Down to the sea : yarns from the Labrador

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DOWN to The SEA

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A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

Commander Peary and Dr. Grenfell on the deck of the Roosevelt on

the former's return from the Pole

Down to The Sea

YARNS FROM
THE LABRADOR

By

Wilfred r. Grenfell
M.D., C.M.G.

ILLUSTRATED

11' vKs'^'

London: Andrew Melrose

3 York Street, Covent Garden

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Permission is acknowledged to reprint these sketches from
The Century, Putnam's, Leslie's,
The Toronto University Student,
The Congregationalist, The Outlook.

Printed in the United States by J. J. Little & Ives Co.

CONTENTS

I.

UNDER THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

II

II.

'TIS DOGGED AS DOES IT .

36

III.

DANNY'S DELIVERANCE .

66

IV.

THE OPTIMIST ....

78

V.

THE MATE OF THE WILD-

FLOWER

96

VI.

"GUI BONO" ....

112

VII.

QUEER PROBLEMS FOR A MIS-

SIONARY

127

VIII.

EVERY LITTLE HELPS

141

IX.

KINDLY HEARTS ON UNKINDLY

SHORES .....

153

X.

THE SKIPPER'S YARN .

165

XI.

THERE HIS SERVANTS SERVE

HIM

171

XII.

A PHYSICIAN IN THE ARCTIC .

183

XIII.

FRIENDS AND FOES OF THE

LABRADOR ....

201

XIV.

THE CLOSE OF OPEN WATER .

217

255199

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A Distinguished Visitor . . . Opposite Title
The Native Eskimo — Still almost prehistoric in

their customs . . . . . 14
I Have Most Faith in Unwritten Sermons . 34
The Gloomy Faces of Great Beetling Cliffs . 66
Great Masses of Ice Were Day by Day Increas-
ing in Size , . . • . . 70
They Had a Good Six Hundred Pounds to Haul 80
It Was a Veritable Day of Sick Calls . . 1 14
A Labrador Four-in-Hand . . • ,150
The Physician in the Labrador . . .184
A Doctor is Unable to Specialize on this Coast . 1 92
Trusted Friends of the Labrador . . . 208
"Doesn't Look Exactly Like a Pleasure Yacht'* 222

I.

The Northern Lights.

AS a country for summer holidays, Lab-
rador has not yet been taken seriously.
Yet it attracts many scientists who
visit it for its unique opportunities for special
work. In the summer of 1905, Elihu Root,
Secretary of State, came in search of that
absolute rest which is impossible in any coun-
try where telephones and the other appurte-
nances of civilization have intruded.

From several points of view, also, Labrador
affords attractions offered by no other country
so near at hand. The scenery of the southern
coast is modified by the fact that in the glacial
period the ice-cap smoothed and rounded the
mountain peaks, while the cliffs are seldom
five hundred feet in height. In the north,
however, the mountain-tops apparently always
reared their heads above the ice-stream, and

II

« T>OWN to The SEA

for its high cliffs and virgin peaks the coast-
line is unrivaled anywhere in the world. The
fact that the high land runs right out to the
Atlantic seaboard does not prevent its afford-
ing most imposing fiords winding away among
its fastnesses. For the thundering of the rest-
less Atlantic, the grinding masses of the polar
ice, which assail its bulwarks for eight months
out of twelve, and the iron frost of its terrible
winters, have proved to be workmen that even
its adamantine rocks have been unable to with-
stand.

Thus there have been carved out fiords such
as that of Nakvak, which runs inland for
thirty miles. The cliffs on each side rise direct
from the narrow gorge, which is itself only a
mile in width, to an average of about two
thousand feet, the deep blue water affording
anchorage so close in under the cliffs that
one would suppose it bottomless elsewhere.
Though these rocks are the basal rocks of the
earth's skeleton, and are entirely barren of
trees and shrubs — or, indeed, of any fossil
either, — their sternness is mitigated by the
abundant carpet bedding of brilliant-colored
lichens and the numerous small subarctic flora
to be found up to their highest peaks. To the
north of this inlet are still loftier mountains,

The NORTHERN LIGHTS 13

the heights of which have not yet been meas-
ured, and the summits of which have never
yet yielded to the foot of man. A cluster
known as the "F*our Peaks" has been variously
estimated up to six thousand feet in height.

There is no country in the world where the
glories of the aurora borealis can so frequently
be enjoyed. The weird "northern lights,"
called by the Eskimo "the spirits of the dead
at play," are seen dancing in the sky on almost
every clear night. The glorious red morning
light, stealing over these rugged peaks, and
steeping, in blood, as it were, the pinnacles of
the loftiest icebergs in the world, forms a
contrast with the deep blue of the ocean and
the glistening white in a way that will hold
the dullest spellbound. The endless stream of
fantastic icebergs at all times enlivens the
monotony of a boundless ocean.

Though cruising in north Labrador is at
present made difficult by the poor survey of
the coast, it is also made delightful to the
amateur sailor by the countless natural harbors,
never more than a few miles apart, and by
the thousands of outlying islands, which per-
mit almost one-fourth of the coast to be vis-
ited in perfectly smooth water, the great swell
from the Atlantic being shouldered off by the

/

14 DOWN to The SEA

long fringe of them that runs seaward for
twenty or thirty miles.

Clearly written in water-worn boulders on
the mountain-sides of the now slowly rising
land, and by the elevated sea-caves, with their
wave-washed pillows, is the history of how
the Labrador came here. These raise before
the dullest mind visions of a paleocrystic sea
that lapped these shores in the dim ages of
the past. Hanging everywhere on almost im-
perceptible lodging-places on the crests and
ridges of every mountain, the ice-carried errat-
ics forever tempt" one to climb up and try
to dislodge them. But generally one finds they
weigh many tons, and his puny strength can-
not stir them the single inch necessary to send
them crashing down into the valleys below.

Labrador has no towns, no roads, and no
policemen. Scattered along its shores one
meets, during the months of open water, only
the venturous fishing-vessels from the far
South, manned by their wholesome crews, the
stout-hearted vikings of to-day, and, beside
these, the native Eskimo, still almost prehis-
toric in their customs, and themselves alone of
sufficient interest to merit a side-show at all
the recent world's exhibitions. But for the
fact that trade and the gospel have gone hand

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THE NATIVE ESKIMO
Still almost prehistoric in their customs

>': •••

The NORTHERN LIGHTS 15

in hand, this "flavor of the past" would have
been blotted out long ago. Only around the
stations of the brethren of the Moravian
Church are there left any number of this inter-
esting people. The good Moravian brethren
have acted as traders as well as preachers and
teachers. By tabooing liquor and cheap gew-
gaws, by fair dealing, by the inculcation of
simple religion, and by a paternal surveillance
of morals, they have almost prevented any
decrease in the number of their people in the
last fifty years, during which only they have
kept a census. Meanwhile the Eskimo have
everywhere else virtually vanished from the
coast.

This is a tribute to the value of their mis-
sion especially unimpeachable, in view of the
present-day strenuous efforts to prevent loss
of life among children in our crowded cities.

It has not been easy to convey to the Es-
kimo mind the meaning of the Oriental similes
of the Bible. Thus, the Lamb of God had to
be translated kotik, or "young seal." This
animal, with its perfect whiteness as it lies in
its cradle of ice, its gentle, helpless nature,
and its pathetic, innocent eyes, is probably as
apt a substitute, however, as nature offers.
Yet not long ago an elderly lady, who at other

1 6 DOWN to The SEA

times had almost a genius for what savored
of idolatry, sent me in Labrador a box con-
taining a stuffed lamb, "that the Eskimo,"
after all these years, "might learn better."

To the Eskimo mind, everything animate
or inanimate possesses a soul. Thus, in their
graves we foimd they invariably placed every
cherished possession, that their spirits might
serve the departed spirit in the same capaci-
ties in the life to come. There is little room
for burial beneath the scanty earth in Labra-
dor, even if the frost would permit it. So the
grave consists of upright stones, with long,
flat ones laid across. These not only serve to
keep the wolves from the body, but wide
chinks also afford the spirits free passage in
and out.

I have foimd many graves perched upon
some promontory jutting out into the sea, so
that the spirit might be near its hunting-
ground and again take toll from the spirits of
departed seals. In a little cache at the foot of
the grave are generally to be found the rem-
nants of the man's property. Even since Chris-
tianity has come among them, I have seen a
modern rifle and good steel snow-knives rust-
ing in the grave ; and I have found pipes filled
with tobacco, that those who were denied the

The NORTHERN LIGHTS 17

pleasures of its enjoyment while on earth
should at least have a chance given them to
learn its use in the regions beyond the grave.
No Puritanical forecasts of the joys of heaven
trouble the Eskimo mind.

The stone age is only just passing in Labra-
dor. But already the museums of the South
are hungering for these witnesses to man's
humble origin, and the most easily found
graves have been ruthlessly rifled. Indeed, one
man came and complained to me that an ener-
getic collector, of unmentionable nationality,
had positively carried off the bones of his
grandmother! I wished on one occasion to
obtain some specimens of stone kettles, axes,
knives, and other relics from some ancient
graves known to me on a certain island. We
had not time, however, to leave our steamer
to hunt for them. Out of gratitude for ser-
vices rendered to them in my capacity as
"Aniasuit," or "the man that has to do with
pain," some of my little friends readily prom-
ised to seek them for me. They explained,
however, that they should put something into
the grave for each thing they took out. I
referred them to the Moravian station, where
they could purchase, at my expense, things
likely to satisfy the departed spirits, as there

1 8 DOWN to The SEA

was nothing they would have found valuable
in my floating drug store.

Once, when it was the mark of an anarchist
to wear a beard, the German brethren had
brought out a job-lot of razors, forgetful that
nature had been merciful to the Eskimo and
spared them superfluous hair. So the stock
was still available, and I found on my return
my friends had solemnly deposited these in
the caches they had robbed. The idea of the
hoary spirits of their ancestors shaving, in the
night watches, on these awful headlands, with
inferior razors, appealed to us. The Eskimo
have a singular lack of humor.

As patients the main trouble with the
Eskimo is that he has no resisting power for
epidemic diseases, the usual simple infections,
measles, influenza, whooping cough, and still
less against pneumonia, typhoid and small-pox.
On one occasion in the neighborhood of Cape
Mugford soon after the beginning of the season
when the southern fishermen were cruising
from the South — into them came an epidemic
of influenza, and before there was time to do
anything many Eskimos were laid low with
it. In our hospital steamers we spent day
after day picking up the sick ones and carry-
ing them into the station of the Moravians at

The NORTHERN LIGHTS 19

Okkak, where a little hospital had just been
built. Never before had an Eskimo been in a
hospital, and it was very difficult to reconcile
them to the warm, comfortable wards. They
pined for the open air, and each time I went
into the wards I found these strange, dark-
skinned, black-haired patients stark naked with-
out even a sheet over them rolling about, a
most odd contrast to the spotless, snow-white
bedding. In one week thirty-six died — in ten
days, forty-three. Our crew suffered nothing
but a little rise of temperature, though we had
carried these dying men in our own cabins.
We have to be thankful that the germ-laden air
of our towns trains the armies of corpuscles in
our blood by slow stages to fight these invisible
enemies. Never shall I forget the difficulty of
finding ground to bury so many in. No less
than ten had to go into one shallow grave. We
had to tow the coffins heaped up in barges to
the end of the bay to find a last resting-place
for them.

There are in Labrador settlers and half-
breeds who are ever increasing in number,
while their pure-blooded brethren are vanish-
ing away. These, too, are an interesting
people. Among these a large part of
my practice lies. I append a sample invi-

10 DOWN to The SEA

tation to pay a visit to one of them who was
sick. It is an exact copy.

Mr. Docker Greand
Felle Battle Harbor
Labrador.

Please Docker i sen

you this to see if

you call in Sea

bight when you gose

down to see Mr. archbell

Chubbs he in nead

of you.

A letter like this, however, is a compromise
with their own ideas, and to me is the emblem
of a better era. For among my first patients,
thirteen years ago, on a lonely island, was the
father of a budding family. When I called,
he was sitting up on his bed, perspiration from
pain pouring down his face, and the red lines
of a spreading infection running up his arm
from a deep poisoned wound in the hand. I
showed him that his life was at stake, and that
I could painlessly open the deep wound. He
absolutely refused, as he had already sent a
messenger to an old lady up the bay who was
given to "charming." Passing the island

The NORTHERN LIGHTS 21

again before I left next morning, I found he
had not slept since I went away, and the old
lady had not yet arrived. He again refused
the knife. I did not call again at the island
till the following spring, when I was not sur-
prised to find his "tilt" deserted and the roof
fallen in. The old lady had not arrived in
time, and the neighbors, in their generous way,
had shared his children among them.

Having no doctors of their own, they dis-
play no small ingenuity in devising remedies
from the few resources they possess. Natur-
ally, certain persons are looked upon as spe-
cially gifted. The claims of wise women vie
with those of seventh sons, but no reasonable
person would dispute the priority of the sev-
enth son of a seventh son. "Why, bless yer,
worms '11 perish in their open hands." Once,
in stripping a fisherman to examine his chest,
I perceived that he had a string, as of a
scapular, around his neck. Knowing that he
was not a Catholic, I asked him the meaning
of it. "Sure, 't is a toothache-string, sir," he
replied. "Sure, I never had the toothache
sunce I worn un." So another, who on one
occasion I found to be wearing a green ribbon
round his left wrist, told me, "'T is against
the bleedin', sir, if ever I be took."

7^ DOWN to The SEA

There are more feet than shoes in many
families in Labrador, and we are frequently
called upon to amputate legs which have been
frozen. Not only do the children suffer from
this cause, but men and women as well. I
recall a case which proves the unimportance of
creed in religion. The wife of a Roman
Catholic had a leg amputated, and I was called
upon to supply an artificial leg. I had one in
stock, and after I had given it to her I learned
its history. The leg had been made for a
Baptist soldier who lost a limb in the Civil
War. When he died, his wife, who was a
Presb)rterian, kept it for a while and then gave
it to an Episcopal cripple. It worked around
to my mission in a devious way, and I gave it
to the wife of the Roman Catholic.

On one occasion, the burly skipper of a
fishing crew boarded the mission ship, his
head swathed in red flannel, his cheek blis-
tered with liniment, and his face puffed out
like a blue-bag.

"Toothache, Skipper Joe?" I said; "you *11
soon be all right," and I pulled down a
snaky instrument from the row in the chart-
house.

"No, no. Doctor; I wants un charmed."

"But, you know, I don't charm people. Skip-

The NORTHERN LIGHTS 23

per. Nonsense, I tell you! Get out of the
deck-house !"

But he only stood vociferating on the deck,
"No, no, Doctor; 't is only charmin' her
wants."

Time is precious when steam is in the boiler,
so I merely replied, "Sit on that coaming,
and open your mouth."

He waited to see that I had dropped the
forceps, and then followed my directions.
Waving my hands over his head, I touched the
offending molar. His mind seemed greatly
relieved, and he at once proffered twenty-five
cents for the benefit of the mission. Three
months later, on my way south, I saw this
man again. Beaming with smiles, he volun-
teered, "Ne'er an ache nor a pain in 'er since.,
you charmed her, Doctor." While he was
showing me the molar, still in its place, to
confirm his theory, I was wondering what
faith-healing really meant.

On one of my winter journeys with dog
team and komatik, we made a long detour to
see a sick man. A snow-storm overtook us,
and we arrived late at night, thoroughly tired
out, at the rude tilt where our patient lay.
After doing our best for the poor fellow, we
stretched out our sleeping-bags on the floor

24 DOWN to The SEA

preparatory to turning in, as we are in the
habit of doing whenever it is desirable to have
a private apartment. It was customary for
our host's dogs to burrow down through the
snow and sleep under the house. For there
they got shelter and warmth beneath that part
of the floor where the stove stood. Our dogs,
having discovered their burrows, desired to
share their comforts, but they could not get
down to give battle except by crawling down
one at a time. The result was a constant
growling and barking only a few inches from
our heads. Sleep seemed impossible, yet
no one wished the task of digging the dogs
out.

It so happened that my host's seventh son
was at home, and he promptly offered to charm
the dogs into quietude. This he did by stand-
ing with his back to the wall and apparently
twiddling the thumbs of his clasped hands in
some peculiar way. He also muttered a few
words which he would not tell me. For my
part, I was so tired that I went to sleep watch-
ing him, and for me, at least, the charm
worked. My driver also confessed he thought
that it was we who were charmed; for the
seventh son had faded from sight and memory
while still twiddling his thumbs.

The NORTHERN LIGHTS li

Much more rational than these efforts are
some of those in use at sea. The astringent
liquor from the boiled scrapings of the hard-
wood sheave of an old block is no mean rem-
edy when swallowed in quantity; and the
boiled gelatinous skin of a flatfish, covered
with a piece of an oilskin coat, forms a really
rational poultice. "Why, 't will draw yous
head to yous heels, if you puts her in the right
place."

A salt herring, bandaged against the delicate
skin of the throat, has much virtue as a count-
ter-irritant ; but, like most of these humble
remedies, fails in diphtheria, nor saves in the
hour of peril some loved child that skilled aid
might have rescued.

It is often said that there is no law in Lab-
rador, and I have heard men profane enough
to add, "Thank Godl" I do not know that
the facilities for obtaining satisfactory settle-
ments have evolved in proportion to our sense
of justice and the intricacies of our methods
of obtaining it. In the capacity of magistrate,
I was called on once to settle the division of
a property which should have left a small sum
to a needy family. I found the cost of divi-
sion by the usual channels would have left
only a zero to divide. So we appealed to

26 DOWN to The SEA

equity, and forced one another to abide by it.
Only last week a dispute arose about the own-
ership of a certain plot of land. It had been
argued unsuccessfully with high words and
with pike-handles. The weaker party applied
for a summons. So, appointing the plot of
land as the court, and daybreak as the hour,
we settled the question between three disput-
ants in exactly fifteen minutes. This included
the making of landmarks, which I erected my-
self. Moreover, the court was able to be back
over the hills in time for breakfast, with an
excellent appetite and a satisfied mind as his
only judicial fees.

There has been no law promulgated as yet
in Labrador dealing with the infant mortality
and cruelty to children. My first case of this
kind involved insistence on a stepfather's as-
suming the responsibility for a little girl be-
longing to his new wife. Returning three
months later to the same place, I found the
man obdurate and the little girl living in a
house by herself, where he merely allowed
food to be sent to her. There could be no
gain to the community by our deporting the
man to a prison five hundred miles away in
Newfoundland, nor gain to the child by for-
cing so unnatural a person to allow her to

The NORTHERN LIGHTS 27

live with him. So the court decided to add
the little girl to the crew of his steamer, and
steamed away with a new kind of fee. Good,
however, came out of evil, for we have since
ventured on a small orphanage near one of
our hospitals, and I have had the supreme
pleasure of taking to its shelter more than one
delightful little derelict.

We cannot, however, always be Solomons,
and the best-intentioned of decisions may
sometimes be at fault. Thus, on one occasion
a man's cow, feeding on the hillside, was found
dead in the morning. It had obviously been
killed by some one's dogs. As the owner went
up to find the body, he saw two dogs coming
away suspiciously licking their chops. These
belonged to a poor neighbor of his, the guilt
of whose team, I fear, was at no time in doubt.
He expressed the greatest sorrow, and offered
to shoot his dogs. But that would not bring
the cow to life again. So, though he had no
money, we decided that the cow should be cut
in two, each man taking half, the offender to
pay half the value of the cow to the owner,
in money, as soon as he could. By the valua-
tion of the coast, the cow was worth only
twenty dollars. I was alarmed next day to
hear that my steward had bought from the

28 DOWN to The SEA

aggressor six dollars' worth of meat, and that
two other men had bought four dollars' worth,
so that the offender was in pocket and dis-
tinctly encouraged to kill his neighbor's cow
again, especially as his disposition of his half
had left him with a fine meal of fresh beef into
the bargain.

The uncertainty of a fisherman's calling,
and the long winter of forced inaction, when
Jack Frost has our hunting-grounds in his
grip, made the need of some remunerative
winter work as necessary to us as a safety-
valve is to a boiler. We had an excellent belt
of spruce and fir trees at the bottom of our
long bays, and a number of us agreed to co-
operate in a lumber-mill, that thus men might
be helped to help themselves, rather than be
forced to accept doles of free flour and mo-
lasses, and at the same time be robbed of their
self-respect. So we purchased a boiler, engine,
and saw-table, and the skipper of our coop-
ei'ative vessel volunteered to bring these
weighty impedimenta on his deck from St.
John's. I myself was away in the North,
beyond the reach of mails, when it suddenly
occurred to me that the boiler weighed over
three tons, and we had not chosen a spot or
built a wharf on which to land it. We had

^v

The NORTHERN LIGHTS 29

merely applied for an area on which to con-
duct operations.

But the genius of the sailor saved the situa-
tion. For the skipper had found a spot where
he could warp his vessel alongside the rocks.
He had then cut down some trees, which he
had used as skids, and improvising a derrick
out of his main and mizzen halyards, he had
safely slipped the boiler to the beach. Others
had dragged it up on another set of skids,
and had built over it a massive mill-house,
kneed like a capsized schooner, and calculated
at a pinch to resist a bombardment. True, we
had to bring fresh water a mile and a quarter
without pipes, but they had sawed wood
enough for this, dammed the river, and car-
ried the troughs on eighteen- foot stakes; and
now for several years the mill has been run-
ning successfully. We had to learn our trade,
and it has cost us much unevenly sawed board-
ing and at least four fingers, but, beyond that,
no serious accidents ; and a little winter village
has sprung up about this source of work, with
a school and a mission room, and we can
afford to pay for logs enough to give a win-
ter's diet to one hundred separate families.
We have built schooners at the mill, besides
other boats, and a lot of building. I am not

30 DOWN to The SEA

sure in my own mind which does more to
mitigate the many evils that follow in the
wake of semi-starvation, our pills or our
mill.

The economic conditions of all places largely
cut off from communication are, I presume,
hampered by the fact that the supplying of
the necessaries of life falls into the hands
of a monopoly; so that it often happens that
the poorer the people are, the higher the prices
they have to pay. It is the more galling to
those who wish to preach a gospel of help
when they discover that these same poor peo-
ple find it difficult to get market value for their
produce.

Here is an illustration of the cash value of
independence which I took the other day from
the lips of as fine a toiler of the sea as ever
trod a quarter-deck. The man has three sons
grown up enough to help him in the fishery.
After long years as a poor hook-and-line fish-
erman, living from hand to mouth, the boys
made enough money to induce a kindly mer-
chant to build them a schooner on credit. The
schooner, named the Olinda, cost, ready for
sea, with "the bit of food aboard," as she left
the narrows of their harbor for the fishery,
exactly eighteen hundred dollars. "And us

The NORTHERN LIGHTS 31

didn't know where us was ever goin* to see
it from; and us had three sharemen with us.
But us come back, sir, in three months, and
sold our catch for twenty-three hundred dol-
lars; so that us had enough to pay our three
sharemen, and pay for the schooner, and have
one hundred dollars coming to us. Us still
had time to go down North again and fetch
the freighters us had carried down, and to
catch another hundred quintals of fish. The
second trip brought us in seven hundred and
forty dollars. And now," he said triumph-
antly, "us is independent, and can buy our bit
anywhere us likes ; so it will come cheaper, you
see, Doctor." It stands to reason every man
cannot shake off quite so easily the shackles
which bind him to a particular trader.

It was to help others to do what this man
was able to do for himself that thirteen years
ago we started a series of small cooperative
stores. In many cases these have had the ef-
fect that we desired.

The reality of a spiritual world is no stum-
bling-block to our people, and indeed all are
more or less superstitious as to its relations
to the world we now inhabit. Four winters
ago an excellent trapper, Joe Michelin, living
about twenty-five miles up the magnificent

32 DOWN to The SEA

river on which the Grand Falls of Labrador
are situated, was in much trouble. His chil-
dren informed him that they had seen a weird,
large, hairy man crossing the little bit of open
country between the alders on the river-bank
and a drogtce of woods on the other side of
his house. A practical-minded man, he put no
credence in the story until one day they ran
in and told him it had just crossed the open,
and they had seen it waving its hands at them
from the willows. Rifle in hand, he went out,
and to his intense surprise found fresh,
strange tracks in the direction in which the
children had told him the creature had gone.
These marks sank into the ground at least six
inches, where the horses that work at the
mill would only have sunk two inches. The
mark of the hoof was distinctly cloven, and
the strides were at times no less than eight
feet apart.

Knowing that he would not be credited if
he told this story even to his nearest neigh-
bor, who lived some miles away, he boarded
over some of the tracks to preserve them from
the weather. At night-time his dogs would
often be growling and uneasy, and several
times he found they had all been driven into
the river during the night. He himself heard

The NORTHERN LIGHTS 33

the monster walking around the house in the
dark, and twice distinctly heard it tapping on
the down-stairs shutter. He and his family
were so thoroughly frightened that they al-
ways slept in the top loft of their house, with
loaded revolvers and rifles beside them.

The tracks became more numerous as the
spring opened, and one day his boy of four-
teen told him that he, too, had seen the crea-
ture vanishing into the trees. A French-
Canadian trapper, hearing of his trouble, came
over to see the tracks, and was so impressed
that he hauled over four bear-traps and set
them in the paths. Michelin himself would
sit day after day at the window, his repeating-
rifle in his hand, and not leaving his position
even for meals, on the off chance of a shot at
his unearthly visitor. The chief wood-ranger
from the big mill told me he had seen the
tracks but what to say of them he did not
know. No new tracks appeared for some
weeks, however, and Michelin quite recovered
his equanimity.

The insistence on dogma has found little
place on the program of the workers of our
Labrador Mission. Our efforts to interpret
the message we would convey are aimed rath-
er in the direction of endeavoring to do for

34 DOWN to The SEA

our fellow-men on this coast, in every relation
of life, those things which we should like them
to do for us in similar circumstances.

As I sit writing in the chart-house, I can
read across the front of the little hospital off
which we are anchored the words of a text
thirty-six feet long. It was carved in solid
wood by a boys' class in Boston. It reads:
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the
least of these my brethren, ye have done it
unto me."

I have most faith in unwritten sermons.
Still, the essential elements of our faith are
preached orally at times by all of us. And
in this relation it has been my good fortune
at times to have a cook or a deckhand equally
able with myself to gather a crowd on a Sun-
day morning to seek God's blessing on these
barren rocks. We can also believe that the
noble amphitheaters that these mighty cliffs
afford us are as likely to prove "Bethels" as
were ever the more stately erections of the
genius of man. I have seen new men made
out of old ones on this very coast, new hopes
engendered in the wrecks of humanity. So that
once, when whispering into the ear of a dying
man on board a tiny schooner, and asking him
if the years since the change took place in him

1;4 -tf*

^m" 1

iK t

w>

1

The NORTHERN LIGHTS 35

had been testified to by his Hfe, in the most
natural way in the world he was able to an-
swer, "I wish you'd ask my skipper, Doctor."
We have seen in our tiny hospitals the blind
made to see, the lame made to walk, and the
weak and fearful strengthened to face the
Valley of the Shadow of Death. But the ob-
ject of the Labrador Mission is to help men
to live, and not to die; and so to live as not
merely to cumber this earth for a few more
years, but to live as worthier sons of that
great Father whose face we all expect one day
to see.

