armed with my umbrella, the only semblance of a stick within reach, I descended on a tour of investiga- tion. Opening the larder door I beheld six huge dogs, and devastation reigning supreme. These dogs are half wolf in breed, and very destruc- tive, as I can testify. When I wildly brandished my umbrella, which could not possibly have harmed them, they jumped through the closed window, leaving not a pane of glass behind. This, I suppose, is merely a nocturnal interlude to break the monotony of life in a country which boasts no burglars. The children attend the Mission school, and yesterday Topsy was sent home in dire disgrace for lying and cheating. She is not to be per- mitted to return until she is willing to confess and apologize. She thereupon tried to commit [ 82] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR suicide by swallowing paper pellets, and in the night the doctor had to be called in to prescribe. She is white and wan to-day, but when I went in to bid her good-night I found her thrilling over a new prayer which she had learned, and which she repeated to me with deep emotion: "Little children, be ye wise, Speak the truth and tell no lies. The Lord's portion is to dwell Forever in the flames of hell." I want to tell you something about our ba- bies. They are four in number. David, aged five, considers himself quite a big boy, and a leader of the others. His father was frozen to death in Eskimo Bay some years ago whilst hunting food for his family. Although David is always boast- ing of his strength and the superior wisdom of his years, yet he is really very tiny for his age. He is a delightful little optimist, who announces cheerfully after each failure to do right that he is "going to be good all the time now," to which [83] LE PETIT NORD we add the mental reservation, "until next time." He is the proud possessor of a Teddy bear. This long-suffering animal was a source of great pleasure until a short time ago when David started making a first-hand investigation to find out where the "squeak" came from — an in- vestigation which ended disastrously for the bear, however it may have furthered the cause of science. Last month I went to Nameless Cove to fetch to the Home a little boy of three, of whom I have already written you. Nameless Cove is about twelve miles west of St. Antoine. I have never seen such a wretched hovel — a one- roomed log hut, completely destitute of furni- ture. The door was so low I had to bend almost double to enter. A rough shelf did duty for a bed, upon which lay an old bedridden man, while at the other end lay a sick woman with a child beside her, and crouched below was an idiot daughter. Altogether nine persons Hved in tliis [ 84 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR hut, eight adults and this one boy. Ananias is an illegitimate child, and has lived with these grandparents since his mother lost her reason and was removed to the asylum at St. John's. The child was almost destitute of clothing, and covered with vermin. He has the face of a ser- aph, and a voice that lisps out curses with the fluency of a veteran trooper. Ananias is David's shadow; he follows him everywhere, and echoes all his words as if they were gems of wisdom, far above rubies. Lideed, when David has ceased speaking, one waits involuntarily for Ananias to begin in his shrill treble tones. He is a hopeless child to correct, for when you imagine you are scolding him very severely, and you look for the tears of penitence to flow, he puts up his little face with an angelic smile, and lisps, "Tiss me." Drusilla, whose slight acquaintance you have already made, is three and comes from Savage Cove. The father has gradually become blind and the mother is crippled. Drusilla keeps us all [85] LE PETIT NORD on the alert, for we never know what she will be doing next. On Sunday mornings she is put to rest with the other Httle ones while we are at church. On returning last Sunday I found that she had secured a box of white ointment (thought to be quite beyond her reach), and with her toothbrush painted one side of the baby's face white, which with her other rosy cheek gave her the appearance of a clown. Not content with portrait painting, Drusilla then turned her energies to house decoration, the re- sult attained on the wall being entirely to the satisfaction of the artist, as was evidenced by the proud smile with which our outcry was greeted. The real baby is Beulah, just two years, and she exercises her gentle but despotic sway over all, from the least to the greatest. She is contin- ually upsetting the standard of neatness which was once the glory of this Home, by sprawling on the floors, dragging after her a headless doll [86] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR with sawdust oozing from every pore. A dilapi- dated bunny and several mangled pictures com- plete the procession. It is hopeless to protest, for she just looks as if she could not understand how any one could object to such priceless treas- ures. She awakens us at unconscionable hours in the morning, when all reasonable beings are still sleeping the sleep of the just, and keeps up a perpetual chatter interspersed with highly dan- gerous gymnastic feats upon her bed. Can you find any babies throughout the Brit- ish Isles to match mine? [87 1 LE PETIT NORD October 20 Since last I wrote you we have had a very strenuous time in the Home; the entire family has been down with measles. Then when that was over and the children well, the sewing maid, whom I had engaged shortly after my arrival, gave notice, shook the dust from her feet, and I was left single-handed. It took the whole of my time to keep these forty-odd infants fed, clothed, and washed, and I had no leisure to write to you even at "scattered times." It seemed to me that the appetites of these enfants terribles grew ab- normally, that their clothes rent asunder with lightning-like rapidity, and that they fell into mud heaps with even greater facility than usual. It was sometimes a delicate problem to decide which of many pressing duties had the prior claim. Whether to try and feed the hungry (the kitchen range having sprung a leak), to start to repair two hundred odd garments (the weekly [88 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR mend), or to resuscitate one of the babies (just rescued from the reservoir). At such times I would wonder if I were somewhere near attain- ing to that state of experience when I should be able to appreciate your alluring phrase, "the fun of mothering an orphanage.'* I must begin and tell you now about the chil- dren we have received since my last letter. Mike, aged eight, came to us from St. Barbe Hospital, as he had no home to which he could return. In- cidentally it takes the entire staff to keep this boy moderately tidy, for he and his garments have an unfortunate inclination to part asunder, and we are kept in constant apprehension for the credit of the Orphanage. But Mike, whether with his clothes or without, always turns up smiling and on excellent terms with himself, en- tirely regardless of the mental torture we endure as he comes into view. Indeed, the wider apart are his garments, the broader is his smile. He weeps quietly each night as we wash him, for [89] LE PETIT NORD that is a work of supererogation for which he has at present no use. Deborah and her brother Gabriel were here when I came. Their ages are eleven and five, and they come from the far north. Deborah was in the Mission Hospital at Iron Bound Islands for some time as the result of a burning accident. While trying to lift a pan of dog-food from the stove she upset the scalding contents over her legs. Her elder brother had to drive her eighteen miles on a komatik to the hospital, and the poor child must have suffered greatly. Gabriel is a very naughty, but equally lovable child. He is never out of mischief, but he is always very penitent for his misdeeds — afterwards! His bent is towards theology, and he speaks with the authority of an ancient divine on all matters pertaining thereto, and with an air of finality which brooks no argument. When some one was being given the priority in point of age over me, he was heard to indignantly exclaim that "Jesus [ 00 J ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR and Teacher are the oldest people in the world." He is no advocate for the equality of the sexes, and closes all discussion on equal rights by ex- plaining that *'God made the boys and Jesus the girls." Our fast-coming winter is sending its harbin- gers, seen and unseen, into our harbour. Chief among these one notices the assertiveness of the dogs. All through the summer they sHnk pariah- like about the place, eating whatever they can pick up, and seeking to keep their miserable ex- istence as much in the background as possible. Now the winter is approaching, and it is "their httle day." Mrs. Uncle Life can testify to the fact that they are not wholly suppressed when it is not "their little day." Last summer she found no less important a personage than the leader of the team in her bed. Her newly baked "loaf" was lying on the pantry shelf before the open window. Whiskey (this place is strictly prohibition, but every team boasts its "Whis- [91 ] LE PETIT NORD key") leaped in, made a satisfying banquet oflF her bread, and then forced open the door into her bedroom adjoining the pantry. He found it a singularly barren field for adventure, but after his unaccustomed hearty meal the bed looked tempting. He was found there two hours later placidly asleep. The children are looking forward to Christ- mas and are already writing letters to Santa Claus, which are handed to me with great se- crecy to mail to him. I once watched the httle [921. ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR ones playing at Christmas with an old stump of a bush to which they attached twigs as gifts and gravely distributed them to one another. When I saw one mite handing a dead twig to a smaller edition of himself, and announcing in a lordly fashion that it was a piano, I realized what Father Christmas was expected to be able to produce. [ 93 LE PETIT NORD November 1 My world is transformed into fairyland. Light snow has fallen during the night, and every "starigan," every patch of "tuckamore" is "decked in sparkling raiment white." As I was dressing I looked out of my window, and for the first time in my life saw a dog team and komatik passing. The day was full of adventure. For the chil- dren the snow meant only rejoicing; but as the highway was as shppery as glass, and the older folk had not yet got their "winter legs," there were many minor casualties. Mrs. Uncle Life, aged seventy and small and spherical, solved the problem of the hills by sitting down and shding. She commended the method to me, saying that it served very well on week days, but was lam- entably detrimental to her Sunday best. Ananias is developing fast and bids fair to rival Topsy. He has a mania for eating anything [94] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR and everything, and what he cannot eat, he de- stroys. Within the past few weeks he has swal- lowed the arm of his Teddy bear, half a cake of i^^i A*-^ ^X^ soap, and a tube of tooth-paste. He has also bit- ten through two new hot-water bottles. During the short time he has been here he has broken more windows than any other child in the Home. [95 1 LE PETIT NORD If he thinks pohteness will save the day, he says in the sweetest way possible, "Excuse me. Teacher, for doing it"; but if he sees by my face that retribution is swift and sure, he says in the most pathetic of tones, "Teacher, I have a pain." I must make you acquainted with our "Yoho." Every well-regulated fishing village has one, but we have to thank our neighbour, the Eskimo, for the picturesque name. In our more prosaic parlance it is plain "ghost." Many years ago when the Mission was in need of a building in which to accommodate some of its workers, it purchased a house belonging to a local trader by the name of Isaac Spouseworthy. This made an admirable Guest House; but it has since fallen into disuse for its original purpose, and is being employed as a temporary repository for the clothing sent for the poor, till the fine new storehouse shall have been built. This old Guest House has been selected by our local apparition f 90 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR as a place of visitation. It is affirmed, on the incontrovertible testimony of the Prophet and no inconsiderable following, that the spirit re- turns of an evening