Le Petit Nord; or, Annals of a Labrador harbour

LE PETIT NORD

LE PETIT NORD

OR
ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

LE PETIT NORD

OR

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

BY
ANNE GRENFELL AND KATIE SPALDING

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

^

'#

COPYRIGHT, I92O, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

• » • •

FOREWORD

A friend from the Hub of the Universe, in a
somewhat supercilious manner, not long ago
informed one of our local friends that his own
home was hundreds of miles to the southward.
"'Deed, sir, how does you manage to live so far
off?" with a scarcely perceptible twinkle of one
eye, was the answer.

If home is the spot on earth where one spends
the larger part of one's prime, and where one's
family comes into being, then for over a quarter
of a century "Le Petit Nord" of this book has
been my home. With the authors I share for it
and its people the love which alone keeps us
here. Necessity has compelled me to perform,
however imperfectly, functions usually distrib-
uted amongst many and varied professions, and
the resultant intimacy has become unusual. As,
therefore, I read the amusing experiences herein
[ v]

434595

FOREWORD

narrated, I feel that the "other half," who
know us not, will love us better even if we are
not exactly as they. That is not our fault. They
should not live "so far off."

The incidents told are all actual, but the
name of every single person and place has been
changed to afford any hypersensitive among
the actors the protection which pseudonymity
confers. We here who have been permitted a
glimpse of these pages feel that we really owe
the authors another debt beyond the love for
the people to which they have testified by the
more substantial offering of long and voluntary
personal service.

Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D.

Labrador, 1919

ILLUSTRATIONS

An Awful Night for a Sinner Frontispiece

Sad Seasick Souls strewn around 20

The Herring of High Estate 29

"Have you a plug of baccy, Skipper?" 40

Rhoda's Randy 42

Topsy's Ambition is to become like a Fat
Pig 53

Topsy was creeping from Bed to Bed with
the Cabving-Knife 54

The Prophet of Doom 59

Ananias has Broken yet Another Window 61

Not Fat, but Fine and Hearty 68

Delilah bawling 70

Mrs. Uncle Life found the Leader of the
Team in her Bed - 92

"Teacher, I have a pain " 95

The Yoho 100

They ate the Entire Boot 108

He had taken the Stranger in 117

He froze his Toe in Bed 127

[vii]

ILLUSTRATIONS

A Long Way on the Heavenward Road 131

The Seventh Son 140

Its Action was Prompt and Powerful 141

It was his Last Bullet 153

A Puffin Ghetto 180

The Bear bit his Leg off 189

From drawings by Dr. GrenjeiU

LE PETIT NORD

OR
ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

LE PETIT NORD

OR

ANNALS OF A

LABRADOR HARBOUR

Off the Narrows, St. John's
June 10

Dear Joan

The Far North calls and I am on my way: —
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail.
There gloom the dark broad seas.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks.
Why write as if I had taken a lifelong vow of
separation from the British Isles and all things
civilized, when after all it is only one short year
out of my allotted span of life that I have prom-
ised to Mission work? Your steamer letter, with
its Machiavellian arguments for returning im-
mediately and directly from St. John's, was duly
received. Of my unfitness for the work there is
no possible doubt, no shadow of doubt whatever,
(11

LE PETIT NORD

and therein you and I are at one. But you will
do me the justice to admit that I put very forci-
bly before those in charge of the Mission the de-
lusion under which they were labouring; the re-
sponsibility now lies with them, and I "go to
prove my soul." What awaits me I know not,
but except when the mighty billows rocked me,
not soothingly with gentle motion, but harshly
and immoderately, I have never wavered in my
decision; and even at such times it was to the
bottom of Father Neptune that I aspired to
travel rather than to the shores of "Merrie Eng-
land."

The voyage so far has been uneventful, and
we are now swaying luxuriously at anchor in a
dense fog. This I believe is the usual welcome
accorded to travellers to the island of New-
foundland. There is no chart for icebergs, and
"growlers" are formidable opponents to encouir
ter at any time. Therefore it behoves us to
possess our souls in patience, and only to indulge
[2]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

at intervals in the right to grumble which is by
virtue of tradition ours. We have already been
here a day and a half, and we know not how
much longer it will be before the curtain rises
and the first act of the drama can begin.

These boats are far from large and none too
comfortable. We have taken ten days to come
from Liverpool. Think of that, you who disdain
to cross the water in anything but an ocean
greyhound! What hardships we poor mission-
aries endure! Incidentally I want to tell you that
my fellow passengers arch their eyebrows and
look politely amused when I tell them to what
place I am bound. I ventured to ask my room-
mate if she had ever been on Le Petit Nord. I
wish you could have seen her face. I might as
well have asked if she had ever been exiled to
Siberia! I therefore judge it prudent not to
thirst too lustily for information, lest I be sup-
plied with more than I desire or can assimilate
at this stage. I shall write you again when I
[31

LE PETIT NORD

board the coastal steamer, which I am credibly
informed makes the journey to St. Antoine once
every fortnight during the summer months. Till
then, au revoir. ,

[4]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Run-by-Guess, June 15
I landed on the wharf at St. John's to be met
with the cheering information that the steamer
had left for the north two days before. This ne-
cessitated a delay of twelve days at least. Will
all the babies at the Orphanage be dead before I
arrive on the scene of action? Shall I take the
next boat back and be in England before the
coastal steamer comes south to claim me? Con-
flicting emotions disturb my troubled soul, but
"on and always on!"

The island boasts a railroad of which the rural
inhabitants are inordinately proud. Just prior to
my arrival a daily service had been inaugurated.
Formerly the passenger trains ran only three
times a week. There are no Sunday trains. As
I had so much time to spare, I decided that I
could not do better than spend some of it in go-
ing across the island and thus see the southern
part of the country, catching my boat at Come-
15)

LE PETIT NORD

by-Chance Junction on the return^ journey.
Truth compels me to add that I find myself a
sadder and wiser woman. I left St. John's one
evening at six o'clock, being due to arrive at our
destination at eight o'clock the following night.
There is no unpleasant "hustle" on this railway,
and you may wait leisurely and humbly for a
solid hour while your very simple meal is pre-
pared. If you do not happen to be hungry, this
is only a delightful interlude in the incessant
rush of modern life, but if perchance Nature has
endowed you with a moderate appetite, that one
hour seems incurably long.

All went well the first night, or at least my
fellow passengers showed no signs of there being
anything unusual, so like Brer Rabbit, I lay low
and said nothing. At noon the following day a
slightly bigger and more prolonged jolt caused
the curious among us to look from the window.
The engine, tender, and luggage van were de-
railed. As the speed of the trains never exceeds
[6]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

twenty-five miles an hour, such little contretemps
which occur from time to time do not ruffle the
serenity of those concerned. Resigning myself to
a delay of a few hours, I determined to alight
and explore the country. But alas ! I had no mos-
quito veiling, and to stand for a moment outside
without this protection was to risk disfigure-
ment for life. So I humbly yielded to adverse
circumstances and returned to try and read, the
previous bumping having made this out of the
question. But the interior was by this time a
veritable Gehenna, and no ventilation could be
obtained, as the Company had not thought it
necessary to provide their windows with screens.
For twenty-five hours we remained in durance
vile, until at last the relief train lumbered to our
rescue and conveyed us to Run-by-Guess, our
destination.

[7]

LE PETIT NORD

Northward Bound. On boarf
June 25

If you could have been present during the re
turn journey from Run-by-Guess your worst
prophecies would have seemed to you justified.
The railroad is of the genus known as narrow-
gauge; the roadbed was not constructed on the
principles laid down by the Romans. In a coun-
try where the bones of Mother Earth protrude
so insistently, it is beating the devil round the
stump to mend the bed with fir branches tucked
even ever so solicitously under the ties. That,
nevertheless, was an attempt at "safety first"
which I saw.

Towards morning a furious rain and wind
storm broke over us. Before many minutes I
noticed that my berth was becoming both cold
and damp. Looking up I made out in the dim
dawn a small but persistent stream pouring
down upon me. I had had the upper berth
[8]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

pushed up so as to get the air! Again the trail?
came to an unscheduled stop. By this time as
sorted heads were emerging from behind the
curtains, and from each came forcible protests
against the weather. There was nothing to be
done but to sit with my feet tucked up and my
arms around my knees, occupying thus the
smallest possible space for one of my propor-
tions, and wait developments. Ten minutes
later, after much shouting outside my window,
a ladder was planted against the car, and two
trainmen in yellow oilskins climbed to the roof.
I noted with satisfaction that they carried ham-
mers, tacks, and strips of tin. A series of re-
sounding blows and the almost immediate cessa-
tion of the descending floods told how effective
their methods had proved. Directly afterwards
the startled squeak of the engine whistle, as if
some one had trodden on its toe, warned us that
we were off once more.

We landed (you will note that the nautical
[9]

LE PETIT NORD

phraseology of the country has already gripped
me) in the same storm at Come-by-Chance
Junction. But the next morning broke bright
and shining, as if rain and wind were inhab-
itants of another planet. It is quite obvious
that this land is a lineal descendant of Albion's
Isle. Now I am aboard the coastal steamer and
we are nosing our way gingerly through the
packed floe ice, as we steam slowly north for
Cape St. John. Yes, I know it is Midsummer's
Day, but as the captain tersely put it, "the
slob is a bit late."

The storm of two days ago blowing in from
the broad Atlantic drove the great field of left-
over pans before it, and packed them tight
against the cliffs. If we had not had that sudden
change in the weather's mind yesterday, we
should not be even as far along as we now find
ourselves.

You can form no idea of one's sensations as
the steamer pushes her way through an ice jam.
[ 10]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

For miles around, as far as the eye can reach, the
sea is covered with huge, glistening blocks.
Sometimes the deep-blue water shows between,
and sometimes they are so tightly massed to-
gether that they look like a hummocky white
field. How any one can get a steamer along
through it is a never-ending source of amaze-
ment, and my admiration for the captain is un-
stinted. I stand on the bridge by the hour, and
watch him and listen to the reports of the man
on the cross-trees as to the prospects of "leads"
of open water ahead. Every few minutes we
back astern, and then butt the ice. If one stays
below decks the noise of the grinding on the
ship's side is so persistent and so menacing that
I prefer the deck in spite of its barrels and crates
and boxes and smells. Here at least one would
not feel like a rat in a hole if a long, gleaming,
icy, giant finger should rip the ship's side open
down the length of her. As we grate and scrape
painfully along I look back and see that the
[11]

LE PETIT NORD

ice-pan channel we leave behind is lined with
scarlet. It is the paint off our hull. The
spectacle is all too suggestive for one who has
always regarded the most attractive aspect of
the sea to be viewed from the landwash.

Of course the scenery is beautiful — almost
too trite to write — but the beauty is lonesome
and terrifying, and my city-bred soul longs for
some good, homely, human "blot on the land-
scape." There are no trees on the cliffs now. I
understand, however, that Nature is not respon-
sible for this oversight. The people are sorely
in need of firewood, and not being far-seeing
enough to realize what a menace it is to the
country to denude it so unscientifically, they
have razed every treelet. Nature has done her
best to rectify their mistake, and the rocky hills
are covered with jolly bright mosses and lichens.

Naturally, there are compensations for even
this kind of voyage, for no swell can make itself
felt through the heavy ice pack. We steam along
[ 12]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

for miles on a keel so even that only the throb of
our engines, and the inevitable "ship-py " odour,
remind one that the North Atlantic rolls be-
neath the staunch little steamer.

The "staunch little steamer's" whistle has
just made a noise out of all proportion to its size.
It reminded me of an English sparrow's blatant
personality. We have turned into a "tickle,"
and around the bend ahead of us are a handful
of tiny whitewashed cottages clinging to the
sides of the rocky shore.

I cannot get used to the quaint language of
the people, and from the helpless way in which
they stare at me, my tongue must be equally
unintelligible. A delightful camaraderie exists;
every one knows every one else, or they all act
as if they did. As we come to anchor in the little
ports, the men from the shore lash their punts
fast to the bottom of the ship's ladder, and clam-
ber with gazelle-like agility over our side. If you
happen to be leaning curiously over the rail near
[ 13]

LE PETIT NORD

by, they jerk their heads and remark, "Good
morning," or, "Good evening," according as it
is before or after midday. This is an afternoon-
less country. The day is divided into morning,
evening, and night. Their caps seem to have
been born on their heads and to continue to
grow there like their hair, or like the clothing of
the children of Israel, which fitted them just as
well when they came out of the wilderness as
when they went in. But no incivility is meant.
You may dissect the meaning and grammar of
that paragraph alone. You have had long prac-
tice in such puzzles.

[14]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Seventy-five miles later
We are out of the ice field and steaming past
Cape St. John. This was the dividing line be-
tween the English and French in the settlement
of their troubles in 1635. North of it is called the
French or Treaty Shore, or as the French them-
selves so much more quaintly named it, "Le
Petit Nord." It is at the north end of Le Petit
Nord that St. Antoine is located.

The very character of the country and vege-
tation has changed. It is as if the great, forbid-
ding fortress of St. John's Cape cut off the
milder influences of southern Newfoundland,
and left the northern peninsula a prey to ice and
winds and fog. The people, too, have felt the in-
fluence of this discrimination of Nature. There
is a line of demarcation between those who have
been able to enjoy the benefits of the southern
island, and those who have had to cope with the
recurrent problems of the northland. I cannot
[ 15]

LE PETIT NORD

help thinking of the change this shore must
have been from their beloved and smiling Brit-
tany to those first eager Frenchmen. The names
on the map reveal their pathetic attempts to
stifle their nostalgie by christening the coves and
harbours with the familiar titles of their home-
land.

I fear in my former letter I made some rather
disparaging remarks about certain ocean liners,
but I want to take them all back. Life is a series
of comparisons and in retrospect the steamer on
which I crossed seems a veritable floating pal-
ace. I offer it my humble apologies. Of one thing
only I am certain — I shall never, never have
the courage to face the return journey.

The time for the steamer to make the journey
from Come-by- Chance to St. Antoine is from
four to five days, but when there is much ice
these days have been known to stretch to a
month. The distance in mileage is under three
hundred, but because of the many harbours into
[16]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

which the boat has to put to land supplies, it is
really a much greater distance. There are thirty-
three ports of call between St. John's and St.
Antoine, most of which are tiny fishing settle-
ments consisting of a few wooden houses at the
water's edge. This coast possesses scores of the
most wonderful natural harbours, which are not
only extremely picturesque, but which alone
make the dangerous shore possible for naviga-
tion. As the steamer puts in at Bear Cove, Pov-
erty Cove, Deadman's Cove, and Seldom-Come-
By (this last from the fact that, although boats
pass, they seldom anchor there), out shoot the
little rowboats to fetch their freight. It is cer-
tainly a wonderfully fascinating coast, beauti-
fully green and wooded in the south, and be-
coming bleaker and barer the farther north one
travels. But the bare ruggedness and naked
strength of the north have perhaps the deeper
appeal. To those who have to sail its waters and
wrest a living from the harvest of the sea, this
[ 17]

LE PETIT NORD

must be a cruel shore, with its dangers from
rocks and icebergs and fog, and insufficient
lighting and charting.

Apart from the glory of the scenery the jour-
ney leaves much to be desired, and the weather,
being exceedingly stormy since we left the ice
field behind, has added greatly to our trials. The
accommodations on the boat are strictly lim-
ited, and it is crowded with fishermen going
north to the Labrador, and with patients for the
Mission Hospital. As they come on in shoals
at each harbour the refrain persistently runs
through my head, "Will there be beds for all
who come?" But the answer, alas, does not fit
the poem. Far from there being enough and to
spare, I know of two at least of my fellow pas-
sengers who took their rest in the hand basins
when not otherwise wanted. Tables as beds
were a luxury which only the fortunate could se-
cure. Almost the entire space on deck is filled
with cargo of every description, from building
[ 18]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

lumber to live-stock. While the passengers num-
ber nearly three hundred, there are seating ac-
commodations on four tiny wooden benches
without backs, for a dozen, if packed like sar-
dines. Barrels of flour, kerosene, or molasses
provide the rest. Although somewhat hard for a
succession of days, these latter are saved from
the deadly ill of monotony by the fact that as
they are discharged and fresh taken on, such
vantage-points have to be secured anew from
day to day; and one learns to regard with equa-
nimity if not with thankfulness what the gods
please to send.

There are many sad, seasick souls strewn
around. If cleanliness be next to godliness,- then
there is little hope of this steamer making the
Kingdom of Heaven. One habit of the men is
disgusting; they expectorate freely over every-
thing but the ocean. The cold outside is so
intense as to be scarcely endurable, while the
closeness of the atmosphere within is less so.
[ 19]

LE PETIT NORD

These are a few of the minor discomforts of
travel to a mission station; the rest can be better
imagined than described. If, to the Moslem, tG

be slain in battle signifies an immediate entrance
into the pleasures of Paradise, what should
be the reward of those who suffer the vaga-
ries of this northern ocean, and endure to the
end?

My trunk is lost. In the excitement of carpen-
tering incidental to the cloudburst, the crew
of the train omitted to drop it off at Come-by-
Chance. I am informed that it has returned
across the country to St. John's. If I had not
[ 20]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

already been travelling for a fortnight, or if
Heaven had endowed me with fewer inches so
that my clothing were not so exclusively my
own, the problem of the interim till the nexV
boat would be simpler.

I have had my first, and I may add my last,
experience of "brewis," an indeterminate con-
coction much in favour as an article of diet on
this coast. The dish consists of hard bread (ship's
biscuit) and codfish boiled together in a copious
basis of what I took to be sea- water. "On the
surface of the waters" float partially disinte-
grated chunks of fat salt pork. I am not finick-
ing. I could face any one of these articles of diet
alone; but in combination, boiled, and served up
lukewarm in a soup plate for breakfast, in the
hot cabin of a violently rolling little steamer,
they take more than my slender stock of philoso-
phy to cope with. Yet they save the delicacy for
the Holy Sabbath. The only justification of this
policy that I can see is that, being a day of rest,
[21 ].