11.

" Tts Dogged As Does ///'

THE good fore-and-aft schooner Rip-
pling Wave had made a most success-
ful run to her market, which happened
this year to be in the Mediterranean. The fact
that she had not left the Labrador coast till
late in October was no fault of hers or the
skipper's; for if there was one ocean-going
skipper on the coast known to be more of a
"snapper" than the rest, that man was Elijah
Anderson. When the fish-planter saw Old
'Lige clewing down his hatches, and trimming
the Rippling Wave for the "tri-across," he felt
satisfied that if his catch lost in value by being
late, it would not be the fault of a craft whose
record "couldn't be beat," or of a master who
was afraid to drive her. If all the tales were
true, Old 'Lige had been known to clap on his
topsails when other men were lacing their
reef-earrings, and so he would give them the

36

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 37

"go-by." Many a time, by pressing her, he
had got clear of one of those cyclonic storms
which are the bane of the "roaring forties" in
the late fall of the year.

But this year easterly winds and the foggy
blanket they fling over the coast had hidden
the sunshine that the fishermen need to dry
their catches of fish, and 'Lige had been
jammed in and kept waiting for his load, long
after he had hoped to be under the sunny skies
of the Mediterranean.

But to the Rippling Wave, as to everything
else that waits, the great day had come at last.
The cargo was all stowed — hatches sealed
down — moorings cast off — the parting jolli-
fications held. She had not even to delay for
a tow through the narrow gulch between two
islands that had served her for a harbor, in
order to wait in the roadstead for a wind that
would give her slant enough to clear the off-
lying shoals and reefs before dark. A spank-
ing nor'wester had sprung up just as Old
Tige was ready, and, with flags flying and
farewell guns banging, she had cleared with a
leading wind through the narrow eastern
tickle and was hull down long before dark,
leaving good sea-room between her and the
outermost shoals.

38 DOWN to The SEA

Day after day, without exception, the wind
held abaft the beam, and the miles rolled off
like water from a duck's back. Had she been
contesting an ocean race instead of carrying a
cargo of dry cod, her record would have vied
with that of the sauciest racing-machine that
has ever attempted the passage from Sandy
Hook to the Lizard.

When in due time she hove to under the
rock of Gibraltar for orders, her log showed
an average of nearly ten knots an hour all
through — and she had passed the 300-miles
limit in one twenty-four hours, which would
have shown a clean pair of heels to the aver-
age tramp-steamer.

Ordered to Patras in Greece, she again
eclipsed even her own record. She had out-
distanced several rivals who started before her
from Labrador, and had "caught the market
on the hop" — i c, fish was scarce and there-
fore in such demand that her cargo fetched
splendid prices.

When at last she started on the return jour-
ney to her Newfoundland home, after calling
at Cadiz for a cargo of salt, no lighter-hearted,
happier bunch of men ever trod a good ship's
deck. To most of us, in these degenerate days
of luxurious floating cities, the prospect of a

*Tis DOGGED as DOES It 39

passage out across the Western Ocean in the
month of December, in a 99-ton schooner,
would not be dangerously exhilarating. But
the viking stock is preserved in the North
lands still, and these men were all Newfound-
land fishermen, with the genius for the sea in-
born, with minds and bodies inured from child-
hood to every mood and whim of the mysteri-
ous deep; even their baby hands had been
taught to hold a tiller and to pull an oar. On
the dangerous banks they had served their ap-
prenticeship, till they had learned to fear the
perils that beset them no more than we land-
lubbers fear the dangers of our modern streets.
Their finishing course had been in butting into
the everlasting ice-floes from the Polar Sea in
search of seals, and running home a loaded
schooner among the endless reefs of the un-
charted, fog-ridden, ice-frequented coast of
Labrador. They graduated when, adrift in a
dory in thick fog in open ocean, without food
or water, they had run for days, "Westward
ho!" for the land, some one hundred and fifty
miles under their lee; or had wandered in
darkness over loose ice astray from their ves-
sels, away out seal-hunting on the Atlantic, till
half-frozen and half-stupefied they had been
picked up, only to return cheerfully to the

40 DOWN to The SEA

same work again, as soon as they were thawed
out.

So when once again the Rippling Wave
dropped the tug and braved the rollers of the
wintry ocean, the fact that it was the first day
of December didn't cause them even to look
at the weather glass, or think of anything but
the stories they would be telling of their great
good fortune alongside their own firesides by
Christmas Day.

But man proposes and God disposes, and
there was that in the womb of the future
for the crew of the Rippling Wave which
at that time they little reckoned of. There
were lessons to be learned that will have
served some of them well when they come to
pass the last bar, and "meet their Pilot face
to face" on the shore of the great ocean
of Eternity.

It is always harder to get to the westward
in the North Atlantic than to "run east," for
the prevailing winds are ever from southwest
to west and northwest. But the Rippling
Wave was a weatherly vessel, and the fact that
by the middle of the month they were only
in 40 west longitude and 40 north latitude did
not distress her skipper — though if he would
make sure now of being at home by Christ-

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 41

mas Day, he could not afford to ease the ship
down for a trifle.

The third Friday was a dirty day. The
barometer was unaccountably low, and the
heavy head sea made pressing even the Rip-
pling Wan/e to windward in the dark some-
what dangerous to the hands on deck, owing
to the low freeboard that their heavy cargo of
salt allowed them. Old 'Lige was in a gen-
erous mood — the success of the voyage had
made him more soft-hearted over such details
than these men of the sea are apt to be ; and,
anyhow, Friday is not an auspicious day to
take chances. As the Mate went on deck for
the night watch, even though an occasional
star did show up in the heavens, the Skipper
remarked half apologetically to him as he was
putting on his oilskins, "You can heave her to
till daylight, Jim, if you thinks well."

After one or two seas, more curly than
usual, had rolled on deck, Jim did "think
well," and till midnight the hands below en-
joyed the leisurely motion that these handy
vessels assume when jogging "head to it" in a
long sea.

Skipper 'Lige had just turned in, and was
peacefully enjoying his well-earned beauty
sleep, when he felt something touch him on

42 DOWN to The SEA

the arm, from which his relaxed grip had but
just dropped his favorite pipe on the locker.
He started up, to find a figure in dripping oil-
skins bending over him.

As soon as he grasped the fact that he was
back in the world of realities, he realized that
the Mate wanted him on deck to give an
opinion as to a strange darkness that seemed
to be crossing the ship's path low down over
the water. Half a second was enough for
him to get his head out of the hatchway, fol-
lowing the Mate who had scurried up before
him, and his experience at once told him the
truth. "Jump for your life, Jim!" he yelled;
"it's a water-spout." The two men had
hardly time to fall in a heap down the com-
panion ladder, when something struck the
good ship like a mighty explosion.

Over she went — shook — ^trembled — rose
again; and then up — up — up went the cabin
floor, both men being hurled against the for-
ward bulkhead, which temporarily assumed the
position the floor had occupied the moment be-
fore. The Rippling Wcwe was standing liter-
ally on her head, and it was a question which
way she would come down.

But there wasn't time to get anxious about
it. Another mighty heave or two, a sudden

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 43

sickening feeling, and the two men were roll-
ing about in the water on the cabin floor. But
the ship was evidently the right way up. "On
deck !" roared the Captain, and both men were
up in time to know that the crew, who had
been literally drowned out for'ard, were also
scrambling aft in the darkness to learn what
to do next. All lights were out, and every-
thing was awash, for the scuppers could
scarcely drain off the water quick enough to
clear the waterlogged ship of the seas that
rolled over her counter, as she wallowed broad-
side to it in the trough of the sea.

Knowledge, to be of any value, must be in-
tuitive on these occasions. Instinctively the
Captain had rushed to the tiller. The lanyards
had broken adrift, and the helm was appar-
ently hard up. Frantically the Skipper tried
to force it over to get the ship's head, if pos-
sible, to the sea. Alas! the rudder was un-
shipped and fast jammed. The lower gud-
geon was off the pintail, and the trusty Rip-
pling Wave found herself free to put her head
in just whatever direction she liked best.

Somehow, it seemed that she was endowed
with sense, and that she meant to stand by her
Skipper. For hazily, but surely, she rounded
up in time to prevent herself from filling. The

44 DOWN to The SEA

men, meanwhile, had seized the axes, and, al-
most before 'Lige Anderson had issued his or-
ders, they had ventured for'ard again, to try
and clear away the wreckage.

They soon realized that virtually everything
for'ard had gone by the board; for the solid
spout water had hit the foremast about half
way up, and had then broken, falling in count-
less tons on the devoted deck. For'ard of the
middle line nothing was left. The mast,
boom, gaff and sails were missing, with rig-
ging, ropes and everything attached. The
bowsprit, jibboom, winch and paulbitts,
anchors, chains, fore-companion, fore-hatch
and galley were nowhere to be seen. The
decks were torn open so widely that one man
fell through to his thigh between two strips
of planking. Much of the bulwarks and
stanchions were gone, as were also both the
life-boats and jolly-boat, and every drop of
water that came aboard poured into the hull,
threatening to engulf the ship in a few min-
utes. Probably what saved her was the fact
that some of the torn remnants of canvas were
still on deck, or rather in it, for the last of
the fore-staysail was so hard driven through
the open seams above the foc'sle, that the men
were unable to start a rag of it, much as they

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 45

needed it to cover up some of the other yawn-
ing gaps.

With the dog-gedness that characterizes such
men, they had succeeded before dayHght in
getting out of the waterlogged cabins some
nails and spare canvas, and with these they
had covered over every large opening. Be-
low the water line the almost solid-timbered
vessel was still apparently sound, though the
stump of the foremast was unstepped, with the
result that its foot, rolling round in the deck
gammon, was so thumping the bilge inside
that it threatened every moment to smash
through the sides. There was enough left of
it, however, above decks, to make it valuable
for a "jury-mast," and the Mate with two
volunteers climbed down into the hold and
succeeded in jamming it into an upright posi-
tion.

In that dark, rolling box, soaked through
with the water swashing about in it, not know-
ing but that at any moment they might go
down like rats in a barrel, their task required
no ordinary skill and courage. But they man-
aged to accomplish it, fixing the foot of the
mast in place with wooden stays captured
from the broken rails. The rest of the crew
stood to the pumps. Daylight, struggling

46 DOWN to The SEA

through the murky sky, revealed a situation
that looked hopeless enough.

For forty-eight hours every man was at
work helping to jettison the salt and every
other available ounce of weight that could be
dispensed with, or taking his trick at the
pumps, under the stem eye and unflinching
example of Skipper 'Lige.

Hour after hour, without a wink of sleep
or any refreshment but pieces of hard biscuit
that once had been dry, they fought on with
sullen strength and energy.

When the galley went, every pot, pan and
cooking utensil had gone by the board with
it. Not a bite of food could be cooked, nor
a sup of drink be heated. There was one
thing, however, that these men brought to
their aid. Like most Newfoundland fisher-
men, they were praying men. They knew
that praying at such a time is no substitute for
work, but they knew also that attitude counts
for nothing in the sight of the Almighty, and
not one of them had forgotten to "call upon
the Lord in their trouble, that He would de-
liver them out of their distress."

But at last the instinct of self-preservation
began to lose its energy, as there came time
to think, and they began to realize the appar-

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 47

ent futility of continuing the unequal strug-
gle.

It must be remembered that it was the dead
of winter. They were in the middle of the
North Atlantic. The water was bitterly cold,
and they were bruised, wet and exhausted.
They were, too, far out of the winter route
of trans-Atlantic liners. The chance of be-
ing picked up seemed infinitesimal, and it
was obvious that with no boat left it was
impossible to escape from the wreck. Small
wonder that faith and hope began at last to
fail!

But all hands worked on incessantly at the
pumps, and at the cargo. Hour after hour,
watch relieved watch, and the clank, clank,
clank of the pumps, that alone broke the mon-
otony of silence, was almost enough to drive
men mad.

They were apparently making no headway
in raising the ship out of the water. They
were merely keeping her afloat. But if 'Lige
Anderson were to abandon hope it meant
abandoning himself, and he was still sane. In
the hours between the spells of the pumping,
which he shared with his men — hours which
he ought to have devoted to rest, — the Skipper
had by no means been idle, and he was now

48 DOWN to The SEA

able to hearten the rest with three discoveries
he had made.

First, the after half of the ship was abso-
lutely sound; so were her mainmast and sails.
Moreover, he had been able to rig a "jury"-
rudder, which more or less guided the ship.
He had set to work with these as a basis to
rig a jury-foremast that would carry a small
sail. He had dried out the after cabin, and
fortified and caulked as far as possible the
fore bulkhead, to give a water-tight division
from the hold. In this it was possible to get
some rest.

Secondly, he had found his logbook and
sextant, and though the latter proved useless
owing to the sun being continually invisible,
it certainly was a source of hope. The last
entry in the logbook on the day before the ac-
cident led him to the conclusion that he was
about fifty miles south of the track of the
ocean liners.

Thirdly, from his almanac he found that
there was still a forlorn chance that some
steamers might still be running by the north-
em route.

It was difficult to make sure which way the
wreck was really moving. But he could now
keep her heading somehow to the west'ard,

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 49

and it was possible that she might still be
worked to a position where they could expect
to be sighted if such was the case. A more
trivial discovery, but one that counted not a
little in the hearts of his Newfoundland crew,
was an old tin paintpot, with a sound bottom.
This Captain 'Lige had managed to clean up,
and over the tiny stove in his cabin he had
been able to brew enough hot tea to serve out
a drink all round. These facts he now thought
good to announce to the crew ; and, heartened
by the warm tea, they stood to the pumps
again, as night came on, with fresh faith and
energy. Slowly they edged, and worked, and
drifted, as they hoped, northwards! If only
they could make a hundred miles of northing
their lives might yet be spared.

A week had now gone by since the accident,
and a settled gloom, close akin to despair, had
settled upon the men. As is often the case,
however, just in the nick of time a thing hap-
pened which, trivial as it may seem to us,
meant very much to them. The sun for the
first time suddenly shot out thro' the drift
about mid-day, and the Skipper was able to
get his bearings and tell them that, though
they were farther to the westward, they had

so DOWN to The SEA

made at least thirty miles to the nor'ard also.
Moreover, he was wise enough, seeing that
they were rather more than holding their own,
to tell off one man from each watch to keep a
look-out from the mainmast head. Though
nothing was seen to encourage them, yet the
fact that the Skipper believed it was now
likely that they would sight something, acted
as a fresh charm, and for yet another four
days the clank, clank, clank of the pumps
maintained its even tenor.

The salt was now all out of the boat, and
this halved the time that each man had to
work pumping. But as day after day passed
and no sail was seen, and the ship ceaselessly
battled with the angry waters running be-
tween a northwest and southwest gale, flesh
and blood began to give way; nerve and
muscle had been strained to the breaking
point.

By the fifteenth morning all faith in the pos-
sibility of salvation had so departed from
some of the men, that they formally proposed
to give up striving, and that all hands should
go to the bottom together. Skipper 'Lige was
at his wits' end. Violence was out of the
question. No man aboard would have minded
even death at his hands. His only subterfuge

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 51

was in continually pointing- his sextant at the
lowering clouds, in inscribing endless succes-
sions of figures in his book, and at last in an-
nouncing that he had discovered they had
reached their desired goal. Having called
them together, he pointed out to them on his
well-thumbed chart, that they now lay exactly
on the 49th parallel of 'latitude. A great cross
that he had made on it signified the, position
of the ship. Exactly through this point ran
many lines stretching from the Fastnet to
New York, intersecting in his picture the spot
that represented the ship. "Them there lines,"
he announced, "be the tracks o' them big
steamers. They always races across, and this
be the shortest way for 'em to go."

It would not have required much acumen
on the part of the audience to detect the fact
that the lines on the paper were not as old
as the discourse suggested. But men in the
condition of these poor fellows are not in-
clined to be critical. All that was required
of them was to move a handle up and down,
and the Skipper had staked his all on their not
questioning what he told them. They scanned
his face narrowly, and saw that he seemed so
hopeful that once again the poor fellows re-
turned to their duty at the pumps. "Now we

52 DOWN to The SEA

be in the track of steamers, boys," the Skipper
said, "us'll wait right here, sink or swim.
Let's keep at it so long as us can stand. They
sha'n't call us cowards anyhow." In all this
the Mate bravely backed him up. And so
again, though the response was feebler than
before, the clank, clank, clank of the pumps
kept on, as the plucky fellows doggedly set
their hands to the work.

The morning of the seventeenth day broke
with a clear horizon under an oily, sullen sky.
The remnant of a ship still tossed up and
down, up and down, on the troubled waters.
Forward the Rippling Wave looked now only
like a bunch of weather-beaten boards. Hour
by hour, the weary clank of the pumps alone
announced that there was any life aboard,
and that she was more than a mere derelict
on that dreary expanse of waters. Though
dispirited and half dead, not one man yet
gave in. Now and again one could no longer
stand to do his work, yet as soon as he had
rested, the faith of the others roused him to
action, and he struggled back, even if it were
only to fall down at his place at the handles.

It was just ID A. M. when the watch at the
masthead called the Skipper. "Smoke on the
horizon to the east-northeast," he shouted. So

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 53

far gone were some of the men that they
took no notice of the announcement; even if
they heard, it seemed too wonderful to be
true. But in two seconds the Skipper was
aloft by the side of the watch, and shouting
"Steamer coming, boys; keep her going!"

Little by little the cloud, at first no larger
than a man's hand, grew bigger and bigger,
till the hull of a vessel was visible like a tiny
speck beneath it. There was no need now
to cheer on the men. The watch below was
turned out to "wear" the ship, that they might,
as far as possible, drive across the head of
the approaching vessel. The improvised flags,
long ago made ready out of bed clothing, were
hoisted to the tops, and a pile of matchwood
was prepared in a tar barrel on deck to make
a good smoke.

The excitement on board can better be im-
agined than described. But though their
eyes were strained to the utmost, they could
not make out that the stranger got the least
bit nearer, and it wasn't long before 'Lige
realized that no help could be expected from
that quarter. For the speck grew no larger,
and eventually disappeared again behind the
wilderness of waters.

The reaction was proportionate to the ex-

54 DOWN to The SEA

hilaration, and an awful despondency fell
upon all hands when their hope of safety had
again sunk out of sight.

The Skipper's resourcefulness was not ex-
hausted, however, and he spoke to the crew
as if he were in the greatest spirits. "You
see we'll be all right riow, boys," he said. "Our
reckoning be just as I told you. Us'll work
a mile or two more to the rior'ard, and be
home by the New Year if we aren't by Christ-
mas." He took care to emphasize his faith
by serving out an extra and earlier dinner,
so that, in spite of themselves, not a man
slackened at the pumps, and the everlasting
clank droned monotonously on.

The afternoon was wearing away, when
suddenly once again the eagle eye at the mast-
head spied smoke. This time it was in the
western sky and 'Lige took a bigger risk.
Twice as much inside planking as before was
torn from the sides of the hold to enlarge
the bonfire. So big grew the pile that it could
scarcely be kindled without endangering the
vessel. As the speck grew bigger, hope grew
proportionately large, and without any word
from the Skipper, the pulse rate of the pump
reached a fever speed. Closer and closer came
the stranger. It seemed impossible that she

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 55

should pass now without seeing them. Evi-
dently she was a small cargo tramp in bal-
last, and no doubt lightly manned. She was
now almost abeam, but still she showed no
signs of recognition. Possibly the only man
on watch was in the wheelhouse, there being
apparently no reason for a special watch. Or
possibly the outlook man was smoking his
pipe under some shelter from the weather.
'Lige, through his glasses, had long ago
learned that there was no one on the upper
bridge. That she was an endless time ap-
proaching seemed to him their best chance of
being seen. For surely some one would be
on deck to sight them before it was too late.
But she passed them by like a phantom ship
with a crew of dead men on board; and to
this day no one on board knows why.

It was getting dark, and the wind was ris-
ing again, with a sea making from the nor'-
west. The dumb despair that had all along
been a kind of opiate, allaying any fear of
death, had been rudely removed by the awak-
ened thoughts of home, rest and safety, and
by the apparent certainty of at last being res-
cued. The suspense as the steamer passed
by had made the enfeebled men conscious
of the bitterness of death, and aroused in

S6 DOWN to The SEA

them an emotion that was perilously near to
fear.

There could be no disguising the fact that
the end was very near at hand. The mere
pretense of work that they were now able to
make was at last permitting the water to gain
on the pumps; and finally the relief watch
failed to stand to their work. No one was in
a mood for speaking now. The Skipper him-
self silently strode to one of the handles the
men had dropped, and commenced mechani-
cally to heave it up and down.

Only a minute, however, did he labor alone.
Without breaking the silence, the gallant Mate,
whose turn it was to rest, placed himself at
the other handle again, and the play at "pump-
ing the ship" went on. There seemed to be
no hope. The night promised to be their last
on earth. But they were men, and they would
at least die fighting, for no man can tell what
may be wrested from the fates by a dauntless
faith.

The horizon had already faded into the
lowering sky overhead, and before the sun
rose again, the long-drawn agony would be
over, and the bitterness of death passed.

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 57

But it was not to be. Suddenly a loud cry
from forward for the last time stopped the
pumps. Sure enough, there was a bright light
away to the eastward, now and again bobbing
up over the waters. It has always seemed
right to Skipper 'Lige that their salvation
should have come out of the East. In his own
mind, so he says, he hadn't the slightest doubt,
then, that all would be well.

It was plain to him that the usefulness of
the pumps was at an end, and that his last
move in the game of life must now be played.
He was always known as a silent man, but on
this occasion a corpse would have heard him.
The half-dead crew were on their legs in less
time than it takes to write it. He had himself
but recently come down from the mainmast-
head, where he had been fixing fast to the
crosstrees a barrel full of combustibles. Now,
forcing an unlighted flare into the hands of
the Mate, "To the masthead," he roared, "and
light up when I do! Up the foremast!" he
screamed into the ear of his third hand, above
the roaring of the wind and sea, "and take this
old can o' tar with yen" For'ard and aft he
led the rest with their axes. All were work-
ing like madmen, with a strength that was
like the final flare-up of a flickering lamp. Soon

^^

58 DOWN to The SEA

large pieces of wood had been torn off from
the hatches, lockers, rails, bulwarks, and even
the decking. They hacked it from anywhere,
so long only as the pile on deck should grow
in size. But even as they worked the water
was steadily increasing in the hold, and every
man was conscious that the Rippling Wave
was sinking under them.

Sometimes — it seemed for ages — the ap-
proaching light disappeared from view; yet
the axes kept going, and the pile of wood
steadily grew. To restrain the crew from
setting fire to it during these apparently in-
terminable intervals required a nerve on the
part of the Skipper that they themselves no
longer possessed. But even at that moment,
with death standing at their very side, they
were held to an absolute obedience. Their rev-
erence for their indomitable Captain had long
since grown into a superstitious fear. As it
was, the sound of axe and lever, as once on the
walls of ancient Rome, alone broke the death-
like silence every man maintained.

Suddenly, without a moment's warning, a
huge black mass rose up out of the water,
towering far overhead like some fabulous
monster of the sea. The right moment had
arrived. So 'Lige Anderson fired his last

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 59

shot, and lit his flare. In an instant the ves-
sel was ablaze. Fore and aft, aloft, and on
the water-line, the ship seemed one roaring
mass of flames, which shot high into the
heavens above her each time the waterlogged
hull rolled heavily to windward. A moment
later a brilliant search-light still further blind-
ed the men on her deck, and afforded the
pleasure-seekers who were crowding to the
rail of that floating palace ( for it proved to be
a steamer on a trip round the world) such a
scene as in their lives they are never likely
to look on again. It was a scene well able
to bear all the light that could be thrown upon
it. For these fishermen had fought a fight
worthy of the traditions of the best days of
viking seamanship.

The huge steamer turned to wind'ard and
stopped short close to them. A loud voice
called through a megaphone, "Can you hold
on till morning?" There was no hesitation
in giving, and no possibility of doubting, the
answer. So close were the vessels that every
man heard the question, and every throat
shouted back the same answer as from one
man, **No, we are sinking!" The swash of
the fast-gaining water, surging loudly to and
fro in the hold, lent emphasis to the reply.

6o DOWN to The SEA

Only the voice of Skipper *Lige once more
broke the silence. "We are played out; we
can't last till daylight."

Words are poor things at best, but the
words that came back this time thrilled them
all as words had never thrilled before. "Then
stand by; we'll try for you now." The Cap-
tain on the bridge had no need to ask for vol-
unteers, though the night was black as pitch
by now, and the danger of launching a boat
in that rolling sea was a terrible one indeed.

The steamer was a German liner from
Hamburg. The perishing men were only com-
mon British fishermen. But there is a touch
of nature that makes the whole world kin,
and the gold-laced Captain bore a true sailor's
heart beneath his dapper uniform. Had he
listened to the dictates of his own emotions,
he would himself have been the first man in
the boat. In spite of his brilliant searchlight,
the wreck to him looked but the after half of
a vessel, as if a ship had been cut in two. Pride
in the sheer brotherhood of the sea, that there
still lived men that could do the things these
men had done, almost led him to throw dis-
cretion to the winds, and share in person the
welcome danger of the rescue.

But wiser counsels prevailed, and the well-

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 6i

trained life-saving crew that such vessels al-
ways carry had already arranged themselves
in position by the side of the steel life-boat.

There was no lack of skill, no undue haste,
no shortage of tackle. But long ere the boat
had reached the water, a heavy sea had swung
her into the iron wall of the ship's side and
smashed her to fragments. Those on the
wreck had witnessed the attempt, and also
the failure, and the ominous swash of the wa-
ter in the hold seemed louder and more threat-
ening than a few minutes ago. Faster the
water gained on them as deeper the wreck
wallowed in the seas; yet to man the pumps
now was not even thought of. The last die
had been cast, and, without making any con-
scious resolution, they simply stood by to
watch the issue.

The big ship had forged ahead. By the
time she had regained her position, a wooden
life-boat was already on its way down from
the davits with the men in it. Close to wind-
ward of the wreck the Captain manoeuvered the
steamer to shorten the distance to row, if by
any means he could get a boat launched and
safely away. Again every movement was vis-
ible from the Rippling Wave. The life-boat
reached the water. The port oars were out,

62 DOWN to The SEA

but before the forward tackle was free, a great
sea drove her into the vesseFs side again. The
rescuing party were themselves with difficulty-
rescued, and their boat was a bundle of match-
wood.