to the old house he built forty years ago, to wander through the familiar rooms. The villagers see lights there nightly; and though all our investigation has failed to reveal any presence (barring the rats), bodily or other- wise, the bravest of them would hesitate many a long minute before he would enter the haunted spot after nightfall. Rumour has it that the Guest House is built on the site of an old French cemetery. Our "irrepressible Ike" therefore cannot lack for society, though how congenial it is cannot be determined. Judging from the rec- ords of the ceaseless rows between the French and English on Le Petit Nord, there must be some lively nights in ghostland. The doctor suggested that if a burglar wished to steal the clothing, this spook would be his most effective accomplice, but such tortuous [97 1 LE PETIT NORD psychology has failed to satisfy the fishermen. To them we seem callous souls, to whom the spirit world is alien. This ghostly encroachment on our erstwhile quiet domain has had more than one inconvenient result. The Mission is very short of houses for its workmen, and was planning to rebuild and put in order a part of this now haunted domicile for one family. The man for whom it was destined now refuses to live there, as his children have vetoed the idea. In this land the word of the rising generation is law, and this refusal is therefore final. The children of this North Country are given what they wish and when and how. Naturally the results of such a policy are serious. There are many cases of hopeless cripples about here who refused to go to hospital for treatment when their trouble was so slight that it could have been rectified. Now the children must look for- ward to a life of disability through their par- ents' short-sightedness. But when I think of [98] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR what it means to these poor women to have per- haps ten children to care for, and all the rest of the work of the house and garden on their shoul- ders, I cannot wonder that their motto is "peace at any price." Spirits might be called the outstanding fea- ture of our harbour, for the Piquenais rocks at the very entrance are the abode of another fa- miliar revenant. The Prophet assures me that thirty years ago a vessel and crew were wrecked there, and on every succeeding stormy evening since that day, the captain, with creditable per- severance, waves his light on that wind- and surf-swept rock. In this instance the prophetical authority is in dispute, for there are those who assert that the light is shown by fairies to toll boats to their doom on the foggy point. The more scientifically minded explain the mysteri- ous light as a defunct animal giving out gas. It must be a persistent gas which can retain its eflBcacy for thirty long and adventurous years. [ 99 1 LE PETIT NORD In the course of these researches several in- teresting points of natural history and science have been elucidated. Doubtless you do not know that all cats are related to the devil, but you can readily see the brimstone in their fur if you have the temerity to rub them on a dusky [ 100 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR evening. Neither has it come to your attention that under no consideration must you allow the water in which potatoes have been washed to run over your hands. In the latter event, warts innumerable will result. Our cook has just come in with the news that supper is not to be forthcoming. 'Senath was left in charge while Tryphena went on an errand for me. Left-over salad was to have formed the basis of the evening meal, but the said basis has now disintegrated, 'Senath having placed the dish in a superheated oven. The nature of the resultant object is indeterminate, but uneat- able. I solace myself that sanctified starva- tion will be beneficial to my "fine and hearty" figure. We have suffered again with the dogs. One of the children's birthdays fell on Saturday, and we decided to give the whole "crew" ice-cream to fittingly celebrate the event. It was made in good time and put out to keep cool in what we f 101 ] LE PETIT NORD took to be a safe spot. The party preceding the "pwce de resistance was in full swing when an ominous disturbance was detected from the di- rection of the woodshed. Investigation revealed two angry dogs alternately snarling at each other and devouring the last lick of the treat. The catholicity of canine taste was no solace to the aggrieved assembly. t The children have lately been making excur- sions into the theological field. The latest prob- lem brought to me for settlement was, "Does God hve in the Methodist Church?" Truly a two-horned dilemma. If I said "yes** the an- thropomorphic teaching was undoubted; while if the answer were in the negative I should be guilty of fostering the abominable denomina- tional spirit which ruins this land. My reply must have been unconvincing, for I overheard the children later deciding, the Methodist Church having been barred as a place of resi- dence, that the attic was the only remaining [ 102 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR possibility. It is the one spot in the Home un- visited by them, and therefore "unseen." Unseemly altercations have summoned me to the kitchen, and I return to close this over- long chronicle. I was met there by Tryphena, a large sheet in her hands, and an accusing expres- sion on her face which stamped her as a family connection of the Prophet's. *'It's not my fault, miss," she began. *'No, Tryphena.'' Well, whose is it, and what is it.?" "Look at that sheet, miss, a new one. 'Senath was ironing, and had folded it just ready to put away. Then she suddenly wants a drink, so she goes off leaving the iron in the middle of the sheet. Half an hour later she remembers. When she got back, of course the iron had burnt its way straight through all the layers.'* Aside from destruction, in what direction would you say that 'Senath's forte did lie? 103 LE PETIT NORD November 17 I HAVE received your letter with its pointed re- marks about the long delays of the mail-carrier. I consider them both unnecessary and unkind. But as David would say, "I am going to be good all the time now." We have this moment returned from church, to which the children love to go; it is the great excitement of the week. They sit very quietly, except Topsy, but how much they understand I cannot say. The people sing with deliberation, each syllable being made to do duty for three, to prolong the enjoyment — or the agony — ac- cording as your musical talent decides. Fre- quently there is no one to play the instrument, and the hymns are started several times, until something resembling the right pitch is struck. Sometimes a six-line hymn will be started to a common metre tune, and all goes swimmingly until the inevitable crash at the end of the [ lOi J ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR fourth line. But nothing daunted, we try and try again. I have suppHed our smiling-faced cherubs with hymn books in order that "Their voices may in tune be found Like David's harp of solemn sound " — excuse the adaptation. This morning the serv- ice was particularly dreary. Hymn after hymn started to end in conspicuous failure, followed by an interminable discourse on the sufferings of the damned. But we ended cheerfully by war- bling forth the joys of heaven — "Where congregations ne'er break up And Sabbaths never end!" Last week we had a thrilling event; one of the girls formerly in this Home was married, and we all went to the wedding, even the little tots who are too young for regular services. They after- wards told me they would hke to go on Sundays, so I imagine they think the marriage ceremony a regular item of Divine worship. Alas! I almost disgraced myself when the clergyman solemnly [ 105 1 LE PETIT NORD announced to the intending bride and bride- groom that the holy estate of matrimony had been "ordained of God for the persecution of children " ! How you would have laughed to see me the other night. The steamer arrived at midnight, and as we were expecting some children I went down to meet them. There were three little boys, Esau, Joseph, and Nathan, eight, six, and four years of age. I bore them in triumph to the bath- room, feeling that even at that late hour cleanli- ness should be compulsory. But I soon desisted from my purpose and as quickly as possible bundled the dirty children into my neat, snowy beds! They kicked, they fought, they bit, they yelled and they swore! All my sleeping inno- cents awoke at the noise and added their voices to the confusion. I momentarily expected an in- rush of neighbours, and a summons the follow- ing day for cruelty to children. [ 106 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR Uriah has come to inform me that he cannot "cleave the spHts," as his "stomach has cap- sized." I felt it incumbent to administer a dose of castor oil, thinking that might be sufficient punishment for what I had reason to believe was only a dodge to escape work. It was hard for me to give the oil, but harder still to have the boy look up after it with a quite cherubic smile, and ask if it were the same oil as Elisha gave the widow woman! Whatever can survive in this land of difficul- ties survives with a zeal and vitahty which only proves the strength of the obstacles overcome. The flies, the mosquitoes, and the rats are proofs. We have none of your meek little wharf rats here. Ours are brazen imps, sleek and shameless, undaunted by cats or men. Their footmarks are as big as those of young puppies (withal not too well-fed puppies), and their raids on man and beast alike ally them with the horde Pandora loosed. Each day the toll mounts. One [ 107] LE PETIT NORD morning Miss Perrin, the head nurse, awakened to find one of her prize North Labrador boots gnawed to the rim. All that remained to tell the [ 108 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR tale was the bright tape by which it was hung up, and the skin groove through which the tape threads. On the next occasion of their public ap- pearance the night nurse was summoned by agonized shrieks to the children's ward. A large rodent had climbed upon Ishimay's bed and bit- ten her. There were the marks of his teeth in her hand, and the blood was dripping. Nor do they limit their depredations to the hospital. The barn man turned over a bale of hay last week and disclosed no less than twenty-seven rats young and old, fat and lean, though chiefly fat. I rejoice to record that this galaxy at least has departed Purgatory-wards. The dentist left a whole bag of clean linen on the floor of his bed- room. The morning following he found that the raiders had eaten their way through the sack, cutting a series of neat round holes in each folded garment as they progressed. The scufl3ing and the squealing and the scraping and the [ 109 ] LE PETIT NORD gnawing and the scratching of rats in the walls and cupboards are worse than any phalanx of *'Yohos'* ever summoned from spookland! Oh! Pied Piper of Hamelin, why tarry so long ! [ 110] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR December 14 The last boat of the season has come and gone and now we settle down to the real life of the winter. Plans innumerable are under way for winter activities, and the children are on tiptoe over the prospect of approaching Christmastide. Their jubilations fill the house, and writing is even more difficult than usual. For days before the last steamer finally reached us there were speculations as to her coming. Rumour, a healthy customer in these parts, three times had it that she had gone back, having given up the unequal contest with the ice. As all our Christmas mail was aboard her, the atmosphere was tense. Then came the news from Croque that she was there, busily unload- ing freight. Six hours later her smoke was sighted, and from the yells my bairns set up, you would have thought that the mythical sea ser- pent was entering port. She butted her way into [ 111 1 LE PETIT NORD the standing harbour ice as far as she could get, and promptly began discharging cargo. Teams of dogs sprang up seemingly out of the snow- covered earth, and in a mere twinkling our frozen and silent harbour was an arena of activ- ity. The freight is dumped on the ice over the ship's side with the big winch, and each man must hunt for his own as it descends. Some of the goods are dropped with such a thud that the packages "burst abroad." This is all very well if the contents are of a solid and resisting nature; but if butter, or beans, or such like