LE PETIT NORD

their stomachs can turn undivided and dogged
attention to the process of digestion.

Did I say "day of rest" ? The phrase is ut-
terly inadequate. These people are the strictest
of Sabbatarians. The Puritan fathers, whom we
now look back upon with a shivery thankfulness
that our lot did not fall among them, would, and
perhaps do, regard them as kindred spirits. But
they are earnest Christians, with a truly un-
complaining selflessness' of life.

By some twist of my brain that reminds me
of a story told me the other day which brings
an old legend very prettily to this coimtry. It
is said that when Joseph of Arimathea was
hounded from place to place by the Jews, he
fled to England taking the Grail with him. The
spot where he settled he called Avalon. When
Lord Baltimore, a devout Catholic, was given
a huge tract of land in the south of this little
island, he christened it Avalon in commemo-
ration of Joseph of Arimathea's also distant
[ 22 ]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

journey. To the disgrace of the Protestants,
the Catholic exiles arrived in the "land of
promise" only to discover that the spirit of
persecution was rampant in this then far-off
colony.

Evidently the people of the country think
that every man bound for the Mission is a doc-
tor, and every woman a nurse. If my Puritan
conscience had not blocked the way, I could
have made a considerable sum prescribing for
the ailments of my fellow passengers. One little
thin woman on board has just confided to me,
"Why, miss, I found myself in my stomach
three times last week" — and looked up for ad-
vice. As for me, I was "taken all aback," and
hastened to assure her that nothing approaching
so astonishing an event had ever come within
the range of my experience. I hated to suggest it
to her, but I have a lurking suspicion that the
catastrophe had some not too distant connec-
tion with the "brewis." By the way, all right-
[23 ]

LE PETIT NORD

minded Newfoundlanders and Labradormen call
it "bruse."

Also by the way, it is incorrect to speak of
Newfoundland. It is NewfoundZemd. Neither do
you go up north if you know what you are about.
You go "down North"; and your friend is not
bound for Labrador. She is going to "the Labra-
dor," or, to be more of a purist still, "the Lar-
badore." Having put you right on these rudi-
ments — oh! I forgot another: "Fish" is always
codfish. Other finny sea-dwellers may have to be
designated by their special names, but the un-
pretentious cod is "t9 fish"; and the salutation
of friends is not, "How is your wife?" or, "How
is your health?" But, "How's t' fish, B'y?" I
like it. It is friendly and different — a kind of
password to the country.

I am glad that I am not coming here as a mere
traveller. The land looks so reserved that, like
people of the same type, you are sure it is well
worth knowing. So when, perhaps, I have been

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

able to discover a little of its "subliminal self,"
the tables will be turned, and you will be eager
to make its acquaintance. Then it will be my
chance to offer you sage and unaccepted advice
as to your inability to cope with the climate and
its entourage. I too shall be able to prophesy un-
heeded a shattered constitution and undermined
nerves. To be sure, old Jacques Cartier had such
a poor opinion of the coast that he remarked it
ought to have been the land God gave to Cain.
But J. C. has gone to his long rest. After the
length of this letter I judge that you envy him
that repose, so I release you with my love.

[25]

LE PETIT NORD

St. Antoine Orphanage at last

Address for one year

July 6

I have at last arrived at the back of beyond. We
should have steamed right past the entrance of
our harbour if the navigation had been in my
hands. You make straight for a great headland
jutting out into the Atlantic, when the ship
suddenly takes a sharp turn round an abrupt
corner, and before you know it, you are ad-
vancing into the most perfect of landlocked
harbours. A great cliff rises on the left, —
Quirpon Point they call it, — and clinging to
its base like an overgrown limpet is a tiny cot-
tage, with its inevitable fish stage. Farther
along are more houses; then a white church
with a pointed spire, and a bright-green building
near by, while across the path is a very pretty
square green school. Next are the Mission
buildings in a group. Beyond them come more
small houses — "Little Labrador" I learned
[26]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

later that this group is called, because the
people living there have almost all come over
from the other side of the Straits of Belle Isle.
The ship's ladder was dropped as we came to
anchor opposite the small Mission wharf. The
water is too shallow to allow a large steamer to
go into it, but the hospital boat, the Northern
Light, with her draft of only eight feet, can eas-
ily make a landing there. We scrambled over the
side and secured a seat in the mail boat. Before
we knew it four hearty sailors were sweeping us
along towards the little dock. Here, absolutely
wretched and forlorn, painfully conscious of
crumpled and disordered garments, I turned
to face the formidable row of Mission staff
drawn up in solemn array to greet us. As the doc-
tor-in-charge stepped forward and with a bland
smile hoped I had had a "comfortable journey,"
and bade me welcome to St. Antoine, with a pro-
digious effort I contorted my features into some-
thing resembling a grin, and limply shook his
[27]

LE PETIT NORD

outstretched hand. To-morrow I mean to make
enquiries about retiring pensions for Mission
workers!

No one had much sympathy with me over the
loss of my trunk. They laughed and said I would
be fortunate if it appeared by the end of the
summer. You had better send me a box by
freight with some clothing in it; I otherwise
shall have to live in bed, or seek admission to
hospital as a "chronic."

How perfectly dear of you to have a letter
awaiting me at the Orphanage. Regardless of
manners I fell to and devoured it, while all the
"little oysters stood and waited in a row." Like
the walrus, with a few becoming words I intro-
duced myself as their future guardian, but never
a word said they. As, led by a diminutive maid,
I passed from their gaze I heard an awe-struck
whisper, "It's gone upstairs!"

In answer to my questions the little maid in-
formed me that the last mistress had left by the
[28]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

boat I had just missed, and that since then the
children had been in her charge, with such help
and supervision as the various members of the
Mission staff could give. I therefore felt it was
"up to me" to make a start, and I delicately en-

quired when the next meal was due. An exhaus-
tive exploration of the larder revealed two her-
rings, one undoubtedly of very high estate. As
the children looked fairly plump, I concluded
that they had only been on such meagre diet
since the departure of the last "mistress." The
barrenness of the larder suggested a fruitful
topic of conversation with which to win the con-
[ 29]

LE PETIT NORD

fidence of these staring, open-mouthed chil-
dren, and I therefore tenderly asked what they
would most like to eat, supposing It were there.
One and all affirmed that "swile" meat was a
delicacy such as their souls loved — and re-
peated questions could elucidate no further.
Subsequently, on making enquiries of one of the
Mission staff, I thought I detected a look which
led me to suppose that I had not yet acquired
the correct pronunciation of the word. We dined
off the herring of lowly origin, and consigned the
other to the garbage pail. Nerve as well as skill,
I can assure you, is required to divide one her-
ring into thirty-six equal parts. There is no occa-
sion for alarm. I have not the slightest intention
of starving these infants. To-morrow I go on a
foraging expedition to the Mission commissariat
department (there must be one somewhere),
and then the fat years shall succeed the lean
ones.

To-night I am too tired to do more, and there
[30]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

is a quite absurd longing to see some one's face
again. The coming year looks very long and very
dreary, and although I know I shall grow to love
these children, yet, oh, I wish they did not stare
so when one has to blink so hard to keep the
tears from falling.

[31]

LE PETIT NORD

July 1
Morning! And the children may stare all they
like. I no longer need to repress youthful emo-
tions. All the same it is a trifle disconcerting. I
had chosen, as I thought, a very impressive por-
tion of Scripture for Prayers, and the children
were as quiet as mice. But they never let their
eyes wander from me for a single moment, until
I began to feel I ought at least to have a smut on
the tip of my nose.

The alluring advertisement of Newfoundland,
as "the coolest country on the Atlantic seaboard
in the summer," is all too painfully true. It is
very, very cold at present, and the sun, if sun
there be, is safely ensconced behind an impene-
trable bank of fog. If this is summer weather,
what will the winter be!

I started to write this to you in the morning,
but the day has been one long series of interrup-
tions. The work is all new to me and not exactly
[32]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

what I expected, but the spice of variety is not
lacking. I find it very hard to understand these
children and it is evident from their faces that
they fail to comprehend my meaning. Yet I have
a lurking suspicion that when it is an order to
be obeyed, their desire to understand is not over-
whelming. The children are supposed to do the
work of the Home under my superintendency,
the girls undertaking the housework and the
boys the outside "chores." Apparently from all
I hear my predecessor was a strict disciplinarian,
an economical manager, an expert needlewoman,
and everything I should be and am not. The
sewing simply appalls me! I confess that stitch-
ing for three dozen children of all sizes had not
entered into my calculations as one of the duties
of a "missionary"! Yet of course I realize they
must be clad as well as taught. What a pity that
the climate will not allow of a simple loin cloth
and a string of beads. And how infinitely more
becoming. Then, too, how much easier would be
[33]

LE PETIT NORD

the food problem were we dusky Papuans dwell-
ing in the far-off isles of the sea. This country
produces nothing but fish, and we have to plan
our food supplies for a year in advance. How
much corn-meal mush will David eat in twelve
months? And if David eats so much in twelve
months, how much will Noah, two months
younger, eat in the same period of time? If one
herring satisfies thirty-six, how many dozen will
a herring and a half feed? Picture me with a cold
bandage round my head seeking to emulate
Hoover.

A little mite has just come to the door to in-
form me that her dress has "gone abroad." See-
ing my mystified look, she enlightened me by
holding up a tattered garment which had all too
evidently "gone abroad" almost beyond recall.
Throwing the food problem to the winds I set
myself with a businesslike air to sew together
the ragged threads. A second knock brought me
the cheerful tidings that the kitchen fire had
[34]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

languished from lack of sustenance. Now I had
previously in my most impressive tones com-
manded one of the elder boys to attend to this
matter, and he had promptly departed, as I
thought, to "cleave the splits." Searching for
him I found this industrious youth lying on his
back complacently contemplating the heavens.
To my remonstrance he somewhat indignantly
remarked that he was only "taking a spell." A
really magnificent and grandiloquent appeal to
the boy's sense of honour and a homily on the
dignity of labour were abruptly terminated by
shrill cries resounding from the house. Rushing
in, I was informed that Noah was "bawling"
(which fact was perfectly evident), having
jammed his fingers in trying to "hist" the win-
dow. In this country children never cry; they
always "bawl."

I foresee that the life of a Superintendent of
an Orphan Asylum is not a simple one, and that
I shall be in no danger of being "carried to the
[35]

LE PETIT NORD

skies" on a "flowery bed of ease." Certain I am
that there will only be opportunity to write to
you at "scattered times"; so for the present,
fare thee well. j

[36]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Sunday, August 4
You see before you, or you would if my very ob^
vious instead of merely my astral body were ii.
your presence, a changed and sobered being. I
have made the acquaintance of the Labrador
fly, and he has made mine. The affection is all on
his side. Mosquito, black fly, sand fly — they
are all alike cannibals. You have probably heard
the old story about the difference between the
Labrador and the New Jersey mosquito? The
Labrador species can be readily distinguished by
the black patch between his eyes about the size
of a man's hand. Of the lot I prefer the mos-
quito. He at least is open about his evil inten-
tions. The black fly darts at you quietly, settles
down on an un-get-at-able spot, and sucks your
blood. If I did not find my appetite so unim-
paired, I should fancy this morning I was suffer-
ing from an acute attack of mumps.

Mumps is at the moment in our midst, and as
137]

LE PETIT NORD

is generally the case has fallen on the poorest of
the community. In this instance it is a widow by
the name of Kinsey, who has six children, and
lives in a miserable hovel. More of her anon. Her
twelve-year-old boy comes to the Home daily to
get milk for the wretched baby, whom we had
heard was down with the disease. When he came
this morning I told him to stay outdoors while
we fetched the milk, because I knew how
sketchy are the precautions of his ilk against
carrying infection. "No fear, miss," he assured
me. "The baby was terrible bad last night, but
he 's all clear this morning."

But to return to the Kinsey parent. She had
eight children. The Newfoundlanders are a pro-
lific race, and life is consequently doubly hard
on the women. Her husband died last fall, leav-
ing her without a sou, and no roof over her head.
The Mission gave her a sort of shack, and took
two of her kiddies into the Home. The place was
too crowded at the time to take any more. The
[38]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

doctor then wrote to the orphanages at the capi-
tal presenting the problem, and asking that they
take a consignment of children. The Church of
England Orphanage, of which denomination the
mother is a member, was full; and the other one,
which has just had a gift of beautiful buildings
and grounds, "regretted they could not take any
of the children, as their orphanage was exclu-
sively for their denomination." The mother did
not respond to the doctor's ironic suggestion
that she should "turncoat" under the press of
circumstances.

They tell a story here about Kinsey, the late
and unlamented. Last spring a steamer heading
north on Government business sighted a fishing
punt being rowed rapidly towards it, the occu-
pant waving a flag. The captain ordered, "Stop
her," thinking that some acute emergency had
arisen on the land during the long winter. A
burly old chap cased in dirt clambered deliber-
ately over the rail.

[39]

LE PETIT NORD

"Well, what's up?" asked the captain testily.
"Can't you see you're keeping the steamer?"
" Have you got a plug or so of baccy you could

[40]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

give me, skipper? I has n't had any for nigh a
month, and it do be wonderful hard."

The captain's reply was unrepeatable, but for
such short acquaintance it was an accurate re-
sume of the character of the applicant. De mor-
tuis nil nisi bonum is all very well, but it de-
pends on the mortuis; and that man's wife and
children had been short of food he had "smoked
away."

I have the greatest admiration for the women
of this coast. They work like dogs from morning
till nightfall, summer and winter, with "ne'er a
spell," as one of them told me quite cheerfully.
The men are oat on the sea in boats, which at
least is a life of variety, and in winter they can
go into the woods for firewood. The women hang
forever over the stove or the washtub, go into
the stages to split the fish, or into the gardens to
grow "'taties." Yet oddly enough, there is less
illiteracy among the women than among the
men.

[411

LE PETIT NORD

Such a nice girl is here from Adlavik as maid
in the hospital. Rhoda Macpherson is her name.
She told me the other day that one winter the
doctor of the station near her asked the men to
clear a trail down a very steep hill leading to the

village, as the dense trees made the descent dan-
gerous for the dogs. Weeks went by and the men
did nothing. Finally three girls, with Rhoda as
leader, took their axes every Sunday afternoon
and went out and worked clearing that road. In
a month it was done. The doctor now calls it
"Rhoda's Randy."

f 42 1

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Yesterday afternoon I was out with my cam-
era. (Saturday you will note. I have learned al-
ready that to be seen on Sundays in this Sabba-
tarian spot, even walking about with that incon-
spicuous black box, is anathema.) A crowd of
children in a disjointed procession had collected
in front of the hospital, and the patients on the
balconies were delightedly craning their necks.
A biting blast was blowing, but the children,
clad in white garments, looked oblivious to wind
and weather. It was a Sunday-School picnic. A
dear old fisherman was with them, evidently the
leader.

"What's it all about?" I asked.

"We've come to serenade the sick, miss. 'T is
little enough pleasure 'em has. Now, children,
sing up"; and the "serenade" began. It was
"Asleep in Jesus," and the patients loved it! I
got my picture, "sketched them off," as the old
fellow expressed it.

In the many weeks since I saw you — and it
[43J

LE PETIT NORD

seems a lifetime — I have forgotten to mention
one important item of news. Every properly ap-
pointed settlement along this coast has its ceme-
tery. This place boasts two. With your predilec-
tion for epitaphs you would be content. The pre-
vailing mode appears to be clasped hands under
a bristling crown; but all the same that sort of
thing makes a more "cheerful" graveyard than
those gloomily beautiful monuments with their
hopeless "xaLPeTe " that you remember in the mu-
seum at Athens. There is one here which reads:

Memory of John Hill

who Died
December 30th. 1889

Weep not, dear Parents, f
For your loss *t is
My etarnal gain May
Christ you all take up m
the Cross that we
Should meat again.

The spelling may not always be according to

Webster, but the sentiments portray the love

[ 44 ]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

it

and hope of a God-fearing people unspoiled by
the roughening touch of civilization.

I must to bed. Stupidly enough, this climate
gives me insomnia. Probably it is the mixture of
the cold and the long twilight (I can read at
9.30), and the ridiculous habit of growing light
again at about three in the morning. I am be-
ginning to have a fellow feeling with the chick-
ens of Norway, poor dears!

[45]

LE PETIT NORD

August 9
I want to violently controvert your disparaging
remarks about this "insignificant little island."
Do you realize that this same "insignificant
little island" is four times bigger than Scot-
land, and that it has under its dominion a large
section of Labrador? If, as the local people say,
" God made the world in five days, made Labra-
dor on the sixth, and spent the seventh throwing
stones at it," then a goodly portion of those
stones landed by mischance in St. Antoine. In-
deed, Le Petit Nord and Labrador are so much
alike in climate, people, and conditions that
this part of the island is often designated locally
as Labrador (never has it been my lot to see
a more desolate, bleak, and barren spot). The
traveller who described Newfoundland as a
country composed chiefly of ponds with a little
land to divide them from the sea, at least cannot
be impeached for unveracity. In this northern
[46]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

part even that little is rendered almost impene-
trable in the summer-time by the thick under-
brush, known as "tuckamore," and the formida-
ble swarms of mosquitoes and black flies. All the
inhabitants live on the coast, and the interior is
only travelled over in the winter with komatik
and dogs.