All eyes were fixed on the steamer. Could
it be possible that they would be discouraged
and give up? Even Skipper 'Lige expected
to be hailed again, and warned that he nrnst
keep afloat till daylight. But the men on the
liner were real sailors, and not the faintest
idea of abandoning the attempt ever entered
their heads. At sea, a thing to be done must
be done — and that is the end of it. Cost is a
factor that a sailor's mind doesn't trouble
itself about, so long as material remains. Anx-
iety about what loss may be involved is a thing
to be left for the minds of landsmen, and
harries Jack less than it does a Wall Street
milHonaire.

The only question with the Captain was,
which boat next; as if it were a simple ques-
tion of which tool would best serve to com-
plete a job that had to be done. A light, col-
lapsible life-boat seemed to promise most.
While the ship was again getting into posi-
tion, this was made ready. The men took their
places in her and were almost literally dropped

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 63

over the side, as the monstrous ship lurched
heavily to wind'ard. There was just one mo-
ment of doubt, and then arms and shoulders
that knew no denial shot their frail craft clear
of the ponderous iron wall. Scarcely a mo-
ment too soon did they reach the Rippling
IVofue. Her decks were little better than
awash, when Skipper 'Lige, the last man to
leave, tumbled over the rail into the life-boat.
Even his dog had preceded him.

Nor was the wreck left to be a possible
water-logged derelict, to the danger of other
ships. What was left of the kerosene oil was
poured over her as a parting unction and then
fired. Before the last man was safe aboard
the steamer, however, the Rippling Wave,
mantled like Elijah's chariot in "flames of
fire," had paid her last tribute to the powers
she had so long successfully withstood.

A line fastened to a keg having been thrown
over from the steamer's side, was picked up
without approaching too near. With that ab-
sence of hurry that characterizes real cour-
age, the life-boat kept off (with her stern to
the dangerous side of iron) until each of the
rescued men had been safely hauled aboard in
breeches of cloth, secured to a running tackle.
Even the dog would have been saved in the

64 DOWN to The SEA

same way, had he not with vain struggling
worked loose from the breeches and fallen
into the sea ; as it was, before getting the life-
boat aboard, the Captain was humane enough
to peer round everywhere with his searchlight,
in the hope of finding it. The rescued were
stripped, bathed and fed, and snugly stowed
in beds such as they had seldom even seen be-
fore.

From the kindly passengers, more new and
warm clothing poured in upon them, next day,
than they had ever dreamed of possessing, and
the journey to land was as remarkable to them
for its luxuries as had been the past fortnight
for its privations.

Though Christmas Day had after all been
spent on the Rippling Wave, New Year's Eve
found them in the lap of luxury. At dinner in
the grand saloon, to which every man was in-
vited, Skipper 'Lige occupied the seat of honor
next the Captain. There was a general feel-
ing that it was a great occasion. Never be-
fore had the close of an old year spoken so
forcibly of the fickleness of life to many of
the others present. After a few seasonable
and brief speeches had been made by some of
the guests, the climax was reached when the
Captain — who, at his own expense, had or-

'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 65

dered some dozens of champagne to be served
out all 'round — in terse sailor language pro-
posed the toast of the evening. There were
few dry eyes among those who drank "To the
wives and children of the brave men it has been
our good fortune to save."

III.

Danny's Deliverance.

THE long winter was again approach-
ing. The short summer season was
over. Ice was forming in all the inlets
and coves. The great fleets of fishermen
had started for their southern homes once
more, and day by day the stream of white-
winged schooners flitting south had been
gradually getting thinner, until the very last
of the stragglers had passed by. Out there in
the offing, even at the distance they pass from
the harbor heads, they afford us a little com-
pany. The deepening mantle of snow had
been along, hiding on the land every vestige
of the life of summer. Only the gloomy faces
of great beetling cliffs tower above the snow,
as if to taunt us with the reminder that we can
look for little company from their bleakness.
Already our tiny scattered houses are scarcely
more than white hummocks rising above the
'^ 66

" ,>, '», ',

THE GLOOMY FACES OF GREAT BEETLING CLIFFS

DANNTS DELIVERANCE 67

steadily deepening snow, and to the careless
eye, even they would fail altogether to sug-
gest the presence of the human life with its
hopes and fears within them. The long months
of the approaching winter seemed to be hover-
ing over us like a great cloud, hostile to every
form of life. The rapidly shortening days
and the boisterous winter storms seemed to be
robbing us of all stir and bustle that at other
times help to save from melancholy.

True, the great masses of ice, borne ever
southward on the ocean current, were day
by day increasing in size, and in resemblance
in shape to the vessels that have gone, as if
they were trying their best to fill the void.
They only seem, however, to deepen the feel-
ing of utter desolation that has overtaken us
beside our fast closing highway; for they
bear them but a grim resemblance, like the
spectres of departed friends.

It was close to Christmas, and our little
mail steamer, paying us her last visit for the
winter, was lying far out in the ice. Her crew
was slinging out, onto the standing edge, for
want of a better landing stage, such poor
freight as our people's slender stock of money
could buy for the winter. The rattle of her
derrick, and the throb of her deck-winch,

68 DOWN to The SEA

seemed, like some unpitying bell, to be tolling
out the death knell of the last tie that bound us
to the living world outside.

The little vessel was in a hurry. Already
Arctic icefloes outside were threatening to
cut off her retreat to the south, so that as the
chain-fall rattled out over the pulleys, heavy
clouds of smoke rising from her funnel warned
us she was silently gathering power to snap
even this our last poor link with civilization.

Still loath to be absent, as it were, from
even the obsequies of a valued friend, or like
the curious crowd that gathers when a funeral
is in process, we, too, had driven our dogs
out alongside her, and were standing looking
at her iron sides rising perpendicularly from
the ice. Forlorn-looking dog teams were
standing by, and here a few men were half
heartedly groping with a long sealing gaff
in the crack between the ice and the steamer,
for a truant box of cheese that in the hurry
had fallen into the water and kept bobbing
up and disappearing again in the slob.

Suddenly a voice from the deck above called
out "Hello, Doctor? There is a patient for
the hospital on board?"

"Is there?" I answered. "You had better
throw him down or he will escape us."

DANNVS DELIVERANCE 69

"Can't you come up on deck?" came back
the reply. "The companion ladder is on the
other side."

As I followed the steward aft into the
steerage cabin I could hear the first sounds
of the propellor rotating, making the ship
vibrate. Hurriedly we entered the cabin with
its large open space filled with tiers of iron
cots, like bookshelves in some model library.
It seemed at first like one vast empty grid-
iron. But guided by the steward, I came at
last on a lump at one end of a cot, hidden from
sight in a tangle of bed-clothes. Pulling back
the blankets we found a wizened looking boy,
small for his fourteen years. His legs were
drawn up under his chin, and his one object
seemed to be to hide himself from view. He
would not speak to us and we had to rely
entirely on the steward for his story. He had
been brought aboard during the flying visit
of the mail-boat to an absolutely out-of-the-
world harbor some sixty miles away. They
had carried him aboard, manifestly against
his will, and he had lain ever since just as his
bearers had deposited him, without stirring,
like some terrified rabbit fascinated by a serp-
ent. They called him "Danny."

A cursory examination revealed that his

70 DOWN to The SEA

legs were paralyzed and rigidly fixed in a bent
position. It was obvious he could neither walk
nor stand. There could be no question of not
accepting him.

"How shall we get him ashore, sir?" the
steward asked.

"We'll carry him," I answered; "he can't
be but a featherweight."

And so it proved. For it was the easiest of
tasks even to descend the companion ladder
over the ship's side with him in my arms rolled
up in his blanket like a ball. The crowd on
the ice displayed at once that generous sym-
pathy which characterizes all strong men.
These fishermen of the North Atlantic are
nothing, if not generous and brave in their
strength. Ready arms received him. Not a
coat on a man's back but would instantly have
been given, if needed, to make easier the
passage on our waiting komatik to the hos-
pital.

Even as we called the dogs to stretch out for
the journey, the mail-boat backed slowly from
her cutting in the ice, and before we had
climbed the bank that rises to the hospital
gate, nothing was to be seen of her but a
vague black cloud over the hills to the south
of us.

DAN NTS DELIVERANCE 71

"Danny" was a Christmas present for which
we had not looked.

If the experiences of the mail-steamer had
been new to "Danny," those in the hospital
were a revelation. A snow-white bed, a snow-
white nightgown, and in the morning a large
bath — these were only a few of the many
wonderful new things that served to fascinate
the little patient. They were just as strange
to him as we were, and he was as shy of them
as he was of us. It was only a very rosy
picture indeed of the chance that immersion
in hot water would give him of once more
becoming "like other boys" that induced him
to submit unresistingly to this strange innova-
tion.

The sequel justified it. The second night,
though he had twenty pounds of shot fastened
by stirrups to both legs, he slept in his strange
surroundings soundly and happily. His cot
was placed in the southeast corner of the
ward, and the glorious sunshine both from
above and from the white hillside fell full
upon him all the day long. After only a few
days it became a sort of hospital side-show to
go upstairs and see a laughing boy trying to
drag heavy weights on his legs up and down
over pulleys. It was "Danny" endeavoring

72 DOWN to The SEA

to bring back strength into his paralyzed
limbs.

At first massage, and still more the electric
battery, evoked frightened floods of tears.
Yet after a day or two the boy could have been
seen laughing to himself, as he sat pounding
his own wasted apologies for legs with one of
the clever hardwood rolling balls, used by the
Japanese soldiers for hardening the muscles.

Days lengthened into weeks. But at last he
greeted me one morning excitedly with, "The
left leg is quite straight, Doctor.'* And soon
after, "I can make the right one touch the
bed as I lies on my back now."

"Now is the time to try walking, then,*' I
told him. "It's a fortnight since we first got
you up into the wheel-chair."

Alas, the thighs were still completely power-
less; the knees gave way at once and Danny
rolled laughing onto the floor. Before we
could venture to permit him to try his crutches
again, we must by means of keyed splints lock
those joints. But self-confidence had now
given way to timidity, so that when at last he
was balanced on the crutches, it was almost
impossible to persuade him to let go of the
bed-post. It took two of us, encouraging and

DANNTS DELIVERANCE 73

supporting him, to get him to try even a first
step.

At last, however, he got about quite speedily
by himself, and "went visiting," as he called
it, among the other patients. It is true that
his thigh muscles were still powerless. With-
out the help of his splints and crutches he
could still do nothing.

So more than once a sudden crash overhead
has brought some of us running unstairs to
see what was broken, only to find that Danny,
grown over confident, had been careless in
placing his foot, and had had an immediate
and ignominious fall. More than once he was
lying helpless on the floor, ruefully recogniz-
ing he could not rise again by himself, but he
acquired courage and wisdom from his very
troubles, and he performed prodigies with the
little strength that he possessed.

The winter has passed away. The migra-
tory birds have already returned. A schooner
has been sighted in the offing. Two polar
bears have passed north across our harbor,
returning, as they always do, from their long
hunt on the icefloes after the young seals.
Though our harbor is still closed with heavy
ice, everything is indicating that in reality
winter has gone. We are once again expect-

74 DOWN to The SEA

ing a visit from our little mail steamer, and
anxiously awaiting the messages and many
good things we expect her to bring. The
crowd that will go out to meet her when next
she forces her way into the ice, are already
joyfully anticipating the renewing of the bonds
that bind us to our brethren in the world out-
side.

With the lapse of months, and with careful,
constant effort, Danny's legs, though far from
being what they were intended to be, have
yet grown to be useful limbs. The scanty
clothing that came with him is all long since
outgrown. I should be sorry now to have to
carry him up the companion ladder in my
arms. He can almost walk by himself, and
we anticipate the joy of seeing the boy that
came under our influence helpless, able to take
up his bed. It is a compensation that no dol-
lars can buy to be able to feel that in some
measure we have been permitted to assist in
this wonderful change.

We have learned more than one lesson from
our little patient He had lain at home many
months powerless, refusing to venture forth
for help, and every day losing more of the
capacity for ever being able to walk. Though
every day was making it more imlikely that

DANNTS DELIVERANCE 75

he would ever recover, yet it was only at length
his utter misery that forced him to a decision
that he would accept the remedy. It involved
the effort of leaving home ; of leaving all that
he had ever known in life, and of venturing
out into an utterly strange place among abso-
lute strangers. Yet, once again, when the
steamer came at last, and the moment arrived
for setting out, faith failed, and but for those
who loved him truly, he would still be para-
lyzed and useless.

But with the effort has come its reward.
Though still he cannot walk without outside
help, yet when he falls he doesn't remain lying
down now. He knows well enough that the
Doctor will not say angrily, "Now that youVe
let yourself fall down, you just lie where you
are ; in future I'll have nothing more to do with
you!" On the contrary, he knows that we
are glad to see him trying. Taking warning
from the fall, he gets up again, like the "man
after God's own heart," and tries to do better
another time.

Driving last month along a frozen river, our
path took us through thick forests of spruce
and fir. My little pet spaniel, joyful in the
glorious weather, was all day gleefully jump-
ing around the komatik. Suddenly I heard

^6 DOWN to The SEA

his loud cry of pain, evidently from the woods
on the right of us. Hitching the dogs to a
stump, we started off in the direction of the
sound, and soon found the dog. He had
wandered off on his own account, leaving the
right road for the pleasure of hunting rabbits.
A delicious scent issuing from a cave covered
with boughs attracted him in. Even as he
crossed the doorway there was a loud snap,
and he was fast caught in the cruel teeth of
an iron trap. It was a lynx house of a
neighboring trapper. The pain, the reward of
his own wrong doing, served only to make
him wild with anger and fear. Viciously he
drove his teeth through the hand of my good
driver who had arrived before me, and had
good-naturedly tried to relieve him. It was
the hardest thing to get him to allow us to
set him free at all, and when at last he was
freed, he immediately fled and disappeared
from sight.

Following his track, I found him outside
the wood on the ice. I called him to come that
I might perhaps bathe the leg and relieve the
suffering. But he fled from me as he had
never done before. Could it be possible that
he attributed the pain, which he had so fool-
ishly brought on himself, to us ? Truly he did.

DANNTS DELIVERANCE 77

He misinterpreted the love which had had to
hurt him in trying to set him free, and acted
as if he thought it would give us pleasure to
make him suffer more. Instead of coming to
us he fled away. For many days he wandered
in the woods. At last, when almost given up
as lost, emaciated and forlorn, he reached
home just in time to save his life.

Are these not parables from life? What
does God want but "willingness" and "trust."
Willingness to put ourselves in His hands,
then He will make us "able to walk." Absolute
trust in all His dealings with us — then He can
teach us to interpret even apparent adversity
aright.

IV.

The Optimist.

IT was the depth of winter. Everywhere all
was frozen, and the snow lay deep on the
ground. I was fifteen miles from our little
hospital and it was necessary that I should
be back before night. The wards were so
crowded that we had been obliged to even tres-
pass on the nurse's little sitting-room at our
diminutive Orphanage to accommodate two
little lads with tubercular joints. The strength
of our one trained nurse was taxed to the ut-
most: she had four patients recovering from
abdominal operations, one young fellow with
a knee-joint we had been forced to open,
and enough to do for the rest to keep half-a-
dozen nurses busy, if we lived in civilized
parts.

I had left the hospital that morning only at
the very earnest request of a deputation from
the most northern harbor in the country, to

78

The OPTIMIST 79

see a woman who appeared to be dying of
hemorrhage. Before starting I had insisted on
a promise to bring me back the same evening
with a dog team, for my own dogs were
away to the south with my colleague.

We had not covered half the distance before
I realized the prospects were very small of the
poor half -fed beasts that were hauling me be-
ing able to cover the ground again that day.
They were doubly handicapped by having to
haul two men besides myself, for the nine dogs
belonged to different owners, and they would
not travel without the guidance of the particu-
lar voices they knew to stimulate them. They
had a good six hundred pounds to haul over
hills and valleys and rivers and bays, a heavy
burden and a hard road at the best of times.
And the dogs were enfeebled by poor feed-
ing, for there had been a scarcity of ofiFal,
saved from the fish, and caplin, usually pre-
served for dog food. Corn meal, too, was ex-
pensive, and even at best, it is a poor substitute
for fats and meat for the food of working
dogs. It was partly an errand of mercy.

The harbor is a deep, narrow ravine be-
tween the mainland and a large island, from
the northern point of which the towering head-
land projects into the polar current. During

8o DOWN to The SEA

the summer a furious tide rushes through this
weird cleft, or tickle, in the cliffs, and in spring
and fall huge pans of northern floe ice are
swept to and fro jostling and smashing one
another against the unyielding ice-worn walls
on either side. The shoal ground outside,
where the fish swarm, causes a thundering
surf, ceaselessly smashing into the cliff faces.
The whole is a very battle of Titans.

The land around has long since been de-
nuded of trees and bushes for firewood for
the many fishermen who frequent the harbor
in summer. For the choice of a home by a
codfish is not made by carpet-knight stand-
ards, nor is a Newfoundland fisherman, seek-
ing a living, to be deterred by trifles. Many a
splendid voyage of fish has been killed among
these jagged rocks and dangerous waters. The
harvest of the sea here, as elsewhere, has to
be wrested from a reluctant environment.

Naked and forbidden this spot is in the sum-
mer months; but in winter all is different.
Ocean, straits and tickle are alike held in the
resistless grip of the silvery King of Winter.
The boiling cleft is silent as death, and its
broken waters are a fine hard road for our-
selves and our carriages. The precipitous
faces of the cliffs are hung with the most ex-

. > > > ■>'

The OPTIMIST 8i

quisite ice candles forty feet in length, and the
enormous banks of pure white snow round off
all such inequalities as might hurt or impede
our progress. A jump in the dark over a
thirty-foot cliff face only delays us, while we
extricate ourselves from a bed of fine white
feathers. And the sun, reflected from the spot-
less surface, dazzles us like the face of another
Moses, and demanded snow-glasses to reduce its
radiance to the level of the average human eye.
The last mile called for little energy on
the part of our steeds as far as hauling went,
the road trending steadily down toward the
final jump. But the speed gathered by the
heavily weighted slide took sudi breath as was
left out of the best of them as they endeavored
to escape being over-run. The poorer dogs
either wisely jumped aside and slipped their
harness as quickly as they could, or, submitting
to their fate, were run over and trailed be-
hind, till slackening speed should allow them
to get their feet again. The events of the
sick-room took a large slice out of a short
winter day. But we should still have expected
to make "across t' bay 'fore dark" with our
sorry steeds. But we had not counted on the
impromptu clinic which is always afforded the
doctor on his rare visits in these parts by the

8a DOWN to The SEA

sisters, the cousins, the aunts and uncles of
the patient. On this occasion rather a larger
crowd than usual of sorrowing friends had
gathered. There seems to be something
specially attractive to the lay mind in a case
attended with hemorrhage. Here as they sat
talking in whispers on the benches placed
against the walls there seemed a melancholy
satisfaction in seeing bowls carried to and fro,
and in listening to the tread of many feet.
Typhoid and tuberculosis appear to offer no
such charms.

I stood between a night out with the dogs,
and one with a restless, uneasy mind in my
sleeping bag on the floor. The bag is an old
friend and a good one. I have no fault to find
with it. But the need for my presence was
over and my mind back at the hospital. If
only it could materialize there, or find a tem-
porary, effective medium for communication in
the dormant unused bodies of one of the sleep-
ing patients, my body left behind would not
have cared. But without telephone or tele-
graph I felt myself badly stranded.

With commendable zeal, however, my
drivers planned to fulfill their share of the con-
tract. They would take me back at all cost. This
meant, however, that we tramped till we came

The OPTIMIST 83

to a decline where we sat on and "randied."
The progress was slow, as there was much sea
ice to cross, and we were just deciding to
abandon the march when a man hailed us from
the hillside, and came running out over the
ice to intercept us. "It's Ken, Doctor," said
one of my companions. "I reckon his little
chap is sick." The surmise was correct. And
a contract was soon arranged. I was to trans-
fer, examine and treat his little boy, and he
was to harness up and carry me on to the hos-
pital. My own share of this compact was
soon discharged, though it involved a further
re-examination of the poor man's wife, who
lay dying of consumption. But, alas, his dogs
were away in the bay, and his man had sent
to say that they would not be back before
nightfall.

Suddenly, in our dilemma, our thoughts
flew to "Bill." "Likely Bill will take you,
Doctor. I seed him pass down t' cove an hour
ago." And without further comment my host
disappeared to find the delinquent Bill.

On the very top of the divide between the
village that nestled under the shelter of the
cliffs and the western branch of the harbor,
isolated from the rest of the villages, is a rude
shack. By courtesy it is called a house. It is

84 DOWN to The SEA

some sixteen feet long by twelve wide, and its
single story is less than six feet to the beams.
Fortunately there is no ceiling and the lofting
of the rafters adds to the capacity and saves
at once the space for stairs and the trouble of
climbing them. You can get at all the house-
hold property by the simple process of rais-
ing your hand, there being no cupboard. The
dogs, which sleep with the family, are thus
freed from temptation to steal, an arrange-
ment that tends generally toward domestic
peace. This mansion was the property of my
deliverer, and as it was "on the way," I bade
good-bye to my patients, and followed in pur-
suit of "Bill."

Bill is a strange figure to look at, limping
on the left leg, and with the corresponding
hand "scrammed" or partly paralyzed. He
shuffles along as if he had, from long acquaint-
ance, acquired some of the habits and char-
acteristics of the familiar crab. An attack of
"the paralyze" in his boyhood had left him
a hard struggle. His father had long ago
died. There remained a younger brother, an
imbecile sister, and a mother scarcely better
gifted. Bill has never married, and the
brothers, mother and imbecile sister live to-
gether in their poor home.

The OPTIMIST 85

Everything on this coast is against such a
man. With no time to read, or write, or to
devote to the acquisition of that knowledge
which would enable him to hold his own in a
bargain, and without the remotest idea about
the great world outside, his lot has been one
of uninterrupted poverty and struggle. He
has supported the family year in and year out
with such codfish as fastened themselves on to
the end of his line, never able to pay others
to do work for him, handicapped as "the para-
lyze" left him. He has only too many times
known hunger and want and cold. His face,
though he is still a young man, already
shows plainly enough the marks of hard ef-
fort.

It might be supposed that such would be the
last man to whom one would appeal, late on
a winter evening, to turn out and carry an
unbidden guest a long, weary distance over
frozen hills.

Yet it is not so, there is no one along these
shores so much imposed upon for hauling
priests, parsons, doctors, and strangers gen-
erally; no one that carries one half the mes-
sages along the coast that this crippled man
does. It is the custom of the coast to make
no charge for these kindly offices. They are

86 DOWN to The SEA

done freely and for cause or not at all. There
are those with whom it is the custom to make
excuses. But Bill is not of that kind. No
sight is more familiar along the winter tracks
than his rude komatik, and diminutive dog
team and shuffling figure.

We are so accustomed in civilization to look
upon every act performed by us for others
as purchasable, that one's mind at once con-
cludes it pays him well somehow. After all
that is a correct conclusion. But not in gold
that perishes. For it is the one joy of poor
Bill's life to render services to others. But
the sweetness of it is that he never accepts any
return from any human beneficiary. A dollar
is not less than a dollar, as one can well under-
stand, to a man in Bill's circumstances. But
large as a dollar must loom in his estimate of
the value of material things, there is only one
opinion among all who know this man ; he puts
a value beyond money on the opportunity to
render a service which goes unrequited.

The familiar words of the fisherman dis-
ciples of long ago are never read in my hear-
ing, but my thoughts fly to this humble twent-
ieth century disciple, "Silver and gold have I
none, but such as I have I give in the name
of Jesus of Nazareth." Bill's theology is not

f

The OPTIMIST 87

gathered from reading or even hearing the
Scripture ; yet his faith is great enough to re-
move many mountains.

"T' dogs has just been fed, Doctor. If I'd
only ha' knowd this 'fore. I bet they wouldn't
ha' had a sup this night," for dogs cannot
do themselves justice running on a full
stomach, and that they had been fed they
clearly testified by an undoubted bulge on that
part of their anatomy which is devoted to
these purposes. "My, Doctor, 'tis too bad.
They'se bein in the bay for wood all day, and
them's only just out." If Bill starved himself
he would not see his dogs go hungry. Yet I
should have gathered from their ribs that his
idea of the amount of food necessary is based
on the diet he himself lives on. "It's hard t'
keep dogs fat when them's workin' right
'long."

During the constant succession of mild
grumbles in the same strain, he was jumping
about "getting things t' rights," having in-
vited me, meanwhile, to see a guest in his house
who "had taken a kink in his back." Knowing
the man, I was not at all surprised to find a
sick visitor living on him. The gaunt, for-
lorn, threadbare stranger, helping to fill still
further the already inadequate available space,

88 DOWN to The SEA

seemed only a natural circumstance. For of all
the generous people in the world commend me
to the poorest poor.

Many a times has the story of the widow's
mite carried me in thought back to these
humblest of humble cottages, where not only
have I myself shared the hospitality which
keeps a few ounces of "sugar" and the single
tin of milk — things their own diet seldom, if
ever, aspires to, for "any one special who may
happen along," but also many times have I
seen the still more Christlike charity which
shares its poverty freely with a still more un-
fortunate neighbor, with all of whose faults
and foibles they are familiar.

Soon the team was harnessed in, and the
path being good and level, I acted on his re-
peated injunction to "bide on," while he trot-
ted on beside, his good hand on the upturned
nose of the komatik.

"Your guest is in a poor way. Bill," I sug-
gested. "How long do you intend to keep
him?" "Well, you sees. Doctor," he answered,
"he's getting old now, and his woman's dead
three years." "But you can't afford to feed
him. Bill, you know you can't." "Not ex-
actly. Doctor. You sees, he's a bit scrammed
just now, and he can't cut up his firewood."

The OPTIMIST 89

"I think he'd best let me get him to the poor-
house, Bill, he is past work now." "I suppose
he must, Doctor," he answered, a tone of sor-
row in his voice. "I sends him down some
dry wood on times, but it seems he can't make
a do of it of late."

We were crossing a large arm of the sea,
and the salt water ice being a bit sticky I at-
tempted to get off and walk. We had, all-told,
two dogs, two pups, and one-half pup, a little
white animal with beady black eyes and the
most willing of spirits, which reminded me all
the while of a white rabbit in a hurry. Only
one of the dogs seemed to be really able to
haul to any extent, and it was imposing on
good nature for a healthy, heavy Doctor to sit
on while his lame driver poured perspiration
as he limped with uncouth gait. "Here," I said,
"you sit on a bit. Bill, my feet are cold sitting
on." "They've hauled fifty sticks to the land-
wash, and one load home to-day," he replied,
as if apologizing for the dogs. "No, sir, I
never whips them. Come Caesar, Jumbo, haul
up." And he trotted along faster than ever.

