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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c752982 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #67551 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67551) diff --git a/old/67551-0.txt b/old/67551-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index bd54752..0000000 --- a/old/67551-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4122 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of With Grenfell on the Labrador, by -Fullerton Waldo - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: With Grenfell on the Labrador - -Author: Fullerton Waldo - -Release Date: March 3, 2022 [eBook #67551] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed Proofreaders - Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net from page images - generously made available by the Internet Archive - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH GRENFELL ON THE -LABRADOR *** - - WITH GRENFELL ON THE - LABRADOR - - - - -[Illustration: DR. GRENFELL, A.B. -(Three ratlins were broken on the ascent).] - - - - - WITH GRENFELL ON - THE LABRADOR - - - BY - FULLERTON L. WALDO - - _ILLUSTRATED_ - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK CHICAGO - Fleming H. Revell Company - LONDON AND EDINBURGH - - - - - Copyright, 1920, by - FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY - - - - New York: 158 Fifth Avenue - Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. - London: 21 Paternoster Square - Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street - - - - - To - - DORIS KENYON - - OF - - COMPANY L., 307th INFANTRY, - 77th DIVISION; - - HONORARY SERGEANT, U.S.A. - - - - - FOREWORD - - - Aboard the _Strathcona_, - Red Bay, Labrador, Sept. 9, 1919. -DEAR WALDO: - -It has been great having you on board for a time. I wish you could stay -and see some other sections of the work. When you joined us I hesitated -at first, thinking perhaps it would be better to show you the poorer -parts of our country, and not the better off—but decided to let you -drop in and drop out again of the ordinary routine, and not bother to -‘show you sights.’ Still I am sorry that you did not see some other -sections of the people. There is to me in life always an infinite -satisfaction in accomplishing anything. I don’t care so much what it is. -But if it has involved real anxiety, especially as to the possibility of -success, it always returns to me a prize worth while. - -Well, you have been over some parts, where things have somehow -materialized. The reindeer experiment I also estimate an accomplished -success, as it completely demonstrated our predictions, and as it is now -in good hands and prospering. The Seamen’s Institute, in having become -self-supporting and now demanding more space, has also been a real -encouragement to go ahead in other lines. But there is one thing better -than accomplishment, and that is opportunity; as the problem is better -than the joy of writing Q. E. D. - -So I would have liked to show you White Bay as far as La Scie, where our -friends are fighting with few assets, and many discouragements. It -certainly has left them poor, and often hungry and naked, but it has -made men of them, and they have taught me many lessons; and it would do -your viewpoint good to see how many debts these people place me under. - -If life is the result of stimuli, believe me we ought to know what life -means in a country where you are called on to create every day -something, big or small. On the other hand, if life consists of the -multitude of things one possesses, then Labrador should be graded far -from where I place it, in its relation to Philadelphia. - -A thousand thanks for coming so far to give us your good message of -brotherly sympathy. - - Yours sincerely, - WILFRED T. GRENFELL. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - FOREWORD, by Doctor Grenfell 7 - I “DOCTOR” 15 - II A FISHER OF MEN 27 - III AT ST. ANTHONY 39 - IV ALL IN THE DAY’S WORK 53 - V THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY 78 - VI THE SPORTSMAN 97 - VII THE MAN OF SCIENCE 106 - VIII THE MAN OF LAW 114 - IX THE MAN OF GOD 119 - X SOME OF HIS HELPERS 130 - XI FOUR-FOOTED AIDES: DOGS AND 139 - REINDEER - XII A WIDE, WIDE “PARISH” 150 - XIII A FEW “PARISHIONERS” 173 - XIV NEEDS, BIG AND LITTLE 183 - - - - -[Illustration: LABRADOR AND NEWFOUNDLAND -PREPARED FOR DR. WILFRED T. GRENFELL, C.M.G. -_From “AMONG THE DEEP SEA FISHERS”_ -_By Courtesy of The Grenfell Association of America_] - - - - - ILLUSTRATIONS - - - PAGE - Dr. Grenfell, A.B. Title - Fritz and His Master 38 - “Doctor” 38 - Battle Harbour, Spreading Fish for 60 - Drying - “Please Look at My Tongue, Doctor” 98 - “Next” 98 - Dr. Grenfell Leading Meeting at 120 - Battle Harbour - St. Anthony Hospital in Winter 134 - Some of the Helpers 134 - Signal Hill, Harbour of St. Johns 150 - Happy Days at the Orphanage St. 180 - Anthony - - - - - I - “DOCTOR” - - -Grenfell and Labrador are names that must go down in history together. -Of the man and of his sea-beaten, wind-swept “parish” it will be said, -as Kipling wrote of Cecil Rhodes: - - “Living he was the land, and dead - His soul shall be her soul.” - -Some folk may try to tell us that Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, C.M.G., -gets more credit than is due him: but while they cavil and insinuate the -Recording Angel smiles and writes down more golden deeds for this -descendant of an Elizabethan sea-dog. Sir Richard Grenville, of the -_Revenge_, as Tennyson tells us—stood off sixty-three ships of Spain’s -Armada, and was mortally wounded in the fight, crying out as he fell -upon the deck: “I have only done my duty, as a man is bound to do.” That -tradition of heroic devotion to duty, and of service to mankind, is -ineradicable from the Grenfell blood. - -“We’ve had a hideous winter,” the Doctor said, as I clasped hands with -him in June at the office of the Grenfell Association in New York. His -hair was whiter and his bronzed face more serious than when I last had -seen him; but the unforgettable look in his eyes of resolution and of -self-command was there as of old, intensified by the added years of -warfare with belligerent nature and sometimes recalcitrant mankind. For -a few moments when he talks sentence may link itself to sentence very -gravely, but nobody ever knew the Doctor to go long without that keen, -bright flash of a smile, provoked by a ready and a constant sense of -fun, that illumines his face like a pulsation of the Northern Lights, -and—unless you are hard as steel at heart—must make you love him, and -do what he wants you to do. - -The Doctor on this occasion was a month late for his appointment with -the board of directors of the Grenfell Association. His little steamer, -the _Strathcona_, had been frozen in off his base of operations and -inspirations at St. Anthony. So he started afoot for Conch to catch a -launch that would take him to the railroad. He was three days covering a -distance which in summer would have required but a few hours, in the -direction of White Bay on the East Coast. He slept on the beach in wet -clothes. Then he was caught on pans of ice and fired guns to attract the -notice of any chance vessel. Once more ashore, he vainly started five -times more from St. Anthony harbour. Finally he went north and walked -along the coast, cutting across when he could, eighty miles to Flower’s -Cove. In the meantime the _Strathcona_, with Mrs. Grenfell aboard, was -imprisoned in the ice on the way to Seal Harbour; and it was three weeks -before Mrs. Grenfell, with the aid of two motor-boats, reached the -railroad by way of Shoe Cove. - -At Flower’s Cove the Doctor rapped at the door of Parson Richards. That -good man fairly broke into an alleluia to behold him. With beaming face -he started to prepare his hero a cup of tea. But there came a cry at the -door: “Abe Gould has shot himself in the leg!” - -Out into the cold and the dark again the Doctor stumbled. He put his -hand into the leg and took out the bone and the infected parts with such -instruments as he had. Then he sat up all night, feeding his patient -sleeping potions of opium. With the day came the mail-boat for the -south, the Ethie, beaten back from two desperate attempts to penetrate -the ice of the Strait to Labrador. - -Two months later I rejoined the Doctor at Croucher’s wharf, at Battle -Harbour, Labrador. - -The little _Strathcona_, snuggling against the piles, was redolent of -whalemeat for the dogs, her decks piled high with spruce and fir, white -birch and juniper, for her insatiable fires. (Coal was then $24 a ton.) - -“Where’ve you been all this time?” the Doctor cried, as I flung my -belongings to his deck from the _Ethie’s_ mail-boat, and he held out -both hands with his radiant smile of greeting. “I’m just about to make -the rounds of the hospital. This is a busy day. We pull out for St. -Anthony tonight!” With that he took me straight to the bedside of his -patients in the little Battle Harbour hospital that wears across its -battered face the legend: “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least -of these my brethren ye did it unto me.” - -The first man was recovering from typhoid, and the Doctor, with a smile, -was satisfied with his convalescence. - -The next man complained of a pain in the abdomen. Dr. Grenfell inquired -about the intensity of the pain, the temperature, the appetite and the -sleep of the patient. - -“He has two of the four cardinal symptoms,” said the Doctor, “pain and -temperature. Probably it’s an appendical attack. We had a boy who—like -this man—looked all right outwardly, and yet was found to have a bad -appendix.” - -The Doctor has a way of thinking aloud as he goes along, and taking -others into his confidence—frequently by an interrogation which is -flattering in the way in which he imputes superior knowledge to the one -of whom the question is asked. It is a liberal education in the healing -craft to go about with him, for he is never secretive or mysterious—he -is frankly human instead of oracular. - -“How about your schooner?” was his next question. “Do you think that -they can get along without you?” - -He never forgets that these are fishermen, whose livelihood depends on -getting every hour they can with their cod-traps, and the stages and the -flakes where the fish is salted and spread to dry. - -The third patient was a whaler. He had caught his hand in a winch. The -bones of the second and third fingers of the right hand were cracked, -and the tips of those fingers had been cut off. The hand lay in a hot -bath. - -“Dirty work, whaling,” was the Doctor’s comment, as he examined the -wound. “Everything is rotten meat and a wound easily becomes infected.” - -Number four was a baffling case of multiple gangrene. This Bonne Bay -fisherman had a nose and an ear that looked as if they had turned to -black rubber. His toes were sloughing off. The back of his right hand -was like raw beef. His left leg was bent at an angle of 90 degrees, and -as it could not bear the pressure of the bedclothes a scaffolding had -been built over it. The teeth were gone, and when the dressings were -removed even the plucking of the small hairs on the leg gave the patient -agony. - -“What have you been eating?” - -“Potatoes, sir.” - -“What else?” - -“Turnips, sir.” - -“You need green food. Fresh vegetable salts.” - -The Doctor looked out of the window and saw a dandelion in the rank -green grass. “That’s what he ought to have,” was his comment. - -On the verandah were four out-of-door patients to whom fresh air was -essential. One had a tubercular spine. A roll of plaster had been coming -by freight all summer long and was impatiently awaited. But a delay of -months on the Labrador is nothing unusual. Dr. Daly, of Harvard, -presented the _Strathcona_ with a searchlight, and it was two years on -the way—most of that time stored in a warehouse at North Sydney. - -Around these fresh-air cases the verandah was netted with rabbit-wire. -That was to keep the dogs from breaking in and possibly eating the -patients, who are in mortal terror of the dogs. - -When the Doctor took a probe from the hand of a trusted assistant he was -careful to ask if it was sterile ere he used it. He constantly took his -juniors—in this instance, Johns Hopkins doctors—into consultation. -“What do you think?” was his frequent query. - -The use of unhallowed patent medicines gave him distress. “O the stuff -the people put into themselves!” he exclaimed. - -“Have we got a Dakin solution?” he asked presently. - -“We’ve been trying to get a chloramine solution all summer,” answered -one of the young physicians. - -The Doctor made a careful examination of the man with the tubercular -spine, who was encased in plaster from the waist up. “After all,” was -his comment as he rose to his feet, “doctors don’t do anything but keep -things clean.” - -In the women’s ward the Harris Cot, the Torquay Cot, the Northfield Cot, -the Victoria Cot, the Kingman Cot, the Exeter Cot were filled with -patient souls whose faces shone as the Doctor passed. “More fresh air!” -he ejaculated, and other windows were opened. Those who came from homes -hermetically sealed have not always understood the Doctor’s passion for -ozone. One man complained that the wind got in his teeth and a girl said -that the singing on Sundays strained her stomach. - -He had a remarkable memory for the history of each case. “The day after -you left her heart started into fibrillation,” said an assistant. “It -was there before we left,” answered the Doctor quietly. - -At one bedside where an operation of a novel nature had been performed -he remarked, “I simply hate leaving an opening when I don’t know how to -close it.” - -He never pretends to know it all: he never sits down with folded hands -in the face of a difficulty or “passes the buck” to another. In his -running commentary while he looks the patient over he confesses his -perplexities. Yet all that he says confirms rather than shakes the -patient’s confidence in him. Those whom he serves almost believe that he -can all but raise the dead. - -“Now this rash,” he said, “might mean the New World smallpox—but -probably it doesn’t. We’ve only had two deaths from that malady on the -coast. It ran synchronously with the ‘flu.’ In one household where there -were three children and a man, one child and the man got it and two -children escaped it. - -“This woman’s ulcers are the sequel to smallpox. She needs the vegetable -salts of a fresh diet. How to get green things for her is the problem. -And this patient has tubercular caries of the hip. The X-ray apparatus -is across the Straits at St. Anthony, sixty miles away. If we only had a -portable X-ray apparatus of the kind they used in the war! Now you see, -no matter what the weather, this woman must be taken across the Straits -because we are entirely without the proper appliances here.” - -Screens were put around the cots as the examination was made, so that -the others wouldn’t be harrowed by the sight of blood or pain. - -The sick seemed to find comfort merely in being able to describe their -symptoms to a wise, good man. Much of the trouble seemed actually to -evaporate as they talked to him. Miss Dohme and the other nurses kept -the rooms spotlessly clean, and gay bowls of buttercups were about. - -“I don’t feel nice, Doctor,” said the next woman. “Some mornings a kind -of dead, dreary feeling seems to come out of me stummick and go right -down me laigs. Sometimes it flutters; sometimes it lies down. The wind’s -wonderful strong today, and it’s rising.” - -Usually the diagnosis is not greatly helped by the patient, who meekly -answers the questions with “Yes, Doctor,” or “No, Doctor,” or describes -the symptoms with such poetic vagueness that a great deal is left to the -imagination. It takes patient cross-questioning—in which the Doctor is -an adept—to elicit the truth. - -Here is a dear little baby, warmly muffled, on the piazza with the -elixir of the sun and the pine air. The pustular eczema has been treated -with ammoniate of mercury—but what will happen when the infant goes -home to the old malnutrition and want of sanitation? If only the Doctor -could follow the case! - -Bathtubs are a mystery to some of the patients, who after they have been -undressed and led to the water’s edge ask plaintively, “What do you want -me to do now?” - -So many times in this little hospital one was smitten by the need of -green vegetables which in so many places are not to be had—“greens” -(like spinach), lettuce, radishes and the rest. - -As we came away the Doctor spoke of the feeling that he used to have -that wherever a battle for the right was on anywhere he must take part -in it. “But I have learned that they also serve who simply do their duty -in their places. These dogs hereabouts seem to think they must go to -every fight there is, near or far. But none of us is called upon to do -all there is to do. I often read of happenings in distant parts of the -earth and feel as though I ought to be there in the thick of things. -Then I realize that if we all minded our own business exactly where we -are we’d be doing well. And when such thoughts come to me I just make up -my mind to be contented and to buckle down to my job all the harder.” - - - - - II - A FISHER OF MEN - - -That evening Dr. Grenfell spoke in the little Church of England, taking -as his text the words from the twelfth chapter of John: “The spirit that -is ruling in this world shall be driven out.” Across the tickle the -huskies howled at the moon, and one after another took up the challenge -from either bank. But one was no longer conscious of the wailful -creatures, and heard only the speaker; and the kerosene lamps lighted -one by one in the gloom of the church became blurred stars, and the -woman sitting behind me in a loud whisper said, “Yes! yes!” as Dr. -Grenfell, in the earnest and true words of a man who speaks for the -truth’s sake and not for self’s sake, interpreted the Scriptures that he -has studied with such devotion. - -“When I was young,” he said, “I learned that man is descended from a -monkey, and I was told that there is no God. - -“When I became older and did my own thinking I refused to believe that -God chose one race of mankind and left the rest to be damned. - -“No one has the whole truth, whether he be Church of England, Methodist -or Roman Catholic. - -“The simple truth of Christianity is what the world needs. How foolish -seem the tinsel and trumpery distinctions for which men struggle! What -is the use of being able to string the alphabet along after your name? -Character is all that counts. - -“Some say that religion is for the saving of your soul. But it is not a -grab for the prizes of this world, and the capital prize of the life -eternal. - -“The things the world holds to be large, Christ tells us, are small. -Jesus says the greatest things are truth and love. - -“Love is so big a thing that it forgets self utterly. - -“How many of us know what it is to love? It is not mere animal desire. - -“If we all truly loved, what a world it would be! - -“Suppose a doctor loved all his patients. He wouldn’t be satisfied then -to say: ‘Your leg is better,’ or ‘Here is a pill.’ - -“Suppose a clergyman loved his people. He wouldn’t say: ‘I wonder how -many in this congregation are Church of England.’ - -“God Himself is love and truth. Jesus lived the beautiful things He -taught. He was them. - -“Every man has something in him that forces him to love what is -unselfish and true and altogether lovely and of good report. - -“In the war, in the midst of all the horror and the terror and the pity -of it, a noble spirit was made manifest among men—a heroic spirit of -self-control and a sense of true values. - -“If I couldn’t have a palace I could have a clean house; if I couldn’t -speak foreign languages I needn’t speak foul language. We may be poor -fishermen or poor London doctors: we can serve in our places, and we can -let our lives shine before men. If I have done my duty where I am, I -don’t care about the rest. I shall not care if they leave my old body on -the Labrador coast or at the bottom of the Atlantic for the fishes, if I -have fought the good fight and finished the course. Having lived well, I -shall die contented.” - -As soon as the service in the church was over a meeting was held in the -upper room of the hospital. The room was filled, and Dr. Grenfell spoke -again. Before his address familiar hymns were sung, and—noting that two -of those present had violins and were accompanying the cabinet organ—he -referred to their efforts in his opening words. - -“We all have the great duty and privilege of common human friendliness,” -he said. “We may show it in the little things of every day. For -everybody needs help, everywhere. There is no end to the need of human -sympathy. It may be shown with a fiddle—or perhaps I ought to say -‘violin’ (apologizing to a Harvard student who was officiating). - -“I have always loved Kim in Kipling’s story of that name. Kim is just a -waif. Nobody knows who his father is; but he is called ‘the little -friend of all the world.’ - -“There is a book which has found wide acceptance called ‘Mrs. Wiggs of -the Cabbage Patch.’ Mrs. Wiggs lived in a humble cottage with only her -cabbage patch, but everybody came to her for sunshine and healing. She -had plenty of troubles of her own, but just because she had them she -knew how to help others. Whoever we are, whatever we are, we may wear -the shining armour of the knights of God: there is work waiting for our -hands to do, there is good cheer for us to spread.” - -Dreamer and doer live side by side in amity in Dr. Grenfell’s make-up. -At the animated dinner-table of the nurses and the doctors in the Battle -Harbour hospital, after asking a blessing, he was talking eagerly about -the League of Nations, the industrial situation in England and America -and the future for Russia while brandishing the knife above the meat pie -and letting no plate but his own go neglected. - -Dr. Grenfell is happy and his soul is free at the wheel of the -_Strathcona_. That wheel bears the words, “Jesus saith, Follow me and I -will make you fishers of men.” At the peak of the mainmast is likely to -be the blue pennant bearing the words, “God is Love.” The _Strathcona_ -is ketch-rigged. Her mainmast, that is to say, is in the foremast’s -place; and above the mainsail is a new oblong topsail that is the -Doctor’s dear delight. The other sail has above it a topsail of orthodox -pattern, and there are two jibs. So that when she has her full -fuel-saving complement of canvas spread, the _Strathcona_ displays six -sails at work. Could the Doctor always have his way, all the sails would -be up whenever a breeze stirs. With a good wind the ship is capable of -eight knots and even more an hour: five knots or so is her average speed -under steam alone. In the bow, his paws on the rail, or out on the -bowsprit sniffing the air and seeing things that only he can see, is the -incomparable dog Fritz—Fritz of “57 varieties”—brown and black, like -toast that was burned in the making. No one knows the prevailing -ancestry of Fritz, but a strain of Newfoundland is suspected. He will -take a chance on swimming ashore if we cast anchor within half a mile of -it, though the water is near congealment, and he knows that a pack of -his wolfish brethren is ready to dispute the shoreline with him when he -clambers out dripping upon the stony beach with seaweed in his hair. -When he swims back to the ship again his seal-like head is barely above -the waves as he paddles about, a mute appeal in his brown eyes for a -bight of rope to be hitched about his body to help him aboard. - -Dr. Grenfell keeps unholy hours, and dawn is one of his favourite -out-door sports. He may nominally have retired at twelve—which is -likely to mean that he began to read a book at that hour. He may have -risen at two, three and four to see how the wind lay and the sea -behaved: and perhaps five o’clock will find him at the wheel, -bareheaded, the wind ruffling the silver locks above his ruddy -countenance, his grey-brown eyes—which are like the stone labradorite -in the varying aspects they take on—watching the horizon, the swaying -bowsprit, the compass, and the goodness of God in the heavens. - -The Doctor is a great out-of-doors man. He scorns a hat, and in his own -element abjures it utterly. He wears a brown sweater, high in the neck, -and above it he smokes a briarwood pipe that is usually right side up -but appears to give him just as much satisfaction when the bowl is -inverted. The rest of his costume is a symphony of grey or brown, -patched or threadbare but neat always, ending in boots high or low of -red rubber or of leather. - -You may think that the dog Fritz out on the bowsprit is enjoying all the -morning there is, but the Doctor is transformed. - -“I love these early mornings,” he says—and he is innocent of pose when -he says it: it is not a mere literary emotion. “It’s a beautiful sight -in autumn with the ice when the banks are red with the little hills -clear-cut against the sky and the sea a deep, deep blue. Isn’t it a -beautiful world to live in? Isn’t it fun to live?” - -You have to admit that it is. - -“A man can’t think just of stomachs all the time. Sometimes I have to go -away for a day or two. But I can’t say when I’ve ever been tired. - -“A great little ship she is. She is very human to me. She has done her -bit—she has carried her load. On that small deck and down below we once -took 56 Finns from the wreck of the _Viking_ off Hamilton Inlet. We had -nothing but biscuit and dry caplin on which to feed them. Once we were -caught in a storm with seven schooners. We had 60 fathoms out on two -chains for our anchors. Six of the other seven ships went ashore. Then -the seventh overturned—ours was the only ship that stood. All of a -sudden our main steampipe burst. We had to use cold sea-water. It was a -hard struggle to bring our ship into shallow water at 1½ fathoms. -Another time we had to tow 19 small boats at once. - -“We always have something up our sleeve to get out of trouble.” - -Then suddenly spying other vessels with their sails up, Dr. Grenfell -proceeds to study them for a lesson as to the way his own ship is to -take. He calls out to Albert Ash, his pessimistic mate, “She’s -well-ballasted, that two-master. Have those others tacked?” His talk -runs on easily as he swings the ship about and the sails are bellying -with a favouring breeze. “This wind’ll run out three knots. I’m cheating -it up into the wind. We’ll let her go by a bit. This is Chimney Tickle -in here. A beautiful harbour. The tide and the polar current meet here. -It’s always open water. It’s the place they’re thinking of for a -transatlantic harbour. It’s only 1,625 miles from here to Galway. The -jib and mainsail aren’t doing the work. That man has no idea of trimming -a jib!” He rushes out to the wheelhouse and does most of the work of -setting the mainsail himself. - -“I’m so fond of those words ‘The sea is His,’” he says, coming back to -the spokes again. “I think it runs in the blood. I like to think of the -old sea-dogs—like Frobisher and Drake and Cabot. Shackleton told Mrs. -Grenfell that the first ship that came to Labrador was named the -_Grenfell_.” - -“The comings and goings of the _Strathcona_ mean much to these people,” -said Dr. McConnell. “At Independence a woman met us on the wharf, the -great tears rolling down her cheeks. She lost her husband and her son in -the ‘flu’ epidemic. She told me that her son said to her: ‘Mother, if -Dr. Grenfell were only here, he could save me.’ At Snack Cove the people -went out on the rocks and cried bitterly when the _Strathcona_ passed -them by—as we learned when to their great relief we dropped in upon -them a fortnight later.” - -We cast anchor at Pleasure Harbour because of rough weather and for a -few hours had one of the Doctor’s all too infrequent play-times, while -waiting for the Strait to abate its fury to permit of a possible -crossing. - -Here a delicious trout stream tumbled and swirled from sullen, mist-hung -uplands into a piratical cove where two small schooners swung at anchor. -Like so many of these places the cove was a complete surprise—you came -round the rock with no hint that it was there till you found it, placid -as a tarn and deep and black, with big blue hills stretching to the -northward beyond the fuzzy fringes of the nearer trees and the mottled -barrens where the clouds were poised and the ghosts of the mist -descended. (A tuneful, sailor-like name it is that the Eskimoes give to -a ghost—the “Yo-ho”: and they say that the Northern Lights are the -spirits of the dead at play). - -An unhandy person with a rod, I was allowed by Dr. Grenfell and Dr. -McConnell to go ahead and spoil the nicest trout-pools with my fly. Even -though cod fishermen at the mouth of the stream had unlawfully placed a -net to keep the trout from ascending, there were plenty of trout in the -brook, and in the course of several hours forty-nine were good enough to -attach themselves to my line. The banks were soggy under the long green -grass: the water was acutely cold: and in two places there were small -fields of everlasting snow in angles of the rock. It was an ideal -trout-brook, for it was full of swirling black eddies, rippling rapids, -and deep, still pools. The brook began at a lake which was roughened by -a wind blowing steadily toward us. Dr. Grenfell cast against the wind -where the lake discharged its contents into the brook, and the line was -swept back to his boots. With unwearying patience he cast again and -again, and while I strove in vain to land a single fish from the lake he -caught one monster after another, almost at his own feet. All the way up -the brook he had successfully fished in the most unpromising places, -that we had given over with little effort, and here he was again getting -by far the best results in the most difficult places of all. There -seemed to be a parallel here with his medical and spiritual enterprise -on the Labrador. He has worked for poor and humble people, when others -have asked impatiently: “Why do you throw away your life upon a handful -of fishermen round about a bleak and uncomfortable island where people -have no business to live anyway?” He could not leave the fishermen’s -stage at the mouth of the brook this time without being called upon to -examine a fisherman troubled by failing eyesight. On the run of a couple -of hundred yards in a rowboat to the _Strathcona_ the thunder-clouds -rolled up, with lightning, and as we set foot on board the deluge came. - -[Illustration: FRITZ AND HIS MASTER.] - -[Illustration: “DOCTOR.”] - - - - - III - AT ST. ANTHONY - - -Next evening found us at St. Anthony. Doctors and nurses were on the -wharf to greet their chief after his absence of several weeks. Dr. -Curtis showed the stranger through the clean and well-appointed -hospital, with its piazza for a sun-bath and the bonny air for the T. B. -patients, its X-ray apparatus and its operating room, its small museum -of souvenirs of remarkable operations. I saw Dr. Andrews of San -Francisco perform with singular deftness an operation for congenital -cataract, with a docile little girl who had been blind a long time, and -whose sight would probably be completely restored by the two thrusts -made with a needle at the sides of the cornea. Her eyes were bandaged -and she was carried away by the nurse, broadly smiling, to await the -outcome. For ten years or so this noted oculist, no longer young except -in the spirit, has crossed the continent to spend the summer in -volunteer service at St. Anthony—a fair type of the men that are -naturally drawn to the work in which the Doctor found his life. - -One of the St. Anthony doctors visiting out-patients came upon a woman -who was carefully wrapped in paper. This explanation was offered: “If us -didn’t use he, the bugs would lodge their paws in we.” “Bugs” are flies, -and the use of “he” for “it” is characteristic. A skipper will talk -about a lighthouse as he, just as he feminizes a ship, and the -nominative case serves also as the objective. - -Another woman had been wrapped by her neighbours in burnt butter and -oakum. “Now give her a bath,” was Dr. Grenfell’s advice after he had -made his examination. “You can if you like, Doctor,” the volunteer nurse -said. “If you do it and she dies we shan’t be blamed.” - -In the hospital the Doctor was concerned with a baby twelve months old -whose feet were twisted over till they were almost upside down. The -mother had massaged the feet with oil for hours at a time. The baby -cried constantly with pain, and neither the child nor the mother had -known a satisfactory night’s rest since it was born. When the Doctor -said the condition was curable, because she had brought her child in -time, the look of relief in the mother’s face defied recording. It is a -look often seen with his patients, and since he scarcely ever asks or -receives a fee worth mentioning, it constitutes a large part of his -reward. - -The herd of reindeer that the Doctor imported from Lapland and installed -between St. Anthony and Flower’s Cove with two Lapp herders are now -flourishing under Canadian auspices in (Canadian) Labrador in the -vicinity of the St. Augustine River. The Doctor himself took a hand in -the difficult job of lassoing them and tying their feet, and still there -were about forty of the animals that could not be found. The Doctor says -it was “lots of fun” catching them—but he gives that description to -many transactions that most of us would consider the hardest kind of -hard work. - -Next in importance after the hospital, Exhibit A is the spick-and-span -orphanage, with thirty-five of the neatest and sweetest children, polite -and friendly and more than willing to learn. The boys who are not named -Peter, James or John are named Wilfred. “Suffer little children to come -unto me” is in big letters on the front of the building. On the hospital -is the inscription: “Faith, hope and love abide, but the greatest of -these is love.” Over the Industrial School stands written, “Whatsoever -ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord.” Here the beautiful rugs are -made—hooked through canvas—according to lively designs of Eskimoes and -seals and polar bears prepared in the main by the Doctor. Even the -bird-house has its legend: “Praise the Lord, ye birds of wing.” There is -a thriving co-operative store, next door to the well-kept little inn. A -sign of the Doctor’s devising and painting swings in front of the store. -On one side is a picture of huskies with a komatik (sled) bringing boxes -to a settler’s door, and the inscription is, “Spot cash is always the -leader.” On the other side of the sign a ship named _Spot Cash_ is seen -bravely ploughing through mountainous waves and towering bergs. -Underneath it reads: “There’s no sinking her.” “That is a reminiscence,” -smiled the Doctor, “of my fights with the traders. Do you think these -signs of mine are cant? I don’t mean them that way. I want every one of -them to count.” - -A school, a laundry, a machine-shop and a big store are other features -of the plant at St. Anthony. The dock is a double-decker, and from it a -diminutive tramway with a hand-car sends “feeders” to the various -buildings and even up the walk to the Doctor’s house. All the mail-boats -now turn in at this harbour. The captain of a ship like the -_Prospero_—which in the summer of 1919 brought on four successive trips -70, 70, 60 and 50 patients to overflow the hospital—appreciates the -facilities offered by this modern wharfage. - -As the Doctor goes about St. Anthony he does not fail to note anything -that is new, or to bestow on any worthy achievement a word of praise, -for which men and women work the harder. - -To “The Master of the Inn” he expressed his satisfaction in the -smooth-running, cleanly hostelry. “He is one of my boys,” he remarked to -me after the conversation. “He was trained here at St. Anthony, and then -at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.” - -Then he meets the electrician. “Did you get your ammeter?” he asks. And -then: “How did you make your rheostat?” - -He points with satisfaction to a little Jersey bull recently acquired, -and then he critically surveys the woodland paths that lead from his -dooryard to a tea-house on the hill commanding the wide vista of the -harbour and the buildings of the industrial colony. “Nothing of this -when we came here,” he observes. “The people seem possessed to cut down -all their trees: we do our best to save ours, and we dote on these -winding walks, which are an innovation.” Then he laughs. “A good woman -heard me say that lambs were unknown in Labrador, and that we had to -speak of seals instead when we were reading the Scriptures. She sent me -a lamb and some birds, stuffed, so that the people might understand. She -meant well, but in transit the lamb’s head got sadly twisted on one -side, and the birds were decrepit specimens indeed with their bedraggled -plumage.” - -The house itself is delightful, and it is only too bad that the Doctor -and his wife see so little of it. - -It is a house with a distinct atmosphere. The soul of it is the -living-room with a wide window at the end that opens out upon a prospect -of the wild wooded hillside, with an ivy-vine growing across the middle, -so that it seems as if there were no glass and one could step right out -into the clear, pure air. There is a big, hearty fireplace; there is a -generously receptive sofa; there is an upright Steinway piano, where a -blind piano-tuner was working at the time of my visit. - -Lupins, the purple monk’s hood and the pink fireweed grow along the -paths and about the house. A glass-enclosed porch surrounds it on three -sides, and in the porch are antlered heads of reindeer and caribou, -coloured views of scenery in the British Isles and elsewhere, snowshoes -and hunting and fishing paraphernalia, a great hanging pot of lobelias, -and—noteworthily—a brass tablet bearing this inscription: - - To the Memory of - Three Noble Dogs - Moody - Watch - Spy - whose lives were given for - mine on the ice - April 21, 1908 - Wilfred Grenfell - St. Anthony - -It is the kind of house that eloquently speaks of being lived in. - -It is comfortable, but the note of idle luxury or useless ostentation is -absent. There is no display for its own sake. The books bear signs of -being fireside companions. Dr. Grenfell is fond of running a pencil down -the margin as he reads. He is very fond of the books of his intimate -friend Sir Frederick Treves, in whose London hospital he was -house-surgeon. “The Land that is Desolate” was aboard the _Strathcona_. -Millais’ book on Newfoundland was on the writing desk at St. Anthony, -and had been much scored, as, indeed, had many of his other books. - -I asked him to name to me his favourite books. Offhand he said: “The -Bible first, naturally. And I’m very fond of George Borrow’s ‘The Bible -in Spain.’ I admire Borrow’s persistence until he sold a Testament in -Finisterre. ‘L’Avengro’ and ‘Romany Rye’ are splendid, too. I’m very -fond of Kipling’s ‘Kim.’ Then I greatly care for the lives of men of -action. Autobiography is my favourite form of reading. The ‘Life of -Chinese Gordon’—the ‘Life of Lord Lawrence’—the ‘Life of Havelock.’ -You see there is a strong strain of the Anglo-Indian in my make-up. My -family have been much concerned with colonial administration in India. -The story of Outram I delight in. He was everything that is unselfish -and active—and a first-class sportsman. Boswell’s ‘Johnson’ is a great -favourite of mine. I take keen pleasure in Froude’s ‘Seamen of the 16th -Century.’ In the lighter vein I read every one of W. W. Jacob’s stories. -Mark Twain is a great man. What hasn’t he added to the world! - -“Then there is ‘Anson’s Voyages.’ It’s a capital book. He describes how -he lugged off two hundred and ten old Greenwich pensioners to sail his -ships, though they frantically fled in every direction to avoid being -impressed into the service. All of them died, and he lost all of his -ships but the one in which he fought and conquered a Spanish galleon -after a most desperate battle. - -“I used to have over my desk the words of Chinese Gordon: - - ‘To love myself last; - To do the will of God,’ - -and the rest of his creed. - -“The only man whose picture is in my Bible is the Rev. Jeremiah Horrox, -a farmer’s son. He was the first to observe the transit of Venus. That -was in 1640. The picture shows him watching the phenomenon through the -telescope. It inspired me to think what a poor lonely clergyman could -accomplish. He and men like him stick to their jobs—that’s what I like. - -“I have in my Bible the words of Pershing to the American Expeditionary -Force in France in 1917—the passage beginning ‘Hardship will be your -lot.’” - -I was privileged to look into that Bible. It is the Twentieth Century -New Testament This he likes, he says, because the vernacular is clear, -and sheds light on disputed passages which are not clear in other -versions. - -“I care more for clearness than anything else,” he declared. “When I -read to the fishermen I want them to understand every word. But I have -often read from this version to sophisticated congregations in the -United States and had persons afterwards ask me what it was. Many -passages are positively incorrect in the King James Version. For -instance, the eighth chapter of Isaiah, which is the first lesson for -Christmas morning, is misleading in the Authorized Version.” - -We debated the relative merits of the King James Version and the -Twentieth Century Version for a long time one evening. I was holding out -for the old order, in the feeling that the revised text deliberately -sacrificed much of the majestic beauty and poetry of the style of the -King James Version and that—despite an occasional archaism—the meaning -was clear enough, and the additional accuracy did not justify putting -aside the earlier beloved translation. Dr. Grenfell earnestly insisted -that the most important thing is to make the meaning of the Scriptures -plain to plain people—that the sense is the main consideration, and the -truth is more important than a stately cadence of poetic prose. - -“I don’t want the language of three hundred years ago,” he asserted. “I -want the language of today.” - -It is his custom to crowd the margins of his Bibles with annotations. He -fills up one copy after another—one of these is in the possession of -Mrs. John Markoe of Philadelphia, who prizes it greatly. - -By the name of George Borrow and the picture of Jeremiah Horrox on the -fly-leaf of the copy he now uses, he has written “My inspirers.” - -There is much interleaving and all the inserted pages are crowded with -trenchant observations and reflections on the meaning of life. - -Adhering to the inner side of the front corner is a poem: - - “Is thy cruse of comfort failing? - Rise and share it with another. - . . . . . . - Scanty fare for one will often - Make a royal feast for two.” - -There is a clipping from the _Outlook_, of an article by Lyman Abbott -quoting Roosevelt to American troops, June 5, 1917, on the text from -Micah, “What more doth the Lord require of thee than to do justly and to -love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” - -Then there is a quotation from Shakespeare: - - “Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do, - Nor light them for ourselves. For if our virtues - Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike - As if we had them not.” - -Pages of meditation are given to dreams—service—conversion—going to -the war in 1915 with the Harvard Medical Unit—the place of religion in -daily life—the will—the religion of duty. - -Another clipping—in large print—bears the words: “Not to love, not to -serve, is not to live.” - -In the back of the book is pasted an extended description of the death -of Edith Cavell. - -In one place he writes: “I don’t want a squashy credulity weakening my -resolution and condoning incompetency—but just a faith of optimism -which is that of youth and makes me do things regardless of the -consequences.” - -His marginal annotations disclose the profound and the devoted student -of the Bible—the man who without the slightest shred of mealy-mouthed -sanctimoniousness searches the Scriptures, and lives close to the spirit -of the Master. Anyone who sees even a little of Grenfell in action must -realize how faithful his life is to the pattern of Christ’s life on -earth. There are many passages of Christ’s experience—as when the crowd -pressed in upon Him—or when learned men were supercilious—or when He -perceived that virtue had gone out of Him—or when He was reproached -because He let a man die in His absence—that remind one of Grenfell’s -thronged and hustled life. Many believe that Grenfell can all but work a -miracle of healing; and the lame, the halt and the blind are brought to -him from near and far, at all times of the day or the night, even as -they were brought to the Master. In his love of children, in his -patience with the doer of good and his righteous wrath aflame against -the evil-doer, in his candour and his sunny sweetness and his unfailing -courage Grenfell translates the precepts of the Book into the action and -the speech of the living way. He cannot live by empty professions of -faith; he is happy only when he is putting into vivid practice the creed -which guides his living. - - - - - IV - ALL IN THE DAY’S WORK - - -It was hard to say where the Doctor’s day began or ended. One night he -rose several times to inspect wind and weather ere deciding to make a -start; and at twenty minutes before five he was at the wheel himself. -Mrs. Grenfell clipped from “Life” and pinned upon his tiny stateroom -mirror a picture of a caterpillar showing to a class of worms the early -bird eating the worm. The legend beneath it ran: “Now remember, dear -children, the lesson for today—the disobedient worm that would persist -in getting up too early in the morning.” - -His books and articles are usually written between the early hours of -five and seven o’clock in the morning. The log of the _Strathcona_, -religiously kept for the information of the International Grenfell -Association, was likely to be pencilled on his knee while sitting on a -pile of firewood on the reeling deck. Just as Roosevelt wrote his -African game-hunting articles “on safari,” while so wearied with the -chase that he could hardly keep his eyes open, the Doctor has schooled -himself to do his work without considering his pulse-beat or his -temperature or his blood pressure. After a driving day afloat and -ashore, as surgeon, magistrate, minister and skipper, he rarely retires -before midnight, and often he sits up till the wee small hours engrossed -in the perusal of a book he likes. - -When the Doctor enters a harbour unannounced and drops anchor, within a -few minutes power-boats and rowboats are flocking about the -_Strathcona_, and the deck fills with fishermen, their wives and their -children, all with their major and minor troubles. Sometimes it requires -the whole family to bring a patient. Often after a diagnosis it seems -advisable to place a patient in the hospital at Battle Harbour or St. -Anthony, and so the “Torquay Cot” or another in the diminutive hospital -on the _Strathcona_ is filled, or perhaps the passenger goes to hob-nob -with the good-natured crew and consume their victuals. Many a crying -baby, in the limited space, makes the narrow quarters below-decks -reverberate with the heraldry of the fact that he is teething or has the -tummyache. - -The Doctor operates at the foot of the companion-ladder leading down -into the saloon, which is dining-room, living-room and everything else. -“I always have a basin of blood at the foot of the ladder,” he grimly -remarks. - -I told him I thought I would call what I wrote about him “From Topsails -to Tonsils,” since with such versatility he passed from the former to -the latter. “That reminds me,” he said with a laugh, “of the time I went -ashore with Dr. John Adams, and the first thing we did was to lay three -children out on the table and remove their tonsils. That was a mighty -bloody job, I can tell you!” - -The hatchway over his head as he operates is always filled with the -heads of so many spectators—including frequently the Doctor’s dog, -Fritz—that the meagre light which comes from above is nearly shut off. -Often a lamp is necessary, and as electric flash-lamps are notoriously -faithless in a crisis, it is usually a kerosene lamp. Often an impatient -patient starts to come down before his time, or an over-eager parent or -husband thinks he must accompany the one that he has brought for the -doctor’s lancet. It is hard to get elbow-room for the necessary surgery, -and every operation is a more or less public clinical demonstration. - -Usually the description of the symptoms is of the vaguest. - -“I’m chilled to the cinders,” said an anxious Irishman. - -“Well, we can put on some fresh coal,” was the Doctor’s answer. “How old -are you?” - -“Forty-six, Doctor!” - -“A mere child!” the doctor replies, and the merry twinkle in his eyes -brings an answering smile to the face of the sufferer. The Doctor -himself was fifty-five years old in February, 1920. - -So many fishermen get what are called “water-whelps” or -“water-pups,”—pustules on the forearm due to the abrasion of the skin -by more or less infected clothing. Cleaning the cod and cutting up fish -produces many ugly cuts and piercings and consequent sores, and there is -always plenty of putrefying matter about a fishing-stage to infect them. -So that a very common phenomenon is a great swelling on the forearm—and -an agonizing, sleep-destroying one it may be—where pus has collected -and is throbbing for the lance. It is a joy to witness the immediate -relief that comes from the cutting, and as the iodine is applied and -deft fingers bandage the wound the patient tries to find words to tell -of his thankfulness. - -One afternoon just as the Doctor thought there was a lull in the -proceedings four women and a man came over the rail at once. The first -woman had a “bad stummick”; the second wanted “turble bad” to have her -tooth “hauled”; the third had “a sore neck, Miss” (thus addressing Mrs. -Grenfell); the fourth woman had something “too turble to tell”; the man -merely wanted to see the Doctor on general principles. - -Here is a bit of dialogue with a woman who couldn’t sleep. - -“What do you do when you don’t sleep?” - -“I bide in the bed.” - -“Do you do any work?” - -“No, sir.” - -“Do you cook?” - -“No, sir.” - -“Do you wash the children?” - -“Scattered times, sir.” - -Then the husband put in: “She couldn’t do her work and it overcast her. -She overtopped her mind, sir.” - -He was a fine, dignified old fellow, and it was a real pleasure to see -how tender he was toward his poor fidgety, neurasthenic spouse. She -hadn’t any teeth worth mentioning, and her lips were pursed together -with a vise-like grip. I shall not forget how Doctor Grenfell murmured -to me in a humorous aside: “Teeth certainly do add to a lady’s charm!” - -When medicine is administered, it is hard to persuade the afflicted one -that the prescription means just what it says. - -This lady was told to take three pills, and she took two. But most of -them exceed their instruction. To a woman at Trap Cove Dr. Fox gave -liniment for her knee. It helped her. Then she took it internally for a -stomach-ache, arguing logically enough that a pain is a pain, a medicine -is a medicine, and if this liniment was good for a hurt in the knee it -must be good for any bodily affliction. Luckily she lived to tell the -tale. - -“When I was in the North Sea the sailors if they got the chance -ransacked my medicine cupboard and drank up everything they could lay -their hands on.” Such autobiographic confessions are often made while -the Doctor mixes a draught or concocts a lotion. “Here it is the same -way. I have had my customers drain off the whole bottle of medicine at -once, on the theory that if one teaspoonful did you good, a bottle would -be that much better.” His questions, like his lancet, go right to the -root of the trouble. Nothing phases him. He answers every question. He -never tells people they are fools; his inexhaustible forebearance with -the inept and the obtuse is not the least Christlike of his attributes. - -It is difficult for these men to come to the