No, I am not living in the midst of Indians or
Eskimos. Please be good enough to scatter this
information broadcast, for each letter from Eng-
land reveals the fear that I am in imminent dan-
ger of being scalped alive or buried in an igloo.
There are a few scattered Eskimos on Le Petit
Nord, but for the most part the inhabitants are
whites and half-breeds. The Indians live almost
entirely in the interior of Labrador and the Es-
kimos around the Moravian stations. I am liv-
ing amongst the descendants of the fishermen of
Dorset and Devon who came out about two hun-
dred years ago and settled on this coast for the
cod-fishery. Those who live in the south are
[47]

LE PETIT NORD

comparatively well off, but many in the north
are in great poverty and often on the verge of
starvation.

When I look about me and see this poverty,
the ignorance born of lack of opportunity, the
suffering, the dirt, and degradation which are in
so large a measure no fault of these poor folk, I
am overwhelmed at the wealth of opportunities.
Here at least every talent one has to offer counts
for double what it would at home.

Thousands of fishermen come from the south
each spring to take part in the summer's fishery.
The Labrador "liveyeres," who remain on the
coast all the year round, often have only little
one-roomed huts made of wood and covered
with sods. In the winter the northern people
move up the bays and go "furring." Both the
Indians and Eskimos are diminishing in num-
bers, and the former at the present time do not
amount to more than three or four thousand
persons — and of these the Montagnais tribe
[48]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

make up more than half. The Moravian mission-
aries have toiled untiringly amongst the Eski-
mos, and assuredly not for any earthly reward.
They go out as young men and practically spend
their whole life on the coast, their wives being
selected and sent out to them from home!

The work of this Mission is among the white
settlers. In the Home we have only one pure
Eskimo, a few half-breeds (Indians and Es-
kimo), and the remainder are of English de-
scent. Almost all are from Labrador.

I often fancy that I must surely have slept
the sleep of Rip Van Winkle. When he woke he
found that the world had marched ahead a hun-
dred years. With me the process is reversed. I
am almost inclined to yield a grudging agree-
ment to the transmigrationalists, and believe
that I am re-living one of my former existences.
For the part of the country in which I have
awakened is a generation or so behind the world
in which we live. There is no education worthy
[49]

LE PETIT NORD

of the name, in many places no schools at all,
and in others half -educated teachers eking out a
miserable existence on a mere pittance. This il
chiefly due to the antediluvian custom of divid-
ing the Government educational grant on a de-
nominational basis. A large proportion of the
people can neither read nor write. There are no
roads, no means of communication, no doctors
or hospitals (save the Mission ones), no oppor-
tunities for improvement, no industrial work,
practically no domestic animals, and on Labra-
dor, taxation without representation! There is
only one hospital provided by the Government
for the whole of this island, and that one is at St.
John's, which is inaccessible to these northern
people for the greater part of the year. No pro-
vision whatever is made by the Government for
hospitals for the Labrador. Again the only ones
are those maintained by this Mission. Lack of
education, lack of opportunity, and abundance
of overwhelming poverty make up the lot of the
[50]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

majority of people in this north part of the
country. Little wonder from their point of view,
that one youth, returning to this land after see-
ing others, declared that the man he desired
above all others to shoot was John Cabot, the
discoverer of Newfoundland.

[51]

LE PETIT NORD

August 15
You complain that I have told you almost noth-
ing about these children, and you want to know
what they are like. And I wish you to know, so
that you will stop sending dolls to Mary who is
sixteen, and cakes of scented soap to David who
hates above all else to be washed. I find these
children very difficult in some ways; many of
them are mentally deficient, but it appears that
no provision is made by the Government for deal-
ing with such cases, and so there is nothing to do
but take them in or let them starve. Some are
very wild and none have the slightest idea of
obedience when they first arrive.

One girl I have christened "Topsy," and I
only wish you could see her when she is in one of
her tantrums, which she has at frequent inter-
vals. With her flashing black eyes, straight, jet-
black hair, square, squat shoulders, she looks
the very embodiment of the Evil One. She is
[52]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

twelve, but shows neither ability nor desire to
learn. Her habits are disgusting, and unless
closely watched she will be found filling her
pockets with the contents of the garbage pail —

and this in spite of the fact that we are no longer
dining off one herring. She says that her ambi-
tion in life is to become like a fat pig ! Last night,
[53]

LE PETIT NORD

when the children were safely tucked in bed and
I had sat down to write to you, piercing shrieks
were heard resounding through the stillness
of the house. A tour of investigation revealed
Topsy creeping from bed to bed in the darkness,
pretending to cut the throats of the girls with a

1J1 LlV

f:\rn

large carving-knife which she had stolen for this
purpose. To-day Topsy is going around with her
hands tied behind her back as a punishment,
and in the hope that without the use of her
hands we may have one day of peace at least.
Poor Topsy, kindness and severity alike seem
unavailing. She steals and lies with the greatest
readiness, and one wonders what life holds in
store for her.

[54]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

We have just admitted three children, so we
now number more than the three dozen. One
little mite of five was found last winter in a
Labrador hut, deserted, half -starved, and nearly
frozen to death. She was kept by a kindly neigh-
bour until the ice conditions allowed of her being
brought here. The other two, brother and sister,
were found, the girl clothed in a sack, her one
and only garment, and the boy in bed, minus
even that covering. This is the type of child who
comes to us.

The doctor in charge has just paid me a visit.
He says there is an epidemic of smallpox in the
island, and he wants all the children to be vac-
cinated. The number of cases of smallpox this
year in this "insignificant little island" is
greater pro rata than in any other country of
the world. So two o'clock this afternoon is the
time set apart for the massacre of the innocents.

The laugh is against me! Two of our boys fell
ill with a mysterious sickness, and tenderly and
[55]

LE PETIT NORD

carefully were they nursed by me and fed with
delicate portions from the king's table. I later
learned with much chagrin that "chewing to-
bacco" (strictly forbidden) was the cause of this
sudden onset. My sense of humour alone saved
the situation for them!

[56]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

The Children's Home
August 19

In response to my frantic cables your box
reached here safely, but it has not reached me.
Picture if you can my amazed incredulity yes-
terday to see an exact replica of myself as I once
was, walking on the dock. I rubbed my eyes and
stared. Yes, it was my purple gown. My first
impulse was to jerk it off the culprit, but I de-
cided on more diplomatic tactics. A very little
detective work elucidated the mystery. You had
addressed the box in care of the Mission, think-
ing doubtless, in your far-sighted, Scotch way,
that if sent to an individual, the said individual
would have duty to pay. Knowing all too well
the chronic state of my pocket-book, you antici-
pated untoward complications. Now, none of
the Mission staff pay duties. The contents of the
box were mistaken for reinforcements for the
charity clothing store, and to-day my purple
chambray gown, "to memory dear," walks the
[57]

LE PETIT NORD

street on another. Sic transit. I should add that
one of the modernists of our harbour has chosen
it. The old conservatives regard our collarless
necks and abbreviated skirts with horror. What
with the loss en route of several necessary arti-
cles of apparel, and the discovery of this further
depletion of my wardrobe, I regard the oncom-
ing winter with some misgivings.

One of the crew on the Northern Light, alias
the Prophet, so-called because he is spirit
brother to the Prophet of Doom, took a keen
relish in my discomfiture, or I fancied he did. He
it was who put the question in the doctor's Bible
class, "Is it religious to wear overalls to church? "
The house officer had carefully saved a pair of
clean khaki trousers to honour the Sunday serv-
ices, but in the local judgment they were no fit
garment for the Lord's house. Local judgment, I
may add, was not so drastic in its strictures on
boudoir caps. Some very pretty ones came to
service on the heads of the choir, but the verdict
[58]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

was a unanimously favourable one. A nomadic
Ladies' Home Journal was responsible for their
origin.

"Out of the mouths of babes," etc. I have
been trying to teach the little ones the thir-

[59]

LE PETIT NORD

teenth chapter of Corinthians. Whilst undress-
ing Solomon the other night I had occasion, or
it seemed to me that I had, to speak somewhat
sharply to one of the others. When I turned my
attention again to Solomon, he enunciated sol-
emnly in his baby tones, "Though I speak with
the tongues of men and of angels and have not
love, I am become as sounding brass and a tin-
kling cymbal."

You complain most unjustly that I do not
give a chronological account of events. I give
you the incidents which punctuate my days,
and as for the background, nothing could be
simpler than to fill it in.

To divert your mind from such adverse criti-
cism, let me tell you that there is a strong sus-
picion abroad that I am a devout adherent of the
Roman Church. Rumours of this have been com-
ing to me from time to time, but I determined to
withhold the news till its source was less in ques-
tion. Now I have it on the undeniable authority
[60]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

of the Prophet. I have candles, lighted ones, on
the dining-room table at dinner. Post hoc, prop-
ter hoc — and what further proof is needed!
Ananias has broken yet another window.

!.i

4

i

ll

jt ••

*

■in

When I questioned him as to when the deed had
been committed, he replied politely, but mourn-
fully, that he really could not tell me how many
years ago it was, as if I were seeking to unearth
some long undiscovered crime.

[61]

LE PETIT NORD

August 25
The other day Topsy had the misfortune to fall
out of bed and hit her two front teeth such a vio-
lent blow on the iron bar of the cot beside hers
that bits of ivory flew about the dormitory. This
necessitated a prompt matutinal visit to Dr. B.,
the dentist. As we waited our turn in the Con-
valescent Room, I overheard one patient-to-be
remark to his neighbour, "They do be shockin'
hard on us poor sailors. They says I've got to
take a bath when I comes into hospital. Why,
B'y, I has n't had a bath since my mother
washed me!"

The ethics of dentistry here are so mixed that
one needs a Solomon to disentangle them. Mrs.
"Uncle Life" — her husband is Uncle Eliphalet
— recently had all her teeth pulled out, or, to
be more accurate, all her remaining teeth. As the
operation involved considerable time, labour,
and novocaine, she was charged for the benefit

[m]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

of the hospital. When two shining sets, uppers
and lowers, were ready for her, she was as
pleased as a boy with his first jack-knife; but
not so Uncle Life. He considered it a work of
supererogation that not only must one pay to
have the old teeth removed, but for the new ones
to replace them.

Did I ever write you about our chamber-
maid's feet — the new one? Her name is Ase*
nath, and she is so perfectly spherical that if you
were to start her rolling down a plank she could
no more stop than can those humpty-dumpty
weighted dolls. 'Senath's temper is exemplary,
and her intentions of the best; in fact, she will
turn into a model maid.

But the process of turning is in progress at
the moment. It began with our cook, a pattern
of neatness and all the virtues, coming into my
office and complaining, "One_of us '11 have to
go, miss."

"What? Which?" I enquired, dazed by the
[63]

LE PETIT NORD

abruptness of this decision, and wondering
whether she were referring to me.

"This morning, miss, you know how hot it
was? Well, 'Senath comes into the kitchen and
says to me, 'Tryphena, I finds my feet some-
thing wonderful.' 'Wash them, and change
your stockings,' I says. 'Wash them! Why, Try-
phena, I 'se feared to do that. I might get a chill
as would strike in.' "

In a few well-chosen sentences I have ex-
plained to 'Senath the basic rules of hygiene and
of this house regarding water and its uses. She
has decided to stay and accept the inevitable
weekly bath, but she warns me fairly that if she
goes "into a decline," I must take the respon-
sibility with her parents!

With your zeal for gardens, and your attach-
ment to angle- worms — which you will recall I
do not share — you would be interested in our
efforts along these lines — the gardens, not the
worms. In this climate a garden is a lottery, and
[64]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

in ten seasons to one a spiteful summer frost will
fall upon the promising potatoes and kill the lot
just as they are ripening. The Eskimos at the
Moravian stations put their vegetal charges to
bed each night with long covers over the rows.
The other day, in an old journal about the coun-
try, I came upon this passage, and it struck me
"How history does repeat itself." It runs: "The
soyle along the coast is not deep of earth, but
bringing forth abundantly peason small, peason
which our countrymen have sowen have come
up f aire, of which our Generall had a present ac-
ceptable for the rarenesse, being the first fruits
coming up by art and industrie in that desolate
and dishabited land." I can assure you that the
sight of a "peason," however small, if it did not
come out of a tin can, would be an acceptable
offering to your friend. Even in summer we get
no fresh vegetables or fruits with the exception
of occasional lettuce or local berries. The epit-
ome of this spot is a tin ! In the same old journal
[65]

LE PETIT NORD

Whitbourne goes on to say that "Nature had
recompensed that only defect and incommoditie
of some sharpe cold by many benefits — with in-
credible quantitie and no less varietie of kindes
of fish in the sea and fresh water, of trouts and
salmons and other fish to us unknowen."

I have eaten fish (interspersed liberally with
tinned stuff) and drunken fish and thought and
spoken and dreamt fish ever since I arrived. But
don't pity me for imaginary hardships. I like fish
better than I do meat, and for that matter our
winter meat supply is walking past my window
this minute. He goes by the name of "Billy the
Ox"; and I am informed that as soon as it
begins to freeze, he is to be killed and frozen in
toto, for the winter consumption of the staff,
patients, and children. So our winter is not to
consist of one long Friday.

[66]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

August 28
You already know the worst about my leanings
to Papacy; but to-day I propose to set your
mind at rest on an idea with which you have
hypnotized yourself — namely, that I am go-
ing to die of malnutrition during what you are
pleased to term the "long Arctic winter." I have
no intention of starving, and as for the "long
Arctic winter," I do not believe there is any such
beast, as the farmer said when he looked at the
kangaroo in the circus.

I was sitting by my window quietly sewing
the other day (that sentence alone should reveal
to you how many miles I have travelled from
your tutelage) when I overheard one of the chil-
dren stoutly defending what I took at first to be
my character. The next sentence disabused me
— it was my figure under discussion.

"She's not fat!" averred Topsy. "I'll smack
you if you says it again."
[67]

LE PETIT NORD

"Well," muttered David, the light of reason
being thus forcibly borne in upon him, "she may
not be 'zactly fat, but she 's fine and hearty."

If this is the case, and my mirror all too
plainly confirms the verdict, and the summer
has not waned, what will the "last estate of
that woman be," after the winter has passed
over her? They tell me that every one here puts
on fat in the cold weather as a kind of windproof
jacket. I enclose a photograph of me on land-
ing, so you may remember me as I was.

No, you need not worry either over communi-
f 68 I

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

cations in the winter. You really ought to have
an intimate acquaintance with our telegraph
service, after you have, so to speak, subsidized
it during the past three months. It runs in win-
ter as well as summer; and I see no prospect of
its closing if you keep it on such a sound finan-
cial basis. Moreover, the building is devoted to
the administration of the law in all its branches.
One half of it is the post and telegraph office,
while the other serves as the jail. The whole
structure is within a stone's throw of the church
and school, as if the corrective institutions of the
place believed in intensive cultivation. But to
return to the jail. The walls are very thin, and
every sound from it can be plainly heard in the
telegraph office adjoining. Friday morning the
operator, a capable and long-suffering young
woman, came over to complain to the doctor
that she really found it impossible to carry out
the duties of her office, if the feeble-minded
Delilah Freak was to be incarcerated only six
[69]

LE PETIT NORD

inches distant from her ear. It seems that Deli-
lah spends her days yelling at the top of her
lungs, and Miss Dennis states that she prefers

to take telegraphic messages down in competi-
tion with the mail steamer's winch rather than
with Delilah's "bawling."

I know all about competition in noises
after trying to write in this house. The ceilings
are low and thin, and the walls are near and
thin, and the children are omnipresent and
not thin, and their wants and their joys and
their quarrels are as numerous as the fishes
[70]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

in the sea, and there you have the problem
in a nutshell.

Now I must "hapse the door," and hie me to
bed. As a matter of fact the people here are far
too honest for us to lock the doors. Such a thing
as theft is unheard of. Some may call it uncivi-
lized. I call it the millennium!

[TL]

LE PETIT NORD

August 31
I believe that the writer who described the cli-
mate of this country as being "nine months
snow and three months winter" was not far
from the truth. In June the temperature of our
rooms registered just above freezing point, in
July we were enveloped in continuous fog, and
in August we are having snow.

Such a tragic event has occurred. Our lettuce
has been eaten by the Mission cow! You know
how hard it is to get anything to grow here.
Well, after having nearly killed ourselves in
making a square inch of ground into something
resembling a bed, we had watched this lettuce
grow from day to day as the little green shoots
struggled bravely against the frost and cold.
Then a few nights ago I was awakened by the
tinkle of a bell beneath my window. Hastily
flinging on wrapper and shoes I fled to save our
one and only ewe lamb. But all the morning
f 72]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

light revealed was a desperate cold in the head,
and an empty bed from which the glory had
departed.

Topsy has just been amusing herself by turn-
ing on the corridor taps to watch the water run
downstairs! Oh! Topsy,

"T is thine to teach us what dull hearts forget
How near of kin we are to springing flowers."

News has just reached us that the mail boat
from St. Barbe to St. Antoine has gone ashore on
the rocks and is a total wreck. Happily no lives
were lost, but unhappily wrecks are of such fre-
quent occurrence on this dangerous coast as to
excite little comment.

Drusilla, aged five, has been to my door to en-
quire if the children may play with their dolls in
the house. I believe in open-air treatment, so
I replied with kindness, but firmly withal, that
"out of doors" was the order of the day. I was a
little electrified to hear her return to the play-
room and announce that "Teacher says you are
[73 1

LE PETIT NORD

to go out, every darned one of you!" I was
equally electrified the other day to overhear
Prusilla enquiring of her fellow philosophers
yhich they liked the best, "Teacher, the Doc-
tor, or the Lord Jesus Christ."