The dogs responded for a minute and even
Jumbo, which proved to be the diminutive white
rabbit, felt for a while he was doing the work
of a traction engine. I persuaded Bill at last

90 DOWN to The SEA

to "sit on" while I saved my toes from shar-
ing- the fate of Captain Peary's. But he only
consented for a moment while he took off his
gloves and hat, and carefully hung them on
the top of the uprights, thus completing his
preparations for a fresh burst of energy.
"Bide on. Doctor, bide on, Doctor. 'Tain't
my fashion to give a man a lift and then sit on
myself." There was no withstanding the re-
peated appeal, and our regal procession con-
tinued thus till we reached the steep hillside
across the bay.

As we walked slowly up the hill I ventured
to suggest he spent too much time on the road
doing other people's work. "No, no, Doctor,"
he answered, " 'tis my fashion. I fair loves to
oblige anyone, especially the sick. Leastways,
I nearly lives on the road." "You should be
paid something. Bill, for the many messages
you carry to and fro. It's worth a dollar a
day surely?" "I thinks God will reward me
sometimes, Doctor." "You're right enough
there," I answered ; "yours might be called the
faith that saves."

Immediately he changed the subject, saying,
"That's as good a leader. Doctor, as there is
on the coast, but she be terrible thin. It's
sick she is, Doctor. I knows she is." "Is there

The OPTIMIST 91

nothing I can do for her?" I said. I often
treat dogs, for my thoughts flew to the scaf-
fold at the hospital on which the best part of
a ton of whale meat still reposed, for the
prominent symptoms of this disease seemed
manifest even at the distance of the long trace
at the outer end of which she labored so faith-
fully. "There's an Indian cure for it, I hears
*em say," he answered. "You gives um nine
buckshot to eat on a Friday." "Have you tried
it yet?" "Why, yes Doctor, I gived them to
her just before we left."

We were now racing down a series of steep
hillsides, so steep that in spite of the "drugs"
or drags, it took all our attention to keep from
running over the dogs. Indeed, a little later
on the poor white rabbit disappeared with a
squeak under the sledge to re-appear as a fish
on the end of a line hauled along by the neck
till his trace gave way. He was no sooner
loose, however, than he was after us again at
his full speed, merely shaking his ruffled white
coat as he came along. As for our thin leader,
even he was panting heavily at the last decline,
and one could almost hear the rattle of the
Indian cure inside her as she swung down the
hill with her mouth open.

The downhill path had given my friend a

92 DOWN to The SEA

short "spell" on the sledg©, and skilfully
balancing himself I noticed he had spent much
time searching again and again in his pockets.
"It's the very first time I ever," he said, when
at last he spoke. "Ever what," I asked. "Why
left her all at home. Pipe 'n 'backer 'nd lights
and all the whole kit. What is I to do now?"
At first, as from the oysters in the song of the
Walrus and Carpenter, "answer came there
none." But then the bright thought of the co-
operative store a mile out of our way flashed
into my mind. "You know I've got to call at
Ned Spencer's on the way, I suppose," I
asked. "Has you?" he asked. "Well, it will
be more than dark before we gets off the salt
water ice. But no matter, I suppose."

The lights of the store were greeting us
when he suddenly extracted from the depth
of some inside pocket a small cube the size of
a hazelnut. Holding it up high for me to see,
before he put the whole of it in his moutli, he
exclaimed triumphantly, "There, I knowed I
feeled her all the time." It was the last of a
much cherished plug of tobacco. "I shall leave
you here, Bill, and then you can get back in
good time for to-morrow in the woods. Ned's
team will carry me the rest of the way."

"I'll finish it now. Doctor, if you'se is agree-

The OPTIMIST 93

able. That parcel is a bit o' venison Mrs. Brai-
ley is sending up to her daughter at Snag
Cove, and I promised Fd leave un for her."
Bill had a way of speaking of these matters in
a tone which somehow conveyed the idea of
finality, and one felt argument with a pan of
ice would have been as successful.

Ned happened to be out when we drew up,
but I purchased the necessary fumigating ap-
paratus which Bill as promptly refused to ac-
cept. An excuse was necessary. **But I did
not send you that Christmas present I promised
two years ago, Bill," I said. "It will be a
terrible load off my mind. Besides, I like the
smell of Ned's tobacco. It helps the Copper
store along." "Well, I be real proud to have
un, and I gives you thanks."

Bill is not a metaphysician nor is his mem-
ory good. Logic is not his strong point, and
the argument appealed to his weak side, and
our fisherfolk aren't yet superhuman. On the
contrary, a very human person is Bill, though
without the varnish and veneer of modern
civilization, the kind of Christian man the
Master needs in the Twentieth century, a man
of few words, but of kind deeds many. A
man always at peace with the world and him-
self, possessing the elixir vitae that looks

94 DOWN to The SEA

only on the silver lining of the clouds, a verit-
able optimist.

I happened this morning to cut up a gaudily
painted pen-holder that was lying on my desk.
Off came the colored shellac, and underneath
stood revealed a piece of our own common
wood from the forest. It seemed finer with
its gay coat, but it served every bit as useful
a purpose bereft of the frippery. We are so
apt to think that things are necessarily better
because puny man has added conventional
adornments to the wonderful productions of
the Creator. Could we but have eyes capable
of seeing as with a microscope the ducts and
fibres of that humble piece of wood, should
we have thought an adventitious covering of
paint made it really more valuable, gauged by
the standards of either its usefulness or actual
beauty? Perhaps this is the case with our
humble friends like Bill. He is best as he is.
The veneer of civilization could not improve
him.

When we finally drew up opposite the door
of the hospital, I told him to go down and
give his dogs a good dose of whale meat oflp
my scaffold, and then to come up and spend
the night in the hospital. Bill shuffled and
stood on one foot. "I thinks I won't come

The OPTIMIST 95

back. I give you thanks, Doctor." "Why
not," I replied. "Surely you aren't going to
try and go back to-night?" "This here," he
said, touching a parcel in some sacking firmly
lashed on the bars and on which I had been
sitting, "this here parcel is for Goose Cove,
Doctor. You sees 'tis only eight miles now,
and Fse can be back easy by breakfast."
"Why, what on earth have you got there?"
" 'Tis just a bit of mutton what old Aunt
Simmonds asked me to carry up to Skipper
Alfred. He's sick, they tells me in the cove."
I slammed the door and went in to a good
tea, feeling very small. Bill's case is incurable.
He is an optimist.

The Mate of the Wildflower.

HARRY LEE was six and twenty and
only a mate still. He was married,
and had two young hostages to for-
tune. It seemed to him as if he were six and
fifty, for there was not another man in the
port of his age and position who had not yet
gone master of his own craft. In reality, he
was an open-faced, handsome young fisher-
man, with tan enough in his black eyes and
hair to give one the impression of a touch of
Spanish in his blood, his appearance certainly
suggesting a devil-may-care spirit, and other
folks thought that it was this, combined with
the memories of some of the mad-cap pranks
of his youth, that kept the owners from en-
trusting their property into his hands.

Harry Lee was not a native of the sea port,
but his taking to sea had been like that of a

96

The MATE 97

duck to water. He only knew of his parents
that they had "moved to London," where he,
for one of his wild adventures, had been
pounced on by the authorities, sent to an in-
dustrial school and apprenticed thence to the
fisheries.

Here there had been a long-drawn fight be-
tween the group of boys he was thrown
among and a sordid, money-grubbing master,
who, in,stead of giving employment as captain
to those boys coming out of their indentures
to him, succeeded in saving wages by sending
his vessels to sea with even "skippers" who
were still "serving their time."

But one factor which strangely enough still
further militated against Harry getting a
command had come upon him without his
seeking. One time while home he had been
induced by some of his more serious minded
shipmates to join them at an evening service at
their small house near the pier end, which they
called the "Bethel." There and then that
which was hardly even hoped for happened —
the man who had been so strenuous for evil
proved to have a warm heart underneath.
Harry, mad-cap Harry, decided right then and
there to serve God. So sudden a change in
such a man was naturally soon noised abroad.

98 DOWN to The SEA

Indeed, Harry himself had no desire to hide
his Hght under a bushel. Whatever he did, he
did with a will, and let any one who liked take
exception to it.

Now, it so happened that a fight had just
begun between the owners and their crews,
about Sunday fishing. The owners argued
that as the vessels were on the fishing grounds
anyhow, and were not in sight of land, or in
reach of churches, the men ought to work their
big nets on Sunday, just as they did every
other day of the week. They said the men
could just as well pray, if they wanted to, while
their net was out ; and as the vessel cost money
on Sunday as well as Monday, and as there
were many stormy days when men must lay by
anyhow, any man who refused to fish on Sun-
day should lose his charge of a craft. Some
of the stouter hearted Christians had taken
no notice, and had, on coming home from sea,
been greeted with a curt dismissal. Lee's po-
sition in this, as in other matters, was un-
equivocal. He would not work on Sunday,
and this, together with his well-known uncom-
promising spirit, made it seem even less likely
that he would ever get a vessel of his own to
command — for he certainly would not accept
one on those terms.

The MATE 99

His little wife, however, was an optimist,
and though it seemed hard that her husband
should have just as much to do with the mak-
ing of good voyages, and just as much work
to do as the skipper, and yet should only get
half the poundage money, and so be unable to
buy his boys things like some other people's,
yet her smile was unfailing, and she argued
it would all come right some day.

And come right it had to. His day came at
last. The fleet had been fishing almost on the
"Holland coast" early in their voyage, when
the skipper of the Wild flower, of which he
was mate, met with an accident, breaking his
thigh, and having to be sent home in the fish
carrier to London. The vessels were doing
well at this time, and to take the vessel home,
as most men would, and break the voyage,
would mean a heavy loss to the owner. So
Harry, in his capacity of mate, called the boys
together, and offered to take command of the
vessel and go on with the voyage. They
agreed; at least until their owner should send
them their recall. There was a mission vessel
in the fleet at the time, which always carried a
spare hand, who could be lent to help out with
a vessel that was short-handed for a time, and
this the mission boat now agreed to do for Lee.

100 DOWN to The SEA

So the "fish-notes" from the Wild flower
kept coming regularly in to the owners, and
not for weeks did they learn that the injured
skipper had died in the hospital, and that the
good catches the Wildflower was making
were the result of the pluck and energy of the
new captain.

So word went out to stay in command till
the vessel's time for return was up, and a
fresh hand was sent out to replace the second
mate, who had taken Lee's place as first.

Sailors are apt to be fatalists, and to think
little of death. The prevailing idea over the
whole incident in the new skipper's mind was
simply that God had so ordained it that this
should be the chance of his life. He no more
questioned that it was the good hand of God
upon him than he questioned that such a token
of love called specially for every ounce of
energy and skill he could put into it, in order
that he might prove himself worthy of the
trust. So it fell out that however hard it
blew, when other men shortened canvas, the
Wildflower shook out her topsails, so that
she might drag her net the faster. When oth-
ers "hove-to," fearing to risk the towing of
their gear, Harry would show his lights for

> > J > »

The MATE loi

''shooting the net," and though buried in seas,
would still succeed in hauling safely. In this
way he was able to have catches to send to
empty markets, clamoring for fish. Thus the
earnings of the WildHower stood ahead of
the rest of the fleet.

The weeks went swiftly by. At last the
eighth week end marked the time for home.
Provisions were short- — for the crew was noth-
ing if not hearty. So he bade the Admiral and
skipper good-bye in the morning, that he might
be ready to leave with the first fair wind. Even
in so short a time as had elapsed he had made
great favor with the men, who love a hard
worker and admire a dash of daring with it.
There was a great demonstration of rockets
and flags, and salvos of guns, when the Wild-
flower put her helm up and bore away for
home.

It was now early in November, and the long,
dark nights made it dangerous work making
the east coast of England for a small sailing
vessel, ten times more so than weathering the
breezes in deep water with plenty of sea room.
Two long stretches of sand lie off for many
miles parallel with the land, and the channels
of safety between them are hard enough to

I02 DOWN to The SEA

find at the best of times, being but poorly
marked; while a single mistake is enough to
cost all hands their lives.

To make matters worse, it was dense with
fog, just when the skipper was expecting to
pick up the marked buoys on the outermost
sands. Together with the fog and sea, the
barometer still held threateningly low. By
dead reckoning the WUdUower had run her
distance by mid-day, and the safety and com-
fort of home was only now some forty miles
distant. To cap it all, there would be the
credit of a fine finish to a record voyage, if he
could drive her right in before the storm
broke.

As Harry thought of what that would mean
to his "bit of frock," as he called his wife, he
felt compelled to take every chance and "let
her rip." It was the mate's opinion, too, that,
though they had not seen the mark-boat, it
would be best to risk it and go ahead. No
sooner said than done. At sea the man who
hesitates is lost. The born sailor acts intu-
itively while the land lubber is philosophising.
It is, however, just as necessary to be cautious
at times, and the skipper made concessions so
far as to now and again head the weather and
take a sounding. To Harry the sand that came

The MATE 103

up on the lead, "armed," as we call it, with a
lump of tallow in the hollow end, spoke almost
as plainly as so many sign posts to a driver
on the land.

By sundown, though without having seen
them, they could tell by the lead that they were
on the inside of the outer belt of sands. Often
near the land the sky clears up so as to render
it visible ; but this time it deceived them. The
heavy wind failed to dispel the darkness, so
that nothing, not a wink, could yet be seen of
the land, which they had last viewed two
months before. Unless they could get a
glimpse of something, they would be obliged
to lay out the gale without sea room and in
shoal water. They were now hemmed in be-
tween the land and the breakers, running at
best great risk. As night settled in, the crew
were talking in low whispers of the folly of
not having kept outside the sand, and the skip-
per himself was anxious and depressed. At
eight bells the vessel was "hove to" to await
issues.

Suddenly there came as a flash upon Harry's
mind the thought, "Now I can do nothing for
myself, and surely God will stand by me."
This, he told me himself, seemed like a voice
speaking to him, so that he felt as we always

104 DOWN to The SEA

imagine Paul did, when "There stood by me
this night, One, Whose I am and Whom I
serve." Hurriedly the skipper went down into
the cabin, got out the chart and fixed it on
the table, just exactly as if he could already
see land. He "fixed" the small swinging lamp,
and laid out the compass and dividers before
calling out to the mate on deck to take an-
other sounding.

While this was being done, he flung himself
on his knees on the cabin floor, and asked
"Him Who was with them in the boat" for
just one sight of the pier-head light. The
whole thing took but a minute, and then,
climbing the gangway ladder, he walked to the
compass, ready to take a bearing of the light
he felt certain he was going to see.

I have only his word for it, but it happened
exactly as he expected. Away over the lee
quarter the fog suddenly thinned out, a patch
of clear space almost the size of a man's hand
opened up, and then the familiar home har-
bor light shone out clearly and brilliantly for
a brief moment. Carefully he took his bear-
ings, and then — just as suddenly — the fog
shut in again, and the darkness reigned
supreme.

But one glimpse of the home harbor light

The MATE 105

was enough for Lee at any time, and in an in-
stant the foresail sheet was loosed and the
WildHower was paying off for home.

The skipper had just gone below to lay off
the course, and had just pencilled the line he
would take, when the mate called down the
companion, and in a voice evidencing no little
alarm, shouted: "Skipper, there's some one
calling; I heard it as plain as I heard you just
now." "Calling out here? Nonsense," the
captain answered. "Put her S. W. southerly
for twenty minutes, then take another sound-
ing."

"Skipper," said the mate, "it was a voice
I heard. I swear it, so help me God. Come
up and listen."

The mate was evidently frightened. So the
skipper once more climbed on deck to satisfy
him, angry, however, that a single moment
should be lost which might make his bearing
of the light less valuable. There was so much
noise going on on deck, with the water lash-
ing the sides and the gale shrieking through
the cordage, that it was easy enough to mis-
take a creaking gooseneck, or a speaking block
for a human voice. But even as they listened,
faintly, but clearly enough to ears trained as
were these men's, a human voice came out of

io6 DOWN to The SEA

the raging blackness from the direction of the
breakers on the sands outside them.

It seemed sheer folly to try and do anything.
If it were any one alive, nothing could be done
till morning now, and no one could live out a
night like this on the Scroby sands in winter.
Some of the crew, and even the mate, super-
stitious, were inclined to think it something
supernatural ; and while they listened and won-
dered, the Wildflower was still scudding be-
fore the wind on her new course. Home lay
but half an hour distant now. To the young
skipper, thinking of his wife and bairns wait-
ing for him, it meant everything to make the
harbor while still he could.

It was with no little surprise, therefore, they
suddenly heard him shout out in no uncertain
tones, "All hands stand by to 'bout ship." With
a lurch and a heavy yaw, and not without
shipping a nasty bulk of water, the staunch
little craft once more came head to sea. "Fore-
sail amidship," "lash her along," "hard down
with the helm," "every man below but the
watch," were the skipper's rapid orders. He
was determined to claw as carefully to wind-
ward as he could, without inviting destruction.
"The Lord had stood by me that night," he

The MATE 107

told us afterwards, "and I was bound to stand
by Him if I lost the ship for it."

A whole hour must have passed before the
WilMower had regained the ground lost in
a few minutes. To the skipper taking a hun-
dred chances of being swept overboard, as his
little vessel worked to windward in that sea,
it must have seemed a life-time. But he got
his reward at last. Once more the weird sound
came over the noise of the waters, and less
acute ears than his needed no confirmation that
it was the wail of a human voice that was call-
ing for help from the sands.

"Foresail a-weather; let her lie dead,'* he
shouted. "Get a sounding and see if we can
get near enough to make anything out."

"Ten fathoms," was the answer. "If it's a
wreck on the bank, she must be nearer us than
that would make the bank. We must head
off till morning, unless the fog clears."

It was a cruel night for Jthe little vessel, and
of incessant watchfulness for her crew, as they
headed on and off the bank all night long, try-
ing to keep about the same spot by watching
the soundings. Several times during the night
great angry combers found their way aboard,
any one of which, had they been able to hit the

io8 DOWN to The SEA

little Wildflower fair and squarely, would
have sent all aboard to death in five minutes.

When daylight at length broke, nothing was
to be seen over that watery waste, nor, peer
into that exasperating fog as they might, could
they see a thing ; while the voice had not been
heard since midnight.

Precious hours of daylight once more were
going by, and even the skipper began to think
it something supernatural; when suddenly, as
the WildHower ventured once more as for
a last effort nearer to the edge of the bank,
there seemed to spring up out of the water,
almost alongside of the vessel, looming enor-
mous in that fog, what appeared to be a huge
cross, and lashed to it was the body of a young
man. The illusion was only momentary. The
men recognised it at once as the royal mast
and yard of a large ship. The other spars had
probably been washed away. There was no
trace of anything else but this gigantic cross.
The vision closed as quickly as it opened, and
already again there was nothing but dense fog
and the waste of raging waters.

And now a still greater difficulty presented
itself. How in such a sea-way could they
ever hope to save this man? A little of that
manoeuvering, that it takes a sailor to accom-

The MATE 109

plish, and then once more the great spar came
into sight. Carefully working to windward,
the boat was thrown over the side. Three
volunteers at once jumped into her, and
dropped her slowly down towards the spar.
The man had evidently observed the ma-
noeuvre, for he had changed his position on
the cross, and had begun to unwrap the lash-
ings that held him. But, as carried on a big
sea, the boat drove by, it became quite obvious
that by no possible means could they stop to
get the perishing man into it. With the intu-
itive resourcefulness of sailors, however, they
sang out to him as they drove by : "Drop into
the water as we pass next time. Be ready to
drop — to drop."

The Wildfloiver had now paid off and run
to leeward of the boat, where she now lay
waiting to pick her up. For Harry had
grasped the situation and was ready to execute
it long before the men told him their arrange-
ments. After slowly beating to windward,
towing by a long line the small boat, it was
once more allowed to drift down towards the
spar. It was a moment of intense excitement
to all who were actors in this weird drama.
But — sure enough — as if he were inspired of
God — the poor fellow dropped from his perch

no DOWN to The SEA

into the boiling sea, just as the boat ap-
proached. There was just one chance in a
thousand for his life, and that one he took.
Surely it must have been ordained that that
life should be saved, for even as he sank be-
neath water the boat flew by on a big sea.
Even those iron-nerved men held their breath
— and then a great shout — for the iron grip of
the mate had grasped him, and held him as in
a vice. One heave of that brawny arm, and
a lad of nineteen lay in the bottom of the
WUdflomer's boat, itself now half full of
water.

While the little Wildflower headed for
home, those mere fishermen, tender as women,
nursed back to life before the cabin fire, with
blankets, massage, and warm tea, the man they
had saved. Eagerly they chafed his limbs.
Joyfully they saw signs of life returning.
Even before the pier heads were turned, they
had learned it was a large barque that had
driven right across the Scroby sands, beaten in
her bottom, and sunk in deep water. All hands
had perished, as the other spars to which they
were clinging had one by one "gone by board."
This poor fellow had seen nothing of the
Wildflower when he called. He had just
cried out in his agony, and it had "pleased God

The MATE iii

to hear him and deliver him out of his dis-
tress."

When Harry Lee was asked why he "hove-
to" all that dark, dirty night, on so small a
chance, he replied: "Hadn't the Lord just
showed He was standing by me. I heard Him
plainly say: *Stand by, Harry; stand by.' So
I just stood by."

Harry was Admiral of the fleet when last I
saw his cheery face. Many a "good bag of
fish" he has had to thank the Lord for since
that successful voyage. Many a stormy sea
has he been brought safely through. But he
tells me that never did God seem so near to
him — so almost visible — as on that occasion.

"I suppose it was just when the opening in
the fog came. He seemed nearest?" I said.
"No, Doctor; no, not then. It was while we
stood there 'purring' over that poor lad in the
cabin, whose life we'd saved. To think that
the Lord needs a man like me. Doctor, to help
Him in them simple ways, too. That does
make the Master seem very near, doesn't it,
now ?"

"You are right, Harry," I replied. "To
serve one another is the road that always leads
us closest to Him."

VI.

"Cut Bono."

IT was a veritable day of sick calls.
From the Straits to the northwest of us
two calls had come; from the bay to the
south two calls had come; from the extreme
point of land to the northeast, close to where
the land's end projects into the Atlantic, two
more had come. My colleague had left only
two days previously for the west coast, and
had that morning managed to send back a line
to me saying a still more urgent call had
switched him off to the little community that
gathered round our lumber mill, where he
would have to cross the country over some
70 miles of uninhabited wilderness if he wished
to reach his original destination by the short-
est route.

The climax was reached, when, just as I had
decided which route to start on, a herder was
brought in from our deer camp with a bad
112

'' cm BONO'' 113

axe cut in his foot. It so happened my sec-
ond team of dogs was also away, this time
with two men specially appointed constables,
for we keep no regulars in stock. They were
seeking a couple of troublesome fellows whom
we wanted for trial the following afternoon.
Procurable teams are as scarce here at this sea-
son of the year as vegetable food will be by
the end of March. But, as Providence would
have it, just as I got through the essential work
at hospital next morning, a good friend of
mine with a fine smart team passed near
enough to be commandeered, and an hour later
we were whisking off to the northward over
a good hard snow trail. Our path led us over
high barrens, whence as we swept down
through a notch in the hills the still standing
foremast of an old wreck caught my driver's
eye, and he suddenly broke the silence. "Is
you'se going to give Harry a call, Doctor?"
It was a reflex from the stimulus of the old
wreck. For all the shore knew Harry had
speculated in her and hadn't yet in two years
succeeded in tearing a single plank off her soHs
sida.

"A spell would do the dogs good,'' Z re-
plied. "I'm for going." A reply our know-
ing little leader seemed to have anticipated.

114 DOWN to The SEA

for she needed but a single shout of "Kp orf "
— which is dog lingo for "keep off" — ^and our
komatik, swinging to the right, was flying
down the decline, and a moment later the dogs
brought up abruptly at Harry's wood pile.
Every dog on the shore knows the one and
only place dogs go to in this village while
their masters halt half an hour for some mys-
terious purpose. So accustomed on this ac-
count are all the inhabitants in this isolated
village to seeing visitors, that our arrival
aroused no interest. Even Harry's own dogs
scarcely troubled to get up and enjoy the cus-
tomary fight with strangers.

As we sat round with our cups of tea we
ventured on the usual apology for billeting
ourselves freely upon our friend. For the
first time in his whole life he was hors de com-
bat— stretched out on the humble wood settle
with that trouble of so many sailor men, a
"kink in the back." His is that inimitable
smile that never comes off. But this time it
really was mixed with an irrepressible comical
twinge, as now and again the enemy in the
back called for recognition. "In spite of the
poor fishery, Harry, I see the old mast still
points to your free hotel." He laughed and
said: "Oh, you'se only the fourth lot to-day,

' ' '3>' >\> 'A

''GUI BONO" 115

Doctor, and you're more than welcome this
time. I didn't like to trouble you, but now you
is here, you might have a pill or a plaster of
something to do my back good." "If we were
only the fourth to visit you to-day, how many
do you expect to make tea for on an ordinary
day?"

"Well," said his wife from the stove, where
she was putting a further polish on the already
spotless tea-pot, "I gets fairly tired of making
tea sometimes, there's enough drunken in this
house to float that old schooner long ago. I
counted forty-eight that came one day to us
this fall." Her remarks seemed greatly to
amuse our host. "You has to do it or get out,"
he interrupted. "You can't see a fellow sitting
looking on and doing nothing like an owl on
hill top. I minds one week I hauled a whole
bag o' hard bread on a Monday. It ought to
have lasted us three months. But come Sat-
urday night there weren't enough left for
'brew's' for Sunday morning breakfast, and
that was beyond all the loaf the old woman
could bake in six days. It's mighty hard to
last out alongside the komatik track."

Time only permitted altogether a few min-
utes delay, and while the dogs were being re-
harnessed, I hurried down to see one or two

ii6 DOWN to The SEA

sick folks in the little cottages, around whose
inmates had suddenly taken to the fortuitous
presence of a doctor. The sunshiny optimism
of our host, however, had itself been well
worth the doctor, and it sent us on our way
feeling kinder toward the world in general. A
few more miles covered, a frozen arm of the
sea crossed, a long shoot down a steep hillside
onto a pretty harbor under steep cliffs, and
the loud shouts of a man running out after us
over the moor, indicated the direction of our
first patient's house. It was the usual poor
house of a young man with a large family, not
yet old enough to help him. The little outer
room literally crowded (as is the custom of
the countryside) with all the neighbors sym-
pathizing. 'Twas scarcely divided from the
inside room by a crazy single board partition.
In contrast to the religious silence that always
reigns outside at these times came the sudden
sharp cries of a patient delirious from brain
trouble due to tuberculosis.

It is no easy matter to make a diagnosis that
satisfies one's own mind under circumstances
of this kind, which to one conscious of the in-
creasing exactness rendered possible by up-to-
date science, distresses one, quite as much as
it perplexes. But when it come to treatment.