hospital in summer, for -their livelihood depends on their catch, and then on their salting and -spreading the fish: and after the cod-fishery has fallen away to zero -the herring come in October, and the cod to some extent return with -them. - -“When I tell them they must go to the hospital, they always say ‘I -haven’t time: I want to stay and mind my traps.’” - -The Doctor hates above all things—as I have indicated—to leave a wound -open, or a malady half-treated, and hustle on. It is the great drawback -and exasperation in his work that the interval before he sees the -patient again must be so long. He mourns whenever he has to pull a tooth -that might be saved if he could wait to fill it. - -He is always working against time, against the sea, against ignorance, -against a want of charity on the part of nominal Christians who ought to -help him instead of carping and denouncing. - -But he is working with all honest and sincere men, all who are true to -the high priesthood of science, all who are on the side of the angels. - -One man thus describes his affliction, letting the Doctor draw his own -deductions: - -“Like a little round ball the pain will start, sir; then it will full me -inside; and the only rest I get is to crumple meself down.” - -An unhappy woman reciting the history of her complaint declared: “The -last doctor said I had an impression of the stomach and was full of -glams.” - -“Bless God!” exclaimed another, speaking of her children. “There’s -nothing the matter with ’em. They be’s off carrying wood. They just -coughs and heaves, that’s all.” - -One mother, asked what treatment she was administering to her infant -replied: “Oh, I give ’er nothing now. Just plenty of cold water and -salts and spruce beer; ne’er drop o’ grease.” - -When there is no doctor to be had the services of the seventh son of a -seventh son are in demand. - -[Illustration: BATTLE HARBOUR—SPREADING FISH FOR DRYING.] - -Elemental human misery made itself heard in the dolorous accents of a -corpulent lady of fifty. “I works in punishment on account of my eyes. -Sometimes I piles two or three fish on top of each other and I has to do -it over. I cries a good deal about it.” Her gratification as she was -fitted to a pair of “plus” glasses that greatly improved her sight was -worth a long journey to witness. Many pairs of glasses were put on her -nose en route to the discovery of the most satisfactory pair, and each -time she would say “Lovely! Beautiful!” with crescendo of fervour. - -I heard a fond father tell the Doctor that there was a “rale squick -(real squeak) bawling on the inside of” his offspring. - -A man who climbed down the companion way with an aching side, a rupture, -and a hypertrophic growth on his finger, was asked what he did for his -ribs. - -“I rinsed them,” was the response. - -The Doctor is always on the lookout for the “first flag of warning”—as -he calls it—of the dreaded “T. B.” which is responsible for one death -in every four in Newfoundland. Much of his talk with a patient has to do -with fresh air and fresh vegetables. The Eskimoes may know better than -some native Newfoundlanders. “I like air. I push my whiphandle through -the roof,” said one of the Eskimoes. - -Here is a typical excerpt, from a conversation with a young man who to -the layman looked very robust. - -“How old are you?” - -“Twenty-two, sir.” - -“Have any in your family had tuberculosis?” - -“Father’s brother Will and Aunt Clarissa died of it, sir.” - -“Are you suffering?” - -“It shoots up all through my stomach, sir.” - -“Do you read and write?” - -“No, Doctor.” - -“See clearly?” - -“Yes, Doctor.” - -“Are you able to get any greens?” - -“Sometimes, sir.” - -“Dock-leaves?” - -“No, sir.” - -“What greens have you?” - -“Alexander greens, sir.” - -“Any berries?” - -“Yes, Doctor. And bake apples.” - -“That’s good. You must eat plenty of them. You must have good food. As -good as you can afford. I’m sorry it’s so hard where you live to get -anything fresh. Do you sleep well?” - -“Yes, Doctor.” - -“Anybody else sleep in the same bed?” - -“No, Doctor.” - -“When you go to bed do you keep the windows open?” - -“Yes, Doctor.” - -“That’s right. That’s very important. Do people spit around you?” (The -Doctor is always on the war-path against this disgusting and dangerous -habit.) - -“No, sir.” - -“Quite sure?” - -“Well, we use spit-boxes.” - -“Do you burn the contents?” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“Do you wear warm things?” - -“Yes, Doctor.” - -“Sweat a lot?” - -“Yes, Doctor.” - -“You mustn’t get wet without changing your clothes. Now, when you eat -potatoes I want you to eat them baked, with the skins on. I don’t mean -eat the skins. But the part right under the skins is very important.” - -“Yes, Doctor.” - -As one listens to such catechizing it becomes clear that the Doctor lays -great stress on fresh air and fresh food as medicines, “Cold is your -friend and heat is your enemy” is his oft-reiterated dictum to -consumptives. - -Once he said to me, “I attach great importance to the sun-bath. I -believe in exposing the naked body to all it can get of the air.” In the -nipping cold of the early morning on the _Strathcona_ I emerged from -beneath four double blankets to hear the Doctor joyfully cry: “I’ve just -had my bucket on deck. You could have had one too, but I lost the bucket -overboard.” It has been a pastime of his to row with a boatload of -doctors and nurses to an iceberg and go in swimming from the platform at -the base of the berg. - -Sometimes the Macedonian cry comes by letter. - -Here is a pencilled missive from an old woman who evidently got a kindly -neighbour to write it for her, for the signature is misspelled: - -“Pleas ducker grandlield would you help me with a little clothing I am a -wodow 85 yars of age.” - -“Grandlield” is not further from the name than a great many have come. -Here are some other common variants: - - Gumpin - Grinpiel - Greenfield - Gramfull - Gremple - Gransfield - -From a village in White Bay, where the fishing was woefully poor in -1919, comes this pathetic plea: - -“To Dr. and Mrs. Grenfell: Dear Friends: I am writing to see if you will -help me a little.—My husband got about 1 qtl of fish (1 -quintal—pronounced kental—of 112 pounds, worth at most $11.20) this -summer, and I have four children, 15, 13, 11, 6 years, and his Father, -and we are all naked as birds with no ways or means to get anything. -What can I do; if you can do anything for me I hope God will bless you. -It is pretty hard to look at a house full of naked children.” - -Mrs. Grenfell visited White Bay in July and in two villages found a -number of people all but utterly destitute. They were living on “loaf” -(bread) and tea. They had icefields instead of fish. Six of the -breadwinners got a job at St. Anthony. The villagers had few pairs of -shoes among them, In several instances the foot-gear was fashioned of -the sides of rubber boots tied over the feet with pieces of string. The -people of this neighbourhood are folk of the highest character, and -richly deserving, though poverty-stricken. - -Another characteristic letter: - -“Dr. dear sir. please send two roals fielt (rolls of felt) one Roal -Ruber Hide (rubberoid) one ten Patent for Paenting Moter Boat some glass -for the bearn (barn) thanks veary mutch for the food you sent me. Glad -two have James Home and his Leg so well you made a splended Cut of it -this time I will all way Pray for you while I Live Potatoes growing well -on the Farm Large Enough two Eaght all redey. But I loast my Cabbages -Plants wit the Big falls rain and snow i the first of the summer, but I -have lotes of turnips Plants I have all the Caplen (a small fish) I -wants two Put on the farm this summer. - -“dr—dear sir I want some nails to finesh the farm fance I farn.” - -In a fisherman’s house in an interval between examinations of children -for tonsils and adenoids the Doctor related this incident to a -spellbound group. He never has any trouble holding an audience with -stories that grow out of his work, and the fishermen delight as he does -in his informal chats with them and with their families. - -“We had a long hunt for a starving family of which we had been told by -the Hudson Bay Company agent, on an island at Hamilton Inlet in -Labrador. The father was half Eskimo. He had a single-barrelled shotgun -with which he had brought down one gull. With his wife and his five -naked children he was living under a sail. The children, though they had -nothing on, were blue in the face with eating the blueberries, and they -were fat as butter. The mate took two of the little ones, as if they -were codfish, one under each arm, and carried them aboard. There were -tears in his eyes, for he had seven little ones of his own, and he was -very fond of children. Both were carefully brought up at our Childrens’ -Home and one of them, who can now both read and write, is aboard at -present as a member of the crew of the _Strathcona_.” - -After evening prayers on Sunday, at which the Doctor has spoken, he has -treated as many as forty persons. - -In one place after removing a man’s tonsils it was a case of eyeglasses -to be fitted, then came one who clamoured to have three teeth extracted. -The teeth were “hauled” and a bad condition of ankylosis at the roots -was revealed. Then a girl had a throat abscess lanced, and she was -followed by a boy with a dubious rash and a tubercular inheritance. The -Doctor is ever on the lookout for the “New World” smallpox: but the -stethoscope detected a pleuritic attack, and strong supporting bandages -were wound about the lower part of his chest. - -Another group was this: - -1. An operation on a child’s tonsils. A local anaesthetic was given—10 -per cent. cocaine. A tooth was also removed. The total charge was $1.00. - -2. A fisherman came for ointments—zinc oxide and carbolic. - -3. An eight months old infant was brought in, blind in the right eye. -This condition might have been obviated had boric acid been applied at -the time of the baby’s birth. The mother said that only a little warm -water had been used. - -So many, though they may not say so, appear to believe with Mary when -she said to Jesus, “Lord, if thou hadst been here my brother had not -died.” They think the Doctor has something like supernatural powers. - -With the utmost care he prepared to administer novocaine and treat the -wound of a man who had run a splinter into his left hand between the -first and second fingers, leaving an unhealed sinus. “Wonderful stuff, -this novocaine!” he remarked, as he put on a pair of rubber gloves, -washed them in alcohol, and then gave his knives a bath in a soup-plate -of alcohol. - -“In the inflamed parts none of these local anaesthetics work very well,” -was his next comment. - -But the patient scarcely felt it when he ran a probe through the hand -till it all but protruded through the skin on the inner side. - -The bad blood was spooned out, and then the deep cavity swallowed about -six inches of iodoform gauze. When the wound had been carefully packed -the hand was bandaged. For nearly an hour’s work requiring the exercise -of rare skill and the utmost caution the charge was—a dollar. And that -included a pair of canvas gloves and another pair of rubber mitts, of -the Doctor’s own devising, drawn over the bandages and tied so that the -man might continue at his work without getting salt-water or any -contaminating substance in the wound and so infecting it badly. - -These two importunate telegrams arrived while he was paying a flying -visit to headquarters at St. Anthony: - - “Do your best to come and operate me I have an abscess under - right tonsil will give you coal for your steamer am getting - pretty weak. - - Capt. J. N. Coté, Long Point.” - -A second telegram arriving almost simultaneously from the same man read: -“Please come as fast as you can to operate me in the throat and save my -life.” - -Captain Coté is the keeper of the Greenly Island Lighthouse, near Blanc -Sablon. It is a very important station. - -The Doctor, true to form, at once made up his mind to go. Greenly Island -is about 100 miles from St. Anthony, and on the opposite side of the -Straits, on the Canadian side of the line that divides Canadian Labrador -from Newfoundland Labrador. The short cut took us through Carpoon -(Quirpon) Tickle, and there we spent the night, for much as the Doctor -wanted to push ahead the wind made the Strait so rough that—having it -against us—the _Strathcona_ could not have made headway. “I remember,” -said the Doctor with a smile, “that once we steamed all night in -Bonavista Bay, full speed ahead, and in the morning found ourselves -exactly where we were the night before. Coal is too scarce now.” On one -occasion the _Strathcona_ distinguished herself by going ashore with all -sails set. - -By the earliest light of morning we were under way. The tendency of a -land-lubber at the wheel off this cruel coast was naturally to give the -jagged and fearsome spines of rock as wide a berth as possible. In the -blue distance might be seen a number of bergs, large and small, just as -a reminder of what the ice can do to navigation when