receive the shock, most regrettable results ensue. During the hours of waiting here she froze solidly into the ice, and had to be blasted out before she could commence her journey to the southward. She has taken the mails with her, and this letter must come to you by dog team — your first by that method. In the early part of this summer three little orphan girls came to us from Mistaken Cove, f 112 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR Their names are Carmen, Selina, and Rachel, and their ages, ten, seven, and five. Their father has been dead for some years, and the mother recently died of tuberculosis. They did look such a pathetic little trio when they first arrived. I went down to the wharf to meet them, and three quaint little figures stepped from the hospital boat, with dresses almost to their feet. Carmen held the hands of her two sisters, and greeted me with "Are you the woman wot's going to look after we? " I assured her that I hoped to perform that function to the best of my ability, and then she confided to me that she had brought with her a box containing her mother's dresses and her mother's hair. I fancy the responsibility of the entire household must have rested on Car- men's tiny shoulders; she is hke a little old woman, and even her voice is care-worn. I hunted up some dolls for the two younger kid- dies, but had not the courage to offer one to their elder sister. She evidently felt that dolls [ 113 J LE PETIT NORD were altogether too precious for common use, and carefully explained to her charges that they were only for Sundays ! When I next went to the playroom it was to find the three little sisters sitting solemnly in a row on the locker with their dolls safely packed away beneath. I persuaded them that dolls were not too good for "human nature's daily food," and since then they have been supremely happy with their babies. Carmen is so devoted to little Rachel that she cannot bear the thought of her being in trouble. Rachel is very human, and in the brief time she has been with us has had many falls from the paths of rectitude. One day shortly after their arrival Rachel had been naughty, and I had taken her upstairs to explain to her the enormity of her offence. Car- men standing meanwhile at the bottom of the stairs wringing her hands. When Rachel reap- peared and announced that she had not even been punished, Carmen was seen to give her a [ 114 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR good slap on her own account, although evi- dently well pleased that no one else had dared to touch her child. Carmen is extremely rehgious, and her prayers at night are lengthy and devout. She starts off with the Lord's Prayer, the Apos- tles* Creed; several collects follow, and she con- cludes with a "Hail Mary!" You have already made the acquaintance of Billy the Ox, the now dear departed, who con- stitutes our winter's frozen meat supply. Our allotted portion of him is hung in the balcony outside my window. Being on the second floor it was thought to be sanctuary from marauders. Last night I was awakened by an uneasy f eehng of a presence entering my room. Starting up, I made out in the moonlight the great tawny form of one of our biggest dogs. He was in the balcony making so far futile leaps to secure a sec- tion of Billy. My shout discouraged him, and he jumped off the roof to the snow beneath. He had managed to scale the side of the house — but \ 115 1 LE PETIT NORD how? For some time I was at a loss to discover, till I remembered a ladder which had been placed perpendicularly against the wall on the other side. One of the double windows had broken loose in a recent storm of wind, and the barn man had had to go up and mend it. True to type he had left the ladder in statu quo. Up mas- ter dog had climbed straight into the air, along the slippery rungs of the ladder. When he reached the level of the tempting odour, he had ahghted on the balcony roof. Then, pursuing the odour to its lair, he had discovered Billy, and me! At breakfast I told my adventurette, and the story was instantly capped with others. Only one shall you have. The doctor was away on a travel last winter, and late one blustersome night came to a little village. He happened to have a very beautiful leader of which he was inordinately careful, so he asked his host for the night if he had a shed into which he could put f 116] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR Spider out of the weather. "Why, to be sure, just at the left of the door." It was dark and blowing, and the doctor went outside and thrust the beastie into the only building in sight. After breakfast he went with his host to get the dogs. / / When he started to open the door of the shelter in which Spider was incarcerated, the fisherman burst out in dismay, "You never put him in there.f^ That's where I keeps my only sheep." At that second the dog appeared, a spherical and satisfied specimen. He had taken the stran- ger in — completely. f 117 1 LE PETIT NORD The cold is intense, and to combat it in these buildings of green lumber is a task worthy of Hercules. We make futile attempts to keep the pipes from freezing; but the north wind has a new trump each night. He squeezes in through every chink and cranny, and once inside the house goes whistling mahgnantly through the chilly rooms and corridors. We keep an oil stove burning in our bathroom at night with a kettle of water on it ready for our morning ablutions. To-day, when I went in to dress — one does not dress in one's bedroom, but waits in bed till the bathroom door's warning slam informs that the coast is dear — there was the stove still mer- rily burning, and there was the kettle of water on it FROZEN. Next month there is to be a sale in Nameless Cove, twelve miles to the westward of us. The doctor has asked me to attend. I accepted de- lightedly, as twenty-four hours free from fear of rats and frozen pipes draws me like a magnet. I 118 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR Moreover, who would n't be on edge if it were one's first dog drive ! I found Gabriel crying bitterly in bed the other night because he had in a fit of mischief thrown a stone at the Northern hghts, which is regarded as an act of impiety by the Eskimo people. It was some time before I could pacify the child, or get him to believe that no dire results would follow his dreadful deed. But at length when "comforting time" was come for him, he consoled himself by supposing that Teacher must be "stronger than the devil." [ 119 LE PETIT NORD December 27 I CERTAINLY was never born to be a teacher and it is something to discover one's limitations. For several Sundays now I have been labour- ing to instruct our little ones in the story of the birth of Jesus, and I have repeated the details again and again in order to impress them upon their wandering minds. Last Sunday I ques- tioned them, and finally asked triumphantly, "Well, David, who was the Babe in the man- ger?" With a wild look round the room for in- spiration, David enunciated with swelling pride, "Beulah, Teacher." We had a lovely time on Christmas. The night before the children hung up their stock- ings, but it was midnight before I could get round to fill them, they were so excited and wakeful. I "hied me softly to my stilly couch," and was just dropping off into delicious slumber when at 1 a.m. the strains of musical instru- ments (which you had sent) were heard below. I 120 j ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR Then I appreciated to the full the sentiment of that poet who sang: "Were children silent, we should half believe That joy were dead, its lamp would burn so low." Later in the day we had our Christmas tree, when Topsy was overjoyed at receiving her first doll. There is something very sweet about the child in spite of all her wilful ways, and she is a real Httle mother to her doll. We had a great dinner, as you may imagine. I overheard some of the little boys teasing Solo- mon, who is only three, to see if he would not forgo some particular choice morsel upon his plate, to which an emphatic "no" was always returned. Then by varying gradations of impor- tance came the question, would he give it to Teacher? The answer not being considered satis- factory, Gabriel felt that the time had come for the supreme test. Would Solomon give it to God and the angels? The reply left so much to be desired that it is better unrecorded. [ 121 1 LE PETIT NORD In our harbour lives a blind Frenchman, FrauQois Detier by name. He came here in his youth to escape conscription. The fisher people have travelled a long road since the old feuds which scarred the early history of Le Petit Nord, and Frangois is a much-loved member of the community. Since the oncoming of the inoper- able tumour, which little by little has deprived him of his sight, the neighbours vie with each other by helping him. One day a load of wood will find its way to his door. The next a few fresh "turr," a very "fishy" sea auk, are left ever so quietly inside his woodshed — and so it goes. It is a constant marvel to me that these people, who live so perilously near the margin of want, are always so eager to share up. Frangois is sitting in our cellar as I write pulling nails from old boxes with my new pat- ent nail-drawer. A moment ago I could not re- sist the temptation of putting the Marseillaise on the gramophone, and I went down to find [ 122 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR him with tears roHing down his cheeks as he hummed, "Allons, enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrive." We've invented a new job for him; he is to "serve" our pipes with bandages. This means swathing them round and round, and finally add- ing an outer covering of newspaper, which has a much-vaunted reputation for keeping cold out. Let me tell you the latest epic of the hospital pipes. Those to the bathroom run through the oflSce. In the last blizzard they burst. The fire in the fireplace was a conflagration; the steam radiator was singing a credible song; and as the water trickled down the pipe from the little fis- sure, it froze solid before it was three inches on its way! A friend sent me for Christmas a charming little poem. One verse runs: "May nothing evil cross this door, And may ill fortune never pry f 123 1 LE PETIT NORD About these windows ; may the roar And rains go by. "Strengthened by faith, these rafters will Withstand the battering of the storm; This hearth, though all the world grow chill, Will keep us warm." I am thinking of hanging the card opposite our pipes as a reminder of the "way they should go." 124 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR January 15 The journey to Nameless Cove Fair was all that I had hoped for and a little more thrown in to make weight. Clear and shining, with glittering white snow below and sparkling blue sky above, the day promised fair in spite of a mercury standing at ten below zero, and a number of komatiks from the Mission started merrily forth. All went well, and we reached Nameless Cove without adventure, but at sundown the wind rose. When we left the sale at ten o'clock to return to the house where I was to spend the night, we had to face the full fury of a living winter gale. I "caught" both my cheeks on the way, or in common parlance I froze them. All through that long tug we were cheered by the thought of a large jug of cream which we had placed on the stove to thaw when we left the house. Do you fancy that cream had thawed? Not a bit of it. The fire was doing its best, but ( 125 ] LE PETIT NORD old Boreas was holding our feast prisoner. It had not even begun to disintegrate around the edges. We cut lumps from the icy mass, dropped them into our cocoa (which we made by cooking it in- side the stove and directly on top of the coals), hastily popped the mixture into our mouths be- fore it should have a chance to freeze en routes and went promptly to bed. I draw a veil over that night. I drew everything else I could find over me in the course of it. A sadder and a wiser and a chilher woman I rose the morrow morn. Another member of the staff, who had slept in an adjoining house, froze his toe in bed. When we reached home, and I left the koma- tik at the hospital door, I made out 'Senath dancing in an agitatedly aimless fashion on our platform. She was also waving her arms about. For a moment it crossed my mind that she had lost her modicum of wits, but as she was im- mediately joined by Tryphena, I gave up the theory as untenable, and continued to hasten up [ 126 