"C(7/ BONO'' 117

and one felt the terrible issues at stake, for
the little children who looked for food to this
man fighting for his life, one felt increasingly
miserable. The poor fellow was too ill to
carry to hospital, with the snow and ice as
rotten as it is now becoming. There could be
no nurse or skilled assistant to carry out one's
orders here, and anyhow, none of the little
requisites for such a case was procurable. As
I return to my dogs and sledge to run away,
as it were, and leave this weight of sorrow be-
hind me, I craved eagerly for the cause of the
optimism of our friend of the morning, rather
than for the forgetfulness of the sorrows of
others which serves to solace some folk. For
that cause I know to be the simple natural
trust of a child in a Father above who loves
him and over-rules all for good.

But a new kind of sorrow was to engage
our attention next, and it came as a sharp con-
trast to this, for it was all of man's making.
For many years a feud had existed between
two of the larger families of this northern
peninsula. These are rare troubles in this cold
climate. But here, like those elsewhere, once
they get started, they do not fail to grow till
misunderstanding led to misrepresentation,
mistrust, and reprisal had been met by reprisal,

ii8 DOWN to The SEA

and now two actions for damages, the first we
knew of anywhere around here, were awaiting
settlement.

For my part, it had been with great reluc-
tance I had ever assumed the function of
judge over men. But if might is not to mean
right, then service of no mean importance can
be rendered at times, even among our people,
services which they could have no means of
obtaining were some one not willing to volun-
tarily fill that office. We are far too scattered
to maintain a paid judge of our own, and too
busy to quarrel, or even worry with settling
old strifes when communication is open in
summer and when it would be possible for a
judge to come to us. It was too late to begin
a trial this day, so gathering all hands from
far and near we tried to inculcate with the
magic lantern that we had carried along with
us some sorely needed lessons in public health,
emphasized by just such sorrowful instances
as that in the house we had last visited.

The excitement of a real trial is here suffi-
ciently novel as yet to afford trees and even
traps a day's rest, if news is carried round in
time. Our evening's assembly coming from
every direction took good care such a titbit of
news should not be allowed to escape for want

''CUI BONO*' 119

of telling. The result was evident when next
morning in the school house, commandeered
for the occasion, I found myself facing prac-
tically all the worthies of the countryside, ar-
rayed in their Sunday best, filling every spare
inch of space in our impromptu court house.

The problems were none of them easy of
solution to us. Neither plaintiff nor defendant
having had any previous experience of this
kind, it was necessary to permit several infor-
mal adjournments of each case, while some
important but forgotten witness was sum-
moned. While our special constables jour-
neyed hither and thither one of the other
cases was proceeded with, so that I found
afterwards some of our local oracles even
had got mixed up as to which case was
actually being tried. We are not, alas, a
studious people, and as the process of cross-
questioning droned on, the "public," accus-
tomed to come rapidly to conclusions by in-
tuitive processes, began to show the usual local
signs of failing interest. I was forced to call
the attention of the court to their method of
betraying this fact, and that just over their
heads, in large, plain letters, was printed the
trite aphorism, "Don't spit," because the rav-
ages of tuberculosis on even so healthy a coast

120 DOWN to The SEA

as this are very considerable, and had been
only too vividly impressed upon me again at
the bedside of the friend we had just left. So
unconscious do the offenders become of their
habit of spitting that I have been forced to
arrest and prosecute a friend for spitting in
the church of which he was a most devoted
adherent, and to reprimand a visitor who had
scarcely finished chiding his own son for spit-
ting, on my complaining of the offense, before
in his own excitement he was himself guilty
of the same act.

To maintain the interest and impress on as
large an audience as possible the lessons I
hoped the cases would teach them, when the
hour came for dinner I told them the judg-
ments in all the cases would be given at the
end of the proceeding in the afternoon — like
prizes at a race meeting — a device which acted
well, for I found every man had his mind made
up, and was really only waiting to hear the
punishments meted out.

At length when everything that ought to
be said, or could be said, had been said by
everyone that could contribute, or thought he
could contribute, to make things either clearer
or more muddled, we summed up exactly as if
making a diagnosis. One of the defendants,

*'CUI BONO'' 111

a local trader, and another local trader's wife,
were found guilty of malicious slander; the
third defendant won his case. The local im-
portance of the two convicted, and the long-
deferred end of this unusual occurrence, had
worked up an excitement, yj^hich was very evi-
dent as I scanned the faces of the crowd. It
was just what I had hoped might be the re-
sult; or if our people are not interested, it
would be just as well to waste wisdom on so
many codfish, for they possess an unique ca-
pacity for absenting their minds when their
bodies are present, almost as some have in
church when "sitting under" a sermon. The
law regarding the fine or imprisonment which
the magistrate might inflict was first read —
then explained — then re-read and re-explained,
in order to impress on all present the serious
view the law of man takes of the act of speak-
ing evil. The Bible view, the sin of the thing
as among God's children, was then pointed out
— a view on which our people lay much more
stress than even fear of man's law inspires —
and lastly, the crime against the obligations
which had been solemnly accepted by these
two men as brothers in the same lodge of a
great society was also referred to. This, judg-
ing from the time and energy devoted to it,

lit DOWN to The SEA

only ranks second in importance in their minds
to the Mosaic law. To the court, the defend-
ant and plaintiff, it was then explained, that
the judge got no fees for his work, so silver
and gold had not induced him to devote so
long a time to the trial. As a judge's decision
is always without exception torn to pieces by
local wiseacres, it could not be a desire for
popularity either that actuated him. It was
reasonable to suppose, therefore, it was under-
taken with a desire to do some good.

My nearest colleague on the bench is a
schoolmaster, living some sixty miles away,
and it was explained quite clearly that he might
look on the law as a retributive agent to meta-
phorically flog evildoers, while a doctor must
be pardoned for regarding it as a remedial
agent and intended to cure the wrong it is
applied to. It was then suggested to the crowd
that each one should for one minute consider
what would be his own verdict if it were in-
tended to prove a benefit for the community.

It was pointed out that the best result that
could accrue from this trial would obviously
be a lasting friendship between the hostile fam-
ilies, so that once more people who worshipped
side by side might say the Lord's Prayer with
somewhat less compunction. The plaintiff, it

"Cm BONO'' 123

was said, had expressed his sentiments by say-
ing that the best day in his Hfe would be if he
could see the defendant fined fifty dollars,
while the court was very well aware that such
a fine would be a very serious matter to the
defendant's family. Nor would the law be jus-
tifying its existence and evincing its prestige
by making the quarrel ten times greater and in
addition injuring innocent persons. Could the
seizing of fifty paltry dollars be a testimonial
to the law's efficiency as a remedial agent? In
the second case it was practically a family af-
fair, and in this small isolated community even
brothers and sisters were letting years of life
slip by without so much as speaking to one
another. What satisfaction would it be if the
result of the work done was to make this
quarrel still more bitter, and probably, seeing
the age of the parties, effectually prevent any
possibility of reconciliation during the remain-
der of their stay on earth ?

The plaintiff was asked if he would be satis-
fied with a frank and free apology made before
the assembled court and a promise in each case
that henceforth they would all endeavor to live
as those who call God their Father ought to
do — in peace and harmony. He was told it
was probably the one chance of his life to

124 DOWN to The SEA

show that there dwelt in his own heart, any-
how, the spirit, which in his case he com-
plained so bitterly had not been exhibited
towards himself. The excitement of the court
rose to fever pitch, as the plaintiff, under con-
siderable excitement, now took council of the
judge. When at length he suddenly rose,
walked across the floor and shook hands with
his enemy, the court couldn't longer contain
its feelings. In spite of the vigorous suppres-
sion of all conversation or comment during the
trial, a very new experience to most of these
men, every one burst into loud applause, and
in less than two minutes the majority of my
audience were lighting innumerable pipes out-
side in the dusk with their heads all in a
bunch.

I have never found it easy to speak harshly
to a woman. But the second defendant needed
it, and I did my best. She is a really kind-
hearted woman and already gray-haired — ^but
with the unfortunate affliction of a tongue that
is too long. The circumstances under which
advice is given has a good deal to do with it3
effectiveness, and the psychical effect of the
presence of all one's neighbors in one large
crowd is not to be overlooked. It was some
little trouble to collect my court again. But

''GUI BONO'' 125

our cool atmosphere outside came to my assis-
tance, and it was easy to tell their presence,
and it helped in no small degree to carry home
the lesson. The troublesome symptoms of long
tongues were referred to, the danger to a com-
munity of that trouble getting into it was em-
phasized. The expense to purse and person-
ality of long tongues was not merely stated,
but reiterated. The plaintiff this time only
refused to be the first to cross the floor. This
caused some little trouble, for the old lady, in
her sudden contrition, forgot she had to get
pardon, and commenced by freely forgiving the
plaintiff. However, after a fresh start mat-
ters were satisfactorily adjusted, and for the
first time in many years these two relatives
and neighbors went home together. Part of
the sentence was that they were to have tea
together in the plaintiff's house the next night,
but as I had to leave for my distant little hos-
pital by daylight, I was not able to be a guest
at this feast.

It was a chill and bitter morning and dawn
was only just breaking as I once more drove
off to the forlorn little house of the sick man
I had been called to. On my arrival, I guessed
that matters were no better. It didn't take
long to convince me that the victory here lay

126 DOWN to The SEA

with the enemy, and that the end was not far
off. The poor wife and children couldn't fully
realize yet all that this would mean to them
down here. It would mean, at any rate, all
that the most irreparable loss could mean to
mortals anywhere. As I drove over the high
barrens behind the swinging team of dogs,
the exhilarating stimulus of the exquisite
air made one feel what a glorious thing life
is. It made it seem doubly sad that this father
of a young family should be called thus sud-
denly to leave it in the prime of life. And yet,
the very beauty of life made it sure that God
on high ruled wisely. It was good to think
that at least death's real sting, which I still be-
lieve to be conscious wrong doing, was absent
from this case. Meanwhile the very pathos of
the thing made the other cases seem doubly
piteous. Here we are allowed at best but a
brief sojourn on earth — the making that stay
hideous by acts of our own folly has nothing
whatever to plead for itself. I was returning
with the consciousness of failure in the first
case. It was a little comfort to be able to hope
that a lesson had been taught in the second
that through "only the law" might possibly
prove a real measure of grace in some one's
life.

VIL

Queer Problems for a Missionary,

MY little hospital steamer, the Strath-
cona, was pouring out a cloud of
black smoke as she still lay at anchor
off the Fur Trading Company's post in North
Labrador — she was getting steam to carry us
once more down the bay, not to come north
again till the long months of winter had
rolled away, and the ice, which was already
strong on the fresh water ponds, should have
yielded to the June sun.

The agent, who had recently come to the
post, was watching the weighing-in and call-
ing of a boat-load of salmon that a belated
dealer had brought in over night.

"Morning," he shouted cheerily, as I tied up
the dingey and started up the ladder. "You
aren't going to leave us yet, are you?" he
asked, looking at the smoke issuing in a
steady stream from our funnel.
127

128 DOWN to The SEA

"It looks like it," I answered. "Why do
you ask? Is there anything more I can do for
you?" "Well, I can't break a limb to have
an excuse for keeping a sawbones around," he
laughed, "and I haven't any more appendices
to offer, but I wanted to talk to you about
Tommy Mitchell and his family."

"If you'll come along and give that poor
fellow a chance to get one salmon through as
'No. I,' I'll be all ears." He laughed good-
humoredly, and we started arm in arm to
walk up and down the big raised wood plat-
form.

"Full speed ahead, old friend — I'll have to
make tracks when the whistle goes — ^you
know we've no fuel to throw away." "It's this
way, Doctor, Old Tom has been at the post
every Saturday now for two months. He's
dead broke. I've allowed him twenty pounds
of dry flour a week for himself and his five
children. He hasn't a salmon or a codfish to
turn in, and he owed more than he can ever
pay when I came here. My wife was down to
see the family last week, and I'm bothered if
Mrs. Tom hadn't flown in the face of Provi-
dence with a sixth baby. A woman can't nurse
babies on dry flour, and Tom hasn't a farm at
his disposal. We offered to take the baby

QUEER PROBLEMS 129

and nurse it here for her for a couple of
months, but she wouldn't part with it, and
there isn't tinned milk here for her to feed it
with."

Just at that moment a jet of steam shot up
from the Strathcona, and almost immediate-
ly her shrill whistle, echoing and re-echoing*
from the cliffs, warned us to come to the point.
"What can I do to help out?" I asked. "Why,
call in and see them on your way, can't you?"
"Where are they now?" "Somewhere on the
island off Napaktok Point." "Have they a
house there?" "No, nor a tent either — they
are camping under their own hats, if they have
any, it seems."

"Well, good-bye till we meet again — thanks
for Tom's address. The island is a large one,
but we'll try and find him and send you word
what we do. There's the whistle again — I
shall be in trouble — good-bye again." "Good-
bye," he shouted, and the kindly little agent
started off to haul down the famous "Pro Pelle
Cutem" flag to salute our departure. After
only an hour's steaming we were opposite the
north end of Tom's island, so I gave the en-
gine room "stand by," and, telling my skipper
to "heave to," and keep a good offing till I
returned, we lowered away our dory, and with

ISO DOWN to The SEA

"Bill," my stalwart mate, I rowed in to the
land.

"Do you see anything like a house any-
where, Bill ? Your eyes are better than mine,
I know." "No, sir, I sees nothing," Bill said.
"I didn't expect you to do as well as that.
However, let me know when you see something
like a house. I want to find the residence of
Thomas Mitchell and his family."

We started to row almost round the island —
for there was a stiff head wind, and dories are
light on the water. Cove after cove went by
— headland succeeded headland — and only the
certainty : "Well, it must really be round the
next corner," kept us toiling at it.

"There's a smoke, sir," said Bill at last, star-
ing into a rather larger cove than usual.
"Come on. Bill. If you can see nothing, I
can't — where is it?"

Bill was right, however — there was a feeble
smoke fighting its way up the side of a preci-
pice face, but no sign of any residence could
we see.

However, we landed, hauled up our boat,
and went on a voyage of discovery, till at last
we ran down a little fire-place in the open,
by which sat a gaunt woman with a wizened
baby on one arm, and stirring a sorry looking

QUEER PROBLEMS 131

gruel in what appeared to be an old paint can
with the other hand. "Good morning. Where's
the tent?" I asked. "There she is," replied
the woman, pointing with the gruel stick to a
sorry roofing of matting and patches of can-
vas, which was stretched over some well-trod-
den mud against the cliff face. "Why do you
cook in the open?" "'Cos we hasn't got no
stove." "Where's Tom?" "He's away wid
Johnnie trying to shoot a gull — here, Bill,
run and fetch yer dad, and tell him Doctor
wants 'un" — whereupon a half-naked urchin
of about nine years promptly disappeared into
the bushes. "What's the matter with the
baby?" I asked. "Hungry," she replied. "I
hasn't no milk to give him." She proceeded
to show me the baby, which kept whimpering
continually, like a little lamb bleating. "It's
half-starved," I said. "What do you give it?"
"Flour and berries," was her answer. "I
chews the loaf first, or it ain't no good for
him" — thus showing she had discovered a
physiological truth.

A little girl of about five and a boy of seven
now emerged from behind the tent, where
they had fled upon our arrival. Both were,
to all intents and purposes stark naked, and
yet as brown and fat as Rubens' cherubs. It

132 DOWN to The SEA

was snowing a little, and the cold had over-
come their shyness and driven them to seek
the warmth of the fire. "Fm glad to see the
other children are fat," I said. "They bees
eatin' berries all the time," she replied.
"What's t' good of t' government," she sud-
denly demanded. "Here is we all's starvin',
and it's ne'er a crust they gives yer — there
bees a sight o' pork and butter in t' company's
store — but it's ne'er a sight of 'im us ever gets
— what are them doin'? T' agent, he says
he can't give Tom no mor'n dry flour — and
folks can't live on dat." I was beginning to
unfold to her the functions of a government,
when a shuffling figure, with a very old, rusty,
single-barrel, muzzle-loading gun, followed by
two boys, appeared on the scene. He was
somewhat shame-faced, I thought, carrying a
dead sea-gull by one wing.

"You've had some luck, Tom," I remarked,
inwardly referring to the fact that he had
safely discharged the antique weapon without
doing destruction at the wrong end. "It's
only a kitty," he replied, "and I've been a-sit-
tin' out on t' point all day." A "kitty" is only
a small gull, and Tom's tone of contempt was
actuated entirely by the size of the victim.
Tom's standard of values was graded solely

QUEER PROBLEMS 133

by bulk, and involved no reflection whatever
on the variegated assortment of flavors that
these scavengers succeed in combining in one
carcase.

"The gun isn't heavy enough to kill the big
gulls, I suppose." "I hasn't much powder," he
replied, "and ne'er a bit o' shot. I mostly puts
a handful o' they round stones in her — t' ham-
mer don't always set her off, neither. Her
springs bees too old, I reckon," he said, play-
ing with that extremely loosely attached ap-
pendage in a way that made me ask him to let
me hold the weapon for a minute while I
looked at it. Needless to say, I took good care
to keep it in my hands till our business was
through.

The truth is, Tom was reared on a truck sys-
tem of trade, and had been all his life a depen-
dent of others. He had never had the incen-
tive to really look out for himself, for he had
never been able to get clear of debt. This, and
his Eskimo blood, left him bereft of all initia-
tive, and so incapable, except when under or-
ders from others, of earning a livelihood.

"Tom," I said, "I want to help you — winter
is coming on, and you have nothing whatever
to face it with. The only thing I can think
of is for you to let me take charge of your two

[134 DOWN to The SEA

little boys, 'Billy' and 'Jimmy/ and the little
gpirl. ril feed them and clothe them, and send
them to school till they can come back and help
you along* — and so long as they are with me
I'll do my best to help you along also. They
will certainly starve here during the winter —
the snow is covering up the berries already,
and you have nothing else." But poor Tom
made no answer. He simply stood, his mouth
wide open, and stared into space. "T' Doctor
wants to take t' children," broke in the sharp-
tongued wife. "Don't youse hear what un
says? T'is the gover'ment that ought to feed
'em here, I says. I wouldn't let no children o*
mine go, I wouldn't" — and she cuddled the
wizened babe up closer, as if I had been about
to pounce on that bag of bones and fly off with
it like an eagle.

It took quite a long while to convince her
that what a government "ought to do" would
not feed six children — especially as that gov-
ernment was so far away that we couldn't ex-
pect an answer before Christmas if we wrote
to them. As for Tom, the intricacies of the
problem had entirely failed to penetrate his
dullard cranium, and yet, perplexed as he
was, he showed the great wisdom of saying
nothing.

QUEER PROBLEMS 135

"Why doesn't youse say something?" his
irate spouse at last insisted. "Bees you a-goin'
to let t' Doctor have youse childer?" But
Tom only looked more and more puzzled, and
merely reflected by taking off his hat and
scratching his head.

Matters seemed to have come to a deadlock,
when Tom, with a burst of eloquence suddenly
ejaculated, "I suppose he knows." Backed by
this moral support, I again advanced to the
attack, and at length succeeded in extracting
from Mrs. Tom : "Well, youse can take Billy,
I suppose, if you wants un."

During this prolonged debate my excellent
mate had not ventured on a single word,
though he was, in spite of his athletic dimen-
sions, a most tender hearted father of many
children. At this juncture, however, he cast
propriety to the winds, and butted full into the
debate by simply seizing the struggling Billy
and putting him, kicking, under one arm, for
he had in his mind the cheerful little Children's
Home we had built near our southern hospi-
tal, and was familiar with the wonderful trans-
formations that had been enacted there in other
children that had been entrusted to us. But
I had yet a hope of saving more of the chil-
dren, and profiting by the evident resentment

136 DOWN to The SEA

of Billy to be isolated from those he was fa-
miliar with, I pressed home on the mother how
terribly lonely one child alone would be. I
soon perceived that my logic was having its
effect on her defenses, and with fresh vigor
proceeded to show her the advisability of send-
ing a bunch together for company's sake. But
I seemed somehow to make no headway till
Tom, whose eyes had been glued to his strug-
gling offspring, once more came to my rescue
with his philosophy.

What it was impressed him so strongly, I
can't yet say, but he broke in most oppor-
tunely once more with his "I says he knows
what's for t' best," and then as promptly re-
lapsed into the impregnable position of a deaf
mute. I had already occupied much time — ^the
snowstorm was all the while growing heavier,
and white horses were capping the sea, to
match the fast growing whiteness of the land.
The "Strathcona," which had followed us
round the island, was evidently very uneasy,
and already had blown her whistle several
times to hurry us up. A final promise of a
better gun for Tom, with a stock of powder
and shot, of some spare old clothes for all the
rest of the family, and of a note to the agent
to give work, if the worst came to the worst,

QUEER PROBLEMS 137

induced Mrs. Tom to consent at last to my
having "Ji^^y" ^s well as **Billy."

The subtlest argument I could advance
seemed to make no impression on the enemy.
I compared the tent with our fine house — I
pointed to the mere semblance of a boat that
was all they had to convey their family over a
hundred miles in up to their winter station.
I spoke of fine clothes, the schooling, etc., that
we would give the baby girl if only she was
allowed to come with us, and did my best to
save her from the seeming starvation ahead
of her. But all my blandishments fell on deaf
ears — nothing I could say would tempt Tom
to emerge again from his impenetrable silence,
and I had at length to acknowledge discomfit-
ure. My faithful mate, Bill, however, who
had halted half way to the beach with his first
prize, had no intention of risking the acquisi-
tion of a second, and long before I was
through with the arrangements he was climb-
ing into our dory with Billy under one arm and
Jimmy under the other, their protesting lower
extremities that stuck out behind notwith-
standing.

We did not, however, fail to make good the
rest of our bargain. The entire remnant of
the family were conducted on board the

138 DOWN to The SEA

"Strathcona". They were fitted out with suit-
able clothing from the stock sent me by
friends, and part of which is always in the
strong box on the mission steamer's deck; be-
sides which, some of my generous seamen con-
tributed from their kits. A gun was loaned to
Tom — his own old relic was overhauled and
repaired by our engineer, to be given to John,
the eldest boy, who was big enough to help
with the hunt. Powder and shot were pro-
duced, tins of condensed milk were extracted
from the ship's stock for the baby, our second
axe was donated to their impoverished equip-
ment, and indeed, a heterogeneous collection,
which included some needles and thread, soap,
and other trifles in a couple of oil bags that
had been sent us for sailors' use, all found their
way into the Mitchell family's dilapidated
houseboat. Before they left the paternal
mate had Billy and Jimmy on shore in so well
advanced a state of scrubbing and hair cutting,
that Tom and his wife would have less diffi-
culty in recognizing them when they shall re-
turn in the days to come. For this last im-
pression of them, scrubbed and in clean clothes,
formed a very marked contrast with that which
they presented in their rags on the island.
The boys soon got over a very, very short

QUEER PROBLEMS 139

attack of homesickness, and neither of them
was in the least affected by the tossing and
the tumble of the sea.

Already Jimmy and Billy are numbered
among the best scholars we have in our home.
They are bright, affectionate, laughing boys —
Billy a veritable Saxon, with his light hair
and blue eyes. Jimmy takes after his mother,
having the black hair and deep brown eyes of
his Eskimo extraction. As they rush down to
greet us now, and "purr" out their affection
like pleased kittens, we shudder to think of
what might have happened if we hadn't "hap-
pened along" at the beginning of the winter.

But, after all, do things just happen by
chance ? Or does the love of our Father above
us watch over the least of these little ones;
and is it to His love we owe these unequaled
opportunities of tasting the real joys of life.
Christ the Master said of all such, "Let the
little ones come unto me" — and it is one of the
profoundest joys of those who believe that in
their own lives can live again the spirit of the
Master, who was the word or message of
God's love to his children, to believe also that
He considers love shown to the least of these,
His little ones, as really shown to Himself.
Faith that man really has opportunity to

140 DOWN to The SEA

achieve things for God is the real incentive
that the twentieth century world needs to at-
tract every man into His service — that is, to
follow him.

VIII.
*'Every Little Helps:'

WE had been invited to dine in one
of the best houses in the city just
before leaving once again for our
northern district. Winter was already as far ad-
vanced as we dare let it be before sailing. Even
now the time had already passed when it had
been last year any longer possible for the
plucky little mail boat to force her way as far
as our northern port, owing to the rapidly
forming ice, and it was only the telegraphic
advice from Newfoundland of the exception-
ally mild fall that permitted us to linger so
late.

Naturally our thoughts were much on the
conditions that awaited us, and while the su-
perb ornate furnishings pleased the eye, and
course following course of the menu furnished
the most subtle and inviting satisfaction to the
141

142 DOIVN to The SEA

palate, and the cultured conversation was of
those at whose feet one might at any time be
glad to sit and listen, still none of these fur-
nished bonds strong enough to check our
minds from roaming to far different scenes,
where homes are furnished only with things
essential, where the most important question
concerning food is, can sufficient be obtained
to nourish, and where culture necessarily is
that of a life schooled close to nature, and talk
is limited by the simple mental evolution ren-
dered possible by a life in the woods and on
the sea, with often no opportunity of acquir-
ing the three "R's."

Our distinguished host happened to be an
authority on scientific dietetics, and conversa-
tion having turned to an attempt we are mak-
ing to secure a milk supply by importing and
herding Lapland reindeer, the methods of ster-
ilizing and preserving milk for children was
discussed. Our host spoke in the very highest
terms of the great success of the method
known as the "Hatmaker process," of which
we had no practical experience. The most
eloquent tribute he paid it, however, was next
day when I found in my office a large box
bearing the appropriate title of "Mammala,"
and containing many tins of the dried and ster-

EVERY LITTLE HELPS 143

ilized milk, which had been sent as a gift by
him towards our baby-food problem.

We had reached our destination some time.
It was now in the very depths of winter, snow
lay six feet on the ground, and with us days
are short and nights long. Owing to driving
snow, it had been gloomy outside all day. I
had been on a long round of visits among our
people, and had just got home. Indeed, I could
still hear the angry conversation of my sledge
dogs, who were having difficulties over the
seal carcass that had been thrown into their
pen for supper, like the modern Daniel into a
den of lions.

Personally, I hate to confess to being tired,
even to myself. But after a winter's journey
here, even if it is only of one day's duration,
a log fire on an open hearth, and a comfortable
pair of shoes, have, I admit, begun to have at-
tractions peculiarly their own, especially to-
night with the contrast outside.

There were still the day's medicines to make
up and the "little things" accumulated during
the day to see to, and the hospital rounds to
make, as my colleague had been away some
three weeks with his dogs; so I did not posi-
tively welcome the information that a man
from a village to the north of us was waiting

144 DOWN to The SEA

to see me. Here, however, is just where to-day-
real Christ-following finds its test and its tri-
umphs. I did my best to at least look as if I
were glad to see him. He was an old friend,
of our sturdiest and best type. He still had
keen eyes, under shaggy eyebrows, long since
adapted in their color to this northern environ-
ment, while his plentiful crop of crisp curly
hair would hardly any longer pass for a ''silver
gray*' ; the color of all others our trappers are
glad to see when a fox is snared in their traps.
"Uncle Ephriam ! Well, whatever is it brings
you out here to-night?" "To see you. Doctor,"
he replied. "To tell the truth, me and the old
woman's in trouble." "No sickness, I hope — ■
well, isn't she?" "Yes, Mary is well, Doctor,
and yet — no she isn't. 'Deed I can't hardly
tell you. Doctor, for I don't know how to say-
it. But, Doctor, Mary will be a mother this
week — and us knowed nothing about it."