In the midst of writing to you I was called
away to interview a young man from the other
side of the harbour. He wanted me to give him
some of the milk used in the Home, for his baby,
as at the hospital they could only furnish him
with canned milk, guaranteed by the label, he
claimed, to give "typhoid, diphtheria, and scar-
let fever"!

[74]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

September 7
It is a windy, rainy night, and I have told
Topsy, who has a cold, that she cannot come
with us to church. After a wild outburst of anger
she was heard to mutter that " Teacher would n't
let her go to church because she was afraid she
would get too good."

The fall of the year is coming on and the eve-
nings are made wonderful by two phenomena —
the departure of the cannibalistic flies, and the
Northern lights. Twice at home I remember
seeing an attenuated aurora and thinking it
wonderful. No words can describe this display
on these crisp and lovely nights. There is a tang
and snap in the air, and the earth beneath and
the heavens above seem vibrating with un-
earthly life. The Eskimos say that the Northern
lights are the spirits of the dead at play, but I
like to think of them, too, as the translated souls
of the icebergs which have gone south and met a
[75]

LE PETIT NORD

too warm and watery death in the Gulf Stream.
Certainly all the colours of those lovely mon-
archs of the North are reflected dimly in the
^eavens. The lights move about so constantly
that one fancies that the soul of the berg, freed
at last from its long prison, is showing the aston-
ished worlds of what it is capable. The odd thing
was that when I first saw them on a clear night,
the stars shone through them, only they looked
like Coleridge's "wan stars which danced be-
tween."

I can vouch for the truth of another "side-
light," though from only one experience. One
night last week, clear and frosty, I had just gone
to my room at about eleven o'clock when the
doctor called me to come out and "hear the
lights." I thought surely I must have misun-
derstood, but on reaching the balcony and lis-
tening, I could distinctly hear the swish of the
"spirits" as they rushed across the sky. It
sounds like a diminished silk petticoat which
[76]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

has lost its blatancy, but retains its person-
ality.

Little did I realize at the time my good for-
tune in arriving here in daylight. It seems that
it is the invariable habit of all coastal steamers
to reach here at night, and dump the dumbly
resenting passengers in the darkness into the
tiny punts which cluster around the ship's side.
Since my arrival every single boat has appeared
shortly before midnight, or shortly after. In
either case it means that the men of the Mis-
sion must work all night landing patients and
freight, and the next day there is a chastened
and sleepy community to meet the forthcoming
tasks. It is especially hard on the hospital folk,
for the steamer only takes about twenty hours
to go to the end of her run and return, and they
try and send those cases which do not have to be
admitted back by the same boat on her southern
journey. This means an all-night clinic. But I
can say to the credit of the patients and staff
[77]

LE PETIT NORD

that I have never heard one word of complaint.
That is certainly a charming feature about this
life. There are plenty of things to growl about,
but one is so reduced to essentials that the
ones selected are of more importance than those
which afford such fruitful topics in civilization.

I have just overheard Gabriel informing the
other children that "Satan was once an angel,
but he got real saucy, so God turned him out of
heaven." Paradise Lost in a sentence!

The night after the audible lights a furious
rain and wind storm broke over us. No wonder
the trees have such a struggle for existence, if
these storms are frequent. They do not last long,
but they are the real thing while they are in
progress. I used to smile when I was told that
the Home was riveted with iron bolts to the solid
bedrock, but that night when I lay wide awake,
combating an incipient feeling of mal de mer as
my bed rocked with the force of the gale, I
thanked the fates for the foresight of the build-
[78]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

ers. Never before had I believed in the tale of the
church having been blown bodily into the har-
bour; but during those wild hours of darkness
I was certain at each succeeding gust that we
were going to follow its example.

Dawn — a pale affair looking out suspiciously
on the chastened world — broke at last, and I
"histed" my window (to quote the estimable
'Senath). The rain had stopped. The cheated
wind was whistling around the corners of the old
wooden buildings, and taking out its spite on
any passers-by who must venture forth to work.
The harbour, usually so peaceful and so shel-
tered, was lashed into a cauldron of boiling
white foam, and the rocks were swept so clean
that they at least had "shining morning
faces."

I dressed quickly and ran down to the wharf

to enquire as to the health of the Northern

Light. The first person I met was the Prophet.

He was positively elate. If I were a pantheist

[79]

LE PETIT NORD

I should think him a relative of the northeast
wind. The storm of the previous night had been
exactly to his liking. All his worst prognostica-
tions had been fulfilled, and quite a bit thrown
in par dessus le marche. He told me that a tiny,
rickety house across the harbour had first been
unroofed, and then one of the walls blown in. It
is a real disaster for the family, for they are poor
enough without having Kismet thus descend
upon them.

The hospital boat had held on safely, but
several little craft were driven ashore. Natu-
rally the children love the aftermath of such an
event, for the world is turned for them into one
large, entrancing puddle, bordered with em-
bryo mud pies.

Topsy again! I am informed that she has
tried to convert her Sunday best into a hobble
skirt, reducing it in the process to something
hopelessly ludicrous. It can never, never be
worn again.

I 80 ]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

My arm aches and I cannot decide whether it
is from much orphan scrubbing or from much
writing, but in either case I must bid you au
revoir.

[81]

LE PETIT NORD

September 25
Last night I was awakened by a terrific noise
proceeding from the lower regions. Armed with
my umbrella, the only semblance of a stick
within reach, I descended on a tour of investiga-
tion. Opening the larder door I beheld six huge
dogs, and devastation reigning supreme. These
dogs are half wolf in breed, and very destruc-
tive, as I can testify. When I wildly brandished
my umbrella, which could not possibly have
harmed them, they jumped through the closed
window, leaving not a pane of glass behind.
This, I suppose, is merely a nocturnal interlude
to break the monotony of life in a country
which boasts no burglars.

The children attend the Mission school, and
yesterday Topsy was sent home in dire disgrace
for lying and cheating. She is not to be per-
mitted to return until she is willing to confess
and apologize. She thereupon tried to commit
[82]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

suicide by swallowing paper pellets, and in the
night the doctor had to be called in to prescribe.
She is white and wan to-day, but when I went in
to bid her good-night I found her thrilling over a
new prayer which she had learned, and which
she repeated to me with deep emotion:

"Little children, be ye wise,
Speak the truth and tell no lies.
The Lord's portion is to dwell
Forever in the flames of hell."

I want to tell you something about our ba-
bies. They are four in number. David, aged five,
considers himself quite a big boy, and a leader
of the others. His father was frozen to death in
Eskimo Bay some years ago whilst hunting food
for his family. Although David is always boast-
ing of his strength and the superior wisdom of
his years, yet he is really very tiny for his age.
He is a delightful little optimist, who announces
cheerfully after each failure to do right that he
is "going to be good all the time now," to which
[83]

LE PETIT NORD

we add the mental reservation, "until next
time." He is the proud possessor of a Teddy
bear. This long-suffering animal was a source of
great pleasure until a short time ago when David
started making a first-hand investigation to find
out where the "squeak" came from — an in-
vestigation which ended disastrously for the
bear, however it may have furthered the cause
of science.

Last month I went to Nameless Cove to fetch
to the Home a little boy of three, of whom I
have already written you. Nameless Cove is
about twelve miles west of St. Antoine. I have
never seen such a wretched hovel — a one-
roomed log hut, completely destitute of furni-
ture. The door was so low I had to bend almost
double to enter. A rough shelf did duty for a bed,
upon which lay an old bedridden man, while at
the other end lay a sick woman with a child
beside her, and crouched below was an idiot
daughter. Altogether nine persons lived in this
[84 1

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

hut, eight adults and this one boy. Ananias is
an illegitimate child, and has lived with these
grandparents since his mother lost her reason
and was removed to the asylum at St. John's.
The child was almost destitute of clothing, and
covered with vermin. He has the face of a ser-
aph, and a voice that lisps out curses with the
fluency of a veteran trooper. Ananias is David's
shadow; he follows him everywhere, and echoes
all his words as if they were gems of wisdom, far
above rubies. Indeed, when David has ceased
speaking, one waits involuntarily for Ananias to
begin in his shrill treble tones. He is a hopeless
child to correct, for when you imagine you are
scolding him very severely, and you look for the
tears of penitence to flow, he puts up his little
face with an angelic smile, and lisps, "Tiss me."
Drusilla, whose slight acquaintance you have
already made, is three and comes from Savage
Cove. The father has gradually become blind
and the mother is crippled. Drusilla keeps us all
[85]

LE PETIT NORD

on the alert, for we never know what she will be
doing next. On Sunday mornings she is put to
rest with the other little ones while we are at
church. On returning last Sunday I found that
she had secured a box of white ointment
(thought to be quite beyond her reach), and
with her toothbrush painted one side of the
baby's face white, which with her other rosy
cheek gave her the appearance of a clown. Not
content with portrait painting, Drusilla then
turned her energies to house decoration, the re-
sult attained on the wall being entirely to the
satisfaction of the artist, as was evidenced by
the proud smile with which our outcry was
greeted.

The real baby is Beulah, just two years, and
she exercises her gentle but despotic sway over
all, from the least to the greatest. She is contin-
ually upsetting the standard of neatness which
was once the glory of this Home, by sprawling
on the floors, dragging after her a headless doll
[86]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

with sawdust oozing from every pore. A dilapi-
dated bunny and several mangled pictures com-
plete the procession. It is hopeless to protest,
for she just looks as if she could not understand
how any one could object to such priceless treas-
ures. She awakens us at unconscionable hours
in the morning, when all reasonable beings are
still sleeping the sleep of the just, and keeps up a
perpetual chatter interspersed with highly dan-
gerous gymnastic feats upon her bed.

Can you find any babies throughout the Brit-
ish Isles to match mine?

[87]

LE PETIT NORD

October 20
Since last I wrote you we have had a very
strenuous time in the Home; the entire family
has been down with measles. Then when that
was over and the children well, the sewing maid,
whom I had engaged shortly after my arrival,
gave notice, shook the dust from her feet, and I
was left single-handed. It took the whole of my
time to keep these forty-odd infants fed, clothed,
and washed, and I had no leisure to write to you
even at "scattered times." It seemed to me that
the appetites of these enfants terribles grew ab-
normally, that their clothes rent asunder with
lightning-like rapidity, and that they fell into
mud heaps with even greater facility than usual.
It was sometimes a delicate problem to decide
which of many pressing duties had the prior
claim. Whether to try and feed the hungry (the
kitchen range having sprung a leak), to start to
repair two hundred odd garments (the weekly
[88]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

mend), or to resuscitate one of the babies (just
rescued from the reservoir). At such times I
would wonder if I were somewhere near attain-
ing to that state of experience when I should be
able to appreciate your alluring phrase, "the
fun of mothering an orphanage."

I must begin and tell you now about the chil-
dren we have received since my last letter. Mike,
aged eight, came to us from St. Barbe Hospital,
as he had no home to which he could return. In-
cidentally it takes the entire staff to keep this
boy moderately tidy, for he and his garments
have an unfortunate inclination to part asunder,
and we are kept in constant apprehension for
the credit of the Orphanage. But Mike, whether
with his clothes or without, always turns up
smiling and on excellent terms with himself, en-
tirely regardless of the mental torture we endure
as he comes into view. Indeed, the wider apart
are his garments, the broader is his smile. He
weeps quietly each night as we wash him, for
[89]

LE PETIT NORD

that is a work of supererogation for which he has
at present no use.

Deborah and her brother Gabriel were here
when I came. Their ages are eleven and five, and
they come from the far north. Deborah was in
the Mission Hospital at Iron Bound Islands for
some time as the result of a burning accident.
While trying to lift a pan of dog-food from the
stove she upset the scalding contents over her
legs. Her elder brother had to drive her eighteen
miles on a komatik to the hospital, and the poor
child must have suffered greatly. Gabriel is a
very naughty, but equally lovable child. He is
never out of mischief, but he is always very
penitent for his misdeeds — afterwards! His
bent is towards theology, and he speaks with the
authority of an ancient divine on all matters
pertaining thereto, and with an air of finality
which brooks no argument. When some one was
being given the priority in point of age over me,
he was heard to indignantly exclaim that "Jesus
[90]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

and Teacher are the oldest people in the world."
He is no advocate for the equality of the sexes
and closes all discussion on equal rights by ex*
plaining that "God made the boys and Jesus
the girls."

Our fast-coming winter is sending its harbin-
gers, seen and unseen, into our harbour. Chief
among these one notices the assertiveness of the
dogs. All through the summer they slink pariah-
like about the place, eating whatever they can
pick up, and seeking to keep their miserable ex-
istence as much in the background as possible.
Now the winter is approaching, and it is "their
little day." Mrs. Uncle Life can testify to the
fact that they are not wholly suppressed when
it is not "their little day." Last summer she
found no less important a personage than the
leader of the team in her bed. Her newly baked
"loaf" was lying on the pantry shelf before the
open window. Whiskey (this place is strictly
prohibition, but every team boasts its "Whis-
[911

LE PETIT NORD

key") leaped in, made a satisfying banquet off
her bread, and then forced open the door into
her bedroom adjoining the pantry. He found it a
singularly barren field for adventure, but after

his unaccustomed hearty meal the bed looked
tempting. He was found there two hours later
placidly asleep.

The children are looking forward to Christ-
mas and are already writing letters to Santa
Claus, which are handed to me with great se-
crecy to mail to him. I once watched the little

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

ones playing at Christmas with an old stump of
a bush to which they attached twigs as gifts and
gravely distributed them to one another. When
I saw one mite handing a dead twig to a smaller
edition of himself, and announcing in a lordly
fashion that it was a piano, I realized what
Father Christmas was expected to be able to
produce.

[93]

LE PETIT NORD

November 1
My world is transformed into fairyland. Light
snow has fallen during the night, and every
"starigan," every patch of "tuckamore" is
"decked in sparkling raiment white." As I was
dressing I looked out of my window, and for the
first time in my life saw a dog team and komatik
passing.

The day was full of adventure. For the chil-
dren the snow meant only rejoicing; but as the
highway was as slippery as glass, and the older
folk had not yet got their "winter legs," there
were many minor casualties. Mrs. Uncle Life,
aged seventy and small and spherical, solved the
problem of the hills by sitting down and sliding.
She commended the method to me, saying that
it served very well on week days, but was lam-
entably detrimental to her Sunday best.

Ananias is developing fast and bids fair to
rival Topsy. He has a mania for eating anything
[94]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

and everything, and what he cannot eat, he de-
stroys. Within the past few weeks he has swal-
lowed the arm of his Teddy bear, half a cake of

soap, and a tube of tooth-paste. He has also bit-
ten through two new hot-water bottles. During
the short time he has been here he has broken
more windows than any other child in the Home.
[95]

LE PETIT NORD

If he thinks politeness will save the day, he
says in the sweetest way possible, "Excuse me,
Teacher, for doing it"; but if he sees by my face
that retribution is swift and sure, he says in the
most pathetic of tones, "Teacher, I have a
pain."

I must make you acquainted with our
"Yoho." Every well-regulated fishing village
has one, but we have to thank our neighbour,
the Eskimo, for the picturesque name. In our
more prosaic parlance it is plain "ghost." Many
years ago when the Mission was in need of a
building in which to accommodate some of its
workers, it purchased a house belonging to a
local trader by the name of Isaac Spouseworthy.
This made an admirable Guest House; but it has
since fallen into disuse for its original purpose,
and is being employed as a temporary repository
for the clothing sent for the poor, till the fine new
storehouse shall have been built. This old Guest
House has been selected by our local apparition
[96]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

as a place of visitation. It is affirmed, on the
incontrovertible testimony of the Prophet and
no inconsiderable following, that the spirit re-
turns of an evening to the old house he built
forty years ago, to wander through the familiar
rooms. The villagers see lights there nightly; and
though all our investigation has failed to reveal
any presence (barring the rats), bodily or other-
wise, the bravest of them would hesitate many a
long minute before he would enter the haunted
spot after nightfall. Rumour has it that the
Guest House is built on the site of an old French
cemetery. Our "irrepressible Ike" therefore
cannot lack for society, though how congenial it
is cannot be determined. Judging from the rec-
ords of the ceaseless rows between the French
and English on Le Petit Nord, there must be
some lively nights in ghostland.

The doctor suggested that if a burglar wished
to steal the clothing, this spook would be his
most effective accomplice, but such tortuous
[97]

LE PETIT NORD

psychology has failed to satisfy the fishermen.
To them we seem callous souls, to whom the
spirit world is alien. This ghostly encroachment
on our erstwhile quiet domain has had more
than one inconvenient result. The Mission is
very short of houses for its workmen, and was
planning to rebuild and put in order a part of
this now haunted domicile for one family. The
man for whom it was destined now refuses to
live there, as his children have vetoed the idea.
In this land the word of the rising generation is
law, and this refusal is therefore final.

The children of this North Country are given
what they wish and when and how. Naturally
the results of such a policy are serious. There are
many cases of hopeless cripples about here who
refused to go to hospital for treatment when
their trouble was so slight that it could have
been rectified. Now the children must look for-
ward to a life of disability through their par-
ents' short-sightedness. But when I think of

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

what it means to these poor women to have per-
haps ten children to care for, and all the rest of
the work of the house and garden on their shoul-
ders, I cannot wonder that their motto is "peace
at any price."