it chooses; and in -the foreground were fishermen’s skiffs bobbing about and taking their -chances of crossing the track of our doughty little steamer. But the -Doctor called in at the door of the wheelhouse: “Run her so close to -those rocks that you almost skin her!” He was thinking not of his ship, -not of himself, but of the necessity of getting to the lonely -lighthouse-keeper at the earliest possible moment, to perform that -operation for a subtonsillar abscess. There was a picture in his mind of -the valiant French Canadian engineer gasping for breath as the orifice -dwindled, and now he was burning not the firewood but coal—a -semi-precious stone in these waters in this year of grace. The -_Strathcona_ labours and staggers; Fritz the dog goes to the bowsprit -and sniffs the sun by day and the moon by night; the ship is carrying -all the bellying sails she has; and the Doctor mounts to the crow’s-nest -to make sure that his beloved new topsail is doing its full share. He -tools the _Strathcona_—when he is at the wheel—as if she were a -taxicab. So the long diagonal across the Strait is cut down, seething -mile by mile, till between Flower’s Cove and Forteau—where the Strait -is at the narrowest, and the shores are nine miles and three-quarters -apart—it almost seems as if an hour’s swim on either hand would take -one to the eternal crags where the iris blows and the buttercup spreads -her cloth of gold. - -We drew near Blanc Sablon (pronounced Sablow) with Grant’s Wharf by the -river. West of that river for several hundred yards it is no man’s land -between the two Labradors—that is to say, between Canada and -Newfoundland. A man stood up in a jouncing power-boat and waved an oar, -and then—his overcoat buttoned up to his ears—our patient, Captain -Coté, stood up beside him. They had come out to meet us to save every -moment of precious time. It was a weak and pale and shaky man that came -aboard—but he was a man every bit of him, and he did not wince when the -Doctor, in the crypt-like gloom of the _Strathcona’s_ saloon, while the -tin lamp was held in front of the Captain’s mouth, reached into the -throat with his attenuated tongs and scissors and made the necessary -incision after giving him several doses of the novocaine solution as a -local anaesthetic. - -“Then the Captain sat back white and gasping on the settle, and—with a -strong Canadian French flavour in his speech—told us a little of his -lonely vigil of the summer. - -“In eighteen days, Doctor, I never saw a ship for the fog: but I kept -the light burning—two thousand gallons of kerosene she took. - -“All summer long it was fog—fog—fog. I show you by the book I keep. -Ever since the ice went out we have the fog. Five days we have in July -when it was clear—but never such a clear day as we have now. Come -ashore with me on Greenly Island and you shall have the only motor car -ride it would be possible for you to have in Labrador.” - -We accepted the invitation. At the head of the wharf were men spreading -the fish to dry—grey-white acres of them on the flakes like a field of -everlastings. In the lee of a hill they had a few potato-plants, fenced -away from the dogs. In a dwelling house with “Please wipe your feet” -chalked on the door we found a spotless kitchen and two fresh-cheeked, -white-aproned women cooking. It was a fine thing to know that they were -upholding so high a standard of cleanliness and sanitation in that -lonely outpost—as faithful as the keeper of the light in his -storm-defying tower. - -From the fish-flakes of the ancient “room” over half a mile of -cinderpath and planking we rode on the chassis of a Ford car, which the -keeper uses to convey supplies. - -“The first joy-ride I ever had in Labrador,” said the Doctor, and the -Captain grinned and let out another link to the roaring wind that -flattened the grass and threatened to lift his cabbage-plants out of -their paddock under his white housewalls. - -Safe in his living-room, with wife and children, two violins, a -talking-machine, an ancient Underwood typewriter and even a telephone -that connected him with the wharf, Captain Coté pulled out his wallet, -selected three ten-dollar bills and offered them to the Doctor, saying: -“I will pay you as much more as you like.” - -Dr. Grenfell took one of the bills, saying, “That will be enough.” - -The Captain, mindful of his promise about the coal, said, “How much coal -do you want?” - -“On the understanding that the Canadian Government supplies it,” -answered the Doctor, “I will let you put aboard the _Strathcona_ just -the amount we used in coming here—5½ tons.” - -The Captain went to the telephone and talked with a man at the wharf. -Then he turned away from the transmitter and said: “He tells me that he -can’t put the coal on board today, because it would blow away while they -were taking it out to the _Strathcona_ on the skiff. We have no sacks to -put it in.” - -“Very well,” returned the Doctor, “when it’s convenient you might store -it at Forteau. They will need it there this winter at Sister Bailey’s -nursing station.” Then he dismissed the subject of the fee and the -fuel-supply to tell us how pleased he was to find that Mackenzie King, -author of “Industry and Humanity,” had become the Liberal leader in -Canada. King is a Harvard Doctor of Philosophy, a man of thought and -action of the type by nature and training in sympathy with Grenfell’s -work. It is a great thing for Canada that a man of his calibre and -scholarly distinction has been raised to the place he holds. - -From the site of the lighthouse there are observed most singular wide -shelves of smooth brown rock presenting their edges to the fury of the -surf, and over the broad brown expanse are scattered huge boulders that -look as though the Druids who left the memorials at Stonehenge might -have put them there. Captain Coté said the winter ice-pack tossed these -great stones about as if it were a child’s game with marbles. - -A happy man he thought himself to have his children with him. The -lighthouse-keeper at Belle Isle lost six of his family on their way to -join him; another at Flower’s Cove lost five. As a remorseless graveyard -of the deep the region is a rival of the dreaded Sable Island off -Newfoundland’s south shore. - -A wire rope indicates the pathway of two hundred yards between the light -and the foghorn: and in winter the way could not be found without it. -The foghorn gave a solo performance for our benefit, at the instigation -of either member of a pair of Fairbanks-Morse 15 horse-power gasoline -engines. We were ten feet from it, but it can be heard ten miles and -more. - -A “keeper of the light” like Captain Coté, or Peter Bourque, who tended -the Bird Rock beacon for twenty-eight years, is a man after Grenfell’s -own heart. For Grenfell himself lets his light shine before men, and -knows the need of keeping the flame lambent and bright, through thick -and thin. - - - - - V - THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY - - -Dr. Grenfell in his battles with profiteering traders has incurred their -enmity, of course—but he has been the people’s friend. The favourite -charge of those who fight him is that he is amassing wealth for himself -by barter on the side, and collecting big sums in other lands from which -he diverts a golden stream for his own uses. The infamous accusation is -too pitifully lame and silly to be worth denying. The most unselfish of -men, he has sometimes worked his heart out for an ingrate who bit the -hand that fed him. His enterprise, whose reach always exceeds his grasp, -is money-losing rather than money-making. - -The International Grenfell Association has never participated in the -trading business. Dr. Grenfell, however, started several stores with his -own money and took it out after a time with no interest. He delights in -the success of those whose aim is no more than a just profit, who buy -from the fisherman at a fair price and sell to him in equity. There is a -co-operative store of his original inspiration and engineering at -Flower’s Cove, and another is the one at Cape Charles, which in five -years returned 100 per cent. on the investment with 5 per cent. -interest. - -Accusations of graft he is accustomed to face, and a commission -appointed by the Newfoundland Legislature investigated him, travelled -with him on the _Strathcona_, and completely exonerated him. Some -persons had even gone so far as to accuse him of making money out of the -old clothes business aboard what they were pleased to term his “yacht.” -They descended to such petty false witness as to swear that he had taken -a woman’s dress with $12 in it. It is wearisome to have to dignify such -charges by noticing them. They are about on a par with the letter of a -bishop who wrote to him: “I should like to know how you can reconcile -with your conscience reading a prayer in the morning against heresy and -schism, and then preaching at a dissenting meeting-house in the -afternoon.” - -A vestryman objected to his preaching in the church at a diminutive and -forlorn settlement because “he talks about trade.” - -The Doctor is never embittered by his traducers. He knows the meaning of -J. L. Garvin’s saying, “He who is bitter is beaten.” Nothing beclouds -for long his sunny temperament, but his unfailing good-humour never -dulls the fighting edge of his courage. - -“I bought a boat for a worthy soul, to set him on his feet,” the Doctor -told me. “She had been driven ashore in North Labrador. I had to buy -everything separately—and the total came to $500. The boat was to work -out the payment. This she did—Alas! later on she went ashore on Brehat -(‘Braw’) Shoals. Only her lifeboat came ashore, with the -name—_Pendragon_—upon it.” - -The Doctor put $1,000 of his money into the co-operative store at -Flower’s Cove, and when the enterprise was fairly launched and the -Grenfell Association decided to abstain from lending help to trade he -drew it out, and asked no interest. That store in its last fiscal year -sold goods to the value of more than $200,000, paying fair prices and -selling at a fair profit. It had three ships in the summer of 1919 -carrying fish abroad—“foreigners.” The proprietor bought for $50 a -schooner that went ashore at Forteau, dressed it in a new suit of sails -worth $1,250, and now has a craft worth $8,000 to him. Dr. Grenfell has -personally great affection for some of the traders—it is the “truck -system” he hates. “Trading in the old days,” the Doctor observes, “was -like a pond at the top of a hill. It got drained right out. The money -was not set in circulation here on the soil of Newfoundland. The traders -in two months took away the money that should have been on the coast. -1919 was the first year in which the co-operative stores themselves sent -fish to the other side. A vessel from Iceland came here to the Flower’s -Cove store; another was a Norwegian; a third came from Cadiz with salt; -and today a small vessel is preparing to go across.” - -At Red Bay is another store to which Dr. Grenfell loaned money, which he -drew out, sans interest, when it was prosperous. It has saved the people -there, as every soul in the harbour will testify. - -The fishermen on the West Coast in 1919 enjoyed something like affluence -as compared with their brethren on the East Coast, where the fish were -scarce. - -Where there were lobsters, they were getting $35.50 or $35.00 per case -of 48 one-pound cans. For cod, $11.20 a quintal of 112 pounds was paid. -In 1918 over $15 per quintal was paid. - -On the other hand, with pork at $100 a barrel, coal at $24 a ton, and -gasoline at 70 cents a gallon, the big prices for fish were matched by -an alarming cost of the necessaries of life. - -Some fishermen make but $200 a year; a few make as much as $2,000 and -even more. The merchant princes as a rule are the store-keepers who deal -with the fishermen. There were two big bank failures in St. John’s years -ago, and since that time many persons have hidden their money in the -ground. One fisherman of whose case I heard had but $35 in cash as the -result of his season’s effort, and he had eight to support besides -himself. The small amount of ready money on which people can live with a -house, a vegetable garden, and a supply of firewood at their backs in -the timbered hillsides is unbelievable. If a man was fortunate enough to -possess any grassland, he might get as much as $65 a ton for his hay in -1919, if he could spare it from his own cows and sheep. It is too bad -that for the sake of the sheep the noble Newfoundland dog that chased -them has had to perish. It is almost impossible today to find a -pure-breed example of the dog that spread the name of the island to the -ends of the earth. Such dogs as there are are remarkably intelligent and -make excellent messengers between a man at work and his house. - -The “Southerners” go to the Grand Banks for their fishing; the others go -to the Labrador. The three classes of fishermen are the shore fishermen, -the “bankers,” and the “floaters”—those of the Labrador. Ordinarily the -catch is reckoned by quintals (pronounced kentals) of 112 pounds. Those -who