A week or more later a pale, forlorn-looking
girl followed Uncle Ephriam into my study.
"I've brought her over to see you herself. Doc-
tor; I didn't know no other way," he said, and
there was an inexpressible sadness in his voice.
There is no need to narrate this interview. It
was the old, old story, where duty to self and
to loved ones, and to God is forgotten in the

EVERY LITTLE HELPS 145

yielding to one great passion. It was only the
same tragedy that the moth at evening enacts
around the open light. Everything is forgot-
ten or unheeded till suddenly the singed wings
no longer support the weight they have carried.
The hollow sham of it all is of a sudden hide-
ously revealed, and downfall and disaster faces
us, and that, alas, before the steps of folly can
be retraced.

The baby was not wanted. Poor little mite,
it was just a speck of wailing humanity, and
"Aunt Eliza, and all who'd seed it, said it
couldn't live anyhow." But though natural in-
stincts may not always insure proper care be-
ing taken of helpless infants, our law is still
sufficiently potent to provide for that emer-
gency. The father was traced and summoned.
His whole visible punishment being to have to
find the pittance the law considers essential for
maintaining the life of the child. The poor
baby was still, however, not wanted. It thus
became one function of the court to suitably
dispose of it. It seemed an odd perquisite for
an amateur judge to be called on to adminis-
ter such a property. Of older children, found!
derelict, I had annexed already quite a number,
but what could I do with this helpless burden?
Volunteers, however, were found in a young

146 DOWN to The SEA

couple who were qualified by the position they
had obtained through successful fishing, and
who, being themselves childless, were moved
to desire in their home the child, life that God,
in his good Providence, had till now withheld
from them. So the problem seemed solved,
and there was every likelihood of our settling
down into the usual routine of work again.

Christmas trees on our coast don't always
bear their fruits by Christmas Day. For
though Santa Claus is presumably a past mas-
ter in ice and snow problems, there are diffi-
culties connected with winter travel on this
coast that we find every winter makes him
late at some of the smaller villages. Thus it
happened just a week later that this welcome
stranger whose visits were angelic, as well in
their rarity as in the joy they bring, came to
Uncle Ephriam's village. It also happened
that I was called to meet him there once more.
As we finished dressing the tree, and were
looking round for a free hotel for supper be-
fore the children came, I noticed a man wait-
ing patiently outside the door.

"Good evening. Doctor."

"Good evening, friend. Where do you come
from?"

"You knows me, Doctor. It is Andrew.

EVERY LITTLE HELPS 147

Jess wants you to come and see your baby.
It's going to die, I'm a-f eared, after all."

"Why, Andrew, I didn't know you in the
dark. I'll come right over now, and Jessie
shall get me a cup o' tea."

"That's right. Doctor, she'll be ever so glad
to see you."

It is only a little cottage, but ever so neat
and tidy. When I entered a bright fire was
burning in the grate, . and a steaming kettle
singing its joyful anthem in defiance of the
cold outside in general, and of Santa Claus in
particular. He, for private reasons, was sol-
emnly endeavoring to hide a large bag of
duck's feathers under the somewhat dilap-
idated old hospital dressing gown, which al-
lowed room even for his broad shoulders, but
clearly called elsewhere for more rotundity
than his anatomy was designed to supply.

"What is the trouble with the baby, Jessie?
I heard you thought the world of it. Surely
you can't be wanting me to tell you which is
the right end of it?" "The baby is all right, I
thinks. Doctor, but we has no cow, and nothing
to give it — except pork and molasses and loaf,
and that don't seem to suit it." "Well, that's
odd. I'm quite sure Arctic babies could have
insides made specially for the country, if you

148 DOWN to The SEA

had the planning of them, Jessie. It does seem
a shame they can't hve on ice and snow, when
there's such a terrible lot of it around."
"Uncle Ephriam sends us round a drop of
milk for the evening, but he hain't got none
worth while, and you knows there's none to be
got here." While she talked she had lifted the
child out of the clever little cradle, made out
of half a flour barrel sawed lengthwise, which
stood on rockers, cleverly made out of the
heads, near the fire, and which looked more
homely and comfortable than many a more or-
nate one I've seen in palaces elsewhere.

There was a sense of comfort sitting by that
tidy fireplace added to by Andrew, who was
laying the table for his wife. And the jingle
of the tea things and the warmth of the fire
made one "kind of drowsy." Yet the sense of
human kinship so strongly stirred one's mind
to think what I should feel if I were in their
great dilemma that it caused a sense of sad-
ness to pervade the little home, which even the
now rotund and resplendent Santa Claus sit-
ting in the settle opposite us failed to banish.
No, Drummond is right; struggle for the life
of others is a passion more deeply rooted in
the human heart than that for our own exis-
tence.

EVERY LITTLE HELPS 149

The baby which she had brought over for
me to examine, and which, poor Httle crea-
ture, showed no uncertain signs of lack of
nourishment, was now back in its cradle, and
Jessie was crooning over it, as she rocked it
eagerly to and fro to try and soothe its crying
for that which the claims of wise Mother Na-
ture had made even it realize in its waking mo-
ments.

I sat gazing at the scene, and pondering
how we could meet the emergency, and my
eyes rested on the cradle, and slowly it began
to captivate my attention. How obviously
new it was. The cut edges of the wood were
still white from the saw, and yet there was
a harmony about it that synchronized with the
surroundings. It was just as one would liked
to have had it. And after all, what a clever
cradle it was: The old barrel had been of
plain cedar, and the cradle was without the
gaudiness of paint. It had none of the spe-
cious trappings I have so often resented about
the cradles of the wealthy. Its plain, uncur-
tained top collected no dust, and allowed a free
play of air about the baby's face which pleased
me greatly. A bright wool blanket, rising
up above the sides, was all the adornment
it possessed, or needed.

I50 DOWN to The SEA

Cradles! How many I had seen of them,
yet this was the first of its kind I had ever
seen, and for utiHty and for dignity, well in
the first rank of its clan anywhere. And so
my mind went roaming off to cradles that I
had seen from London to Land's End, from
New York to San Francisco. But, no. As my
spirit on its journey reached New York, it got
switched off sharply, and there I saw myself
once again sitting in evening dress in a modern
palace, among a crowd of the city's wealthiest,
and once more noticed that I was listening to
some one telling of babies' food. He was evi-
dently speaking of what he knew.

"Baby food," he said, "has almost been per-
fected now. You can carry so much in such
a little space. It should be a great help surely to
you in the Labrador, Doctor." "What food
are you referring to?" I could hear myself say.
"To milk dried on hot drums by the new pro-
cess. Statistics show it to be better and softer
for babies than the average cow's milk sup-
plied in the cities. You certainly should try
it among your northern people." And again my
spirit had journeyed on, and now stood gazing
at a large case on the floor of our city office,
labelled in large black letters, "Mammala."

EVERY LITTLE HELPS 151

Surely this very case was in my store-room
now.

"Jessie," I said, so suddenly that had the
baby been in her lap even she might have
dropped it. "Jessie," I said, "Andrew will
come home with me to-night, and in a fort-
night we will have your baby a match even for
Santa Claus here. I'm sure of it!" "Thank
God if you is. Doctor. For us would dearly
love to keep the baby."

The Christmas tree seemed to shine doubly
bright that night, and the many excited shouts
of the children seemed doubly sweet — all be-
cause there was just one more chance of suc-
cess in the struggle for the life of others.
Andrew came back with me, just to see
me home; and left next morning early
with some mysterious long tins safely stowed
away in the "nonny" bag of sealskin
that slung over his shoulders. As I saw
him trudging away on his racquets, and
felt sure of what such humble things could
mean to these two lives on this lonely coast,
I thanked God I was permitted by Him to en-
joy a lot in life where the value of little things
is emphasized ; and where the sweetest joys on
earth are in the reach of every man, even if he
possess but one talent.

152 DOWN to The SEA

"Oh, yes, the baby is all right. Doctor. I'm
going to haul it and Jess over with my dogs
to show it you one of these days," Andrew
shouted back to me a little later, as hurrying
across the country with my trusty team I
greeted a man whom we passed, working at a
large load of firewood near the pathway, and
who turned out to be our good friend with
the baby.

Ten weeks later a letter bearing the official
stamp of the Department of Justice was de-
livered by our belated mail from a small sail-
ing boat. The early onset of warm weather
had made it dangerous for the long series of
dog teams that ordinarily carry our communi-
cations to venture with the last batch of letters
of the winter. The long-hoped-for endorse-
ment of the judgment had arrived. The baby's
fate was finally sealed, and its prospects for
the future fully justified energy voluntarily
expended, affording a satisfaction which is
considered sufficient remuneration for the am-
ateur dispensation of justice in these wilds.

IX.

Kindly Hearts on Unkindly Shores,

SUMMER had nearly come to a close on
the Labrador coast, and the hilltops
and barrens were flecked with snow.
In my little mission steamer I had already come
four hundred miles south from the village on
the edge of Hudson Bay Straits, which forms
my turning post every season. I had left the
sick and injured fishermen whom we had
picked up on our northern trip in the little hos-
pital on the group of islands at the mouth of
Eskimo Bay, which stretches away for one
hundred and thirty miles into the very heart
of Labrador, and is the home of many scat-
tered trappers and salmon fishers.

At this time of year most of the families
are gathering towards the trading post, to set-
tle up with the trader for the summer's catch.
Whatever is owing to them, after they have
turned in their salted salmon and codfish, is

153

154 DOWN to The SEA

taken up in food and other necessary supplies
for the winter. This season has been a very
hard one. Foxes and other fur-bearing ani-
mals had been scarce in winter, and few of
the trappers had done more than pay for their
advances of last fall. This failure had been
allowed by a poor salmon fishery in the Bay,
and to wind up with, a rough, stormy summer
had not only caused the loss of many large
schooners outside the Bay in the heavier wa-
ters of the North Atlantic, but had continued
so rough that the small boats belonging to the
baymen had had little chance to retrieve their
fortunes with the codfish by going to the out-
side islands in pursuit of them.

The outlook for the long winter that was
already looming ahead was gloomy, and I
found my good friend, the trading agent, in a
restless mood. "It's all very well being sta-
tioned here. Doctor," he said, "when there is
enough to eat, and even a little pinch from the
wolf won't hurt some of the grown-up men,
but I tell you it's hard to see the children go-
ing hungry." "It seems to me," I replied,
"that it will be more than an ordinary pinch
some of them will get this time if something
isn't done, for I met even so good a man as
Fred Stewart going up to his winter trapping

KINDLY HEARTS 155

grounds with not enough to last his big family
till halfway to Christmas, and he certainly
won't get much fur before then to help him
out."

It so happened that very morning I had been
standing in the store also while Willie Mal-
colm had been laying out the meager advance
allowed him — for he had no balance coming
to him, and his only assets were his debts. I
had watched him hesitating between a warm
pair of socks for the bare legs of his little girl
"Dollie" and another pound or two of oleo-
margarine— he hadn't anything like enough
for winter — and of course there isn't any other
shop where you can buy anything.

It just went to my heart even to think of
that sweet little face being pinched with hun-
ger (and I'm not her father) — I could not bear
to see her shivering with cold while I went
spending money on things I didn't need — ^be-
sides, how could you ask God to bless and take
care of the child and then leave her naked
while you ate candies. Poor Willie, he had
kept taking up the stockings and putting them
down again, and then he would look at the
open tub of oleo — of course Dollie need not go
out all winter — she could sit behind, or even
under the stove, as I have seen other poor

156 DOWN to The SEA

children doing. But then his little girl would
get weak and pale, and no one can tell what
might happen then, for that is the forerunner
so often of swellings and running sores and
of death even — all strange to them, but we
know to be due to tubercle.

But then if her father took the stockings he
couldn't have the oleo, and the winter is so
long and cold that if they had no fat food they
might even not live through it all, and anyhow
he himself would not be fit to hunt properly
and face the exposures involved. I have
known Willie Malcolm ever since he brought
home his young wife, and as his little family
came along I have been so glad to see the
plucky fight he has made to keep independent.
This morning he was so long making up his
mind the storekeeper went off to look after an-
other settler who had come in to trade. I
knew quite well Willie wouldn't hesitate a
minute if it was only a question of a luxury
for himself and stockings for his little girl,
because he had recently given up his pipe, the
one and only companion of his long, lonely
trails, so that he might throw in the few cents
he saved by doing so. So I couldn't help feel-
ing a kind of additional pity for him — indeed,
I had to look out of the window and rub my

KINDLY HEARTS 157

eyes at the sun, or the thick-headed storekeeper
might have thought I was going to cry.

Wasn't it just worth living to be able to
turn round again, when I'd got the dazzle out
of my eyes, and ask Willie if he'd mind help-
ing me choose a Christmas present for his "lit-
tle girl," and when he said he "thought Dollie
would like a pair of stockings," wasn't it grand
to have "just enough" money to buy the two
pairs. "Because you know Dollie would just
love to have a pair to give Harry." This is
one of those sermons any one can preach. Ser-
mons aren't hard things to make, you know, if
we really do love one another.

But when the storekeeper said to Willie,
"You can take the whole of that tub along,
Willie — I guess some one will pay some day,"
I believe I saw Willie trying to swallow some-
thing. But somehow I couldn't see very clear-
ly either just then — people are silly, aren't
they ? But I think it was better far than buy-
ing heaps of candies. Don't you? And I
know I felt as if I could easily walk ten miles
when I got outside the store. Everybody
loves preaching that kind of sermons.

Then again, there was Allan Wolfrey, also
— with no less than eight children. He had
been fishing outside the Bay, and he had done

158 DOWN to The SEA

fairly well. I had seen his bright little wife
a week ago, and she had said : "Yes, Doctor,
us'll have all iis needs ;" but then she had add-
ed, "still, you know. Doctor, there be them as
has scarcely a bite now, and what' 11 become of
ours, if they has to come to us to feed 'em as
well as ours, I don't know. Jerry Deane has had
to move his house the winter," she. had chatted
on. "He was so close to the winter road they
fair ate him out o' house and home last winter.
He's just had to move up the Bay or starve
this time." This is because in Labrador, of
course, no one pays anything for hospitality.
All you do is to say, "Where am I going to
sleep?" Then they know you are going to stay
the night, and of course they say, "Wouldn't
you like to take a cup o' tea ?" No, I know a
cup of tea isn't much to give you — just bread
and butter and tea. But when it's all they've
got, it's wonderful how it satisfies you, because
they do give it so freely.

One time I had been staying with some fish-
ermen for two or three days because a big
snowstorm had made it impossible for my
dogs to take me along on our route — I was
visiting from place to place on a winter round.
The morning I was to leave I found Tim
O'Reilly, my host, had gone on ahead of me.

KINDLY HEARTS 159

"What made Tim go ahead this morning?" I
asked his wife. "Well, you know," she said,
"he thought he would break a path for your
dogs — *tis only twenty miles, anyhow, and the
way's somewhat hard to find, and he thought
maybe you might miss the road, there being
no tracks left after the storm. And, indeed,
he just wanted the fun of a drive. Doctor."

But I found afterwards that he had carried
on a tin of condensed milk and some real sugar
to give to John Samson, whose house he knew
I was going to stay at, and who had done
badly with fish. And as I just made him own
up later, "Well, sure, you know, I didn't want
John to feel a bit ashamed, and that's all about
it."

Well, it did seem a terrible shame. Here
was Allan's boat alongside the wharf as I
walked along, and the poor fellow looking as
if he were in trouble. I called out to his wife,
who was climbing out of the boat with a bun-
dle in her arms with baby No. 8 in it. "Good
day, Susie, I thought you would be away up
the Bay by now; what's brought you back?"
"Allan had an accident. Doctor. He upset his
boat and lost his gun and a lot of things — it
might have been worse, thank God ! for it was
very rough, and he was holding onto the bot-

i6o DOWN to The SEA

torn o' the boat for nigh an hour before they
got him. Molly Davis saw the boat upset.
There were only Allan in it, and she called
her boys, and they got a boat out and went
and got him, thank God!" she added, and a
tear trickled down her cheek.

Poor Allan ! he hadn't a word to say at first
when I turned to him for his account of the
accident. "If it wasn't just the hunting sea-
son coming, Doctor, it wouldn't matter so
much," he said at last. "What else did you
lose beside the gun, Allan?" "Only our win-
ter fish and some flour," he said.

In the boat by the wharf side lay all the sup-
plies they were carrying up the Bay for winter.
I tried to peep in and see if there was enough
left, but the seven youngsters left in the boat
were spread out in old blankets, which so
tightly closed up the chinks that all I could
tell was that a good deal more than the gun
was really gone.

"Allan's a good hunter," my friend the
agent told me when I went up to his house to
take tea. "It means everything to him to lose
his new gun. It cost him thirty-five dollars
only two months ago, and he had been saving
up for years. He wouldn't have spent so much
on it even then, only he ordered it last year

KINDLY HEARTS i6i

when times were better, and of course he had
to stand by his order. Of course he lost his
ammunition, too. If he could get a gun
by hook or crook — if it was only an old muz-
zle loader — I'd give him ammunition on my
own account, for Allan's a straight fellow —
and — I've got a lot of children myself," h^
added, turning away.

After tea I thought I'd go down to the men's
cook house and have a talk with the boys. I
was much pleased to find Allan there cheer-
fully taking his part with the rest. How our
folks with such terrible troubles threatening
can keep so cheery has always been a puzzle to
me. But Allan seemed to have forgotten tem-
porarily his great loss.

It so happened last spring I was callea south
from the hospital with my dog sledge to visit
a dying lad some sixty miles to the southeast.
By some mishap I had fallen through into the
sea and drifted off many miles on a pan of ice.
I had been rescued next day, having lost every-
thing except my life. My friends in America
had heard of the incident and had sent me
back more things than I really lost. After a
little general conversation I edged up along-
side Allan and asked him how he came to be
upset.

i6i. DOWN to The SEA

"Well," he said, "I was called to go south
across the Bay to see old Sandy Farlan before
us left for the winter. He's getting old, you
know. Doctor, and there's no one to fend for
him but that little fellow of his. We was all
ready to start, but Susie wanted me to take
the old man something towards his winter.
We was in a hurry to be up the Bay, and
though it was blowing fresh the wind was fair
— so I ballasted the small boat down with a
bit o' fish and some flour for Sandy, and start-
ed to run across. Well, it got nastier and nas-
tier as I got over, but of course I couldn't face
back in the small boat, so I just had to make
the best of it. As I got near the other side and
could just make the house out, a steep sea
broke under the boat's quarter and threw her
clear over — heels over head. I can't swim a
yard. Doctor, as you knows, but the Lord let
me get hold of the gunwale when I came up,
and I climbed on the bottom and lay flat on the
keel, gripping the edges of the plank with my
fingers — she is clinker built, fortunately, and
I could just hold by the overlapping edges o'
the planks. Somehow the boat didn't roll over
with me, though we wallowed along in the
trough of the seas, every wave making a clean
break over me — I suppose it must ha' been the

KINDLY HEARTS 163

Lord that ruled it for that mast and sail to
stay in her. I never hoped to be able to hold
on long enough to drive ashore, for it was ter-
rible cold, as you know.

"Yes, I thought a good bit of Susan and
the young uns, but I wasn't afraid. Was you,
Doctor, on that icefloe last spring?" he inter-
rogated. "I suppose all you remember, Allan,
after that, was being taken off by Molly Da-
vis's lads." "I don't remember much about
that at all," he replied. "Well, yes, we did
take old Sandy a wee bit more on our way up."

There was a long pause. "Allan," I said,
"it's a lucky thing it was a gun you lost — why,
I happen to have a gun right in my cabin."
"I can't take your gun, Doctor," he said, "you
will want that yourself." "It's only the loan
of it, Allan — you can always give it me back.
I'm going out of the country anyhow this win-
ter, and / haven't any 'kids' to feed with it."
There was another long pause and then,
"Thank you, Doctor" — that was all he was able
to say, and he found quite a difficulty in get-
ting that out. But he squeezed my hand till I
started to whistle, and we went out — to see
what the evening was like.

Oh, those sermons! How sweet it is that
Christ tells us we can all be made fishers of

1 64 DOWN to The SEA

men, even if we are not able to make speeches
or teach in schools! Shan't we ask Him to
give us all chances and teach us to do what he
— the Master — would do in our place?

Allan came up a moment or two later as I
was trying to make out Aldebaran among the
magnificently brilliant stars overhead. "Where
are you off, Allan?" I said. "I thought I'd
just go around and tell some of them about
the gun," he answered vaguely. "Well, you
tell her t^e agent has something for her in the
morning, will you, if she hasn't time to go up
to-night." The agent was smoking on the plat-
form in front of his house when at last I went
up to say good night. He just finished up
that hand Allan had already tried to put out
of business when we shook hands. "I reckon
I'll be able to stand to that ammunition O. K.
when the accounts are settled," he said quietly.
"Good-night, sleep well, good-night."

X.

The Skipper's Yarn.

^4 ^^,T ^" ^^^^ *^^ elderly skipper by whos^
I ^ side I was sitting on the cabin lock'
er, "no, sur, I don't know how us
did in them days o' schooners at all. You see,
zur, if us got caught in the floe at all, there
were nothing for it but to drift about wher-
ever it liked to take un. If it drove her agin
the land, or the standing ice, it was little
chance enough there was for her. Why, zur,
you minds well the year Skipper Blake lost
his steamer less'n twenty-four hours out from
his own home. It were all done in five min-
utes, zur. She were driven back by a huge
pan more'n a mile long, which went rafting
along over the standing edge. T' mate tried
to pop her into a kind o' bite there were in the
edge, and had nearly got round the point, when
t' ole man comes on deck. The water seemed
somehow sort er clear to the sou'east, so the

165

1 66 DOWN to The SEA

skipper he twists 'er round and puts 'er at it.
Well, zur, it seemed as if it were for to be.
For the big pan just caught her, and pinned
*er like a rat in a trap — us could hear her ribs
a-crackin' like nuts, and the deck beams come
up just like a arch, and bust, and you could
'a' fallen through the seams. We tried pump-
ing, but bless you ! it weren't no good. So us
landed the canvas and t' grub on the ice be-
fore it slacken again about twelve hours after.
Then she just throwed up her head and goes
down starn first, and we was left a-looking
for her. Thank God, it weren't far from
land, and every man got ashore."

There was a pause, and then he added sen-
tentiously, as he sucked his pipe, "If t' ole man
had only stayed below five minute to take a
cup o' tea, I thinks it wouldn't 'a' happened at
all.

"It was in the year o' Green Bay," he went
on, "when the winds hung so long in t' nor'-
east, and so many vessels was lost — I was in
the Hesperus wi' my boys. We was drove in
by the pack along wi' the rest of 'em. But
the old Hesperus was one to rise easy, and
when the ice started rafting, it just lifted her
up, zur — like a baby, zur — and left her lying
there. It carried away her port stanchions, an'

The SKIPPER'S YARN 167

about thirty foot o' rails an' bulwarks. But,
bless you! beyond that she weren't even so
much as scratched. Eight o' the men were
that scairt they went an' left her, but my boys,
they stood by me, zur, they did ! Us started in
to get some food an' canvas off of her, in case
her might fall in t' wrong way; and there we
bides till the wind showed signs o' slacking.
Well, then, zur, us gets all the powder us had,
and blasted away at them pans to try and let
her keel down easy. But ne'er a bit would
she budge, till there were only a twelve-pound
keg o' powder left, and not a single inch of
fuse. There were nothing to be done but put
it right under her — so us sewed the stabber
round wi' tarry spun-yarn, and worked a bit
o' powder in wi' it, and then we just lets her
rip. Well — zur — if you'd seed that old ship
get up on end and look at us that solemn like,
zur, you'd a laughed till you cried, as all o'
us done. What did us do then ? Why, we all
gets aboard — stows her grub an' stuff down
below again. An' us got twenty-one hundred
seals afore us wet an anchor or saw home
again.

"The closest call Fs had, it is you wants, is
it ? Well, zur, I thinks it were one time I was
out in that same old Hesperus. We was away

1 68 DOWN to The SEA

off the Funk Islands, and the swiles was away
again to the nor'ard; at least so it seemed to
us. But the wind held to the nor'ard day after
day, and we was losing ground that fast in the
running ice that there was nothing for it but
to hitch her on to a iceberg.

"There was one about sixty feet or more
high as we was driving by, and there were two
grand pinnacles on it. So a dozen of us land-
ed on the floe, and got alongside as best us
could. Wi' our axes we cut steps up the side
of un, till us got safely on 'is shoulder, and
then passes our bight line round one pinnacle,
an' hauls the big hawser home, and made fast.
Meanwhile the ice has been wheeling pretty
fast wi' the breeze, and all of a suddent the
berg got clear and was floating in open water.
There was a heavy swell running, and as soon
as ever she shook free, down she started to go.
Our schooner were away to leeward the whole
length o' the line, and there were ne'er a boat
afloat. Well, zur, t' berg went down that slow
and that steady, us didn't notice it till us was
almost down to the water, so that I had hardly
time to sing out, *Hang on the line, boys!'
when the first sea broke right over us. Only
one man had let go, and, luckily enough for
him, the sea jammed him in against a sharp

The SKIPPER'S YARN 169

ledge of ice wi' the hawser taut against his
legs. She didn't stay down a minute, how-
ever; indeed, she must ha' gone level wi' the
surface, I supposes, and then up she starts to
come again, just as she went down, that sol-
emn and that slow, as if the whole world be-
longed to her. When we had found out where
we was again, we were well up in the air and
a boat was pulling towards us for all she was
worth. One o' our fellows somehow got
frightened, and when we was good sixty feet
up again, he rushes to t' edge shoutin', 'My
God, I ain't goin' to stay on this thing no
longer!' And, zur, youse mayn't believe me,
but if I hadn't 'a' catched him by the collar,
jump he would have, sure enough. No one
else said nothing, 'cept Old Uncle Pete, and
he just said in his slow old way, It don't seem
as if us is going to be lost this time after all,
do it, skipper?' He said it that droll I had to
stop and laugh in spite o' having to tie the
small line to the hawser and let all hands swing
into the boat. We was soaked through, and
cold, too, and there weren't no time to waste
anyhow — leastways it seem' so — for the ole
berg were on 'er way down again ahead. As
it were, howsomever, the hawser held on to the
pinnacles, and us had just time to get clear

1 70 DOWN to The SEA

before another sea broke over her. Yes, o'
course she might ha' tipped over ; many on 'em
does, as you says, but then you see she didn't,
and that's all about it. Well, o' course, when
the loose ice wheeled back, it steadied her up
again, and us held on just as long as us wanted.
No, I didn't care about goin' up on her again
to let go, but what o' that?"