Spirits might be called the outstanding fea-
ture of our harbour, for the Piquenais rocks at
the very entrance are the abode of another fa-
miliar revenant. The Prophet assures me that
thirty years ago a vessel and crew were wrecked
there, and on every succeeding stormy evening
since that day, the captain, with creditable per-
severance, waves his light on that wind- and
surf-swept rock. In this instance the prophetical
authority is in dispute, for there are those who
assert that the light is shown by fairies to toll
boats to their doom on the foggy point. The
more scientifically minded explain the mysteri-
ous light as a defunct animal giving out gas. It
must be a persistent gas which can retain its
efficacy for thirty long and adventurous years.
[99]

LE PETIT NORD

In the course of these researches several in-
teresting points of natural history and science
have been elucidated. Doubtless you do not

know that all cats are related to the devil, but

you can readily see the brimstone in their fur if

you have the temerity to rub them on a dusky

[ 100]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARpQUK:

evening. Neither has it come to your attention
that under no consideration must you allow the
water in which potatoes have been washed to
run over your hands. In the latter event, wartf
innumerable will result.

Our cook has just come in with the news that
supper is not to be forthcoming. 'Senath was
left in charge while Tryphena went on an errand
for me. Left-over salad was to have formed the
basis of the evening meal, but the said basis has
now disintegrated, 'Senath having placed the
dish in a superheated oven. The nature of the
resultant object is indeterminate, but uneat-
able. I solace myself that sanctified starva-
tion will be beneficial to my "fine and hearty"
figure.

We have suffered again with the dogs. One of
the children's birthdays fell on Saturday, and
we decided to give the whole "crew" ice-cream
to fittingly celebrate the event. It was made in
good time and put out to keep cool in what we
[101]

LE PETIT NORD

* ■ ■ ■ i ! |

took to be a safe spot. The party preceding the
piece de resistance was in full swing when an
ominous disturbance was detected from the di-
rection of the woodshed. Investigation revealed
two angry dogs alternately snarling at each
other and devouring the last lick of the treat.
The catholicity of canine taste was no solace to
the aggrieved assembly.

The children have lately been making excur-
sions into the theological field. The latest prob-
lem brought to me for settlement was, "Does
God live in the Methodist Church?" Truly a
two-horned dilemma. If I said "yes" the an-
thropomorphic teaching was undoubted; while
if the answer were in the negative I should be
guilty of fostering the abominable denomina-
tional spirit which ruins this land. My reply
must have been unconvincing, for I overheard
the children later deciding, the Methodist
Church having been barred as a place of resi-
dence, that the attic was the only remaining
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

possibility. It is the one spot in the Home un-
visited by them, and therefore "unseen."

Unseemly altercations have summoned me
to the kitchen, and I return to close this over-
long chronicle. I was met there by Tryphena, a
large sheet in her hands, and an accusing expres-
sion on her face which stamped her as a family
connection of the Prophet's.

"It's not my fault, miss," she began.

"No, Tryphena? Well, whose is it, and what
is it?"

"Look at that sheet, miss, a new one. 'Senath
was ironing, and had folded it just ready to put
away. Then she suddenly wants a drink, so she
goes off leaving the iron in the middle of the
sheet. Half an hour later she remembers. When
she got back, of course the iron had burnt its
way straight through all the layers."

Aside from destruction, in what direction
would you say that 'Senath's forte did lie?

[ 103]

LE PETIT NORD

November 17
I have received your letter with its pointed re*
marks about the long delays of the mail-carrier.
I consider them both unnecessary and unkind.
But as David would say, " I am going to be good
all the time now."

We have this moment returned from church,
to which the children love to go; it is the great
excitement of the week. They sit very quietly,
except Topsy, but how much they understand I
cannot say. The people sing with deliberation,
each syllable being made to do duty for three,
to prolong the enjoyment — or the agony — ac-
cording as your musical talent decides. Fre-
quently there is no one to play the instrument,
and the hymns are started several times, until
something resembling the right pitch is struck.
Sometimes a six-line hymn will be started to a
common metre tune, and all goes swimmingly
until the inevitable crash at the end of the
[ 104 1

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

fourth line. But nothing daunted, we try and
try again. I have supplied our smiling-faced
cherubs with hymn books in order that

"Their voices may in tune be found
Like David's harp of solemn sound "

— excuse the adaptation. This morning the serv-
ice was particularly dreary. Hymn after hymn
started to end in conspicuous failure, followed
by an interminable discourse on the sufferings of
the damned. But we ended cheerfully by war-
bling forth the joys of heaven —

"Where congregations ne'er break up
And Sabbaths never end!"

Last week we had a thrilling event; one of the
girls formerly in this Home was married, and we
all went to the wedding, even the little tots who
are too young for regular services. They after-
wards told me they would like to go on Sundays,
so I imagine they think the marriage ceremony a
regular item of Divine worship. Alas! I almost
disgraced myself when the clergyman solemnly
[ 105 1

LE PETIT NORD

announced to the intending bride and bride-
groom that the holy estate of matrimony had
been "ordained of God for the persecution of
children " !

How you would have laughed to see me the
other night. The steamer arrived at midnight,
and as we were expecting some children I went
down to meet them. There were three little boys,
Esau, Joseph, and Nathan, eight, six, and four
years of age. I bore them in triumph to the bath-
room, feeling that even at that late hour cleanli-
ness should be compulsory. But I soon desisted
from my purpose and as quickly as possible
bundled the dirty children into my neat, snowy
beds! They kicked, they fought, they bit, they
yelled and they swore! All my sleeping inno-
cents awoke at the noise and added their voices
to the confusion. I momentarily expected an in-
rush of neighbours, and a summons the follow-
ing day for cruelty to children.
[ 106]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Uriah has come to inform me that he cannot
"cleave the splits," as his "stomach has cap-
sized." I felt it incumbent to administer a dose
of castor oil, thinking that might be sufficient
punishment for what I had reason to believe was
only a dodge to escape work. It was hard for me
to give the oil, but harder still to have the boy
look up after it with a quite cherubic smile, and
ask if it were the same oil as Elisha gave the
widow woman!

Whatever can survive in this land of difficul-
ties survives with a zeal and vitality which only
proves the strength of the obstacles overcome.
The flies, the mosquitoes, and the rats are
proofs. We have none of your meek little wharf
rats here. Ours are brazen imps, sleek and
shameless, undaunted by cats or men. Their
footmarks are as big as those of young puppies
(withal not too well-fed puppies), and their raids
on man and beast alike ally them with the horde
Pandora loosed. Each day the toll mounts. One
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LE PETIT NORD

morning Miss Perrin, the head nurse, awakened
to find one of her prize North Labrador boots
gnawed to the rim. All that remained to tell the

[ 108]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

tale was the bright tape by which it was hung
up, and the skin groove through which the tape
threads.

On the next occasion of their public ap-
pearance the night nurse was summoned by
agonized shrieks to the children's ward. A large
rodent had climbed upon Ishimay's bed and bit-
ten her. There were the marks of his teeth in her
hand, and the blood was dripping. Nor do they
limit their depredations to the hospital. The
barn man turned over a bale of hay last week
and disclosed no less than twenty-seven rats
young and old, fat and lean, though chiefly fat.
I rejoice to record that this galaxy at least has
departed Purgatory-wards. The dentist left a
whole bag of clean linen on the floor of his bed-
room. The morning following he found that the
raiders had eaten their way through the sack,
cutting a series of neat round holes in each
folded garment as they progressed. The scuffling
and the squealing and the scraping and the
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LE PETIT NORD

gnawing and the scratching of rats in the walls
and cupboards are worse than any phalanx of
"Yohos" ever summoned from spookland! Oh J
Pied Piper of Hamelin, why tarry so long!

[110]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

December 14
The last boat of the season has come and gone
and now we settle down to the real life of the
winter. Plans innumerable are under way for
winter activities, and the children are on tiptoe
over the prospect of approaching Christmastide.
Their jubilations fill the house, and writing is
even more difficult than usual.

For days before the last steamer finally
reached us there were speculations as to her
coming. Rumour, a healthy customer in these
parts, three times had it that she had gone back,
having given up the unequal contest with the
ice. As all our Christmas mail was aboard her,
the atmosphere was tense. Then came the news
from Croque that she was there, busily unload-
ing freight. Six hours later her smoke was
sighted, and from the yells my bairns set up, you
would have thought that the mythical sea ser-
pent was entering port. She butted her way into
[ HI]

LE PETIT NORD

the standing harbour ice as far as she could get,
and promptly began discharging cargo. Teams
of dogs sprang up seemingly out of the snow-
covered earth, and in a mere twinkling our
frozen and silent harbour was an arena of activ-
ity. The freight is dumped on the ice over the
ship's side with the big winch, and each man
must hunt for his own as it descends. Some of
the goods are dropped with such a thud that the
packages "burst abroad." This is all very well if
the contents are of a solid and resisting nature;
but if butter, or beans, or such like receive the
shock, most regrettable results ensue.

During the hours of waiting here she froze
solidly into the ice, and had to be blasted out
before she could commence her journey to the
southward. She has taken the mails with her,
and this letter must come to you by dog team —
your first by that method.

In the early part of this summer three little
orphan girls came to us from Mistaken Cove.
[ 112]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Their names are Carmen, Selina, and Rachel,
and their ages, ten, seven, and five. Their father
has been dead for some years, and the mother
recently died of tuberculosis. They did look such
a pathetic little trio when they first arrived. I
went down to the wharf to meet them, and three
quaint little figures stepped from the hospital
boat, with dresses almost to their feet. Carmen
held the hands of her two sisters, and greeted me
with "Are you the woman wot's going to look
after we? H I assured her that I hoped to perform
that function to the best of my ability, and then
she confided to me that she had brought with
her a box containing her mother's dresses and
her mother's hair. I fancy the responsibility of
the entire household must have rested on Car-
men's tiny shoulders; she is like a little old
woman, and even her voice is care-worn. I
hunted up some dolls for the two younger kid-
dies, but had not the courage to offer one to
their elder sister. She evidently felt that dolls
[ 113]

LE PETIT NORD

were altogether too precious for common use,
and carefully explained to her charges that they
were only for Sundays! When I next went to the
playroom it was to find the three little sisters
sitting solemnly in a row on the locker with their
dolls safely packed away beneath. I persuaded
them that dolls were not too good for "human
nature's daily food," and since then they have
been supremely happy with their babies.

Carmen is so devoted to little Rachel that she
cannot bear the thought of her being in trouble.
Rachel is very human, and in the brief time she
has been with us has had many falls from the
paths of rectitude.

One day shortly after their arrival Rachel had
been naughty, and I had taken her upstairs to
explain to her the enormity of her offence, Car-
men standing meanwhile at the bottom of the
stairs wringing her hands. When Rachel reap-
peared and announced that she had not even
been punished, Carmen was seen to give her a
[114]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

good slap on her own account, although evi-
dently well pleased that no one else had dared to
touch her child. Carmen is extremely religious,
and her prayers at night are lengthy and devout.
She starts off with the Lord's Prayer, the Apos-
tles' Creed; several collects follow, and she con-
cludes with a "Hail Mary!"

You have already made the acquaintance of
Billy the Ox, the now dear departed, who con-
stitutes our winter's frozen meat supply. Our
allotted portion of him is hung in the balcony
outside my window. Being on the second floor
it was thought to be sanctuary from marauders.
Last night I was awakened by an uneasy feeling
of a presence entering my room. Starting up, I
made out in the moonlight the great tawny
form of one of our biggest dogs. He was in the
balcony making so far futile leaps to secure a sec-
tion of Billy. My shout discouraged him, and he
jumped off the roof to the snow beneath. He had
managed to scale the side of the house — but
[ H5]

LE PETIT NORD

how? For some time I was at a loss to discover,
till I remembered a ladder which had been
placed perpendicularly against the wall on the
other side. One of the double windows had
broken loose in a recent storm of wind, and the
barn man had had to go up and mend it. True to
type he had left the ladder in statu quo. Up mas-
ter dog had climbed straight into the air, along
the slippery rungs of the ladder. When he
reached the level of the tempting odour, he had
alighted on the balcony roof. Then, pursuing
the odour to its lair, he had discovered Billy,
and me!

At breakfast I told my adventurette, and the
story was instantly capped with others. Only
one shall you have. The doctor was away on
a travel last winter, and late one blustersome
night came to a little village. He happened to
have a very beautiful leader of which he was
inordinately careful, so he asked his host for the
night if he had a shed into which he could put
I H6 ]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Spider out of the weather. "Why, to be sure,
just at the left of the door." It was dark and
blowing, and the doctor went outside and thrust
the beastie into the only building in sight. After
breakfast he went with his host to get the dogs.

When he started to open the door of the shelter
in which Spider was incarcerated, the fisherman
burst out in dismay, "You never put him in
there? That's where I keeps my only sheep."
At that second the dog appeared, a spherical
and satisfied specimen. He had taken the stran-
ger in — completely.

[ 117]

LE PETIT NORD

The cold is intense, and to combat it in these
buildings of green lumber is a task worthy of
Hercules. We make futile attempts to keep the
pipes from freezing; but the north wind has a
new trump each night. He squeezes in through
every chink and cranny, and once inside the
house goes whistling malignantly through the
chilly rooms and corridors. We keep an oil stove
burning in our bathroom at night with a kettle
of water on it ready for our morning ablutions.
To-day, when I went in to dress — one does not
dress in one's bedroom, but waits in bed till the
bathroom door's warning slam informs that the
coast is clear — there was the stove still mer-
rily burning, and there was the kettle of water
on it — FROZEN.

Next month there is to be a sale in Nameless
Cove, twelve miles to the westward of us. The
doctor has asked me to attend. I accepted de-
lightedly, as twenty-four hours free from fear of
rats and frozen pipes draws me like a magnet.
[ 118]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Moreover, who would n't be on edge if it were
one's first dog drive!

I found Gabriel crying bitterly in bed the
other night because he had in a fit of mischief
thrown a stone at the Northern lights, which is
regarded as an act of impiety by the Eskimo
people. It was some time before I could pacify
the child, or get him to believe that no dire
results would follow his dreadful deed. But at
length when "comforting time" was come for
him, he consoled himself by supposing that
Teacher must be "stronger than the devil."

I 119 1

LE PETIT NORD

December 27
I certainly was never born to be a teacher and

it is something to discover one's limitations.
For several Sundays now I have been labour-
ing to instruct our little ones in the story of the
birth of Jesus, and I have repeated the details
again and again in order to impress them upon
their wandering minds. Last Sunday I ques-
tioned them, and finally asked triumphantly,
"Well, David, who was the Babe in the man-
ger?" With a wild look round the room for in-
spiration, David enunciated with swelling pride,
"Beulah, Teacher."

We had a lovely time on Christmas. The
night before the children hung up their stock-
ings, but it was midnight before I could get
round to fill them, they were so excited and
wakeful. I "hied me softly to my stilly couch,"
and was just dropping off into delicious slumber
when at 1 a.m. the strains of musical instru-
ments (which you had sent) were heard below.
[ 120 ]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Then I appreciated to the full the sentiment of

that poet who sang:

"Were children silent, we should half believe
That joy were dead, its lamp would burn so low." I

Later in the day we had our Christmas tree,
when Topsy was overjoyed at receiving her first
doll. There is something very sweet about the
child in spite of all her wilful ways, and she is a
real little mother to her doll.

We had a great dinner, as you may imagine. I
overheard some of the little boys teasing Solo-
mon, who is only three, to see if he would not
forgo some particular choice morsel upon his
plate, to which an emphatic "no" was always
returned. Then by varying gradations of impor-
tance came the question, would he give it to
Teacher? The answer not being considered satis-
factory, Gabriel felt that the time had come for
the supreme test, Would Solomon give it to God
and the angels? The reply left so much to be
desired that it is better unrecorded.
[ 121]

LE PETIT NORD

In our harbour lives a blind Frenchman,
Francois Detier by name. He came here in his
youth to escape conscription. The fisher people
have travelled a long road since the old feuds
which scarred the early history of Le Petit Nord,
and Frangois is a much-loved member of the
community. Since the oncoming of the inoper-
able tumour, which little by little has deprived
him of his sight, the neighbours vie with each
other by helping him. One day a load of wood
will find its way to his door. The next a few
fresh "turr," a very "fishy" sea auk, are left
ever so quietly inside his woodshed — and so
it goes. It is a constant marvel to me that
these people, who live so perilously near the
margin of want, are always so eager to share
up. Frangois is sitting in our cellar as I write
pulling nails from old boxes with my new pat-
ent nail-drawer. A moment ago I could not re-
sist the temptation of putting the Marseillaise
on the gramophone, and I went down to find
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

him with tears rolling down his cheeks as he

hummed,

"Allons, enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrive."

We've invented a new job for him; he is to
"serve" our pipes with bandages. This means
swathing them round and round, and finally add-
ing an outer covering of newspaper, which has a
much-vaunted reputation for keeping cold out.

Let me tell you the latest epic of the hospital
pipes. Those to the bathroom run through the
office. In the last blizzard they burst. The fire
in the fireplace was a conflagration; the steam
radiator was singing a credible song; and as the
water trickled down the pipe from the little fis-
sure, it froze solid before it was three inches on
its way!

A friend sent me for Christmas a charming
little poem. One verse runs:

"May nothing evil cross this door,
And may ill fortune never pry

[ 123 ]

LE PETIT NORD

About these windows; may the roar

And rains go by.
r

"Strengthened by faith, these rafters will
Withstand the battering of the storm;
This hearth, though all the world grow chill,
Will keep us warm."