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR the hill to the Home. Our boiler had sprung, not one but many leaks, and the precious hot water destined for the cleansing of forty was flooding the already spotless kitchen floor. As it is the middle of the week I had not suspected this ca- lamity, Sunday being the invariable day se- [ 127 ] LE PETIT NORD lected for all burst pipes, special rat banquets, broken noses, toothaches, skinned shins, and such misadventures. The problem now present- ing itself for prompt solution is: 20° below zero, a gale blowing from the northwest, twoscore small, unwashed orphans, and a burst boiler! [ 128 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR January 21 The oldest inhabitants, and all the others as well, claim that this is the most remarkable win- ter in thirty years. Not that one is deceived. I suspect them rather of making excuses for the consistently disconcerting climate of Britain's oldest colony. All the same, literally the worst storm I ever experienced has been in progress for the last two days. It began in the morning by the falling of a few innocent flakes. Then the north wind de- cided to take a hand. All night and all day and all night again it shrieked around the house, driving incredible quantities of snow before it. Half an hour after it began, you could not see two yards in front of your face. The man who attends to the hospital heating-plant had to crawl on his hands and knees in order to reach his destination, taking exactly one hour to make the distance of two hundred yards. [ 129 ] LE PETIT NORD At this institution it is the time-honoured custom to rise at five-thirty each morning, which custom, although doubtless good for our immortal souls, is distinctly trying to our too painfully mortal flesh. Added to which, in spite of all our efforts, our pipes are frozen, and in this country the ground does not thaw out completely until July or August, when we are making preparations for being frozen in again. Think of what this means for a household of over forty when every drop of water has to be hauled in barrels by our boys, and the super- intendent has to stand over them to compel them to bring enough. Cleanliness at such a cost must surely be a long way towards godli- ness. I can now appreciate the story of the chaplain from a whaling ship who is said to have wandered into an encampment of the Es- kimos. He told the people of heaven with all its glories, and it meant nothing to these children of the North; they were not interested [ 130 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR in his story. But when he changed his theme and spoke of hell, with its everlasting fires which needed no replenishing, they cried. "Where is it? Tell us that we may go"; and big and little, they clambered over him, eager for details. By morning every room on the windward side of our house looked like the inside of an igloo. The fine drift had silted in through each most minute cranny and crevice — even though we [ 131] LE PETIT NORD have double windows all over the building; and on the night in question we had decided that sufficient fresh air was entering in spite of us to permit our disobeying our self-imposed anti- tuberculosis regulations. The wind and snow are so persistent and so penetrating that the merest slit gives them entrance, and the accumulations of such a night make one fancy in the morning that the King of the Golden River has paid an infuriated visit to our part of the globe. When I went into the babies' dormitory every little bed was snowed under, and only the children's dark hair contrasted with the universal whiteness. The second night I verily thought the house would come about our ears. The gale had in- creased in fury, the thermometer stood at thirty below, and I stayed up to be ready for emer- gencies. At midnight, thinking one room must surely be blown in, I carried the sleeping babes into another wing of the house. If for any reason we had had to leave the building that night, [ 132 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR none of us could have lived to reach a place of safety. I wish you could have seen us the follow- ing morning. The snow had drifted in so that in places it was over six feet high. I ventured out and found that every exit but one from the Home was snowed up. We had therefore to dig ourselves out of the woodshed door and into the others from the outside. You make a dab with a shovel in the direction where you think you last saw the desired door before the storm, and trust the fates for results. Part of our roof has blown off and our chimney is in a tottering condition. The greatest menace was the telegraph wires. The drifts in places were so huge that as one walked along, the wires were liable to trip one up. The doctor has just taken a picture of the dog team being fed from the third-story window of the hospital. They are clustered on the snow just outside and on a level with the bottom of the window. Some of the fishermen in their tiny f 133 1 LE PETIT NORD cottages had to be dug out by kindly neigh- bours, as they were completely snowed under! The storm will greatly delay travelling and it may be almost spring before this reaches you. It may interest you to know how my letters come to you in the winter-time, and then perhaps you will not wonder so much at the delays. The mail is carried across country to Mistaken Cove, on the west coast, and then by eight relays of cou- riers with their dog teams to Deerlake where the railway touches. It is a slow method of progress, and there are countless delays owing to the fre- quent blizzards. Often the mail men fail to make connections, and the letters may lie a week or a fortnight at some outlandish station. At one place the postmaster cannot even read, and the letters have to be marked with crosses at the previous stopping-places, to indicate the direc- tion of their destination. Another postmaster, well known for his dishonesty, failed to get re- moved by the authorities because he was the [ 134 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR only man in the place who could either read or write, and was therefore indispensable. For- merly all the letters had to go to St. John's, a day's extra journey, and be sorted there, sent back across the island to Run-by-Guess, eight hours across Cabot Straits, and then across the Atlantic to England. In this way a letter might take nearly three months to make the journey, and we are sometimes that length of time with- out news. Now a "mild" has set in, and the incessant drip, drip, drip on the balcony roof outside my window makes me perfectly understand how lunacy and death follow the persistent falling of a single drop on one spot on the forehead. [ 135 ] LE PETIT NORD February 11 Last week I had a three days' "cruise" while the doctor considerately sent a nurse up here ta try her hand at my family. This time the cruise was "on the dogs" instead of the rolling sea. We left for Belvy (Bellevue) Bay in good time in the morning — "got our anchors early," as our "carter" put it. The animation of the dogs, the lovely snow-covered country, the bright win- ter's sun pouring down, and doubly brilliant by reflection from the dazzling snow, the huge bon- fire in the woods where we "cooked the kettle," all make one understand the call which the gipsy answers. Of course there is another side to the story, when one is caught out in bitter weather in a blizzard of driving snow and sleet, and loses the way, or perhaps has to stay out in the open through the night. For instance, this winter four of the Mission dogs have perished through frost- bite on these journeys; and only last week we [ 130 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR ' heard that one of the mail carriers on the west coast had been frozen to death. A few years ago one dark and stormy night the Church of England clergyman was called to the sick-bed of a parishioner. He set out at once to cross the frozen bay and reached the cottage in safety. After a visit with the dying man he started on his homeward way. It was cold but clear, and he covered half the distance without trouble. Then the weather veered and blinding snow began to drive. The traveller lost his way battling against it, and finally sank down ut- terly exhausted. He was found dead in the morning on the open bay. A day's trip brought us to Grevigneux, a charming little village nestling in a great bowl formed by the towering cliffs above and around it. Every one in the settlement is a Roman Catholic. Never did I receive such a welcome; the people are so friendly and unspoiled. The priest is a Frenchman, sensible, hearty, full of [ 137 1 LE PETIT NORD humour and love for his people. Both his ideas and his manner of expressing them are naive and appealing. I had been told that in his sermons he admonished certain members of his flock by name for their shortcomings. When I questioned him about this he gave me the following explana- tion: "You see, miss, when I die I shall stand before the Lord and my people will be standing behind me. The Lord will look them over and then look at me, and if any one of them is n't there he will say, ' Cartier, where is Tom Flan- nigan?' And I should have to answer, 'Gone to Purgatory for stealing boots.' And the Lord will say to me, * Why, did n't he know better than to steal boots? You ought to have told him.' What- ever could I say for myself then.^^ '* The next night we spent at Lance au Diable, locally known as "Lancy Jobble." In this place there is a "medicine man," with methods unique in science. He is the seventh son of a seventh son, and his healing powers are reputed to be I 138] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR little short of miraculous. Legend has it that such must never request payment for services, nor must the patient ever thank him, lest the* efficacy of the cure be nullified. He is an unself- ish man, a thorough believer in his own "gift"; and last summer, for instance, right in the mid- dle of the fishing season, he walked thirty miles through swamp and marsh ridden with black flies, to see a sick woman who desired his aid. Doubtless the spell of his buoyant personality does bring comfort and relief. In the adjoining settlement of Bareneed lives an enormously fat old woman of seventy-odd summers. Life passes over her, and its only effect is to make her rotund and unwieldy. When the sick come to Brother Luke for treatment, if any of the few drugs which he has accumulated chance to have lost their labels — a not uncommon contingency in this land of mist and fog — he takes down a likely-looking bottle from the shelf, and tries a dose of the contents on this Mrs. Goochy — and f 139 1 LE PETIT NORD awaits results. If nothing untoward transpires, he then passes the medicine on to the patient. Mrs. Goochy has a strong acquisitive bias, and raises no objections to this vicarious proceeding. She argues: "I does n't need 'un now, but there be*s no tellin*. I may need 'un when I can't get 'un." Occasionally the sailing is not so smooth. While we were there the doctor saw a case of a woman from whom this ^sculapius had at- tempted to extract an offending molar, his only instrument being a kind of miniature winch [ 140 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR which screws on to the undesired tooth. Its ac- tion proved so prompt and powerful that not only did it remove the tooth intended, but four others as well, and the entire alveolar process connected with them. It often made me feel ashamed to find how much some of these people have made of their meagre opportunities. At one house a mother told me that she had only been able to go to school for six months when she was a girl, yet [ 141 ] LE PETIT NORD she had taught herself to read, and later her chil- dren also. She showed me most interesting arti- cles which she had written for a Canadian news- paper describing the life on Le Petit Nord. She often had to sit up until two in the morning to knit her children's clothes, and rise again at dawn to prepare breakfast for the men of the household. The following day saw us homeward bound, only this time the travelling was not so roman- tic, for a "mild" had set in, and the going was superlatively slushy. The dogs had all they could do to drag the komatik with the luggage on it. The humans walked, generally in front of the dogs, and on snow racquets, to make the trail a bit easier for the animals. This may sound an interesting way to spend a winter's day, but after twenty minutes of it you would cry "enough." When we reached