The inquiry into unnecessary details seemed
to worry the old fellow, so I quietly passed
him my tobacco-pouch and went up to look
at the weather, while he pulled himself to-
gether for another yarn.

XL
''There His Servants Serve Him.*'

THE winter's ice is breaking* up, and
spring in the sub-arctic is commen-
cing. In the phraseology of my blue-
guernseyed friends, I am "bound for the Lab-
rador," whither they are also making their
way in thousands in their annual endeavor
to reap the rich harvest of the sea, which for
a hundred years that apparently barren coast
has yielded to their skill and courage.

Already most of their adventurous barks are
"down north," picking their somewhat hazard-
ous paths through the pack-ice, which this year
has lain terribly late along the Atlantic sea-
board of this grim continent.

The last land our vessel touched at was Syd-
ney in Cape Breton, where we put in to es-
cape a thick fog in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The weather had been moderate till near
sundown, but then a steadily rising wind had
171

172 DOWN to The SEA

given most of us a very broken night. For
the rough water caused by the strong current
going south against the breeze had rolled up a
nasty sea, and incidentally rolled us so un-
generously that sleep under the conditions,
when one had come straight from a long pe-
riod among "the landlubbers," was in our
small vessel out of the question.

Moreover, we needed fresh water, one of
those few commodities that these cliffs and
valleys supply freely and without stint; so the
master kad decided to run into a harbor as
soon as the sea and the darkness should make
an approach to the land possible.

Now it is Sunday morning, and the rattle
of the anchor-chain in the hawse-pipe had
scarcely died away. The surface of the har-
bor is as placid as a duck-pond, being shel-
tered from the stormy breeze that is blowing
outside by mighty, overhanging hills, exquis-
itely covered with dark green evergreen spruces
and pines.

Along the partly cleared foreshore peep out
the scattered houses of a little hamlet, and as
yet, except for the smoke rising from a single
chimney, no signs of life are visible.

The morning sun has risen above the high
peaks of a mountain range some half-dozen

His SERF A NTS SERVE HIM 173

miles inland, and the long rays streaming
through the gaps in the sides of the winding
fiord are striking here and there the mirror of
the smooth water, and, repeated thence, are
dancing like sprites on the cliff faces of the
opposite side of the inlet. Our own vessel is
swathed in sunshine from above and below as
she lies lazily lolling on the azure water of this
northern sea.

It has been my lot for many years to be
trying to solve the problem of how best to con-
tend with sickness and suffering along this
long coast-line. Here the distances between
the homes of the settlers, and their inability to
pay large fees, render impossible the methods
that obtain in large communities, with the re-
sult that for hundreds of miles no medical or
skilled assistance of any kind is available in
times of trouble. Thus a vague terror of
things unknown hovers over these little fam-
ilies, and a wake of lives and capacities need-
lessly lost ever lies behind them.

" Tis a powerful healthy coast. Doctor,'' an
optimistic skipper said to me the other day, —
while his own daughter of eighteen lay dying
of tuberculosis in his parlor, owing mainly to
their lamentable lack of knowledge of the very
first rudiments of sanitary science.

174 DOWN to The SEA

Years of experience have taught me that it
requires service in varied forms to relieve
troubles which are so patiently and uncom-
plainingly borne that the very fatalism that is
the outcome makes it almost impossible to in-
troduce what seem to be "newfangled" meth-
ods. It is, with but little knowledge, possible
to do much with the remedies nature furnishes
on the spot.

"Doctor, I wants you to look at my Johnny,"
said a young mother this morning. "His legs
be all snarled up."

It was only an ordinary case of rickets, but
unnecessary, for the rem.edy was right at hand.

"Take some of those light bluish stones off
the beach and burn them thoroughly; then
throw some hot water on them. Get the white
powder and put a lot of it in a jug. Shake it
up well, and let it settle. Pour off the clear
water, and give Johnny a tablespoon ful three
times a day."

"Can you'se come to see my *ooman, Doc-
tor?" said the father of a family to me a little
while ago, soon after we had come to an
anchor. "She be terrible bad, and be turning
black all over."

A short walk through a grove of spruce
trees along a beach abounding in wild parsley,

His SERVANTS SERVE HIM 175

and across a greensward yellow with dande-
lions, brought us to a tiny log house. Here
lay the mother of a young family, the fetid
bleeding mouth, the swollen black patches, and
the painful, discolored legs proclaiming it to
be a case of sailors' scurvey. She was suffer-
ing untold agonies, while strewn all the way
from the landing-place to the very house door
lay the only remedies needed.

The white plague, however, which works so
secretly that our people have never yet recog-
nized its malignity, exacts the most appalling
tribute from us. Sitting here in the sunshine
on an old sea-chest is a boy of fifteen. His
pallid and sunken cheeks, and his occasional
hollow cough, proclaim their own story. We
have just dragged him out of a dark cabin of
wood and mud, where no window opened,
where the door closed almost air-tight, where
there is no open chimney, but only a large
stove with an iron smoke-funnel, and where
this boy lay weighted down with all the heavy
garments the efforts of misdirected love could
pile upon him.

Scenes so harrowing and homes so saddened
"just for the want of a little knowledge" have
not been without their effect on our policy.

Indeed, right here in this tiny village off

176 DOWN to The SEA

which we have so incontinently come to
anchor, somewhere among these scattered cot-
tages is working at this very moment a trained
nurse for the first time in history. Hither she
has come in response to our appeal for help.
She has come at her own private cost and
charges all the long distance between this place
and New York, — just to spend the six months
of summer, trying, for the great Master's sake,
to "do what she can" for these His brethren.
The skill acquired so patiently and at such cost
at a large New York hospital is not the least
of her contributions.

From letters she has already sent me, I most
shrewdly guess that the solitary column of as-
cending smoke marks a cottage where she is
tending some sick child, or possibly one of
those so common cases where just the loving,
skilful service she alone in this place is able
to render may now be standing the only barrier
betwixt life and death.

As my eye wanders around the shore I can
distinguish here the cross-surmounted spire of
a Catholic church, and close to it the little
home of the missionary priest. Further away
to the side I can see a building which in spite
of its rude architecture I can readily distin-
guish as an Episcopal church, while away to-

His SERVANTS SERVE HIM 177

ward the rocky headland which we rounded as
we came in is obviously the building in which
the Methodists of this scattered district gather
for divine worship.

These buildings demand the services of at
least three men's lives, — men no doubt de-
voted, earnest, and unselfish. For the material
return that a minister of the gospel can ex-
pect for the services he is called on to render
must yet be meagre, down here, in compari-
son with that which a commercial life could
return to him.

These more pretentious houses with real
bow windows and bravely ornamented porches
are not the residences that the men who serve
the churches can expect, but are undoubtedly
the homes of the owners of these trading
wharves I see projecting into the harbor. The
minister of religion can expect, along this
coast, at least, so far to share the measure
meted out to the Master. If he seeks here for
the joys of life in a coin different from that
which the Christ found His in, he is doomed
only to disappointment.

On the other hand, to these men belongs the
high privilege of speaking for their Master.
They can gather crowds around them, and can
expect to enjoy the real reward of service in

178 DOWN to The SEA

seeing many men listen to their spoken mes-
sage and answer to it in their lives. To many
there seems a special dignity at first in this
form of service, — a special value to life that
the man of commerce, the man with the hook
and line, the nurse with her bag of comforts
and only her own two hands, have no right to
expect to realize so fully.

It is evening now, and the sun is setting. 1
have been ashore all day, following the trip-
ping footsteps of the nurse as she wended her
way now over the hills from house to house,,
now independently paddling in her own canoe
from point to point in the inlet, much to the
anxiety of these men of the sea, who "be un-
acquainted with the like."

I have been following her at her own re-
quest, that she might obtain some advice, some
help, some encouragement, for "her family,"
— a family so very dependent on her efforts.
Indeed, as she waved me good-bye this even-
ing as I left the shore for my ship, she assured
me that even she herself was glad of the en-
couragement. For alas! it is true, nineteen
hundred years later, that the bearer of the
message of God's love, and the carrying of the
Christ into men's homes, however undeniable
be the form of service that we would commend

His SERVANTS SERVE HIM 179

Him by, still find their detractors; and ever
the good of "those who do good" causes the
tongue of the unprofitable to wag in malice,
with a view to discredit and discourage the ef-
fort of any who would interpret love by work.

First among our visits to-day was one to a
woman with a huge swelling, which proved to
be a tumor needing immediate removal. Next
came a young girl with intermittent appendi-
citis, who should be at once operated on. This
mother, too, lying here in bed so patiently,
should, with but trifling medical skill, be able
to go about her household duties again. This
young fisherman and father, incapacitated by
an injury caused by a heavy strain at his work,
could be so easily made a new man. Here is
a woman crippled for years by a loose body
in her knee-joint, an injury comparatively
quite simple to repair, yet one which makes
"getting about" both a misery and danger.

As we passed along, word evidently kept
travelling ahead of us that we were on our
rounds. For nearly every little door or gar-
den-gate was ajar; and as we came by a shy
invitation, "just to come in a minute" and see
some member of the household, kept us so long
at work that the evening services at the
churches were over long ere we reached the

i8o DOWN to The SEA

side of the fiord we had left in the morning,
where our ship lay, and where the Httle
churches stood.

As I bade good-night to my indefatigable
companion, I said, "You must be tired to
death, nurse."

"Not a bit/' she replied ; "I'm just as fresh
as paint still."

"Well, be sure to catch the next mail
steamer bound for the hospital at Battle Har-
bor, and bring with you at least those five out
of your little family." Odd as it may seem, I
believed firmly that the message of love would
come to them, at any rate, most truly through
the surgeon's knife.

And now it is time to "turn in." The ship
is already silent; there is no need to keep an
anchor-watch, and all hands are sleeping but
myself. On shore also once again I can make
out no signs of the stir of human life. The
last twinkling light in a cottage window has
just gone out.

But I am still lingering under God's beauti-
ful curtain overhead, watching the brilliant
worlds above peeping through at us below;
and my mind goes a-wandering, as it were,
'twixt the practicalities of the brief day of hu-
man life and the eternity that surrounds it.

His SERF ANTS SERVE HIM i8i

How infinitely small seems our utmost oppor-
tunity for making our poor life worth while!
And yet there is in my heart, and in every
right-thinking child of man's, the confidence
that we, departing, can "leave behind us foot-
prints on the sands of time" that we should not
be ashamed of.

The events of the day just gone forever
once more repeat themselves in my memory;
and there is a longing now that He who made,
and rules on high, all this great universe, and
whose eye is now upon me as, alone on this
deck, I look up into His heavens — a longing
that He may find something among all the
things we have considered worth while at the
time — something — that He can commend.

What would I commend? Which is the
"service** that seems undeniable, — a worthy
service for the King of kings ?

Possibly we grade wrongly what "service"
means, and, in giving to the various forms of
worship the term of "service," have lost sight
of the fact that in singing and praying and
talking, or in correct intellectual assent merely,
we are conferring no favor on the King.
Rather are we at these times merely coming
near to Him, that He may confer on us fresh
favors of His courage. His wisdom, and His

1 82 DOWN to The SEA

strength; that we may go out to render better
the real .service He calls for.

I was glad that He had given me time to
join the others in their simple form of wor-
ship when the day began ; but I saw no reason
to regret — though selfishly I would have liked
it otherwise — that the humble services to His
brethren, such as with the nurse I had been
rendering, had prevented me from again join-
ing the congregation in their evening hymns
of faith and praise.

For there sang in my heart a voiceless hymn
that shall echo on when the strains of the
service rendered by voice only shall have died
away, — a very song of heaven that once sang
even on His cross in our Master's heart, such
a hymn as I know must sing, even at the dark-
est hours, in the hearts of all those whom He
blesses with the faith that in serving our
brethren we render the highest service we are
capable of rendering, with our poor talents, to
Him.

XII.

A Physician In the Arctic.

A GREAT good fortune it is to live
among deep sea fishermen on this or
the other side of the Atlantic. Splen-
did material they are, none better. Their
simple, hard lives and their constant business
on great waters develop all that is good and
virile in them, and indeed, who ever knew a
mean deep sea man? Their self-reliance and
simple courage are sermons needing no words.
Their many deeds of self-sacrificing bravery
are still done where there can be no doubt
about the motive, for they neither expect nor
receive reward in gold and silver, or in the
praise of men.

The constant perils and great hardships of
their lives and the lives of the fisher folk along
the coast are brought home to us every year
by new tales of suflFering and bravery. The
experience of one fisherman we knew is typical'

183

1 84 DOWN to The SEA

of what happens only too frequently in that
country. This man, wishing to go South for
the winter, started in his small fishing boat,
with his wife, four children, a servant girl
and his fishing partner. Scarcely had they
left when a furious gale of wind sprang up.
The mainsail and jib, with the mast, were all
blown over the side, and the boat was driven
before the wind. Three days and three nights
they drove off into the Atlantic. On the third
day the wind veered, and they were able to
put up a small foresail they had saved and
drag in the direction of the land. Two more
terrible days, and at last, when the boat was
quite unmanageable, they found the land close
under their lee. Their condition was seen
just before they drove ashore and a rescue at-
tempted, but too late to save their boat. All
their lives, however, were saved by the in-
domitable perseverance of the half dozen set-
tlers. Instead of being south of where they
left, they were a hundred and fifty miles
north, and indeed were in Labrador. There
was no chance to leave so late in the season,
and there they had to stay till the following
summer, fed by the kindness of their poor
neighbors and dead to all their friends for at
least six months. A similar accident to one of

' > '

THE PHYSICIAN IN THE LABRADOR

A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 185

our English fishing vessels left the crew of
ten men on the south coast of Iceland all one
winter. When they came back in the fol-
lowing spring by the first possible boat, not
only had the insurance on all their lives been
paid and mostly spent, but one man's wife
had married again.

Gales in these regions in winter are often
terribly severe. The little new church built
here where I am wintering now was a few
years ago blown clean away. Even the pews,
the pulpit and the communion table were all
blown into the sea.

Few fishermen can swim. "You see we has
enough o' the water without goin' to bother
wi' it when we are ashore," a man said to me
only the other day. Yet this very man had
fallen overboard in the open sea no less than
four times, and had only been saved on one
occasion by catching the line thrown him in
his teeth and holding on till he was hauled
aboard. His hands were too numbed to be
of any use. Still this fact does not deter them
from facing the water. In an open bay in
Labrador lives one solitary settler. In the
spring of the year, when the ice was just
breaking up, the man's two lads were out on
the bay ice after seals, when all of a sudden it

1 86 DOWN to The SEA

gave way and the lads fell through. The
father, seeing it from the shore, did not hesi-
tate, but seizing a fishing line hastily fastened
one end round his body, and giving the other
end to his daughter to hold, he ran out to the
hole through which they had fallen. He
jumped into the water, actually went down
and fetched up the bodies, too late, alas, how-
ever, to restore life to them after that cold
water. These tales could be multiplied in-
definitely. And there are many heroic tales
of women. Early in the fall the arm of the
sea just north of our little hospital was frozen
over enough to allow dog trains to travel over
it. In the early morning two men started off
to cross it on a komatik, to cut firewood on
the far side. As they rounded a headland the
whole of the team fell in through the ice,
where an eddying tide had kept it open. The
komatik followed into the water, carrying the
men with it. One disappeared under the ice
and was drowned. The other got free and
held on to the ice edge, though he was unable
to crawl out on top of it. From the shore
his sister saw the accident and at once started
to run over the ice to his aid. As she drew
near she heard men shouting, and saw they
were pulling a boat down to the ice some dist-

A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 187

ance away. They shouted to her, "For God's
sake, don't go near the hole." Instead of stop-
ping she had the presence of mind to throw
herself full length on the ice and glide along
till she got near enough with outstretched arms
to reach her brother's hand. Already he was
half frozen to death. But she managed to
get him up enough to rest on the ice near her,
and then to lie perfectly still till the boat came,
when she was at length taken off. One of
her own legs was through the ice. The tough,
salt water ice fortunately does not split as the
brittle, fresh water ice does. Her brother's
life was saved, and there the incident ended.

"What made you go on ?" I asked her.

"I couldn't see him drown, could I?" was
her simple reply.

Besides sailors and the Eskimos, my clien-
tele includes some four to five thousand white
settlers, scattered all along the coast of Lab-
rador from Cape Chidley to the Gulf of St.
Lawrence, and along the north shores of New-
foundland. They are a most heterogeneous
class, drafted from almost everywhere and
descended from Scotch, south of England,
and French parentage. They have become
fishermen and trappers and live under circum-
stances as adverse as it is possible to conceive

1 88 DOWN to The SEA

of, quite cut off from civilization. In many
respects they may be said to bear the flavor
of prehistoric times and this often affects my
practice in curious ways. They have a firm
behef in the heahng power of charms, the
efficacy of which of course lies in faith.

The call for education in matters sanitary
was emphasized at one house I visited. The
man had lost from tuberculosis three daughters,
two of them married, in thirteen months, his
eldest son was badly affected, and another
house had every child rickety. This, of
course, is far more emphasized in the case of
animals. I found one poor fellow in sore
trouble over his sick cow. He had already,
with a long gimlet, bored holes into its head
through to the root of its horns, as he was told
it was " horn-bound," by much the same rea-
soning process that some of our people attrib-
ute the squalling of their babies to being
" tongue-tied." The animal, however, had not
improved, and I was called in, though I real-
ized at once my limitations in the "-cow-doctor
line." The poor beast seemed feverish and too
weak to stand, and eventually died.

Late one evening a fisherman came off to
our vessel, a shy sort of fellow. He had tied
his boat and seated himself on the taffrail

A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 189

where he had apparently been waiting a full
hour or more before I happened to go up on
deck to see what kind of a night it was and
stumbled against him.

"Are you the doctor, sir?" he asked. "I
want bleeding, please sir." To ease his mind
I called him below to examine him. Finding,
however, it was only a case of impure blood
without any symptoms and having no patience
to spend time on nihilitis, I dismissed him
unbled and turned in.

At daylight, when we rose to get under way,
he was on board again, very dejected and com-
ing up to me offered me a dollar to bleed him.
A dollar cash on this coast is a thing a man
so seldom gets he never parts with it if he
can help it. Evidently it was best to bleed
him for his mind's sake. So I did it. "You
see, sir," he said, while the operation was go-
ing on, "an old Indian squaw, she bleed my
feet a good spell ago and I haven't had ne'er
a pain since. So when they told me there was
a doctor aboard, I thought it was a good
chance." But he added half regretfully, "it
didn't feel quite the same. She bored the
holes with a kind o' corkscrew."

The most satisfactory part of our work
perhaps, is the ability to save by simple sur-

190 'DOWN to The SEA

gical means the loss of functions that stand
for the difference between a wretched existence
and a Hfe of comparative enjoyment, and be-
tween plenty and want. Even a failure does
not distress us as it would in a city, for we
are at least the best surgeons here and there is
no other man round the corner who would
have done the thing much better. We took in
once a patient, stone blind for two years, who
had long since abandoned all hope of being
able to see again. He was only a little over
forty years old and the prospect on a coast
like this was dreary indeed. The operation
for double cataract was completely successful
and was quite as miraculous to the neighbors
as the restoring of sight to the blind in Our
Saviour^s time.

One of the main difficulties in operative
work is often the soft-heartedness of my as-
sistants, who are necessarily pressed in from
anywhere, and the anxiety of watching both
the anaesthetic and the operation. This does
not matter so much when dealing with Eskimo
patients, for they are sometimes so indifferent
to pain one can dispense with the anaesthetics,
and now excellent local anaesthetics often act-
ually permit the patients themselves to help
one in the operation. On one occasion, when

A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 191

I was visiting an Eskimo fishing station, the
head man announced that I would see the
patients in his hut. I seated myself in the
middle of the tiny hut with a butter tub for
a throne, while every inch of spare room
around the tiny space reserved for the patient
of the moment was crowded with all the adult
Eskimos that could get in. Curiosity is as
marked in these little people as it is in mon-
keys. It came at last to the turn of a girl
with an intractable frost bite of the toe, for
which the only cure was amputation. Appar-
ently it was a proud moment in her life. Hav-
ing explained as best I could the treatment
her case involved, I was not a little surprised
when she sat right down and held up the toe
which gave her a claim to so much attention,
indicating that she wished me to proceed at
once. She showed the greatest interest from
start to finish and I left her a marked person
in that settlement. Eskimos almost always
heal well. No one wishes to earn the title of
romancer, yet I have been so surprised myself
at the way people can get well on this coast
that I am inclined to advise my readers to
come down here and try its tonic qualities.

Ritual of all kind is at a discount among
those who go down to the sea in ships, and

192 DOWN to The SEA

I am afraid that in surgery as well as in re-
ligion we are apt to be iconoclasts. Late one
fall when I was hastening south in a small
launch — the hospital sailing vessel in w^hich
we came from England had already gone, — I
anchored at dark one day under the shelter of
a group of islands in a roadstead quaintly
named "Rogue's Roost." Just as I was turn-
ing in, for being my own skipper with only
one man beside the engineer I had a watch
to stand and was therefore tired, a boat
bumped alongside and a voice sang out to
know if there was a doctor on board.
"What do you want with a doctor?"
"There's a woman very sick ashore, sir.
Could you come and see her?"

How could I say that I wasn't at home, see-
ing he had guessed my identity from my voice.
I went ashore and found the mother of a
small family actually sick unto death. She
had what is known as a psoas abscess. In
this case the treatment involved an opening
through the muscles in the back. To me it
seemed an issue in either case of death, the
difference being the lessening of her sufferings.
She insisted on taking the chance and endur-
ing the pain. My only assets were a scalpel
and the rubber tube of my stethescope. The

C C C f . c t

A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 193

operation went off all right. The tube was
strongly sewn in and the bed having been lit-
erally cut in half, drainage was established and
the person directed to lie on her back there
until I came back in the spring. I was a little
shy when next July we approached this same
group of islands. But among those who came
down to greet me was an unusually healthy
looking woman whom I entirely failed to rec-
ognize. At last I ventured to approach the
painful subject of the operation. The person
in rude health explained without any surprise,
"that's me."

Being unable to specialize on this coast, one
has perhaps as many medical troubles as one
has surgical. On one occasion I brought with
me from the north a jolly little fellow who
had been exhibited at the World's Fair as
Prince Pomiuk. I had picked him up in an
advanced state of hip-joint disease, lying
naked on the pebble beach in a skin "tubik"
or tent at the head of a deep fjord near Cape
Chidley. The foster parents, for his father,
the chief, had been murdered, readily gave
me what remained of the lad, and having
twice operated on him under chloroform, I
had landed him at our mo»t northern hos-
pital at the mouth of Hamilton inlet. The

194 DOWN to The SEA

sister in charge was ordered to keep him for
a few days in a hot bath. We had no hot
water supply, however, and the stove was only
large enough to keep hot the food and water
that was wanted for every day's work. The
question was solved by our fishermen friends
around. They appeared in the afternoon with
a large iron pot in which they bark their nets.
Under the shelter of a virgin rock they built a
stone fire place, on which they not only placed
the cauldron, but there in the open near the
hospital kept the fire going the requisite time
and did a great deal towards hastening the
little fellow's recovery. The bath, holding a
large quantity of water, and being well
wrapped round with layers of blankets was
not hard to maintain at an even temperature.

A flag half-masted or almost any unusual
evolution answers as a call to our little hospital
ship as she patrols the coast in summer. One
morning, just as we had got our anchor up
and were ready for sea, we saw signals from
an approaching boat that they wanted to come
aboard. No sooner alongside than a man was
lifted over the rail with his right arm under
cover. It appeared that owing to an accident
it had been dislocated some weeks previously,
and was not only the cause of great pain but

A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 195

threatened to permanently cripple him. As
we were then almost at our most extreme
northern limit, and in the latitude that no
medical man reaches, it was doubly pleasing
to stop and put the poor fellow right, though
we were blowing off steam and wasting pre-
cious fuel all the time. I had supposed that
the incident ended there, but two years later,
being again in the same neighborhood, my
former patient came aboard tendering me a
splendid pair of skin boots. Having forgotten
the man I asked him what he wanted for them.
"For you," he replied, and promptly retired.
I was only told on inquiry that he had been
waiting all this time to demonstrate in some
way that he was not without gratitude. Grati-
tude, as rare still in the world as in Scrip-
tural times, goes a long way to render even
arduous services a pleasure, and fortunately
this is a characteristic feature also in men of
the sea.

A letter from an Eskimo bears the same
note. "My dear friend. You are our friend,
although you do not know us. We show you
our thanks, both my wife and I, because you
have so kindly attended our children this sum-
mer. First you cared for Jeremias, while he
was suffering. He is his mother's only son.

196 DOWN to The SEA

Afterwards my only son Nathaniel, the one
that was shot, you are attending to, and we
wish to show you our thanks. Although we
are unable to pay with things that are seen,
may He on whom you believe help you in
your work, and may you afterwards receive
that for which you wish, that which is precious
and desirable, that which is above. Jeremias
told us of your kindness which you show to
all. Please accept this little present, which is
to show you our thanks. We are unable to
do more. Good-bye." How could it have been
better worded?

The pitiable straits to which one or two bad
seasons sometimes reduces these families, es-
pecially the more isolated ones, is the side of the
picture that is perhaps most pathetic. I went
one day up a bay, to visit a settler's family.
It was dark when we arrived and hauled our
boat up near the house. The father and one
boy were away. The mother and seven others
were home. The youngest was four months
old. The house consisted of one large room, a
central cracked stove, and a porch in which
the inevitable dogs slept.

Our hostess remarked at once: "I am very
sorry, sir, I cannot offer you any tea. We
have had none in the house for over a month.

A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 197

Richard is away selling some seals." They
had for their summer twelve quintals of fish
at two dollars thirty a quintal, two bear skins,
and six seals. The "seven" were to all in-
tents and purposes naked. Two threadbare
cotton coverlets were the sole furnishings of
the two beds. The semi-religious light of an
exceedingly small lamp in some measure ob-
scured the rest of the meager surroundings.
"Soft loaf and water" had been their supper
for many a day. Not even a drop of molasses
was in the house. Two children slept with
the mother, four on the other bed, two on the
floor. Where the other two stowed away was
a mystery. All turned in with even their rem-
nants of boots on. We- wrapped up in our
blankets and slept on the floor.

"I don*t see the blanket I sent you last
fall," I ventured on as we were stowing away.
"Did you receive it?"

"Yes, sir. But five children sleeping under
it soon wore it out."