I am thinking of hanging the card opposite our
pipes as a reminder of the "way they should

t 124 ] '

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

January 15
The journey to Nameless Cove Fair was all that
I had hoped for and a little more thrown in to
make weight. Clear and shining, with glittering
white snow below and sparkling blue sky above,
the day promised fair in spite of a mercury
standing at ten below zero, and a number of
komatiks from the Mission started merrily
forth. All went well, and we reached Nameless
Cove without adventure, but at sundown the
wind rose. When we left the sale at ten o'clock
to return to the house where I was to spend the
night, we had to face the full fury of a living
winter gale. I "caught" both my cheeks on the
way, or in common parlance I froze them. All
through that long tug we were cheered by the
thought of a large jug of cream which we had
placed on the stove to thaw when we left the
house. Do you fancy that cream had thawed?
Not a bit of it. The fire was doing its best, but
[ 125 1

LE PETIT NORD

old Boreas was holding our feast prisoner. It had
not even begun to disintegrate around the edges*
We cut lumps from the icy mass, dropped then*,
into our cocoa (which we made by cooking it in-
side the stove and directly on top of the coals),
hastily popped the mixture into our mouths be-
fore it should have a chance to freeze en route,
and went promptly to bed. I draw a veil over
that night. I drew everything else I could find
over me in the course of it. A sadder and a wiser
and a chillier woman I rose the morrow morn.
Another member of the staff, who had slept in
an adjoining house, froze his toe in bed.

When we reached home, and I left the koma-
tik at the hospital door, I made out 'Senath
dancing in an agitatedly aimless fashion on our
platform. She was also waving her arms about.
For a moment it crossed my mind that she had
lost her modicum of wits, but as she was im-
mediately joined by Tryphena, I gave up the
theory as untenable, and continued to hasten up
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

the hill to the Home. Our boiler had sprung, not
one but many leaks, and the precious hot water
destined for the cleansing of forty was flooding

the already spotless kitchen floor. As it is the
middle of the week I had not suspected this ca-
lamity, Sunday being the invariable day se-
[ 127]

LE PETIT NORD

lected for all burst pipes, special rat banquets,
broken noses, toothaches, skinned shins, and
such misadventures. The problem now present-
ing itself for prompt solution is: 20° below zero,
a gale blowing from the northwest, twoscore
small, unwashed orphans, and a burst boiler!

[ 128

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

January 21
The oldest inhabitants, and all the others as
well, claim that this is the most remarkable win-
ter in thirty years. Not that one is deceived. I
suspect them rather of making excuses for the
consistently disconcerting climate of Britain's
oldest colony.

All the same, literally the worst storm I ever
experienced has been in progress for the last two
days. It began in the morning by the falling of
a' few innocent flakes. Then the north wind de-
cided to take a hand. All night and all day and
all night again it shrieked around the house,
driving incredible quantities of snow before it.
Half an hour after it began, you could not see
two yards in front of your face. The man who
attends to the hospital heating-plant had to
crawl on his hands and knees in order to reach
his destination, taking exactly one hour to make
the distance of two hundred yards.
[ 129]

LE PETIT NORD

At this institution it is the time-honoured
custom to rise at five-thirty each morning,
which custom, although doubtless good for oui
immortal souls, is distinctly trying to our too
painfully mortal flesh. Added to which, in spite
of all our efforts, our pipes are frozen, and
in this country the ground does not thaw out
completely until July or August, when we are
making preparations for being frozen in again.
Think of what this means for a household of
over forty when every drop of water has to be
hauled in barrels by our boys, and the super-
intendent has to stand over them to compel
them to bring enough. Cleanliness at such a
cost must surely be a long way towards godli-
ness. I can now appreciate the story of the
chaplain from a whaling ship who is said to
have wandered into an encampment of the Es-
kimos. He told the people of heaven with all
its glories, and it meant nothing to these
children of the North; they were not interested
[ 130]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

in his story. But when he changed his theme
and spoke of hell, with its everlasting fires
which needed no replenishing, they cried,

"Where is it? Tell us that we may go"; and big
and little, they clambered over him, eager for
details.

By morning every room on the windward side

of our house looked like the inside of an igloo.

The fine drift had silted in through each most

minute cranny and crevice — even though we

[ 131]

LE PETIT NORD

have double windows all over the building; and
on the night in question we had decided that
sufficient fresh air was entering in spite of us
to permit our disobeying our self-imposed anti-
tuberculosis regulations. The wind and snow are
so persistent and so penetrating that the merest
slit gives them entrance, and the accumulations
of such a night make one fancy in the morning
that the King of the Golden River has paid an
infuriated visit to our part of the globe. When I
went into the babies' dormitory every little bed
was snowed under, and only the children's dark
hair contrasted with the universal whiteness.

The second night I verily thought the house
would come about our ears. The gale had in-
creased in fury, the thermometer stood at thirty
below, and I stayed up to be ready for emer-
gencies. At midnight, thinking one room must
surely be blown in, I carried the sleeping babes
into another wing of the house. If for any reason
we had had to leave the building that night,
[ 132 ] c

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

none of us could have lived to reach a place of
safety. I wish you could have seen us the follow-
ing morning. The snow had drifted in so that in
places it was over six feet high. I ventured out
and found that every exit but one from the
Home was snowed up. We had therefore to dig
ourselves out of the woodshed door and into
the others from the outside. You make a dab
with a shovel in the direction where you think
you last saw the desired door before the storm,
and trust the fates for results. Part of our roof
has blown off and our chimney is in a tottering
condition.

The greatest menace was the telegraph wires.
The drifts in places were so huge that as one
walked along, the wires were liable to trip one
up. The doctor has just taken a picture of the
dog team being fed from the third-story window
of the hospital. They are clustered on the snow
just outside and on a level with the bottom of
the window. Some of the fishermen in their tiny
[ 133]

LE PETIT NORD

cottages had to be dug out by kindly neigh-
bours, as they were completely snowed under!

The storm will greatly delay travelling and it
may be almost spring before this reaches you. It
may interest you to know how my letters come
to you in the winter-time, and then perhaps you
will not wonder so much at the delays. The mail
is carried across country to Mistaken Cove, on
the west coast, and then by eight relays of cou-
riers with their dog teams to Deerlake where the
railway touches. It is a slow method of progress,
and there are countless delays owing to the fre-
quent blizzards. Often the mail men fail to make
connections, and the letters may lie a week or
a fortnight at some outlandish station. At one
place the postmaster cannot even read, and the
letters have to be marked with crosses at the
previous stopping-places, to indicate the direc-
tion of their destination. Another postmaster,
well known for his dishonesty, failed to get re-
moved by the authorities because he was the
[ 134]

/ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR '

only man in the place who could either read
or write, and was therefore indispensable. For-
merly all the letters had to go to St. John's, a
day's extra journey, and be sorted there, sent
back across the island to Run-by-Guess, eight
hours across Cabot Straits, and then across the
Atlantic to England. In this way a letter might
take nearly three months to make the journey,
and we are sometimes that length of time with-
out news.

Now a "mild" has set in, and the incessant
drip, drip, drip on the balcony roof outside my
window makes me perfectly understand how
lunacy and death follow the persistent falling of
a single drop on one spot on the forehead.

[ 135 ]

LE PETIT NORD

February 11
Last week I had a three days' "cruise" while
the doctor considerately sent a nurse up here ta
try her hand at my family. This time the cruise
was "on the dogs" instead of the rolling sea. We
left for Belvy (Bellevue) Bay in good time in
the morning — "got our anchors early," as our
"carter" put it. The animation of the dogs, the
lovely snow-covered country, the bright win-
ter's sun pouring down, and doubly brilliant by
reflection from the dazzling snow, the huge bon-
fire in the woods where we "cooked the kettle,"
all make one understand the call which the gipsy
answers. Of course there is another side to the
story, when one is caught out in bitter weather
in a blizzard of driving snow and sleet, and loses
the way, or perhaps has to stay out in the open
through the night. For instance, this winter four
of the Mission dogs have perished through frost-
bite on these journeys; and only last week we
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

heard that one of the mail carriers on the west
coast had been frozen to death.

A few years ago one dark and stormy night
the Church of England clergyman was called to
the sick-bed of a parishioner. He set out at once
to cross the frozen bay and reached the cottage
in safety. After a visit with the dying man he
started on his homeward way. It was cold but
clear, and he covered half the distance without
trouble. Then the weather veered and blinding
snow began to drive. The traveller lost his way
battling against it, and finally sank down ut-
terly exhausted. He was found dead in the
morning on the open bay.

A day's trip brought us to Grevigneux, a
charming little village nestling in a great bowl
formed by the towering cliffs above and around
it. Every one in the settlement is a Roman
Catholic. Never did I receive such a welcome;
the people are so friendly and unspoiled. The
priest is a Frenchman, sensible, hearty, full of
[ 137]

LE PETIT NORD

humour and love for his people. Both his ideas
and his manner of expressing them are naive and
appealing. I had been told that in his sermons
he admonished certain members of his flock by
name for their shortcomings. When I questioned
him about this he gave me the following explana-
tion: "You see, miss, when I die I shall stand
before the Lord and my people will be standing
behind me. The Lord will look them over and
then look at me, and if any one of them is n't
there he will say, ' Cartier, where is Tom Flan-
nigan?' And I should have to answer, 'Gone to
Purgatory for stealing boots.' And the Lord will
say to me, 'Why, did n't he know better than to
steal boots? You ought to have told him.' What-
ever could I say for myself then? "

The next night we spent at Lance au Diable,
locally known as "Lancy Jobble." In this place
there is a "medicine man," with methods unique
in science. He is the seventh son of a seventh
son, and his healing powers are reputed to be
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

little short of miraculous. Legend has it that
such must never request payment for services,
nor must the patient ever thank him, lest the
efficacy of the cure be nullified. He is an unself-
ish man, a thorough believer in his own "gift";
and last summer, for instance, right in the mid-
dle of the fishing season, he walked thirty miles
through swamp and marsh ridden with black
flies, to see a sick woman who desired his aid.
Doubtless the spell of his buoyant personality
does bring comfort and relief. In the adjoining
settlement of Bareneed lives an enormously fat
old woman of seventy-odd summers. Life passes
over her, and its only effect is to make her
rotund and unwieldy. When the sick come to
Brother Luke for treatment, if any of the few
drugs which he has accumulated chance to have
lost their labels — a not uncommon contingency
in this land of mist and fog — he takes down a
likely-looking bottle from the shelf, and tries a
dose of the contents on this Mrs. Goochy — and
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LE PETIT NORD

awaits results. If nothing untoward transpires,
he then passes the medicine on to the patient.
Mrs. Goochy has a strong acquisitive bias, and

raises no objections to this vicarious proceeding.
She argues: "I does n't need 'un now, but there
be's no tellin\ I may need 'un when I can't get

W"

Occasionally the sailing is not so smooth.
While we were there the doctor saw a case of
a woman from whom this ^Esculapius had at-
tempted to extract an offending molar, his only
instrument being a kind of miniature winch
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR '

which screws on to the undesired tooth. Its ac-
tion proved so prompt and powerful that not
only did it remove the tooth intended, but four

others as well, and the entire alveolar process
connected with them.

It often made me feel ashamed to find how
much some of these people have made of their
meagre opportunities. At one house a mother
told me that she had only been able to go to
school for six months when she was a girl, yet
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LE PETIT NORD

she had taught herself to read, and later her chil-
dren also. She showed me most interesting arti-
cles which she had written for a Canadian news-
paper describing the life on Le Petit Nord. She
often had to sit up until two in the morning to
knit her children's clothes, and rise again at
dawn to prepare breakfast for the men of the
household.

The following day saw us homeward bound,
only this time the travelling was not so roman-
tic, for a "mild" had set in, and the going was
superlatively slushy. The dogs had all they could
do to drag the komatik with the luggage on it.
The humans walked, generally in front of the
dogs, and on snow racquets, to make the trail
a bit easier for the animals. This may sound an
interesting way to spend a winter's day, but after
twenty minutes of it you would cry "enough."
When we reached Belvy Bay the ice around the
shore was broken into great pans, but in the mid-
dle it looked good. To go round is an endless task,
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

so we risked crossing. It was easy to get off to the
centre, for the big pans at the edge would float
a far greater weight than a komatik and dogs
and three people. The ice in the middle, however,
which had looked so sure from the landwash,
proved to be "black" — that is, very, very thin,
though being salt-water ice, it was elastic. It was
waving up and down so as almost to make one
seasick, but in its elasticity lay our only chance
of safety. We flung ourselves down at full length
on the komatik to give as broad a surface of re-
sistance as possible, and what encouragement
was given the dogs we did with our voices. Four
miles did we drive over that swaying surface,
and though at the time we were too excited to
be nervous, we were glad to reach the "terra
firma" of the standing ice edge.

At each place we were received with the most

cordial welcome, and scarcely allowed even to

express our gratitude. It was always they who

were so eager to thank us for giving them un-

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LE PETIT NORD

asked the "pleasure of our company." Their re-
ception is always very touching. They put the
best they have before you and will take nothing
for their hospitality.

In my various letters to you I have so often
taken away the characters of our dogs that I
must tell you of one, just to show that I have not
altered in my devotion to our "true first friend."
This dog's name was "Black," and he lived many
years ago at Mistaken Cove. The tales of his
beauty, his cleverness at tricks, and his endur-
ance of difficulties are still told, but chiefly of
his devotion to his master. After years of this
companionship the beloved master died and was
buried in the woods near his lonely little house.
Black was inconsolable. He would eat nothing;
he started up at every slightest noise hoping for
the familiar whistle; he haunted the well-worn
woodpath where they had had so many happy
days together. Finally he discovered his master's
grave and was found frantically tearing at the
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

hard earth and heavy stones. Nor would he leave
the spot. Food was brought him daily, but it
went untouched. For one whole week he lay in
the wind and weather in the hole he had dug on
the grave. There the children found him on the
eighth morning curled up and apparently asleep.
His long quest and vigil were ended, for he had
reached the happy hunting grounds. Who shall
say that a beloved hand and voice did not wel-
come him home?

[ 145]

LE PETIT NORD

St. Antoine Children's Home (by courtesy)
February 28

Of one thing I am certain, we must have a new
Home, for this house is not fit for habitation, and
it is not nearly large enough. Even after my re-
cent return from living in the tiny homes of the
people which one would fancy to be far less com-
fortable, this is forcibly impressed upon me. We
simply cannot go on refusing to take in children
who need its shelter so badly. So please spread
this broadcast among the friends in England.
This Home has been enlarged once since it was
built, and yet it is not nearly big enough for our
present needs. We have no nursery, and I only
wish you could see the tiny room which has to
do duty for a sewing-room. It is certainly only
called "room "by courtesy, for there is scarcely
space to sit down, much less to use a needle with-
out risk of injury to one's neighbour. The weekly
mend alone, without the making of new things,
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

means now between two and three hundred gar-
ments in addition to the boots, which the boys
repair. As you can imagine, this is no light task
and we are often driven almost distracted. I
think the stockings are the worst, sometimes a
hundred pairs to face at once! I fear we must
once have been led into making some rather
pointed remarks on this subject, for later, on
going into the sewing-room, we found a slip of
printed paper, cut from a magazine, and bearing
the title of an article: "Don't Scold the Chil-
dren when They Tear Their Stockings."

This building rocks like a ship at sea; the roof
continually leaks, the windows are always "com-
ing abroad," and the panes drop out at "scat-
tered times," while even when shut, the wind
whistles through as if to show his utter disdain
of our inhospitable and paltry efforts to keep
him outside. On stormy nights, in spite of closed
windows, the rooms resemble huge snowdrifts.
Seven maids with seven mops sweeping for half
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LE PETIT NORD

a year could never get it clear. The building
heaves so much with the frost that the doors con-
stantly refuse to work, because the floors have
risen, and if they are planed, when the frost dis-
appears, a yawning chasm confronts you. Our
storeroom is so cold in winter that we put on
Arctic furs to fetch in the food, and in summer
it is flooded so that we swim from barrel to bar-
rel as Alice floated in her pool of tears. But far
above all these minor discomforts is the one
overwhelming desire not to have to refuse "one
of these little ones."

One's heart aches when one remembers all the
money and effort and love expended on a single
child at home, that he may lack nothing to be
prepared in body and spirit to meet the vicissi-
tudes of his coming life journey. But in this land
are hundreds of children, our own blood and kin,
who must face their crushing problems often
with bodies stunted from insufficient nourish-
ment in childhood, and minds unopened and
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

undeveloped, not through lack of natural ability,
but because opportunity has never come to them.
As one looks ahead one sees clearly what a con-
tribution these eager children could offer their
"day" if only their cousins at home had "the
eyes of their understanding purged to behold
things invisible and unseen."

[ 149]

LE PETIT NORD

March 10
The seals are in ! That to you doubtless does not
seem the most engrossing item of news that could
be communicated, but that merely proves what
a long road you have to travel. Before the break
of day every man capable of carrying a weapon
is out on the ice to try and get his share of the
spoils.

They carry every conceivable sort of gun,
but the six-foot muzzle-loaders are the favour-
ites. These ancient weapons have been handed
down from father to son for generations, and lo-
cally go by the somewhat misleading soubriquet
of the "little darlints."

The people call the seals "swiles." There is
an old story about a foreigner who once asked,
"How do you spell 'swile'?" The answer the
fisherman gave him was, "We don't spell [carry]
'em. We mostly hauls 'em."

Sea-birds have also come in the "swatches"
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

of open water between the pans. A gale of wind
and sea has broken up the ice, and driven it out
of St. Mien's Bay, which is just round the cor-
ner from us. Thousands of "turr" are there, and
the men are reaping many a banquet. A man's
wealth is now gauged by the number of birds
which are strung around the eaves of his house.
It is a safe spot, for it keeps the birds thoroughly
frozen, and well out of reach, at this time of year,
of the ever-present dog.

Some of the men were prevented from being
on the spot for bird shooting as promptly as they
desired by the fact that their boats, having lain
up all winter, were not "plymmed." If you
put a dried apple, for instance, into water it
"plymms "; so do beans, and so do boats. When
a boat is not "plymmed," it leaks in all its
seams, and is therefore looked upon as unsafe
for these sub-Arctic waters by the more con-
servative amongst us. To stop a boat leaking
you "chinch" the seams with oakum. Our fish-
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LE PETIT NORD

erman sexton has just told me that "the church
was right chinched last night."