Belvy Bay the ice around the shore was broken into great pans, but in the mid- dle it looked good. To go round is an endless task, f 142 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR so we risked crossing. It was easy to get off to the centre, for the big pans at the edge would float a far greater weight than a komatik and dogs and three people. The ice in the middle, however, which had looked so sure from the landwash, proved to be "black" — that is, very, very thin, though being salt-water ice, it was elastic. It was waving up and down so as almost to make one seasick, but in its elasticity lay our only chance of safety. We flung ourselves down at full length on the komatik to give as broad a surface of re- sistance as possible, and what encouragement was given the dogs we did with our voices. Four miles did we drive over that swaying surface, and though at the time we were too excited to be nervous, we were glad to reach the 'Hen a firma" of the standing ice edge. At each place we were received with the most cordial welcome, and scarcely allowed even to express our gratitude. It was always they who were so eager to thank us for giving them un- l 143] LE PETIT NORD asked the "pleasure of our company." Their re- ception is always very touching. They put the best they have before you and will take nothing for their hospitality. In my various letters to you I have so often taken away the characters of our dogs that I must tell you of one, just to show that I have not altered in my devotion to our "true first friend." This dog's name was "Black," and he hved many years ago at Mistaken Cove. The tales of his beauty, his cleverness at tricks, and his endur- ance of diflBculties are still told, but chiefly of his devotion to his master. After years of this companionship the beloved master died and was buried in the woods near his lonely little house. Black was inconsolable. He would eat nothing; he started up at every slightest noise hoping for the familiar whistle; he haunted the well-worn woodpath where they had had so many happy days together. Finally he discovered his master's grave and was found frantically tearing at the ( 144 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR hard earth and heavy stones. Nor would he leave the spot. Food was brought him daily, but it went untouched. For one whole week he lay in the wind and weather in the hole he had dug on the grave. There the children found him on the eighth morning curled up and apparently asleep. His long quest and vigil were ended, for he had reached the happy hunting grounds. Who shall say that a beloved hand and voice did not wel- come him home? [ 145 ] LE PETIT NORD St. Antoine Children's Home {by courtesy) February 28 Of one thing I am certain, we must have a new Home, for this house is not fit for habitation, and it is not nearly large enough. Even after my re- cent return from living in the tiny homes of the people which one would fancy to be far less com- fortable, this is forcibly impressed upon me. We simply cannot go on refusing to take in children who need its shelter so badly. So please spread this broadcast among the friends in England. This Home has been enlarged once since it was built, and yet it is not nearly big enough for our present needs. We have no nursery, and I only wish you could see the tiny room which has to do duty for a sewing-room. It is certainly only called "room"by courtesy, for there is scarcely space to sit down, much less to use a needle with- out risk of injury to one's neighbour. The weekly mend alone, without the making of new things, [ 146 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR means now between two and three hundred gar- ments in addition to the boots, which the boys repair. As you can imagine, this is no hght task and we are often driven almost distracted, I think the stockings are the worst, sometimes a himdred pairs to face at once! I fear we must once have been led into making some rather pointed remarks on this subject, for later, on going into the sewing-room, we found a slip of printed paper, cut from a magazine, and bearing the title of an article: "Don't Scold the Chil- dren WHEN They Tear Their Stockings." This building rocks like a ship at sea; the roof continually leaks, the windows are always "com- ing abroad," and the panes drop out at "scat- tered times," while even when shut, the wind whistles through as if to show his utter disdain of our inhospitable and paltry efforts to keep him outside. On stormy nights, in spite of closed windows, the rooms resemble huge snowdrifts. Seven maids with seven mops sweeping for half [ 147 ] LE PETIT NORD a year could never get it clear. The building heaves so much with the frost that the doors con- stantly refuse to work, because the floors have risen, and if they are planed, when the frost dis- appears, a yawning chasm confronts you. Our storeroom is so cold in winter that we put on Arctic furs to fetch in the food, and in summer it is flooded so that we swim from barrel to bar- rel as Alice floated in her pool of tears. But far above all these minor discomforts is the one overwhelming desire not to have to refuse "one of these little ones." One's heart aches when one remembers all the money and effort and love expended on a single child at home, that he may lack nothing to be prepared in body and spirit to meet the vicissi- tudes of his coming life journey. But in this land are hundreds of children, our own blood and kin, who must face their crushing problems often with bodies stunted from insufficient nourish- ment in childhood, and minds unopened and [ 148 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR undeveloped, not through lack of natural ability, but because opportunity has never come to them. As one looks ahead one sees clearly what a con- tribution these eager children could offer their "day" if only their cousins at home had "the eyes of their understanding purged to behold things invisible and unseen." I 149 1 LE PETIT NORD March 10 The seals are in ! That to you doubtless does not seem the most engrossing item of news that could be communicated, but that merely proves what a long road you have to travel. Before the break of day every man capable of carrying a weapon is out on the ice to try and get his share of the spoils. They carry every conceivable sort of gun, but the six-foot muzzle-loaders are the favour- ites. These ancient weapons have been handed down from father to son for generations, and lo- cally go by the somewhat misleading soubriquet ofthe"Kttledarlints." The people call the seals "swiles." There is an old story about a foreigner who once asked, "How do you spell 'swile'?" The answer the fisherman gave him was, "We don't spell [carry] 'em. We mostly hauls 'em." Sea-birds have also come in the "swatches'* [ 150 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR of open water between the pans. A gale of wind and sea has broken up the ice, and driven it out of St. Mien's Bay, which is just round the cor- ner from us. Thousands of "turr" are there, and the men are reaping many a banquet. A man's wealth is now gauged by the number of birds which are strung around the eaves of his house. It is a safe spot, for it keeps the birds thoroughly frozen, and well out of reach, at this time of year, of the ever-present dog. Some of the men were prevented from being on the spot for bird shooting as promptly as they desired by the fact that their boats, having lain up all winter, were not "plymmed." If you put a dried apple, for instance, into water it "plymms "; so do beans, and so do boats. When a boat is not "plymmed," it leaks in all its seams, and is therefore looked upon as unsafe for these sub-Arctic waters by the more con- servative amongst us. To stop a boat leaking you "chinch" the seams with oakum. Our fish- [ 151] LE PETIT NORD erman sexton has just told me that "the church was right chinched last night." One by one our supplies are giving out or di- minishing. Each week as I send down an order to the store it is returned with some item crossed off. These articles at home would be considered the indispensables. Already potatoes have gone the way of all flesh; there is no more butter (though that is less loss than it sounds, for it was packed on the schooner directly next the kero- sene barrels, and a liberal quantity of that vol- atile liquid incorporated itself in each tub of **oleo"). We are warned that the remaining amount of flour will not hold out till the spring boat — our first possible chance of getting rein- forcements for our larder — unless we exercise the watchfulness of the Sphinx. The year before I came the first boat did not reach St. Antoine till the 28th of June. More excitement has just been communicated to me by Topsy: much more. A man from the f 152 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR Baie des Frangais has killed a huge polar bear. It took ten men and six dogs to haul the beast home after he had been finally dispatched. The man fired several shots at him, but did not hit a vital spot. One bullet only remained to him, and the bear was coming at him in a very purposeful manner. "Now or never," thought the fisher- man, and fired. The creature fell dead almost at his feet. When they skinned him they found bullets in his legs and flank, but searched and searched in vain for the fatal one which had been [ 153 ] LE PETIT NORD the end of him. There was no mark on the skin in any vital spot. At last they fomid it. The ball had penetrated exactly through the bear's ear into his brain. All the countryside is now dining off bear steak; and there is a splendid skin to be purchased if you are so minded. I have eaten a bit of the steak, though I confess I did not sit down to the feast with any pleasurable anticipa- tion, as the men said that they found the remains of a recently devoured seal in Bruin's "tum." I had an agreeable surprise. The meat was fibrous and a little tough, but it was quite good — a vast improvement on the sea-birds which are so highly valued in the local commissariat. The Prophet has a vivid idea of the processes going on in the heads of animals. He says that up to fifteen years ago there were bears innu- merable "in the country." "And one day, miss," he explained, "the whole crew of them gets their anchors and leaves in a body." To hear him one would imagine that at a concerted signal [ 154 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR the bears came out of their burrows and shook the dust of the land from their feet. ^ The Eskimos toll the seals. They lie on the ice and wave their legs in the air, and the seals, curi- ous animals, approach to discover the nature of the phenomenon, and are forthwith dispatched. One Eskimo of a histrionic temperament decided to "go one better." He went out to the ice edge, climbed into his sealskin sleeping-bag, and waved his legs, as per stage directions. We are not informed whether the device would have proved a successful decoy to the seals, for before any had been lured within range, another In- nuit, having seen the sealskin legs gesticulating on the ice edge, naturally mistook them for the real thing, fired with regrettable accuracy, and went out to find a dead cousin. The story is the only deterrent I have from dressing in my white Russian hareskin coat, and sitting in the graveyard some dusky evening. The people claim that the place is haunted. I [ 155 1 LE PETIT NORD have never met a "Yoho" and never expect to, but I would dearly love to see how others act • when they think they have. Only the suspicion that they would "plump for safety," and fire the inevitable muzzle-loader at my white garment, keeps me from making the experiment in corpore vile. The birds and the seals and the bears and white foxes coming south on the moving ice are signs of spring. There is a stir in the air as if the people as well sensed that the back of the long winter was broken. How it has flown! You can- not fancy my sensations of lonesomeness when I think that I shall never spend another in this country. You cannot describe or analyze the lure of the land and its people, but it is there, and grips you. I have grown to love it, and you will welcome home an uncomplimentary homesick comrade when September comes. [ 150 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR April 1 Last minute of Sunday, so here 's to you. To- morrow I shall be cheerfully immersed up to the eyes in work. Oh! this Home. How little it deserves the name! Our English storms are nothing but ba- bies compared with the appalling blasts which