The enforced idleness of winter is one of
the greatest causes of this extreme poverty.
To counteract this we have several efforts
under way. To help them to get cash for their
produce we started a series of small co-opera-
tive stores, where the fish is sold to the people

198 DOWN to The SEA

for cash, and where they can get goods at
cash prices. These stores have now a large
schooner for freighting called the Co-operator.
They have had quite a measure of success.
To increase as far as we can the wage-earn-
ing capacity we have several small schemes,
the best being a lumber mill, on which sixty-
five families were supported last winter quite
independently. Those who are good trappers
can make plenty by catching foxes, otters,
beaver, marten, minks, lynx, ermine and mus-
quash. Deer also are still plentiful in most
parts of the country, and of late years rabbits.
Ducks also are common all along the coast,
and there are some geese and other wild fowl.
We also get bears, both black and white, and
some years great quantities of willow grouse
and some ptarmigan, spruce partridge and
Arctic hares. The dog driving, ski traveling,
skating and winter pleasures are unrivaled.
There is plenty of free salmon fishing, and
unlimited trout fishing. Cruising can be car-
ried on in perfect safety, and one can cover
hundreds of miles without ever seeing the open
water at all, as the outlying islands are so
numerous. There is much exploration to be
done, much ethnological work, to say nothing
of prospecting. The fog is not at all trouble-

A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 199

some, the air is clear and bracing. Practically
the only trouble is the mosquito, and he never
confers ague on his victims.

The absence of all conventionalities and re-
strictions is also very refreshing. A peri-
patetic minister was called on at a place known
as Spotted Islands to marry a couple. The
bridegroom was an elderly man who was a
kind of king in the place. When the minister
arrived at the island he found all the islanders
assembled in the little school-room awaiting
him. It was not till he actually entered the
building that he discovered the bride was the
deceased wife's sister. This being a forbidden
relationship, he refused to proceed, whereupon
the intending bridegroom quietly remarked,
"Never mind, Mister. One of these others
will do." So, turning to the expectant crowd,
he selected a suitable partner, and she being
willing, "all went as gaily as a marriage bell."

All our winter work is done over the snow
with large dog teams and komatiks or sledges.
One old lady of sixty has just arrived at one
of the hospitals, after being hauled nearly
seventy miles by her two lads and their dog
team. She came to have her leg amputated,
and already we are trying to solve the prob-
lem— where is the artificial leg to come from?

200 DOWN to The SEA

Here, then, is a life which offers facilities
for the employment and development of every
faculty a man possesses.

Nothing need be wasted in Labrador.

XIII.

Friends and Foes of the Labrador.

I WAS lying at anchor under the shelter of
a group of rocky islands well down the
East Labrador coast. We had just been
doctoring among the numbers of fishemiien
that make this their headquarters for the sum-
mer fishery. As we landed, a thin column of
smoke over the southern horizon heralded the
approach of the fortnightly mail, which was
overdue. I was away visiting a sick woman,
whom we had to send to the hospital, when
the mail steamer sounded her syren off the
harbour. Before I got aboard the Hospital
steamer, the mail-boat had again departed.
My arrival over the rail was greeted by a
square-shouldered, keen- faced young fellow of
twenty-five.

Clothing of civilization! Who can this be?
I suppose I looked it. For he volunteered the
information :

201

202 DOWN to The SEA

"Fm the man you wired for."

"Wired!"

"Yes. Don't you remember? To Mont-
real."

"What's your line?"

"I'm an electrical engineer."

"And your name?"

"X ."

"Right. Excuse me half a minute." Div-
ing into the chart-room, I seized the letter file,
and soon hunted up his letter, dated January
6th, marked "Received, July loth." Present
date is August 6th.

Briefly, what he had to say was, what I
would every man could say: "My object in
life is to make it tell as much as I can."

Apparently he was just free of any personal
ties, and so able to stand his own expense. So
he thought an engineer would find a place
down here where there would not be a man
in the next street able to do things better than
himself. Preferring another guerdon to dol-
lars, he had written his letter, and my wire
had filtered back in the course of time, saying,
"Come right along."

Now it is often charged to Christian mis-
sions that men go into them because they can-
not get anywhere else, or for what they can

FRIENDS and FOES 203

get out of it. I think the latter is the com-
monest accusation, because the weakness of
intellect idea has been abandoned more or less
of late, as the truth gets known about the type
of men who are out in the foreign fields.

On the Strathcona we have an electrical
apparatus and X-ray installation for our medi-
cal work, and the other electrical fittings help-
ing us to make our work more effective and
up-to-date. It was out of order, and none of
us knew how to put it right.

Friend X has just emerged from the

engine-room rather hot and dirty, because the
dynamo has been stuffed up in a corner above
the condenser. But he has put that electrical
apparatus right, and I think he is just as sat-
isfied as if he had an extra dollar or two, and,
perhaps, he has just as much right to be
thought sane, in spite of it. We have laid
before him the work we can give him to do,
and which we cannot get done, if he doesn't
do it, because we cannot afford it. He has
decided as soon as our sea freezes us out
(which it does not do before December) to
run up to Montreal and get some more tools.
It appears to us all that he is going to make
himself tell somewhat in our little comer of
the earth during the next twelve months.

204 DOWN to The SEA

What enables me to give the time to write
this letter to you is, that there is a Harvard
medical down in our surgery, interviewing the
fishermen, who have been coming aboard since
morning for various ailments. He is a vol-
unteer for exactly the same reason.

When I left the little hospital on Caribou
Island there were two young fellows from
Bowdoin University staying there, recommend-
ed to us by President Hyde as two of "the
strongest men he knows in the University."
They are not engineers, and they are not doc-
tors. You might say they are just "digging,"
or doing anything else that comes along. As
a matter of fact, the day I left they were act-
ually digging out the foundation for an open-
air shelter, which has since been completed.
It is a very cute arrangement, and serves both
for our convalescents and our tubercular
patients — beds and all. It is going to be an
uncommonly forceful sermon to a very large
number of people on the benefit of the fresh
air, sunshine, and the simple life. I ought
to have said that these men seemed to me
to be the kind of men the world wants more
of.

They are not making any dollars either.
Not that I am against making dollars. They

FRIENDS and FOES 205

have got to be made, and God bless every one
who makes them.

After the winter on the north Newfound-
land shore, when this hospital boat came out
of winter quarters, I would have had to close
the hospital there, as we did last summer, for
the want of a man to carry on the work while
we were afloat. But we were able to hold on
till, at last in June, another medical volunteer
stepped ashore from our tardy mail-boat.

We were rather hard put to it at the time
for a nurse, and the new volunteer began by
thirty-six hours without sleep, taking a night-
watch by an unconscious fisherman landed
from a schooner the same day.

When last I saw him, he had just been there
six weeks. We had been in twice to empty
the hospital, by carrying the patients to the
next northern hospital, as he only had one
nurse, and she a volunteer from England. The
daylight was already coming over the hills,
and the doctor was standing by the bed of a
child of about eight years with acute osteo-
myelitis. He had opened abscesses in eight
places, both arms, both legs, both thighs, his
back and head. The child was too ill to move,
and our volunteer was bound on saving him.
Certainly he was only a fisherman's boy, and

2o6 DOWN to The SEA

the doctor won't get the fee that Lorenz re-
ceived from Armour; but he will get a fee
that will satisfy him all right if he pulls that
child through. Because that child should have
died otherwise. He told me he belonged to
a Christian Endeavor band. I don't know
which ecclesiastical denomination. But it
seems to us down here to breed the right kind
of Christian.

There is an orphanage on the hill above the
hospital, and in this we have got a small col-
lection of waifs and strays. They are getting
education, and they are getting food and cloth-
ing instead of semi-starvation and the liability
to consequent tubercular trouble so common,
alas ! among our poorer brethren, even in this
wonderfully healthy climate. These are in
charge of a lady of education and means from
England — a lady of social standing — who has
come out to live amongst us because she thinks
she can make her life tell more here than
where she was at home. Those orphans seem
mighty fond of her, too.

I am not going to multiply instances. My
contention is that the missionary life is a sane
life, whichever way we look at it. It does not
really need the story of a social degenerate
of the extreme type to convince reasonable

FRIENDS and FOES 207

minds that man can better serve the purposes
he was made for by Hving for other ideals
than those, alas! which are "normally" con-
sidered sufficient.

Of course, we can enjoy the spirit of games.
Three of us have carried our university colours
for athletics. Any of us can do our share
with a rifle when a good shot means venison
for dinner, or sealskin for a new pair of boots.
We landed as many fine salmon the other
evening, fishing in one of our rivers, while
our steamer was loading wood near by, as did
a man of wealth whom we found from Eng-
land fishing in the same pool, and we did not
require any stronger tackle than he did. He
is fishing there yet, and heaven only knows
what he is going to do with his salmon. We
had good use for ours. He was out fishing
last year, and the year before. And it does
not seem, as one gets older in life, that any
sport, however manly, should assume the na-
ture of a recurring decimal. One reason why
I can recommend the missionary life to any
man is because in most of the fields he will
find an ample scope for any and every talent
he possesses. I used once to picture to myself
that it would have been great to have been the
modern Yankee at the Court of King Arthur.

208 DOWN to The SEA

You can sample that pleasure in most of the
mission fields. Indeed, they call for the very
best that the very best men can give them, and
in return they give men, v^ho may have every-
thing else in the M^orld, things better than they
can get in any other way, and make them into
that, perhaps, nothing else can make them
into. We have now on this coast four small
hospitals, one hospital steamer, and two motor-
boats, besides our industrial work.

The basis of altruistic work, to say nothing
of the primal reason for all Christian effort
to help others, is the fact that we hold that
God seeks, nay needs, our co-operation and
our help in the deadly struggle with the forces
of evil. The time, the energy, the unpaid-for
devotion shown by many in their endeavour
to improve our laws, our public health, our
national safety, and to further our advance
in civilization, mean that men recognize that
the problem of human life involves work for
the general welfare and not merely for self-
advancement. Personally, I believe that our
best thinking men who give their lives to these
matters are not actuated merely by the desire
for office, for remuneration, or for praise, but
they are in the work because they wish to con-
fess thereby that every man is bound, so

> > J

> \ > > > :

FRIENDS and FOES 209

far as he is able, to co-operate with his fellows
and with his Creator in abolishing the things
that directly degrade and destroy his brethren.

It is for this very primal reason that I hate
most of all the traffic in intoxicating liquors,
and for this reason that we have no use for
it among those who "go down to the sea in
ships," or among men who need, for the physi-
cal emergencies of their lives, every ounce of
vitality they possess. That is why we not only
decry its use, but we dread its appearance
among our trappers as well as our fishermen.
These men, often alone, face in the bitter cold
of our winter endless miles of barren wastes,
and live for weeks tramping the woods in the
ordinary routine of their calling. They leave
wives and children behind them, and it would
be nothing short of disastrous if they carried
alcohol with them, or enfeebled their vital
powers by its use in any way.

I remember a doctor even who "took a glass
occasionally." I know it hardly does to sug-
gest that a man of that rank of life is in dan-
ger of getting drunk, yet he is by no means
the only man of my profession whom I have
known living in a hell on earth through al-
cohol. This man was found drunk on the
snow one night. He had been having "a good

210 DOWN to The SEA

time" with some "friends." Both his feet were
so badly frozen that they had to be cut off,
and he had to make the rounds of his patients
in a country practice for the rest of his life
on artificial legs. I knew this poor victim
personally.

The worst of alcohol as a poison is that it
does not kill at once, and death when it comes
is a mere detail compared with the weary years
of misery, struggle, failure, and remorse. It
leaves all the while the consciousness of the
awful evil it is making the man to his little
world; it makes him suffer with the suffering
he himself is inflicting on his loved ones, till
often enough he seeks in self-murder an escape
from his hell on earth into — what, beyond ?

Yet another poor victim in my own pro-
fession— a brilliant student and accomplished
gentleman. Surely he ran no risk. Yet after
years of disgrace and shame — a ruined family
and a blasted life — I saw him lying with a
fractured skull, dying. He had fallen drunk
down the steps of the government mail vessel
on which he was then credited Medical Officer
of the crown.

Labrador is, from a health standpoint, an
exceptionally good country. We have no en-
demic diseases; our dogs do not suffer from

FRIENDS and FOES 211

rabies; our mosquitoes carry no malaria; the
leprous bacillus has never reached our shores.
The specific fevers that visit us come v^ith
the arrival of our summer visitors. When we
are isolated in winter we are safe from the
assaults of cholera, smallpox, and scarlet fever.
Our very isolation is our salvation.

A short while ago, a schooner flying in hot
haste before the breeze brought up close to
one of our little hospitals. No sooner was
she anchored than the skipper came hurrying
up to the doctor in charge.

"What is the matter, skipper, that you are
in such a hurry ?"

"Well, Doctor, there is smallpox in our har-
bour, and you are wanted at once."

"Smallpox ! How did that get there ?"

"Oh, it comed in a schooner from Quebec,
and now my Johnny is down with it, and they
says as two men on schooners has got it from
her also.''

Any sane person would admit it was worth
while going down to that harbour, seizing that
schooner, towing her away into a deserted
bay, where she could do no harm, and throw-
ing the infection, as far as possible, into the
sea, because we were dealing with an organic
poison. No one would suggest leaving such

212 DOWN to The SEA

a vessel to scatter her deadly influence and
then content oneself with trying to convert
"back to health" the victims. The damage
and loss was so obvious and the cause of the
damage was so traceable that when we had
finally burned ever)rthing that we suspected
as dangerous, we considered that our treat-
ment was strictly scientific, and it received
universal commendation. And had we been
able to prove that the owner of that vessel
knew of the poison he was sending down to
us on board it we would have gone for him
for murder, for seventy-one fishermen died
of it.

A few weeks later, a quiet, elderly, white-
haired fisherman, who had an invalid wife de-
pendent on him, was suddenly landed at the
same hospital from a vessel.

"What's the matter with John? It must
be something very bad that has brought him
here on a stretcher in the middle of the fish-
ing season."

"Well, Doctor, he has broken his leg."

"Broke his leg ! How on earth did he come
to do that?"

"Well, you see, a schooner comed in. Doc-
tor, with a drop of the drink aboard, and Pat
Grady got taking some, and he knocked the

FRIENDS and FOES 213

old man over the stage-head. No, he ain't a
fighting man, but the liquor made a very devil
of him."

This meant, in a man of over seventy years,
nearly twelve months before he would walk
again, and cost him the loss of at least one
fishing season. I knew what it meant to his
wife.

Was it fanatical and unscientific to hasten,
as we did, to the harbour, to seize on the sup-
ply of alcohol in the schooner, to carry it to a
place where no man dwelt, and tip the infec-
tion into the ocean? In this case, the poison
was a chemical one.

In the first case, we had no wish to punish
the dangerous vessel, for the harm was done
in ignorance ; in the second case, our blood was
boiling, for the beast that was doing it was
doing it for dollars only, blood-stained dol-
lars, and, moreover, he had not the humanity
to say he was sorry.

The dangerous subtlety of the thing makes
one hate it the more, for it comes ever in the
guise of a good friend. The tempter, with
the idiotic laugh of the stale joker, calls it "a
drop of the good craythur," glibly plagiarising
the old lie, *'It does no one any harm." And
so it makes it hard for the modest, retiring

214 DOWN to The SEA

nature of a simple young fisherman to appear
ostentatious and unfriendly by refusing "just
a little drop." Thus I have seen them buy it,
and, alas, also learn to want it — at any price.

Night was closing in as I lay at anchor one
November evening in the harbour of one of
these charming little fishing villages. I was
just going below to turn in when I heard the
bump of a boat alongside, and I saw a woman
alone climbing up the companion ladder.

"Can I go below. Doctor? I want to speak
to you alone."

"Why, certainl,y come along down. What
is the trouble?"

"It's my Willie what's brought me here to
see you. You knows him. The men says as
some one is stealing their fish what is drying
on their *flakes,' and they be threatening to do
dreadful things if they catches un."

"What has that got to do with your Willie ?
I am sure he would never steal a pin's head."

"No, no, t'ank God. My boy never give
me a day's trouble in his life. There never
was no tievin' here. But, Doctor," and she
leaned over to whisper in my ear, for fear the
very walls should hear, "my Willie have come
home with liquor on him on times of late. I
knows he have nothing to pay for it. I comed

FRIENDS and FOES 215

alone, Doctor, and in the night, for fear the
men should suspicion me. You will help me,
won't you, Doctor?" and she broke down and
cried bitterly.

I comforted her as well as I could and then
sent her ashore.

While I listened to the plash of her oars, as
that gentle mother rowed ashore alone in the
darkness, I felt as I felt before, that this liquor
is ten times more dangerous even than small-
pox, for it damns the body and the soul as
well.

Last year I seized from an illicit saloon
quite a large consignment. In it was a large
barrel of rum which I had rolled out on the
end of our wharf. There was a group of
fishermen standing there, and all were wonder-
ing what I was going to do. I wished to
preach a sermon to them on what I considered
the fitting and most sensible disposal of this
chemical poison. It was impossible for me to
suggest as a scientist, or, let me say, as a
physiologist, or as a rational human being,
much less as a follower of Christ, that this
stuff should be poured down the throats of
men. No, no, we knew better than that. We
borrowed an axe from one of the group, and
smashing in the head of the barrel, let it run

2i6 DOWN to The SEA

out into the ocean. Was that unscientific or
fanatical, in view of what we knew about it?
Wasn't that the best way of regulating the
liquor traffic among us where all knev^r it was
a matter of life and death to many of us?

XIV.

The Close of Open Water.

ONCE more we are landsmen. Once
more our six short months afloat is
over and the little Straihcona is once
again safely tied alongside the wharf, the
planking of which is already covered with the
snow of approaching winter.

As we passed into this, our last harbor be-
tween the two great towering cliffs overhang-
ing the narrow entrance, and as the Capital
City opened out all round us, leaving us right
in its busy midst, we seemed suddenly shut off
as it were by closed gates from the restless
life beyond, from the field of activities which
till a moment ago had been absorbing all our
interests. We seemed to have suddenly
reached the horizon, and passed directly into
a new life, for into this fair harbor no rough
seas can reach. There are no rocks to fear —
no shoals to shun — the anchor once down in
217

2i8 DOWN to The SEA

this harbor we no longer fear that our little
vessel will drift from her moorings in 'the
hours of darkness and sleep. Once lowered
it will hold where you left it, till you weigh it
again yourself on the way to some new field of
labor.

A sense of tension relieved comes over one,
and for a brief while thankfulness for rest.
But almost at once a new feeling chases this
away and one's mind flies back in review over
the experiences of the past. What a new light
seems to be thrown on the relative importance
of things outside "the narrows." There grad-
ually creeps into one's reverie the shadow of
a desire, in spite of the rest and peace, that
some of the opportunities might come back
just once more.

But the iron mooring chains are fast to the
great gump heads of the wharf — the sails are
already unreeved — the ship dismantled — the
very funnel covered in. The last mile stone
is passed — the last chapter closed. What now
is the live issue?

It has been suggested that we should ask
His Excellency the Governor, viceroy of the
King, to inspect the little ship. But when at
length I put it to our good skipper, he pro-
tested, as I had half expected. "She looks too

The CLOSE of OPEN WATER 219

much as if she had been through a mill, Doc-
tor. She will look better after we have painted
her in the spring."

In truth there was no denying it, for she
looked as if she had just come out of battle.
The topmasts had been struck for the late gale,
and the dainty rigging we sailed out with had
been stripped off and stowed. Our ragged
remnant of a flag fluttered now from an im-
promptu staff, which, lashed into the large top-
gallant iron, looked lost and forlorn. The
masts were grimy with smoke, and weathered
and salted with the sea spray. For the con-
tinuance of heavy easterly weather had given
the men no chance to scrape down during the
voyage home. As for her deck houses, the
varnish, where any was left, had assumed the
color of skimmed milk from the continued
driving sleet and spume. Up to two feet above
the level of the rails most of it had been
scraped off bodily by the heavy deck loads of
pine wood which we had been carrying out of
the bays to the hospitals, as our last contribu-
tion toward their winter comfort. The paint
on her sides and bulwarks had paid such trib-
ute to the sterns of countless fishing boats
alongside that the once shiny black surface
was mottled like a pane of frosted glass —

220 DOWN to The SEA

while below the water line — well, even there
we would like to go over her on dock our-
selves before others saw her. For we had
struck twice on a nasty day in the late fall
when we tried to navigate a part of the Gulf
of St. Lawrence on the way to the new Ca-
nadian hospital, a piece of coast that was new
to all of us. She had, in fact, entered her last
port like a man cut off without a moment's
warning: thus she certainly was not, as some
would say, ready for inspection.

But as I stood on the wharf, running my
eye over her familiar lines, to me endeared by
so many happy days together, there was a sort
of feeling that I would not have it otherwise.
For she looked like a workman right from
his field of labor. Her very toil-worn features
spoke of things accomplished, and afforded
some scant solace for the regrets that oppor-
tunities had gone by.

I could see again as I looked at her the thou-
sands of miles of coast she had carried us
along — the record of over a thousand folk
that had sought and found help aboard her
this summer — ^the score of poor souls for
whom we could do nothing but carry them,
sheltered in her snug cabin, to the larger hos-
pitals where they could be better attended

The CLOSE of OPEN WATER 221

than by us at sea. I remembered visitors and
helpers whom she had faithfully carried, and
who were now scattered where they could tell
of the needs of our folks, and bring them
better help '^ years to come. I remembered
the ministers and travelers that had been lent
a hand as they pushed their way up and down
our coast — the women and children and aged
persons that she had carried up the long bays
to their winter home, and to whom she had
saved the suffering of the long exposure in
small and open boats. One remembered the
libraries she had distributed all along this
bookless coast line, the children picked up and
carried to the shelter of the Orphanage, the
casks of food and drugs for men and dogs,
placed at known rendezvous along the line of
water travel, making the long dog journeys
possible. How often had her now boarded-up
windows lighted up her cabin for a floating
Court of Justice in lonely places where, even
if the judgments arrived at had been rather
equitable than legal, yet disputes had been
ended, wrong-doing punished, and the weak
had been time and again helped to get right
done them.

One remembered how she had been a terror
to certain evil-doers and more especially to

222 DOWN to The SEA

those wretches whose greed for sordid gain
leads them to defy the laws of God and man,
as they sell illicitly the poisonous drinks with
which they lure brave men and true to their
ruin. On a truck on the wharf beside me,
even now, on its way to the police station, lay
a consignment that our little ship on one of
her raiding expeditions had saved from doing
the damage it was capable of. How like a
confiscated bomb-shell it looked. And one re-
membered pleasantly the comment of a fisher-
man friend on this, one of the most vital of
her missionary eflForts, at one specially trouble-
some settlement : "Bedad, if the mission ship
goes on like this long we won't be able to kape
an ould bottle in the house to put a drop of
ile in."

Again I could see her saving from destruc-
tion a helpless schooner abandoned by her crew
and fast beating to pieces on a lee shore. I
could see her cabin loaded with sacks of warm
clothing for use in districts where dire pov-
erty from failure in the fishing, or possible
accident in their perilous work had left de-
fenseless women and children to face the com-
ing cold of winter unprotected, and among
those who had benefited in this way were the
crews of half a dozen unfortunate schooners,

The CLOSE of OPEN WATER ii^,

wrecked in the heavy equinoctial gale of last
September.

And beyond all the physical aid that had
been rendered, one remembered the many sor-
rowful hearts to which she had carried mes-
sages of comfort and cheer. To some dying
she had brought the joyful view of the realities
of life beyond, and to some stricken hearts
bereft of the hand they looked to for protec-
tion, she had brought with material help the
ray of hope which God permits the hand of a
brother to carry as possibly its most precious
burden.

The skipper, who had come to the rail to
insert a fender between the streak of the wharf
shores, noticed that I was still examining the
ship, and interrupted my reverie.

"Doesn't look exactly like a pleasure yacht,
Doctor, does she?"

"Indeed she doesn't, skipper," and I almost
added, "thank God." For it is some years
since I have had time to seek pleasure in that
way. Somehow the idea of the mission
steamer being a "pleasure yacht" grated on
one's nerves. A "mere pleasure yacht" was
in my mind, and rose to my lips too. For
though some might not think of it, the true
following of the Master makes men utilitarian.

224 DOWN to The SEA

His servants must "hustle'* in this busy world,
as do the servants of His enemy, a truth the
middle ages did not appear to know. The
Master's followers must have strong reasons
to give themselves when they can afford to
seek their pleasure as others do.

Out of this very port she had sailed just six
months ago, not knowing what she might be
called upon to do or to face, before she could
hope to get back to her haven of rest again.
She had started with a high purpose, anxious
to serve God by serving His brethren, seeking
the joy which can only be won in one way.
The same joy which the Lord has promised
that His faithful children shall share with
Him hereafter. The joy of toil here, and toil-
worn rest hereafter. "The blessing of heaven
is perfect rest, but the blessing of earth is toil."

Our ship had stood forth a tiny speck in
the great ocean, a thing that man's mind might
well despise as ill calculated to achieve service
of any value to the King of Kings. Pre-
sumptuous it had often seemed even to us, as
we thought of the great work to be done — of
the uncharted shore, the countless delays, the
thousands of scattered craft, the short season,
the strong passions and the great temptations
of the men that we purposed to try and win.

The CLOSE of OPEN WATER 225

Moreover now, as the incidents of the sum-
mer flitted in review before my mind, I could
not but remember that twice we had struck
rocks, once had been all but overwhelmed in
a storm, several times had been astray in fogs,
twice had broken down and for want of power
had been ourselves forced to seek help and to
lose time undergoing repairs. It seemed a
poor record.

Just at this moment the wake of a ferry
tug rocked the Strathcona, and the bump she
gave the wharf called me back to the world of
realities abruptly. After all she still lay there.
A stout little steamer full of capabilities, ready
and waiting for fresh responsibilities. The
very bump called to remembrance the familiar
saying of an old friend :

**Look up, not down,
Look forward, not back,
Look out, not in.
Lend a hand."

The sluggish schooner in which we first
sailed with one doctor, only enabling us to
spend three months out of the twelve on the
coast, had vanished, till now even in winter,
in their distant stations in far off Labrador,
at the time when all possible help from out-
side is cut off, are three doctors and three

226 DOWN to The SEA

trained nurses, and many other agencies, all
proclaiming with splints and bandages, with
remunerative work, and cheaper flour, with
good books and with simple toys, and in other
ways, what God can do in spite of the blun-
dering workmen.

I fancied I could see written round the now
silenced funnel the words of a familiar hymn :

"Only an armour bearer, yet may I stand,
Ready to follow at the King's command/'

God grant that when I come up for inspec-
tion, when my voyage is over, I may not
fear the verdict. May the log-book record
many a brother helped, and saved. For
though He will see — as see He will — the dints
in the planking and the scratches on the paint
and spars — yes, even if they speak to Him
while they remind us of the sorry contact with
rock and shoal — still we have confidence to be-
lieve that there will be nothing to dread from
Him.

"Yes, Yes, Skipper : God bless the old ship.
Let her be inspected, I say, just as she is."

THE END.

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