One by one our supplies are giving out or di-
minishing. Each week as I send down an order to
the store it is returned with some item crossed
off. These articles at home would be considered
the indispensables. Already potatoes have gone
the way of all flesh; there is no more butter
(though that is less loss than it sounds, for it was
packed on the schooner directly next the kero-
sene barrels, and a liberal quantity of that vol-
atile liquid incorporated itself in each tub of
"oleo"). We are warned that the remaining
amount of flour will not hold out till the spring
boat — our first possible chance of getting rein-
forcements for our larder — unless we exercise
the watchfulness of the Sphinx. The year before
I came the first boat did not reach St. Antoine
till the 28th of June.

More excitement has just been communicated
to me by Topsy: much more. A man from the
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Baie des Frangais has killed a huge polar bear.
It took ten men and six dogs to haul the beast
home after he had been finally dispatched. The
man fired several shots at him, but did not hit a

vital spot. One bullet only remained to him, and
the bear was coming at him in a very purposeful
manner. "Now or never," thought the fisher-
man, and fired. The creature fell dead almost
at his feet. When they skinned him they found
bullets in his legs and flank, but searched and
searched in vain for the fatal one which had been
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LE PETIT NORD

the end of him. There was no mark on the skin
in any vital spot. At last they found it. The ball
had penetrated exactly through the bear's ear
into his brain. All the countryside is now dining
off bear steak; and there is a splendid skin to be
purchased if you are so minded. I have eaten a
bit of the steak, though I confess I did not sit
down to the feast with any pleasurable anticipa-
tion, as the men said that they found the remains
of a recently devoured seal in Bruin's "turn." I
had an agreeable surprise. The meat was fibrous
and a little tough, but it was quite good — a
vast improvement on the sea-birds which are so
highly valued in the local commissariat.

The Prophet has a vivid idea of the processes
going on in the heads of animals. He says that
up to fifteen years ago there were bears innu-
merable "in the country." "And one day, miss,"
he explained, "the whole crew of them gets
their anchors and leaves in a body." To hear
him one would imagine that at a concerted signal
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

the bears came out of their burrows and shook
the dust of the land from their feet.

The Eskimos toll the seals. They lie on the ice
and wave their legs in the air, and the seals, curi-
ous animals, approach to discover the nature ol
the phenomenon, and are forthwith dispatched.
One Eskimo of a histrionic temperament decided
to "go one better." He went out to the ice edge,
climbed into his sealskin sleeping-bag, and
waved his legs, as per stage directions. We are
not informed whether the device would have
proved a successful decoy to the seals, for before
any had been lured within range, another In-
nuit, having seen the sealskin legs gesticulating
on the ice edge, naturally mistook them for the
real thing, fired with regrettable accuracy, and
went out to find a dead cousin.

The story is the only deterrent I have from

dressing in my white Russian hareskin coat, and

sitting in the graveyard some dusky evening.

The people claim that the place is haunted. I

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LE PETIT NORD

have never met a " Yoho" and never expect to,
but I would dearly love to see how others act
i when they think they have. Only the suspicion
that they would "plump for safety," and fire the
inevitable muzzle-loader at my white garment,
keeps me from making the experiment in corpore
vile.

The birds and the seals and the bears and
white foxes coming south on the moving ice are
signs of spring. There is a stir in the air as if the
people as well sensed that the back of the long
winter was broken. How it has flown! You can-
not fancy my sensations of lonesomeness when
I think that I shall never spend another in this
country. You cannot describe or analyze the lure
of the land and its people, but it is there, and
grips you. I have grown to love it, and you will
welcome home an uncomplimentary homesick
comrade when September comes.

f 156]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

April 1
Last minute of Sunday, so here 's to you. To-
morrow I shall be cheerfully immersed up to the
eyes in work.

Oh! this Home. How little it deserves the
name! Our English storms are nothing but ba-
bies compared with the appalling blasts which
sweep down upon us from the north. In summer
the furious seas dash against the cliffs as if to
protect them from the desecration of human en-
croachment. The fine snow filters in between the
roof and ceiling of this building, and in a "mild,"
such as we are now experiencing, it melts, and
endless little rivulets trickle down in nearly every
room. The water comes in on my bed, on the
kitchen range, and on the dining-room table. It
falls on the sewing-machine in one room, on the
piano and bookcase in another. Its catholicity
of taste is plain disheartening!

You ask whether these kiddies have the stuff
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LE PETIT NORD

in them to repay what you are pleased to term
"such an outlay of effort." My emphatic "yes"
should have been so insistent as to have reached
you by telepathy when the doubt first presented
itself. The Home has been established now long
enough to have some of its "graduates" go out
into life; and the splendid manhood and woman-
hood of these young people are at once a suffi-
cient reward to us and a silencing response to
you. Many of them have been sent to the States
and Canada for further education, and are now
not only writing a successful story for themselves,
but helping their less fortunate neighbours, in a
way we from outside never can, to turn over
many a new leaf in their books.

Yesterday I attended the theatre, only it was
the operating theatre. The patient on this occa-
sion was a doll, the surgeon a lad of seven, him-
self a victim of infantile paralysis, and the head
nurse assisting was aged nine, and wears a
brace on each leg. The stage was the children's
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

ward of the hospital. Here are several pathetic
little people, orthopedic case6, brought in for
treatment during the winter, and who must stay
till the spring boat arrives, as their homes are
now cut off by interminable miles of snow wastes
and icy sea. Nothing escapes their notice. They
tear up their Christmas picture books, and when
charged with the enormity of their offence, ex-
plain that they "must have adhesive tape for
their operative work." Dick, the surgeon, was
overheard the other day telling Margaret, the
head nurse, as together they amputated the legs
of her doll, "This is the way Sir Robert Jones
does it."

Next to operating, the children love music;
and they love it with a repertoire varied to meet
every mood, from "Keep the Home Fires Burn-
ing" to "In the Courts of Belshazzar and a Hun-
dred of his Lords." One three-year-old scrap
comes from a Salvation Army household, and
listens to all such melodies with marked disap-
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LE PETIT NORD

proval. But when the others finish, she "pipes
up," shutting her eyes, clapping her hands and
swaying back and forth —

"Baby *s left the cradle for the Golden Shore:
Now he floats, now he floats,
Happy as before."

Three of the kiddies are Roman Catholics and
have taught their companions to say their pray-
ers properly of an evening. They all cross them-
selves devoutly at the close; but this instruction
has fallen on fallow ground in the wee three-year-
old. She sits with eyes tightly screwed together
lest she be forced even to witness such heresy
and schism.

Yesterday I was walking with Gabriel when
we came upon a tiny bird essaying his first spring
song on a tree-top nearby. Gabriel looked at
the newcomer silently for several minutes, and
finally, turning his luminous brown eyes up to
my face, asked, "Do he sing hymns, Teacher?"

t 160 ]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

April 19
The village sale was held last week. This has
become an annual occurrence, and the proceeds
are devoted to varying good objects. This time
the hospital was the beneficiary. For months the
countryside, men and women, have been making
articles, and I can assure you it is a relief to have
it over and such a success to boot, and life's quiet
tone restored. We made large numbers of pur-
chases, and consumed unbelievable quantities of
more than solid nourishment. The people have
shown the greatest ingenuity and diligence, and
the display was a credit to their talent. I was
particularly struck with the really clever carving
representing local scenes which the fishermen
had done with no other tools than their jack-
knives. The auction was the keynote of the eve-
ning, due largely to the signal ability of the auc-
tioneer. His methods are effective, but strictly his
own. Cakes, made generally in graded layers and
[1611

LE PETIT NORD

liberally coated with different coloured sugar,
were the favourites. As he held up the last tee-
tering mountain he "bawled": "What am I
bid for this wonderful cake? 'T is a bargain at
any price. Why, she 's so heavy I can't hold her
with one hand." It fetched seven dollars!

The yearly meet for sports was held in the aft-
ernoon before the sale, and was voted by all to
be a great success. It is a far cry from the days
when games were introduced here by the Mis-
sion. Then the people's lives were so drab, and
they had little idea of the sporting qualities
which every Englishman values so highly. In
those early days if in a game of football one side
kicked a goal, they had to wait till the other had
done the same before the game could proceed,
or the play would have been turned into a battle.
Now everything in trousers in the place can be
seen of an evening out on the harbour ice kick-
ing a ball about. The harbour is our very roomy
athletic field.

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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Twenty-two teams had entered for the dog
race, and the start, when the whole number were
ranged up in the line, was pandemonium un-
loosed. The dogs were barking out threatenings
and slaughter to the teams next them, their mas-
ters were shouting unheeded words of command,
the crowd were cheering their favourites, and
altogether you would never have guessed from
the racket and confusion that you were north of
the Roaring Forties.

The last event on the sports programme was
a scramble for coloured candies by all the chil-
dren of the village. Our flock from the Home par-
ticipated. The proceeding was as unhygienic as
it was alluring, and our surprise was great when
a universally healthy household greeted the
morrow morn.

When I heard the amount the poor folk had

raised for charity out of their meagre pittance, I

felt reproached. It is a consistent fact here that

the people give and do more than their means

[ 163]

LE PETIT NORD

justify, and it must involve a hard pinch for
them in some other quarter.

Coming from the sale at ten at night I looked
for our "Yoho" in passing the churchyard, but
was unrewarded, though some of the harbour
people assured me in the morning that they had
seen it plainly. Can there be anything in the cur-
rent belief that the men of the sea are more
psychic than we case-hardened products of civ-
ilization, or is it merely superstition? There is
a story here of a man called Gaulton, which is
vouched for by all the older men who can recall
the incident. It seems that in Savage Cove this
old George Gaulton lived till he was ninety. He
died on December 4, 1883. On the 16th he ap-
peared in the flesh to a former acquaintance at
Port au Choix, fifty miles from the spot at which
he had died. This man Shenicks gives the fol-
lowing account of the curious visitation :

"I was in the woods cutting timber for a day
and a half. During the whole of that time I was
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ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

sure I heard footsteps near me in the snow, al-
though I could see nothing. On the evening of
the second day, in consequence of heavy rain,
I returned home early. I knew my cattle had
plenty of food, but something forced me to go
to the hay-pook. While there, in a few moments
I stood face to face with old George Gaulton. I
was not frightened. We stood in the rain and
talked for some time. In the course of the conver-
sation the old man gave me a message for his
eldest son, and begged me to deliver it to him
myself before the end of March. Immediately
afterwards he disappeared, and then I was ter-
ribly afraid."

A few weeks later Shenicks went all the way
to Savage Cove and delivered the message given
to him in so strange a fashion.

A word of apology and I close. In an early
letter to you I recall judging harshly a concoc-
tion called "brewis." Experience here has taught
me that our own delicacies meet with a similar
[ 165]

LE PETIT NORD

fate at the hands of my present fellow country-
men. I offered Carmen on her arrival a cup of
cocoa for Sunday supper. After one sniff, bid-
dable and polite child though she was, I saw her
surreptitiously pour the "hemlock cup" out of
the open window behind her.

[ 166]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

M ay 23
Many miles over the hills from St. Antoine lies
vne of the wildest and most beautiful harbours
on this coast. Nestling within magnificently high
rocks, the picturesque colouring of which is re-
flected in the quiet water beneath, lies the little
village of Cremailliere. It is only a small settle-
ment of tiny cottages beside the edge of the sea,
but it has the unenviable reputation of being
the worst village on the coast. In winter only
three families live there, but in the summer-
time a number of men come for the fishing, and
they with their wives and children exist in al-
most indescribable hovels. Some of these huts
are just rough board affairs, about six feet by
ten, and resemble cow sheds more than houses.
If there is a window at all, it is merely a small
square of glass (not made to open) high up on
one side of the wall. In some there is not even
the pretence of a window, but in cases of severe
[ 167 1

LE PETIT NORD

sickness a hole is knocked through for venti-
lation on hearing of the near approach of the
Mission doctor. The walls have only one thick-
ness of board with no lining and the roofs are
thatched with sods. There is no flooring what-
ever. Not one person in Cremailliere can either
read or write.

Yesterday there was a funeral held in one of
the little villages, and the mingling of pathos
and humour made one realize more vividly than
ever how " all the world 's akin." A young mother
had died who could have been saved if her folk
had realized the danger in time and sent for the
doctor. She was lying in a rude board coffin in
the bare kitchen. As space was at a premium the
casket had been placed on the top of the long
box which serves as a residence for the family
rooster and chickens. They kept popping their
heads, with their round, quick eyes out through
the slats, and emitting startled crows and clucks
at the visitors. The young woman was dressed
[ 168 1

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

in all her outdoor clothing; a cherished lace cur-
tain sought to hide the rough, unplaned boards
of the coffin — for it had been hewn from the
forest the day before. The depth of her husband's
grief was evidenced by the fact that he had spent
his last and only two dollars in the purchase, at
the Nameless Cove general store, of the highly
flowered hat which surmounted his wife's young
careworn but peaceful face as she lay at rest.

I saw for the first time an old custom pre-
served on the coast. Before the coffin was closed
all the family passed by the head of the deceased
and kissed the face of their loved one for the last
time, while all the visitors followed and laid their
hands reverently on the forehead. Only when
the master of ceremonies, who is always specially
appointed, had cried out in a sonorous voice,
"Any more?" and met with no response, was
the ceremony of closing the lid permitted.

Surely the children are the one and only hope
of this country. Through them we may trust to
[ 169]

LE PETIT NORD

raise the moral standard of the generations to
come, but it is going to be a very slow process
to make any headway against the ignorance and
absence of desire for better things which prevails
so largely here.

I must tell you of the latest addition to our
family. On the first boat in the spring there ar-
rived a family, brought by neighbours, to say
what the Mission could do for them. I think I
have never seen a more forlorn sight than this
group presented when they stepped from the
steamer. There was the father (the mother is
dead), an elderly half-witted cripple capable
neither of caring for himself nor for his children,
four boys of varying sizes, and a girl of fourteen
in the last stages of tuberculosis. The family
were nearly frozen, half -starved, and completely
dazed at the hopelessness of their situation. The
girl was admitted to the hospital, where she has
since died, and the youngest boy, Israel, we took
into the Home. Alas, we had only room for the
[ 170 1

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

one. Israel was at first much overawed by the
standard of cleanliness required in this institu-
tion, and protested vigorously when we tried to
put him into the bathtub. He explained to us
that he never washed more than his face and
hands at home, not even his neck and ears, the
limitation of territory being strictly defined and
scrupulously observed.

[171 J

LE PETIT NORD

June 20
Unlike last year this summer promises to be
hot, at least for this country. I have felt one
great lack this year. You have to pass the long
months of what would be lovely spring in Eng-
land without a sign of a living blade of flower,
though a few little songbirds did their best
bravely to make it up to us. Already we are being
driven almost crazy with the mosquitoes and
black flies, songsters of no mean calibre, especially
at night. In desperation our little ones yesterday
succeeded in killing an unusually large specimen,
and after burying it with great solemnity were
heard singing around the grave in no uncheerful
tones, "Nearer, my God, to Thee."

I hate to think that these next few weeks will
be the last I shall spend in this country and with
these children. The North seems to weave over
one a kind of spell and fascination all its own. I
'ook back sometimes and smile that I should

[ m I

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

ever have felt the year long or dreary; it has
passed so quickly that I can scarcely believe it
already time to be thinking of you and Eng-
land again. I may emulate the example of Mrs.
Lot, but with the certainty that a similar fate
to hers does not await me.

I have just unpacked a barrel of clothing sent
from home to the Orphanage, and find to my
disgust that it is almost entirely composed of
muslin blouses and old ladies' bonnets! What
am I to do with them? The blouses I can use as
mosquito veiling, but these bonnets are not the
kind our babies wear. I shall present one to
Topsy, who will look adorable in it.

You hint it is hard to get up interest in Lab-
rador because we are neither heathen nor black.
I can imagine your sewing circle of dear old
ladies (perhaps they sent the bonnets) discus-
sing the relative merits of working to send aero-
planes to the Arabs, bicycles to the Bedouins,
comforters to the Chinese, jumpers to the Jap-
[ 173]

LE PETIT NORD

anese, handkerchiefs to the Hottentots, hair
nets to the Hindoos, mouth organs to the Mo-
hammedans, pinafores to the Parsees, pyjamas
to the Papuans, prayer-books to the Pigmies,
sandwiches to the South Sea Islanders, or zith-
ers to the Zulus. Just wait till I can talk to
your dear old ladies!

A few days ago we had a very narrow escape
from fire; indeed, it seemed for some time as if
the whole of the Mission would be wiped out.
It was a half-holiday and our boys had gone
fishing to the Devil's Pond, a favourite spot of
theirs, about a mile away. Unfortunately Noah
was seized with the idea of lighting a fire by
which to cook the trout, the matches having
been stolen from my room. It had been dry for
several days, there was quite a wind, and the
fire, catching the furze, quickly got beyond the
one required for culinary purposes. The boys
first tried to smother it with their coats, but
finding that of no avail ran home to give the
[ 174]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

alarm. By the time the men could get to the spot
the fire had spread so rapidly that attention had
to be turned towards trying to save the houses.
The doctor's house was the one most directly
threatened at first, and we proceeded to strip it
of all furniture, carrying everything to the fore-
shore to be ready to be taken off if necessary.
The doctor was away on a medical call, and you
can imagine my feelings when I expected every
moment to see the Northern Light come round
the point, the doctor's house in flames and his
household gods scattered to the winds! Then
we dismantled this place — the children having
been sent at the outset to a place of safety —
and removed the patients from the hospital.
Every man in the place was hard at work, and
there were few of us who dared to hope that we
should have a roof over our heads that night.
Happily the wind suddenly dropped, the fire
died down, and late that night we were able to
return and endeavour to sort out babies and
[175]

LE PETIT NORD

furniture. The goddess of disorder reigned su-
preme, and it was only after many weary hours
that we were able to find beds for the babies and
babies for the beds. And it was our boys who
started the fire! I am covered with confusion
every second when I stop to think of it, and won-
der if this is not the psychological moment to
make my exit from this Mission.