sweep down upon us from the north. In summer the furious seas dash against the cliffs as if to protect them from the desecration of human en- croachment. The fine snow filters in between the roof and ceiling of this building, and in a "mild,'* such as we are now experiencing, it melts, and endless little rivulets trickle down in nearly every room. The water comes in on my bed, on the kitchen range, and on the dining-room table. It falls on the sewing-machine in one room, on the piano and bookcase in another. Its cathohcity of taste is plain disheartening ! You ask whether these kiddies have the stuff [ 157] LE PETIT NORD in them to repay what you are pleased to term "such an outlay of effort." My emphatic "yes" should have been so insistent as to have reached you by telepathy when the doubt first presented itself. The Home has been established now long enough to have some of its "graduates" go out into hfe; and the splendid manhood and woman- hood of these young people are at once a suffi- cient reward to us and a silencing response to you. Many of them have been sent to the States and Canada for further education, and are now not only writing a successful story for themselves, but helping their less fortunate neighbours, in a way we from outside never can, to turn over many a new leaf in their books. Yesterday I attended the theatre, only it was the operating theatre. The patient on this occa- sion was a doll, the surgeon a lad of seven, him- self a victim of infantile paralysis, and the head nurse assisting was aged nine, and wears a brace on each leg. The stage was the children's [ 158] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR ward of the hospital. Here are several pathetic little people, orthopedic cases, brought in for treatment during the winter, and who must stay till the spring boat arrives, as their homes are now cut off by interminable miles of snow wastes and icy sea. Nothing escapes their notice. They tear up their Christmas picture books, and when charged with the enormity of their offence, ex- plain that they "must have adhesive tape for their operative work." Dick, the surgeon, was overheard the other day telling Margaret, the head nurse, as together they amputated the legs of her doll, "This is the way Sir Robert Jones does it." Next to operating, the children love music; and they love it with a repertoire varied to meet every mood, from "Keep the Home Fires Burn- ing" to "In the Courts of Belshazzar and a Hun- dred of his Lords." One three-year-old scrap comes from a Salvation Army household, and listens to all such melodies with marked disap- [ 159 ] . LE PETIT NORD proval. But when the others finish, she "pipes up," shutting her eyes, clapping her hands and swaying back and forth — "Baby 's left the cradle for the Golden Shore: Now he floats, now he floats, Happy as before." Three of the kiddies are Roman CathoHcs and have taught their companions to say their pray- ers properly of an evening. They all cross them- selves devoutly at the close; but this instruction has fallen on fallow ground in the wee three-year- old. She sits with eyes tightly screwed together lest she be forced even to witness such heresy and schism. Yesterday I was walking with Gabriel when we came upon a tiny bird essaying his first spring song on a tree- top nearby. Gabriel looked at the newcomer silently for several minutes, and finally, turning his luminous brown eyes up to my face, asked, "Do he sing hymns, Teacher?" IGO ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR April 19 The village sale was'held last week. This has become an annual occurrence, and the proceeds are devoted to varying good objects. This time the hospital was the beneficiary. For months the countryside, men and women, have been making articles, and I can assure you it is a relief to have it over and such a success to boot, and life's quiet tone restored. We made large numbers of pur- chases, and consumed unbelievable quantities of more than solid nourishment. The people have shown the greatest ingenuity and diligence, and the display was a credit to their talent. I was particularly struck with the really clever carving representing local scenes which the fishermen had done with no other tools than their jack- knives. The auction was the keynote of the eve- ning, due largely to the signal ability of the auc- tioneer. His methods are effective, but strictly his own. Cakes, made generally in graded layers and [ 161] LE PETIT NORD liberally coated with different coloured sugar, were the favourites. As he held up the last tee- tering mountain he "bawled": "What am I bid for this wonderful cake? 'T is a bargain at any price. Why, she 's so heavy I can't hold her with one hand." It fetched seven dollars ! The yearly meet for sports was held in the aft- ernoon before the sale, and was voted by all to be a great success. It is a far cry from the days when games were introduced here by the Mis- sion. Then the people's lives were so drab, and they had little idea of the sporting qualities which every Englishman values so highly. In those early days if in a game of football one side kicked a goal, they had to wait till the other had done the same before the game could proceed, or the play would have been turned into a battle. Now everything in trousers in the place can be seen of an evening out on the harbour ice kick- ing a ball about. The harbour is our very roomy athletic field. [ 162 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR Twenty-two teams had entered for the dog race, and the start, when the whole number were ranged up in the hne, was pandemonium un- loosed. The dogs were barking out threatenings and slaughter to the teams next them, their mas- ters were shouting unheeded words of command, the crowd were cheering their favourites, and altogether you would never have guessed from the racket and confusion that you were north of the Roaring Forties. The last event on the sports programme was a scramble for coloured candies by all the chil- dren of the village. Our flock from the Home par- ticipated. The proceeding was as unhygienic as it was alluring, and our surprise was great when a universally healthy household greeted the morrow morn. When I heard the amount the poor folk had raised for charity out of their meagre pittance, I felt reproached. It is a consistent fact here that the people give and do more than their means [ 163] LE PETIT NORD justify, and it must involve a hard pinch for them in some other quarter. Coming from the sale at ten at night I looked for our " Yoho" in passing the churchyard, but was unrewarded, though some of the harbour people assured me in the morning that they had seen it plainly. Can there be anything in the cur- rent belief that the men of the sea are more psychic than we case-hardened products of civ- ilization, or is it merely superstition? There is a story here of a man called Gaulton, which is vouched for by all the older men who can recall the incident. It seems that in Savage Cove this old George Gaulton lived till he was ninety. He died on December 4, 1883. On the 16th he ap- peared in the flesh to a former acquaintance at Port au Choix, fifty miles from the spot at which he had died. This man Shenicks gives the fol- lowing account of the curious visitation : "I was in the woods cutting timber for a day and a half. During the whole of that time I was f 1G4 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR sure I heard footsteps near me in the snow, al- though I could see nothing. On the evening of the second day, in consequence of heavy rain, I returned home early. I knew my cattle had plenty of food, but something forced me to go to the hay-pook. While there, in a few moments I stood face to face with old George Gaulton. I was not frightened. We stood in the rain and talked for some time. In the course of the conver- sation the old man gave me a message for his eldest son, and begged me to deliver it to him myself before the end of March. Immediately afterwards he disappeared, and then I was ter- ribly afraid." A few weeks later Shenicks went all the way to Savage Cove and delivered the message given to him in so strange a fashion. A word of apology and I close. In an early letter to you I recall judging harshly a concoc- tion called "brewis." Experience here has taught me that our own delicacies meet with a similar [165] LE PETIT NORD fate at the hands of my present fellow country- men. I offered Carmen on her arrival a cup of cocoa for Sunday supper. After one sniff, bid- dable and polite child though she was, I saw her surreptitiously pour the "hemlock cup" out of the open window behind her. ^ [ 1C6] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR May 23 Many miles over the hills from St. Antoine lies one of the wildest and most beautiful harbours on this coast. Nestling within magnificently high rocks, the picturesque colouring of which is re- flected in the quiet water beneath, lies the little village of Cremailliere. It is only a small settle- ment of tiny cottages beside the edge of the sea, but it has the unenviable reputation of being the worst village on the coast. In winter only three families live there, but in the summer- time a number of men come for the fishing, and they with their wives and children exist in al- most indescribable hovels. Some of these huts are just rough board affairs, about six feet by ten, and resemble cow sheds more than houses. If there is a window at all, it is merely a small square of glass (not made to open) high up on one side of the wall. In some there is not even the pretence of a window, but in cases of severe [ 167 1. LE PETIT NORD sickness a hole is knocked through for venti- lation on hearing of the near approach of the Mission doctor. The walls have only one thick- ness of board with no lining and the roofs are thatched with sods. There is no flooring what- ever. Not one person in Cremailliere can either read or write. Yesterday there was a funeral held in one of the little villages, and the mingling of pathos and humour made one realize more vividly than ever how " all the world 's akin." A young mother had died who could have been saved if her folk had realized the danger in time and sent for the doctor. She was lying in a rude board coffin in the bare kitchen. As space was at a premium the casket had been placed on the top of the long box which serves as a residence for the family rooster and chickens. They kept popping their heads, with their round, quick eyes out through the slats, and emitting startled crows and clucks at the visitors. The young woman was dressed f 108 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR in all her outdoor clothing; a cherished lace cur- tain sought to hide the rough, unplaned boards of the coflSn — for it had been hewn from the forest the day before. The depth of her husband's grief was evidenced by the fact that he had spent his last and only two dollars in the purchase, at the Nameless Cove general store, of the highly flowered hat which surmounted his wife's young careworn but peaceful face as she lay at rest. I saw for the first time an old custom pre- served on the coast. Before the coffin was closed all the family passed by the head of the deceased and kissed the face of their loved one for the last time, while all the visitors followed and laid their hands reverently on the forehead. Only when the master of ceremonies, who is always specially appointed, had cried out in a sonorous voice, "Any more?" and met with no response, was the ceremony of closing the lid permitted. Surely the children are the one and only hope of this country. Through them we may trust to [ 169 1 LE PETIT NORD raise the moral standard of the generations to come, but it is going to be a very slow process to make any headway against the ignorance and absence of desire for better things which prevails so largely here. I must tell you of the latest addition to our family. On the first boat in the spring there ar- rived a family, brought by neighbours, to say what the Mission could do for them. I think I have never seen a more forlorn sight than this group presented when they stepped from the steamer. There was the father (the mother is dead), an elderly half-witted cripple capable neither of caring for himself nor for his children, four boys of varying sizes, and a girl of fourteen in the last stages of tuberculosis. The family were nearly frozen, half -starved, and completely dazed at the hopelessness of their situation. The girl was admitted to the hospital, where she has since died, and