[ 176]

ANNALS OP A LABRADOR HARBOUR

July 11
By invitation of the doctor I am off for a trip on
the Northern Light next week. He offers me thus
the chance to see other portions of the Shore
before he drops me at the Iron Bound Islands,
where I can connect with the southern-going
coastal steamer. The Prophet has encouraged
me with the observation that "nearly all the
female ladies what comes aboard her do be won-
derful sick," but I am not to be deterred. So:

"Now, Brothers, for the icebergs of frozen Labrador,
Floating spectral in the moonshine along the low, black

shore.
Where in the mist the rock is hiding, and the sharp reef

lurks below;
And the white squall smites in summer, and the autumn

tempests blow."

This is a mere scrap of a greeting, for the day
of departure is so near that I feel I want to
spend every minute with the kiddies. I count
on your forbearance, and your knowledge that
though my pen is quiet, my heart still holds you
without rival.

[ 177]

LE PETIT NORD

On board the Northern Light
July 16

Is to-day as lovely in your part of the world as it
is in mine, and do you greet it with a background
of as exciting a night as the one that has just
passed over us? I wonder. I came across some
old forms of bills of lading sent out to this coun-
try from England. They always closed with this
most appropriate expression, "And so God send
the good ship to her desired port in safety." It
has fallen into disuse long ago, but about break
of early day the idea took a very compelling
shape in my mind. We put out from Bonne Es-
perance just as night was falling, and there was
no moon to aid us. The doctor had decided on
the outside run, and brief as is my acquaintance
with the "lonely Labrador," I knew what that
meant. I therefore betook myself betimes to bed
as the best spot for an unseasoned mariner.
Twelve o'clock found us barely holding our own
[ 178]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

against a furious head wind and sea — "An aw-
ful night for a sinner," as our cheery Prophet
remarked as he lurched past my cabin door. Ice-
bergs were dotted about. Great combers were
pouring over our bow and the floods came sweep-
ing down the decks sounding like the roar of a
thousand cataracts.

The only way one could keep from being
hurled out of one's berth was to cling like a
leech to a rope fastened to a ring in the wall, for
the little ship was bouncing back and forth so
fast and so far that it was impossible to compare
it with the motion of any other craft. Day be-
gan to dawn about 3 a.m. By the dim light I
could make out mighty mountains of green
foaming water. At each roll of the steamer we
seemed to be at the bottom of a huge emerald
pit. Suddenly some one yelled, "There she
goes!" and that second the boat was dragged
down, down, down. An immense wave had
caught us, rolled us so far over that our dory in
[ 179]

LE PETIT NORD

davits had filled with water to the brim. As the
ship righted herself, the weight of the dory
snapped off the davit at the deck, and the boat,
still attached by her painter, was dragged un-
derneath our hull, and threatened to pull us
down with it. In two seconds the men had cut
her away, but not before she had nearly banged
herself to matchwood against our side.

Now we are lying under the lea of St. Augus-
tine Island waiting for the wind to abate. The
chief engineer has just offered to row me ashore
to hunt for young puffins. More later.

There were hundreds of them in every fam-
ily, and so many families that it resembled

nothing so much as a puffin ghetto. I judged

from the turmoil that they were screeching for

"a place in the sun." The noise they made did

[ 180 ]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

not in the least accord with their respectable
Quaker appearance. Shall I bring you one as a
pet? Its austere presence would help you to
remember your "latter end."

When I wrote you that there was ice about, I
did not refer to the field ice through which we
travelled on my way north. This is the real
thing this time — icebergs, and lots of them.
They call the little ones "growlers," and big and
little alike are classed as "pieces of ice"! They
are not my idea of a "piece" of anything. I
know now what the Ancient Mariner meant
when he said:

"And ice mast high came floating by
As green as emerald/'

It exactly describes them, only it does n't wholly
describe them, for no one could. They loom up
in every shape and size and variation of form,
pinnacles and towers and battlements, stately
palaces of glittering crystal, triumphal arch-
ways more gorgeous than ever welcomed a con-
[ 181 ]

LE PETIT NORD

queror home. Sometimes they are shining white,
too dazzling to look at; and sometimes they are
streaked with great vivid bands of green and
azure which are so unearthly and brilliant that
I feel certain some fairy has dipped his brush in
the solar spectrum and dabbed the colours on
this gigantic palette.

A sea without these jewels of the Arctic will
forever look barren and unfinished to me after
this. Even the sailors, who know too well what
a menace they are to their craft, yield to their
beauty a mute and grudging homage. To sit in
the sun or the moonlight, and watch a heavy
sea hurling mountains of water and foam over
one of these ocean monarchs is a never-to-be-
forgotten experience. So too it is to listen to the
thunder of one of them "foundering"; for their
equilibrium is very unstable, and the action of
the sea, as they travel southwards to their death
in the Gulf Stream, cuts them away at the sur-
face of the water. Blocks weighing unbelievable
[ 189 1

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

tons crash off them, or they will suddenly, with-
out a second's warning, break into a million
pieces. I can never conquer a creepiness of the
spine as I listen to one of these tragedies. It is a
startling, new sensation such as we never expect
to meet again after childhood has shut its doors
on us. In the quiet that follows the gigantic dis-
integration one half expects to see a new heaven
and a new earth emerge out of the chaos of ice
quivering in the water.

You often warned me in the course of the past
year how dull life would be. You knew how I
loved a city. I still do. But the last word on
earth one could apply to the life here is "dull."
Nature takes care of that. I defy you to walk
along any street in London and see six porpoises
and a whale! That is what I saw this morning.
Oh! of course you may counter by telling me
that neither can I see an automobile or a fire en-
gine, but I have you, because I can answer that
I have seen them already. How are you going to
[ 183 ]

LE PETIT NORD

get out of that comer, except by saying that you
do not want to see the old porpoises and whales
and bergs? — and I know your "Scotch" con-
science forbids such distortion of facts.
: I have come to believe in the personality of
porpoises. They swam beside the ship, playing
about in the water all the while, rolling over and
diving, and chasing each other just as if they
knew they had a "gallery." We did not reward
them very well either, for the Prophet shot one,
and we ate bits of him for lunch — the porpoise,
I mean, not the Prophet. I thought he would
make a good companion-piece for the polar bear,
and he was quite edible. He only needed a rasher
of bacon to make you believe he was calf's liver.

So you see that between puffins and porpoises
and whales, and "growlers" and lost dories, I
crowded enough into one day to give me dreams
that Alice in Wonderland might covet.

In your secret heart don't you wish that you
too were

1 184 ]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

"Where the squat-legged Eskimo
Waddles in the ice and snow,
And the playful polar bear
Nips the hunter unaware;
Where the air is kind o' pure,
And the snow crop 's pretty sure" ?

[ 185 ]

LE PETIT NORD

July 22
It has been days since I wrote you, and they
have slipped by so stealthily I must have missed
half they held.

Since coming aboard I have taken to rising
promptly. It is a necessary measure if I am to be
able to rise at all. One morning I stuck my head
out just in time to see my favourite sweater,
which I had counted on for service on the home-
ward voyage, disappearing over the rail — legit-
imately, so far as concerned the wearer. Last
week, by the merest fluke, I rescued my best
boots from a similar fate. The doctor explained
lamely on each occasion that they got mixed
with the clothing sent for distribution to the
poor. This may be a literal statement of fact,
but I doubt the manner of the mixing.

We celebrated to-day by running aground on
the flats. You can "squeak" over them if you
happen to strike the channel. The difficulty is,
[ 186 ]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

however, that the sandy bottom shifts. To-day
it is, and to-morrow it is not. I was eating one of
those large, hearty breakfasts which the com
bination of a dead flat calm and a sunshiny brisk
air make such a desideratum. I was, moreover,
perched on the top of the wheel house, and re-
flecting on the poor taste of the author of the
Book of Revelation when he said that in heaven
"there shall be no more sea." At this moment
I came to with a lurch. "She's stuck !" yelled,
or as he himself would put it, "bawled," the
Prophet. For once he was undeniably right.
Fortunately the tide was on the flood, and we
floated off a short while after.

In the afternoon we visited an Eskimo Mora-
vian station. They — the Eskimos, not the Mo-
ravians — are a jolly little people, and pictur-
esque as possible. Not that any aspersions on
the Moravians are intended, for I have the
greatest respect for them. My shining leather
coat made a great hit. They fondled it and
[ 187 J

LE PETIT NORD

stroked it, and coo-ed at it as if it were a new
baby. All the women past their very first youth
seemed toothless. I wondered if it could be a
characteristic of the tribe — sort of Manx Es-
kimo. I asked the Prophet what was the cause
of the universal shortage, and was told that the
Eskimo women all chew the sealskin to soften it
for making into boots. You can take this state-
ment for what it may be worth.

Speaking of which I have just finished reading
a ludicrously furious attack on the Mission in a
St. John's paper, for its alleged misrepresenta-
tions. It seems that last year the former superin-
tendent took down a boy from the Children's
Home to give him a chance at further education.
He had a wooden leg, his own having been re-
moved by an operation for tuberculosis. On his
arrival in Montreal the omnivorous reporter saw
in him excellent copy, and forthwith printed the
following purely fictitious account of the cause
of his disability. Little Kommak, so the story
[ 188 J

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

ran (the boy is of pure Irish extraction, and is
named Michael Flynn), was one day sitting with
his mother in his igloo when he saw a large polar
bear approaching. Having no weapon, and not
desiring the presence of the bear in any capac-
ity at their midday meal, he stuck his leg out
through the small aperture of the igloo. The bear

bit it off on the principle of half a loaf being bet-
ter than no bread. The whole thing was a fabric
of lies from beginning to end. The St. John's
papers discovered the article, pounced upon it,
and printed the article "queje viens definir"fil
I 189 ]

LE PETIT NORD

course, if the local editor lacked humour enough
to credit the doctor with such a fairy tale, one
could pity the poor soul, but his diatribe has
rather the earmarks of jealousy.

A lovely sunset is lighting up the sea and sky
and hills, and turning the plain little settlement,
in the harbour of which we are anchored, into
the Never, Never Land. The scene is so be-
witching that I find my soul purged by it of the
bad taste of the attack. I'll leave you to digest
the mixed metaphor undisturbed while I go be-
low and help with the patients who have begun
pouring aboard.

Same evening
An old chap has just climbed over the rail, who
looks like an early patriarch, but his dignity is
impaired by the moth-eaten high silk hat which
surmounts his white hair. The people regard
him with apparent deference, due either to the
hat or his inherent character. Looking at his
I 190]

ANNALS OF A' LABRADOR HARBOUR

fine old face, one is inclined to believe it is the
latter.

The expressions these people use are so nauti-
cal and so apt! Every patient who comes aboard
expressed the wish to be "sounded" in some
portion of his or her anatomy for the suspected
ailment which has brought him. One burly fish-
erman solemnly took off his huge oily sea-boot,
placed a grimy forefinger on his heel, and re-
marked sententiously that the doctor "must
sound him right there." The prescription was
soap and water — a diagnosis in which I en-
tirely concurred. The next case was a young girl
with a "kink in her glutch." It has the sound of
all too familiar motor trouble, but was dismissed
as psychopathic. I wish that a similarly simple
diagnosis accounted for the mysterious ailments
of automobiles. My meditations on modern sci-
ence were interrupted by an insistent voice pro-
claiming that "my head is like to burst abroad."

If I were a woman on this coast my temper
[ 191 1

LE PETIT NORD

would "burst abroad" to see the men — some
of them — spitting all over the floors of the cot-
tages: disgusting and particularly dangerous in
a country where the arch-enemy, tuberculosis, is
ever on the watch for victims. But the new era is
slowly dawning. Now, instead of hooking "Wel-
come Home" into the fireside mat, you find
"Dont Spit" worked in letters of flame. It is
the harbinger of the feminist movement in the
land.

Speaking of the feminist movement makes me
think of a woman at Aquaforte Harbour. She
deserves a book written about her. In the first
place, Elmira had the courage of her convic-
tions, and did not marry. Her convictions were
that marriage was desirable if you get the right
man who can support you properly, and not
otherwise. This is generations in advance of the
local attitude to the holy estate. She has lived a
life of single blessedness to the coast. In every
trouble along her section of the shore it is "rou-
[ 192 1

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

tine" to send for "Aunt" 'Mira. She has more
sense and unselfishness and native wit than you
would meet in ten products of civilization. For a
year she acted as nurse to the little boy of one of
ihe staff, and never was child better cared for.
They once told 'Mira she really must make baby
take his bottle. (He had the habit of profound
slumber at that time.) "Oh! I does, ma'm,"
'Mira replied. " If he d walls off, I gives him a
scattered jolt." The family took her to England
with them, and her remarks on the trains showed
where her ancestry lay. When they backed
she exclaimed, "My happy day! We're goin'
astern!" She requested to be allowed to "open
the port " ; and at a certain junction where there
was a long delay she asked to go "ashore for a
spell."

That "hell is paved with good intentions"
is no longer a glib phrase to me; it is a convic-
tion born of seeing some of the suffering of this
country. The doctor has just been ashore to see
[ 193 ]

LE PETIT NORD

a woman with a five-days old baby. No attempt
whatever had been made to get her or her bed
clean or comfortable. She had developed a vio-
lent fever, and the local midwives, with then
congenital terror of the use of water — internal
or external — had larded the miserable creature
over from head to foot with butter, and finished
off with a liberal coating of oakum. The doctor
said, by the time he had himself scraped and
bathed her, put her in a fresh cool bed with a
jug of spring water beside her to drink, she
looked as if she thought the gates of Paradise
had opened.

Mails reached us at the Moravian station,
and your most welcome letters loomed large on
the postal horizon. You ask if I have not found
the year long. I will answer by telling you the
accepted derivation of the name "Labrador."
It comes from the Portuguese, and means "tb»
labourer," because those early voyagers in
tended to send slaves back to His Majesty.
[ 194 J

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Well-filled time, so the psychologists tell us, is
short in passing, and "down North," before
you are half into the day's tasks, you look up to
find that "the embers of the day are red." You
must have guessed, too, that I should not have
evinced such contentment during these months
if my fellow workers had not been congenial. I
shall always remember their devotion, and readi-
ness to serve both one another and the people;
and I know that the years to come will only
deepen my appreciation of what their friendship
has meant to me.

How glad I was when the winter came, and I
was no longer classed as a newcomer! I had
heard so much about dog driving that I remem-
ber thinking the resultant sensations must be
akin to those Elijah experienced in his chariot.
But now I have driven with dogs in summer,
and that is more than most of the older stagers
can boast. In a prosperous little village in the
Straits lives the rural dean. He is a devoted and
[ 195 ]

LE PETIT NORD

practical example of what a shepherd and bishop
of souls can be. There is not a good work for
the benefit of his flock — and he is not bound
by the conventional and unchristian denomina-
tional prejudices — which does not find in him a
leader. His interests range from cooperation to a
skin-boot industry. But the problem of getting
about when you have no Aladdin's carpet is
acute. He goes by dog sled and shanks' pony in
winter, and used to go by boat and shanks' pony
in summer. Then one day he had the inspiration
of building a two-wheeled shay, and harnessing
in his lusty and idle dog team. Now he drives
about at a rate that "Jehu the son of Nimshi
would approve," and is independent of winds
and weather.

Sunday to-morrow. We are running south for
the Ragged Islands. If I were not on the hospi-
tal ship, and therefore an involuntary example
to the people, I would fall into my bunk at
night with my clothes on, I am so weary,
f 196 1

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

Ragged Islands

Sunday night

Just aboard again after Prayers at the little
church. It is a quaint and crude little edifice,
and the people were so kindly and the service
so hearty that one feels "wonderfu* lifted up."
To be sure, during the sermon I was suddenly
brought up "all standing" by the amazing
statement that the "Harch Hangels go Hup,
Hup, Hup." One felt in one's bones that this
was a misapprehension. The very earnest clergy-
man may have noticed my obvious disagree-
ment, for at the close he announced, "We will
now sing the 398th hymn " —

"Day of Wrath, oh! Day of Mourning,
See fulfilled the Prophet's warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning."

This goes off into the blue on the chance of its
reaching you before I come myself and share a
secret with you; for to-morrow we are due at
[ 197]

LE'PETIT NORD

the Iron Bound Islands, and there I leave the
Northern Light, and end the chapter of my life
as a member of the Mission staff. The appropri-
ateness of the closing hymn in the little church
last night is borne more than ever forcibly in
upon me with the chill light of early morning,
for I verily feel as though my world were tot-
tering about my ears.

I am still optimist enough to know that life
will hold many experiences which will enrich it,
but in my secret heart I cherish the conviction
that this year will always stand out as a key-
note, and a touchstone by which to judge those
which succeed it. My greatest solace in the ache
which I feel in taking so long a farewell of a peo-
ple and country that I love is that I shall always
possess them in memory — a treasure which no
one can take from me. As I look back over the
quickly speeding year I find that I have forgot-
ten those trivial incidents of discomfort which
pricked my hurrying feet. All I can recall is the
[ 198 ]

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

rugged beauty of the land, the brave and sim-
ple people with their hardy manhood and more
than generous hospitality, and most of all my
little bairns who hold in their tiny hands the
future of Le Petit Nord.

(C&e fiitocrsibe pte^

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