the youngest boy, Israel, we took into the Home. Alas, we had only room for the [ 170 I ANNALS OF A LABRADOR ILVRBOUR one. Israel was at first much overawed by the standard of cleanliness required in this institu- tion, and protested vigorously when we tried to put him into the bathtub. He explained to us that he never washed more than his face and hands at home, not even his neck and ears, the limitation of territory being strictly defined and scrupulously observed. [ 171 ] LE PETIT NORD June 20 Unlike last year this summer promises to be hot, at least for this country. I have felt one great lack this year. You have to pass the long months of what would be lovely spring in Eng- land without a sign of a living blade of flower, though a few little songbirds did their best bravely to make it up to us. Already we are being driven almost crazy with the mosquitoes and black flies, songsters of no mean calibre, especially at night. In desperation our little ones yesterday succeeded in killing an unusually large specimen, and after burying it with great solemnity were heard singing around the grave in no uncheerful tones, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." I hate to think that these next few weeks will be the last I shall spend in this country and with these children. The North seems to weave over one a kind of spell and fascination all its own. I look back sometimes and smile that I should [ 172 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR ever have felt the year long or dreary; it has passed so quickly that I can scarcely believe it already time to be thinking of you and Eng- land again. I may emulate the example of Mrs. Lot, but with the certainty that a similar fate to hers does not await me. I have just unpacked a barrel of clothing sent from home to the Orphanage, and find to my disgust that it is almost entirely composed of muslin blouses and old ladies' bonnets! What am I to do with them.'' The blouses I can use as mosquito veiling, but these bonnets are not the kind our babies wear. I shall present one to Topsy, who will look adorable in it. You hint it is hard to get up interest in Lab- rador because we are neither heathen nor black. I can imagine your sewing circle of dear old ladies (perhaps they sent the bonnets) discus- sing the relative merits of working to send aero- planes to the Arabs, bicycles to the Bedouins, comforters to the Chinese, jumpers to the Jap- [ 173 1 LE PETIT NORD anese, handkerchiefs to the Hottentots, hair nets to the Hindoos, mouth organs to the Mo- hammedans, pinafores to the Parsees, pyjamas to the Papuans, prayer-books to the Pigmies, sandwiches to the South Sea Islanders, or zith- ers to the Zulus. Just wait till I can talk to your dear old ladies! A few days ago we had a very narrow escape from fire; indeed, it seemed for some time as if the whole of the Mission would be wiped out. It was a half-holiday and our boys had gone fishing to the Devil's Pond, a favourite spot of theirs, about a mile away. Unfortunately Noah was seized with the idea of lighting a fire by which to cook the trout, the matches having been stolen from my room. It had been dry for several days, there was quite a wind, and the fire, catching the furze, quickly got beyond the one required for culinary purposes. The boys first tried to smother it with their coats, but finding that of no avail ran home to give the [ 174 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR alarm. By the time the men could get to the spot the fire had spread so rapidly that attention had to be turned towards trying to save the houses. The doctor's house was the one most directly threatened at first, and we proceeded to strip it of all furniture, carrying everything to the fore- shore to be ready to be taken off if necessary. The doctor was away on a medical call, and you can imagine my feelings when I expected every moment to see the Northern Light come round the point, the doctor's house in flames and his household gods scattered to the winds! Then we dismantled this place — the children having been sent at the outset to a place of safety — and removed the patients from the hospital. Every man in the place was hard at work, and there were few of us who dared to hope that we should have a roof over our heads that night. Happily the wind suddenly dropped, the fire died down, and late that night we were able to return and endeavour to sort out babies and [ 175 1 LE PETIT NORD furniture. The goddess of disorder reigned su- preme, and it was only after many weary hours that we were able to find beds for the babies and babies for the beds. And it was our boys who started the fire! I am covered with confusion every second when I stop to think of it, and won- der if this is not the psychological moment to make my exit from this Mission. 17G ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR July 11 By invitation of the doctor I am off for a trip on the Northern Light next week. He offers me thus the chance to see other portions of the Shore before he drops me at the Iron Bomid Islands, where I can connect with the southern-going coastal steamer. The Prophet has encouraged me with the observation that "nearly all the female ladies what comes aboard her do be won- derful sick," but I am not to be deterred. So: "Now, Brothers, for the icebergs of frozen Labrador, Floating spectral in the moonshine along the low, black shore. Where in the mist the rock is hiding, and the sharp reef lurks below; And the white squall smites in summer, and the autmnn tempests blow." This is a mere scrap of a greeting, for the day of departure is so near that I feel I want to spend every minute with the kiddies. I count on your forbearance, and your knowledge that though my pen is quiet, my heart still holds you without rival. [ 177 1 LE PETIT NORD On hoard the Northern Light July 16 Is to-day as lovely in your part of the world as it is in mine, and do you greet it with a background of as exciting a night as the one that has just passed over us? I wonder. I came across some old forms of bills of lading sent out to this coun- try from England. They always closed with this most appropriate expression, "And so God send the good ship to her desired port in safety.** It has fallen into disuse long ago, but about break of early day the idea took a very compelling shape in my mind. We put out from Bonne Es- perance just as night was falling, and there was no moon to aid us. The doctor had decided on the outside run, and brief as is my acquaintance with the "lonely Labrador," I knew what that meant. I therefore betook myself betimes to bed as the best spot for an unseasoned mariner. Twelve o*clock found us barely holding our own [ 178 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR against a furious head wind and sea — "An aw- ful night for a sinner," as our cheery Prophet remarked as he lurched past my cabin door. Ice- bergs were dotted about. Great combers were pouring over our bow and the floods came sweep- ing down the decks sounding like the roar of a thousand cataracts. The only way one could keep from being hurled out of one's berth was to cling like a leech to a rope fastened to a ring in the wall, for the little ship was bouncing back and forth so fast and so far that it was impossible to compare it with the motion of any other craft. Day be- gan to dawn about 3 a.m. By the dim light I could make out mighty mountains of green foaming water. At each roll of the steamer we seemed to be at the bottom of a huge emerald pit. Suddenly some one yelled, "There she goes!" and that second the boat was dragged down, down, down. An immense wave had caught us, rolled us so far over that our dory in [ 179 1 LE PETIT NORD davits had filled with water to the brim. As the ship righted herself, the weight of the dory- snapped off the davit at the deck, and the boat, still attached by her painter, was dragged un- derneath our hull, and threatened to pull us down with it. In two seconds the men had cut her away, but not before she had nearly banged herself to matchwood against our side. Now we are lying under the lea of St. Augus- tine Island waiting for the wind to abate. The chief engineer has just offered to row me ashore to hunt for young puflSns. More later. There were hundreds of them in every fam- ily, and so many families that it resembled nothing so much as a puffin ghetto. I judged from the turmoil that they were screeching for "a place in the sun." The noise tliey made did \ 180 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR not in the least accord with their respectable Quaker appearance. Shall I bring you one as a pet? Its austere presence would help you to remember your "latter end." When I wrote you that there was ice about, I did not refer to the field ice through which we travelled on my way north. This is the real thing this time — icebergs, and lots of them. They call the little ones "growlers," and big and little alike are classed as "pieces of ice"! They are not my idea of a "piece" of anything. I know now what the Ancient Mariner meant when he said: **And ice mast high came floating by As green as emerald." It exactly describes them, only it does n't wholly describe them, for no one could. They loom up in every shape and size and variation of form, pinnacles and towers and battlements, stately palaces of glittering crystal, triumphal arch- ways more gorgeous than ever welcomed a con- l 181 1 LE PETIT NORD queror home. Sometimes they are shining white, too dazzhng to look at; and sometimes they are streaked with great vivid bands of green and azure which are so miearthly and brilhant that I feel certain some fairy has dipped his brush in the solar spectrum and dabbed the colours on this gigantic palette. ' A sea without these jewels of the Arctic will forever look barren and unfinished to me after this. Even the sailors, who know too well what a menace they are to their craft, yield to their beauty a mute and grudging homage. To sit in the sim or the moonlight, and watch a heavy sea hurling mountains of water and foam over one of these ocean monarchs is a never-to-be- forgotten experience. So too it is to listen to the thunder of one of them "foundering"; for their equilibrium is very im stable, and the action of the sea, as they travel southwards to their death in the Gulf Stream, cuts them away at the sur- face of the water. Blocks weighing unbelievable [ 182 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR tons crash off them, or they will suddenly, with- out a second's warning, break into a million pieces. I can never conquer a creepiness of the spine as I listen to one of these tragedies. It is a startling, new sensation such as we never expect to meet again after childhood has shut its doors on us. In the quiet that follows the gigantic dis- integration one half expects to see a new heaven and a new earth emerge out of the chaos of ice quivering in the water. You often warned me in the course of the past year how dull life would be. You knew how I loved a city. I still do. But the last word on earth one could apply to the hfe here is "dull." Nature takes care of that. I defy you to walk along any street in London and see six porpoises and a whale! That is what I saw this morning. Oh! of course you may counter by telling me that neither can I see an automobile or a fire en- gine, but I have you, because I can answer that I have seen them already. How are you going to [ 183 ] LE PETIT NORD get out of that comer, except by saying that you do not want to see the old porpoises and whales and bergs? — and I know your *' Scotch" con- science forbids such distortion of facts. I have come to believe in the personality of porpoises. They swam beside the ship, playing about in the water all the while, rolling over and diving, and chasing each other just as if they knew they had a "gallery." We did not reward them very well either, for the Prophet shot one, and we ate bits of him for lunch — the porpoise, I mean, not the Prophet. I thought he would make a good companion-piece for the polar bear, and he was quite edible. He only needed a rasher of bacon to make you believe he was calf's liver. So you see that between puflBns and porpoises and whales, and "growlers" and lost dories, I crowded enough into one day to give me dreams that Alice in Wonderland might covet. In your secret heart don't you wish that you too were [ 184 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR "Where the squat-legged Eskimo Waddles in the ice and snow. And the playful polar bear Nips the hunter unaware; Where the air is kind o* pure. And the snow crop 's pretty sure" ? [ 185 ] LE PETIT NORD July 22 It has been days since I wrote you, and they have slipped by so stealthily I must have missed half they held. Since coming aboard I have taken to rising promptly. It is a necessary measure if I am to be able to rise at all. One morning I stuck my head out just in time to see my favourite sweater, which I had counted on for service on the home- ward voyage, disappearing over the rail — legit- imately, so far as concerned the wearer. Last week, by the merest fluke, I rescued my best boots from a similar fate. The doctor explained lamely on each occasion that they got mixed with the clothing sent for distribution to the poor. This may be a literal statement of fact, but I doubt the manner of the mixing. We celebrated to-day by running aground on the flats. You can "squeak" over them if you happen to strike the channel. The difficulty is, [ 18G ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR however, that the sandy bottom shifts. To-day it is, and to-morrow it is not. I was eating one of those large, hearty breakfasts which the com- bination of a dead flat calm and a sunshiny brisk air make such a desideratum. I was, moreover, perched on the top of the wheel house, and re- flecting on the poor taste of the author of the Book of Revelation when he said that in heaven "there shall be no more sea." At this moment I came to with a lurch. *' She's stuck!" yelled, or as he himself would put it, "bawled," the Prophet. For once he was undeniably right. Fortunately the tide was on the flood, and we floated off a short while after. Li the afternoon we visited an Eskimo Mora- vian station. They — the Eskimos, not the Mo- ravians — are a jolly little people, and pictur- esque as possible. Not that any aspersions on the Moravians are intended, for I have the greatest respect for them. My shining leather coat made a great hit. They fondled it and [ 187 1 LE PETIT NORD stroked it, and coo-ed at it as if it were a new baby. All the women past their very first youth seemed toothless. I wondered if it could be a characteristic of the tribe — sort of Manx Es- kimo. I asked the Prophet what was the cause of the universal shortage, and was told that the Eskimo women all chew the sealskin to soften it for making into boots. You can take this state- ment for what it may be worth. Speaking of which I have just finished reading a ludicrously furious attack on the Mission in a St. John's paper, for its alleged misrepresenta- tions. It seems that last year the former superin- tendent took down a boy from the Children's Home to give him a chance at further education. He had a wooden leg, his own having been re- moved by an operation for tuberculosis. On his arrival in Montreal the omnivorous reporter saw in him excellent copy, and forthwith printed the following purely fictitious account of the cause of his disability. Little Kommak, so the story [ 188 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR ran (the boy is of pure Irish extraction, and is named Michael Flynn), was one day sitting with his mother in his igloo when he saw a large polar bear approaching. Having no weapon, and not desiring the presence of the bear in any capac- ity at their midday meal, he stuck his leg out through the small aperture of the igloo. The bear bit it off on the principle of half a loaf being bet- ter than no bread. The whole thing was a fabric of lies from beginning to end. The St. John's papers discovered the article, pounced upon it, and printed the article ^'queje viens definir,*\Oi [ 189 ] LE PETIT NORD course, if the local editor lacked humour enough to credit the doctor with such a fairy tale, one could pity the poor soul, but his diatribe has rather the earmarks of jealousy. A lovely sunset is lighting up the sea and sky and hills, and turning the plain little settlement, in the harbour of which we are anchored, into the Never, Never Land. The scene is so be- witching that I find my soul purged by it of the bad taste of the attack. I'll leave you to digest the mixed metaphor undisturbed while I go be- low and help with the patients who have begun pouring aboard. Same evening An old chap has just climbed over the rail, who looks like an early patriarch, but his dignity is impaired by the moth-eaten high silk hat which surmounts his white hair. The people regard him with apparent deference, due either to the hat or his inherent character. Looking at his [ 190 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR fine old face, one is inclined to believe it is the latter. The expressions these people use are so nauti- cal and so apt ! Every patient who comes aboard expressed the wish to be "sounded" in some portion of his or her anatomy for the suspected ailment which has brought him. One burly fish- erman solemnly took off his huge oily sea-boot, placed a grimy forefinger on his heel, and re- marked sententiously that the doctor "must sound him right there." The prescription was soap and water — a diagnosis in which I en- tirely concurred. The next case was a young girl with a "kink in her glutch." It has the sound of all too familiar motor trouble, but was dismissed as psychopathic. I wish that a similarly simple diagnosis accounted for the mysterious ailments of automobiles. My meditations on modern sci- ence were interrupted by an insistent voice pro- claiming that "my head is like to burst abroad." If I were a woman on this coast my temper [ 191 ] LE PETIT NORD would "burst abroad" to see the men — some of them — spitting all over the floors of the cot- tages: disgusting and particularly dangerous in a country where the arch-enemy, tuberculosis, is ever on the watch for victims. But the new era is slowly dawning. Now, instead of hooking "Wel- come Home" into the fireside mat, you find "DoNT Spit" worked in letters of flame. It is the harbinger of the feminist movement in the land. Speaking of the f eiuinist movement makes me think of a woman at Aquaforte Harbour. She deserves a book written about her. In the first place, Elmira had the courage of her convic- tions, and did not marry. Her convictions were that marriage was desirable if you get the right man who can support you properly, and not otherwise. This is generations in advance of the local attitude to the holy estate. She has lived a life of single blessedness to the coast. lii every trouble along her section of the shore it is "rou- [ 192 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR' tine" to send for "Aunt" 'Mira. She has more sense and unselfishness and native wit than you would meet in ten products of civilization. For a year she acted as nurse to the little boy of one of the staff, and never was child better cared for. They once told 'Mira she really must make baby take his bottle. (He had the habit of profoimd slumber at that time.) "Oh! I does, ma'm," 'Mira replied. "If he d walls off, I gives him a scattered jolt." The family took her to England with them, and her remarks on the trains showed where her ancestry lay. When they backed she exclaimed, *'My happy day! We're goin' astern!" She requested to be allowed to "open the port"; and at a certain junction where there was a long delay she asked to go "ashore for a spell." 'That "hell is paved with good intentions'* is no longer a glib phrase to me; it is a convic- tion born of seeing some of the suffering of this CQUutry, The doctor has just been ashore to see I 193 ] LE PETIT NORD a woman with a five-days old baby. No attempt whatever had been made to get her or her bed clean or comfortable. She had developed a vio- lent fever, and the local midwives, with their congenital terror of the use of water — internal or external — had larded the miserable creature over from head to foot with butter, and finished ©ff with a liberal coating of oakum. The doctor said, by the time he had himself scraped and bathed her, put her in a fresh cool bed with a jug of spring water beside her to drink, she looked as if she thought the gates of Paradise had opened. Mails reached us at the Moravian station, and your most welcome letters loomed large on the postal horizon. You ask if I have not found the year long. I will answer by telling you the accepted derivation of the name "Labrador." It comes from the Portuguese, and means "the labourer," because those early voyagers in- tended to send slaves back to His Majesty. [ 104 1 ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR Well-filled time, so the psychologists tell us, is short in passing, and "down North," before you are half into the day's tasks, you look up to find that "the embers of the day are red." You must have guessed, too, that I should not have evinced such contentment during these months if my fellow workers had not been congenial. I shall always remember their devotion, and readi- ness to serve both one another and the people; and I know that the years to come will only deepen my appreciation of what their friendship has meant to me. How glad I was when the winter came, and I was no longer classed as a newcomer! I had heard so much about dog driving that I remem- ber thinking the resultant sensations must be akin to those Elijah experienced in his chariot. But now I have driven with dogs in summer, and that is more than most of the older stagers can boast. In a prosperous little village in the Straits lives the rural dean. He is a devoted and f 195 1 LE PETIT NORD practical example of what a shepherd and bishop of souls can be. There is not a good work for the benefit of his flock — and he is not bound by the conventional and unchristian denomina- tional prejudices — which does not find in him a leader. His interests range from cooperation to a skin-boot industry. But the problem of getting about when you have no Aladdin's carpet is acute. He goes by dog sled and shanks' pony in winter, and used to go by boat and shanks' pony in summer. Then one day he had the inspiration of building a two-wheeled shay, and harnessing in his lusty and idle dog team. Now he drives about at a rate that "Jehu the son of Nimshi would approve," and is independent of winds and weather. Sunday to-morrow. We are running south for the Ragged Islands. If I were not on the hospi- tal ship, and therefore an involuntary example to the people, I would fall into my bunk at night with my clothes on, I am so weary. I 190 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR Ragged Islands Sunday night Just aboard again after Prayers at the little church. It is a quaint and crude little edifice, and the people were so kindly and the service so hearty that one feels "wonderfu* Hfted up." To be sure, during the sermon I was suddenly brought up **all standing" by the amazing statement that the "Harch Hangels go Hup, Hup, Hup." One felt in one's bones that this was a misapprehension. The very earnest clergy- man may have noticed my obvious disagree- ment, for at the close he announced, "We will now sing the 398th hymn " — "Day of Wrath, oh! Day of Mourning, See fulfilled the Prophet's warning. Heaven and earth in ashes burning." This goes off into the blue on the chance of its reaching you before I come myself and share a secret with you; for to-morrow we are due at [ 197 ] LE PETIT NORD the Iron Bound Islands, and there I leave the Northern Light, and end the chapter of my life as a member of the Mission staff. The appropri- ateness of the closing hymn in the little church last night is borne more than ever forcibly in upon me with the chill light of early morning, for I verily feel as though my world were tot- tering about my ears. I am still optimist enough to know that life will hold many experiences which will enrich it, but in my secret heart I cherish the conviction that this year will always stand out as a key- note, and a touchstone by which to judge those which succeed it. My greatest solace in the ache which I feel in taking so long a farewell of a peo- ple and country that I love is that I shall always possess them in memory — a treasure which no one can take from me. As I look back over the quickly speeding year I find that I have forgot- ten those trivial incidents of discomfort which pricked my hurrying feet. All I can recall is the [ 198 ] ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR rugged beauty of the land, the brave and sim- ple people with their hardy manhood and more than generous hospitality, and most of all my little bairns who hold in their tiny hands the future of Le Petit Nord. CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A t ^..y^ AA 000 848 219 2 J