live on the Labrador coast the winter through are known as the -“liveyers”—the live-heres—and those who come regularly to the fishing -are “stationers” or “planters.” - -During the war big prices have been realized for the fish, and -unprecedented prosperity has come to the fishermen. The growth in the -number of motor-boats is an index of this condition, though with -gasoline at 70 cents a gallon on the Labrador (for the imperial gallon, -slightly larger than ours), the question of fuel has been a disturbing -one to many. Of late much of the fish has been marketed on favourable -terms in the United States and Canada, but before this the preferred -markets in order have been Spain and Portugal, Brazil and the West -Indies. The three grades recognized, from the best to the lowest, are -“merchantable,” “Madeira,” and “West Indies” (“West Injies”), the -last-named for the negroes. - -An industry of growing importance to the future of the Grenfell mission -is the manufacture and sale of “hooked” rugs by the women trained at the -industrial school at St. Anthony. Large department stores in the United -States have begun to buy these rugs in considerable quantities, and the -demand is lively and increasing. - -The Doctor’s delightful sense of humour comes to the fore in his designs -for these rugs, made of rags worked through canvas. The dyes are vivid -green, blue, red, black, brown—the white rivals the driven snow, and -the workmanship is of the best. A favourite pattern shows the dogs -harnessed to the komatik eager to be off, turning in the traces as if to -ask questions of the driver, their attitude alert and alive, while their -two masters standing by the baggage on the komatik, in hoods and heavy -parkas (blouses) rimmed with red and blue, are discussing the route to -take and pointing with their mittened hands. Or the design may show -Eskimoes stealthily stalking polar bears upon an ice-pan of a wondrous -green at the edges. There is a glorious Turnerian sunset in the -background; the sea bristles with bergs arched and pinnacled. The wary -hunters approach their hapless quarry in a kyak. One is paddling and the -other has the rifle across his knees, and the polar bears are nervously -pacing the ice-pan as though conscious of the fate impending. Another -motif in these diverting rugs—which are often used for wall adornments -instead of floor-covering—is a stately procession of three bears uphill -past the solemn green sentinels of pagoda-like fir trees. What an -improvement these designs are over the former rugs which showed -meaningless blotches of pink and green that might have been thrown at -one another, as if a mason’s trowel had splashed them there! - -Since the Labrador is innocent in most places of anything like a store -where you can go to the counter, lay down your money and ask for what -you want, the nearest thing the women know to the luxury of a -shopping-expedition or a bargain-sale is a chance to exchange firewood -or fish for the old clothing carried on her missionary journeys by the -_Strathcona_. - -“Why isn’t this clothing given away?” someone may query unthinkingly. - -The object of the mission is not to pauperize, and the pride of the -people themselves in most cases forbids the acceptance of an outright -gift. - -To preserve self-respect by the exchange of a _quid pro quo_, some of -the clothing contributed by friends in the States and elsewhere is -allocated to the fishermen’s families in return for the supplies of -firewood. The value varies according to the place where the wood is cut -and piled. It may be worth $7 a cord on a certain point or $3 at the -bottom of a bay. (Cutting the wood is called “cleaving the splits.”) The -payment must be very carefully apportioned, so that Mrs. B. shall not -have more or better than Mrs. A.—or else there will be wailing and -gnashing and heart-burning after the boat weighs anchor. - -Before making the rounds of the Straits or of White Bay, or going on the -long trail down North, or wherever else the _Strathcona_ may be faring -on her mission, the big boxes of wearables are opened on the deck and -stored in a pinched triangular stateroom forward of the saloon. There -are quantities of clothing for men—overcoats, sweaters of priceless -wool, reefers, peajackets, shooting-coats, dressing-gowns, -underwear—some of it brand new and most of it thick and good; there are -woolen socks excellently made by many loving hands, shoes joined by the -laces or buttoned together, trousers, jackets, whole suits more or less -in disrepair but capable of conversion to all sorts of useful ends. -Generally the Doctor and Mrs. Grenfell find a pretext for giving some of -the clothing to a needy family even when the fiction of payment in kind -is not maintained. Rarely does the article offered—let us say a hooked -rug in garish colours—meet the value of the garments that are given. -But the important thing is that the recipient is made to feel that he -pays for what he gets and is not a pauper. - -There is ever a want of clothing for the women and children. Few -complete dresses for women find their way to the _Strathcona’s_ -storeroom. There are not nearly enough garments for babies or suits for -little boys. Women’s underclothing is badly needed. But most of those -who come aboard in quest of clothing are grateful for whatever is given -them and make no fuss. They will ingeniously adapt a shirt into a dress -for Susy, and cut a big man’s trousers in twain for her two small -brothers. The Northern housewife learns to make much of little in the -way of textile materials. A barrel of magazines and cards and picture -scrap-books shielded with canvas, stands at the head of the companion -way. Bless whoever pasted in the stories and pictures on the strong -sheets of brown cartridge-paper! Those will be pored over by lamp-light -from cottage to cottage till they fall apart, just as the wooden boxes -of books carried aboard for circulating libraries will provide most of -the life intellectual all winter long for many a village. Many of the -fishermen’s families from the father down are unlettered, but those who -can read and write make up for it by their intellectual activity, and -even the little boys sometimes display a nimbleness of wit and fancy -altogether delightful. They will sing you a song or tell you a -fairy-tale with a naïveté foreign to the American small boy. - -A woman came aboard with her husband—pale, thin, forlorn she was—and -asked for clothing for him. She held each garment critically to the -light, and somewhat disdainfully rejected any that showed signs of -mending. Finally I said: “You’re not taking anything for yourself. Don’t -you need something?” I knew the pitiful huddle of fishermen’s houses -ashore from which she came—the entire population of the settlement was -141, not counting the vociferous array of Eskimo dogs that greeted us -when we landed. - -“I’d like a dress,” she admitted—“for street wear.” - -I thought of the straggling path amid the rocks where the dogs growled -and bristled, but I did not smile. For I realized what this chance to go -shopping meant to her isolated life. In the city she would have had huge -warerooms and piled counters from which to make a choice. Here two -bunks, a barrel and a canvas bag held the whole stock in trade. - -She rejected a sleeveless ball gown of burgundy. “I must have black,” -she said—“we lost a son in the war.” - -The husband began to apologize for the trouble they caused. But we were -more than ever bound to please them now. All the new skirts were found -to be too short or too long or too gay or too youthful or something -else, and the upshot of the dickering was that two pairs of golfer’s -breeches were given in lieu of proper habiliments for a poor, lonely -woman in Labrador. They could be cut down, she explained, for her boys. - -There isn’t much for a woman, in most of these places, but cooking and -scrubbing the floor and minding the baby—something like the Kaiser’s -ideal of feminine existence. And when the floor is clean, booted -fishermen come in and spit upon it even though the white plague is -plainly written in the children’s faces. - -A new chapter in the industrial history of the Labrador will be written -when it becomes possible to utilize the vast supply of news-print -available from the pulp-wood of the Labrador “hinterland,” even as -Northcliffe is getting paper for his many publications from the plant at -Grand Falls in Northern Newfoundland. The difficulty, of course, will be -to get the timber away from the coast in the short season when the land -is released from the grip of the ice-pack. But the great demand for -news-print which leads to anxious examination and utilization of the -supplies of Alaska and Finland cannot much longer neglect the available -resources so near at hand on the coast of the North Atlantic. - -At Humbermouth it was my good fortune to encounter Captain Daniel Owen, -of Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, Captain of the H. V. Greene Labrador -Aerial Expedition. The little vessel _Miranda_ had limped in on her way -to Halifax, to get her boiler mended. - -Captain Owen, himself, deserves more than passing mention. A member of -the Royal Flying Corps, he had his left eye shot out in combat with five -German planes that brought him to the ground 60 miles within their -lines. The observer’s leg was shattered in nine places by their fire. -There followed a sojourn of seven months in three German prison-camps. -The chivalrous surgeon who was first to operate on Captain Owen’s -comrade amused himself and the nurses by twisting bits of bone about in -the leg, laughing, while the nurses laughed too, at the patient’s agony. - -Flying at a height of 2,000 to 8,700 feet, Captain Owen’s party in -Labrador added to the industrial map 1,500,000 acres (about 2,300 square -miles) of land timbered with firs and spruces suitable for pulp-wood, -the property lying on the Alexis, St. Louis and Gilbert Rivers about 15 -miles north of Battle Harbour. This tract will, it is estimated, produce -as much as 115 cords to the acre for a maximum, and on the average 40 to -50 cords. 15,000 photographs were taken, and moving pictures also were -made. The aerodrome was 28 miles up the Alexis River, and according to -Captain Owen it was an extremely serious matter to find the way back to -it each time after a flight for there was no other suitable place to -land anywhere in the neighbourhood. “I never felt so anxious for the -return of an aeroplane in the Western Front as I felt for the safety of -ours,” he said. - -The flying took place on five different days—and in that time as much -was accomplished as might have been done in from six to ten years of the -usual land cruising which—in sample areas—was used to check up the -results of the airmen. - -The propeller of the Curtiss biplane was a mass of blood from the flies -it sucked in. Dr. Murdock Graham, second in command, kept some of these -flies in a bottle as souvenirs, and they were portentous insects. - -“We enjoyed nothing more,” said Dr. Graham, “than an evening spent with -Dr. Grenfell at Battle Harbour where, lolling at ease in corduroy and -his old Queen’s College blazer with the insignia over the left -breast-pocket, pulling a corn-cob pipe, he spun one yarn after another -of the life at the Front with the Harvard contingent in 1915-16. - -“Murphy, the mail-man from Battle Harbour, friend of the Grenfell -mission, friend of everybody, is a man worth knowing. I can hear now his -genial ‘Does ye smoke, boy? Has ye any on ye? Does ye mind, boy?’ He -said to one of our Greene Expedition doctors, ‘Doctor, are all the -Americans like ye? Ye has a kind word for everybody. Has ye any -tobacco?’ ‘By gorry, that’s fine,’ he said of the aeroplane. ‘How do it -do it?’ He was as modest as he was plucky. ‘I don’t want to go and eat -with all those gentlemen, with their fine clothes on,’ he would say. Of -one of the young ‘liveyeres’ he remarked: ‘If he had the learn there’d -be a fine job for him’—which alas! is true of so many on the Labrador. - -“No member of our expedition heard any swearing from the forty men we -employed—with the exception of a single Newfoundlander. I asked one of -the men how they came to be so clean of profanity, and he answered -simply: ‘We doesn’t make a practice of that, we doesn’t.’ - -“At Williams Harbour on the Alexis River there was three weeks’ -schooling by a visiting teacher from the Grenfell mission. In two -families with a joint membership of eighteen one person could read and -write. - -“They have had no minister since the war and in the winter the bottom -falls out of everything. The people on the rivers have no doctor for a -year and a half and two years at a time. At Williams Harbour they -swarmed to Dr. Twiss and Dr. MacDonald. One woman in desperation had -been treating pneumonia with salt-water, snow and white moss. - -“Dr. Grenfell and his people have more than they can do. We all of us -realize today as we never understood before the meaning to the people of -the North of the presence of Grenfell and his people among them. We -caught the spirit of the work inevitably, and tried to do what good we -could while we were there. - -“The folk of the Alexis and the St. Louis River districts, as a rule, -can’t afford the price of gas to go to Battle Harbour. It’s a day’s run, -and there’s nobody to mind their cod-traps when they’re away. So one can -imagine how completely they’d be shut out of the world but for the -contacts which the mission provides even at such long intervals. - -“William Russell is the grand old man of Williams Harbour. He is the -most-travelled and the best-educated man of those parts, and he -represents the finest type of patriarch. He never saw a horse or a cow -or an automobile; he has never been south of Battle Harbour, though he -has visited that diminutive settlement four times. He was dumfounded at -our aeroplane. - -“In his family the father’s word was law to the twelve children. They -never thought of questioning his authority. They were the best behaved -and most dutiful children I have ever seen. Their obedience was -absolute, and their manner to strangers was deferential. They always -said ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir,’ most politely. - -“At his house thirty-one gathered to hear the gramophone—for the first -time. They were packed in as tight as could be, choking the room with -their tobacco-smoke. The first night they were silent. The next night -they were excited, and on the third they became hilarious. - -“As I said, following the Grenfell example, we did what doctoring we -could on the side. The constant diet of bread and tea, tea and bread is -hard on the teeth. There is much pyorrhea due to this diet, to limestone -in the water, and to failure to clean the teeth. At Blanc Sablon we -treated a little boy who had suffered for three weeks with the -toothache. It was a simple case of congested pulp. The relief was -immediate. It is a joy and a reward to behold the gratitude of those who -are helped. - -“I tell you if these people who question the value of Grenfell’s work, -or wonder why he chooses to spend his life in bleak and barren places, -could just see his ‘parishioners’ and know their gratitude toward their -benefactors, they would understand. - -“There was a picturesque soul at Blanc Sablon who asked for tobacco, -which we gave him. He was never off the coast. I don’t know where he had -heard a violin. But to make some return to us for the smoke, he gave us -an imitation of a man first tuning and then playing a violin, which was -perfect in its way.” - - - - - VI - THE SPORTSMAN - - -As we were coming off to the _Strathcona_ one evening, the Doctor, -bareheaded, pulling at the oars with the zest of a schoolboy on a -holiday, and every oar-dip making a running flame of phosphorescence, -said: “At college we worshipped at the shrine of athletics. Of course -that wasn’t right, but it did establish a standard—it did teach a man -that he must keep his body under if he would be physically fit. I -realized that if I wanted to win I couldn’t afford to lose an ounce, and -so I was a rigid Spartan with myself. The others sometimes laughed at me -as a goody-goody, but they saw that I could do things that couldn’t be -done by those who indulged in wild flings of dissipation. - -“My schooling before Oxford I now feel was wretched. They didn’t teach -me how to learn. The teachers themselves were mediocre. They may have -had a smattering of the classics—but that doesn’t constitute fitness to -teach. Have you read the chapter on education in H. G. Well’s ‘Joan and -Peter’? That strikes me as true. - -“I’m glad my orphan children at St. Anthony are getting the right kind -of training from those who understand their business.” - -The Doctor still cherishes the insignia of rowing and athletic clubs to -which he was attached while at Oxford. One of his pet coats wears the -initials “O. U. R. F. C.” for the Oxford University Rugby Football Club. -He also stroked the _Torpid_ crew, and the crew of the London Hospital. - -He hates—in fact, he refuses, like Peter Pan—to grow up or to grow -old. “Isn’t it too bad that just when our minds have struck their stride -and are doing their best work we should have to end it all?” Not that he -has the least fear of Death. In the country of his loving labour, the -fisher-folk face Death so often in their lawful occasions, for the sake -of you and me who enjoy the savour of the codfish and the lobster, that -when Death finally comes he comes not as a dark and awful figure but as -a familiar and a friend. - -[Illustration: “PLEASE LOOK AT MY TONGUE, DOCTOR!”] - -[Illustration: “NEXT!”] - -The conflict of elemental forces in nature finds at once an echo in the -breast of him who has met “with a frolic heart” every mood and tense of -sky and sea “down north.” At Pleasure Harbour the sunset amid dark -purple clouds edged with a rosy fleece brought “vital feelings of -delight”: and when we came nearest the Dominion’s northern tip the -Doctor said: “I wish you could see the strait ice and the Atlantic ice -fight at Cape Bauld. They go at each other hammer and tongs, with a -roaring and rending like huge wild animals, rampant and foaming and -clashing their tusks.” - -On a foggy, super-saturated day, the sails and the deck beaded and -dripping, he will fairly rub his hands in ecstasy and exclaim: “Oh, what -a fine day!” Or he will thrust his ruddy countenance out of his -chart-room door to call: “Isn’t it great to be alive?” - -Off Cape Norman, when the foghorn was blaspheming and the sea ran high, -I tried to get the Doctor to concede that it was half a gale, but he -would only admit that it was a “nice breeze.” The new topsail stubbornly -declined to blossom out as it should, though the five other sails were -in full bloom. “We’ll burst it out,” said the Doctor. The offending sail -was forthwith hauled down and stretched like a sick man on the deck; -then it was tied in three places with tarry cords, the Doctor scurried -up the mast, the sail was raised into place by means of the clanking -winch, and then, with violent tugs of the fierce wind like a fish -plucking at a tempting bait the three confining strings snapped in -explosive succession and like a flag unfurling the sail sprang out to -the breeze. We raised a cheer as the perceptible lift of the additional -sail-cloth thrilled the timbers underfoot. - -You’d hear him trotting about the deck in the cool dawn inquiring about -steam or tide and humming softly (or lifting with the fervour of a -sailor’s chantey), that favourite Newfoundland hymn, written by a -Newfoundlander, “We love the place, O God, wherein thine honour dwells.” - -In the wheelhouse as he looks out over the sea and guides the prow, as -if it were a sculptor’s chisel, through calm or storm, there comes into -his eyes a look as of communing with a far country: his soul has gone to -a secret, distant coast where no man and but one woman can follow. - -Sometimes of an evening the Doctor brought out the chessboard and I saw -another phase of his versatile entity—his fondness for an indoor game -that is of science and not blind chance. The red and white ivory -chessmen, in deference to the staggering ship, had sea-legs in the shape -of pegs attaching them to the board. Two missing pawns—“prawns,” the -Doctor humorously styled them—had as substitutes bits of a red birthday -candle, and two of the rooks were made of green modelling-wax -(plasticine). - -“I love to attack,” said the Doctor, and his tactics proved that he -meant what he said. He has what Lord Northcliffe once named to me as the -capital secret of success—concentration. - -When he has once moved a piece forward he almost never moves it back -again. He likes to go ahead. He seeks to get his pieces out and into -action, and a defensive, waiting game—the strategy of Fabius the -Cunctator—is not for him. - -Once in a while he defers sufficiently to the conventions to move out -the King’s pawn at the start, but often his initial move is that of a -pawn at the side of the board. He works the pawns hard and gives them a -new significance. His delight is to march a little platoon of them -against the enemy—preferably against the bishops. Somehow the bishops -seem to lose their heads when confronted by these minor adversaries. - -If you get him into a tight corner, the opposition stiffens—the greater -the odds the more vertebral his attitude. - -“I make it a rule to go ahead if I possibly can, and not to be driven -back.” This remark of his over the board of the mimic fray applies just -as well to his constant strife with the sea to get where he is -wanted—as on the present occasion when we were threading the needle’s -eye of the rocky outlet at Carpoon. - -The Doctor has the real chess mind—the mind that surveys and weighs and -analyzes—with the uncanny faculty of looking many moves ahead, of -balancing all the alternatives, of remembering the disposal of the -forces at a previous stage of the game. He becomes so completely -immersed in the playing—though he rarely finds an antagonist—that it -is a real rest to him after the teeming day, where many a man would only -find it a culminant exhaustion. “Isn’t it queer,” he observed, “that -most men who are good at this game aren’t good for much else?” - -His use of the pawns in chess is like his use of the weaker reeds among -men in his day’s work. Since he cannot always get the best (though his -hand-picked helpers at St. Anthony, Battle Harbour and elsewhere are as -a rule exceptionally able), he learns to use the inferior and the -lesser, and with exemplary gentleness and patience he keeps his temper -and lets them think they are assisting though they may be all but -hindering. He gives you to feel that if you hold a basin or sharpen a -knife or fetch a bottle or bring him a chair you are of real value in -the performance of an operation—even if the basin was upset and the -knife was dull and the bottle wasn’t the one and the chair had a broken -leg. - -“Christ used ordinary men,” he remarked. “He was a carpenter, and I try -to teach people that he was a good sportsman.” - -All through his chess games, too, runs the Oxford principle of sport for -its own sake: he wins, but the strife is more than the victory. He is -never vainglorious when the checkmate comes; he is neither unduly elated -by success nor depressed by adversity—indeed, his enjoyment is keenest -when he is beset. He shows then the same strain that comes out when the -ship is anchored and Mate Albert Ash pokes his head in and says: “If she -drags, we’ve got but one chain out!” Then he will say nothing, or with a -humorous twinkle he will cry in mock despair: “All is lost!” or “if you -knew how little water there was under her you would be scared!”—and -then he will go on with what he is doing. Whether it is the chessboard -or life’s battlefield, he plays the game. - -On the end of a hackmatack (juniper) log lying on the deck for firewood -I pencilled for fun: “The Log of the _Strathcona_.” The Doctor saw it, -laughed, and got a buck-saw. Two fishermen clambered over the rail -between him and the woodpile, to get zinc ointment and advice. When he -had “fixed them up” he sawed off the log-end, and drew a picture of the -_Strathcona_—an entirely correct picture, of course, as far as it -went—and then put his signature (à la Whistler butterfly) in the form -of a roly-poly elf, as rotund as a dollar. “I like to draw myself stout -and round,” he laughed. The strange gnome he drew was the very -antithesis of his own lithe, spare, close-knit figure. - -So good a playmate and so firm a master—so rare a combination of -gentleness and strength, of self-respect and rollicking fun is difficult -to match in real life or in biographic literature. - -Were one to seek a historic parallel for Grenfell one might not go far -wrong in picking Xenophon. Xenophon was a leader who pointed the way not -from the rear but from the head of the column, and asked of his men -nothing that he would not do himself. The reader of the “Anabasis” will -remember that Xenophon awoke in the night and asked himself “Why do I -lie here? For the night goes forward. And with the morn it is probable -that the enemy will come.” Even so, Grenfell feels that he must do the -works of the Master while it is yet day, for all too soon the night -cometh when no man can work. - -Xenophon had sedition on his hands, and his men would not go out into -the snows of the mountains of Armenia and cut the wood. So he left his -tent and seized an ax and hewed so valorously that they were shamed into -following suit. That is just what Wilfred Grenfell would have done: it -is what his forbear Sir Richard Grenville would have done. In such ways -as this when the hour strikes the born leader of men asserts himself and -takes command. - - - - - VII - THE MAN OF SCIENCE - - -The Doctor admires certain of his scientific colleagues greatly: he is -candidly a hero-worshipper. “I love Cushing and Finney,” he says -outspokenly of the noted Harvard and Johns Hopkins surgeons. A clinic by -Dr. George de Schweinitz or an operation by Dr. John B. Deaver is a rare -treat to him. Sir Frederick Treves, the great English surgeon, has been -among his closest friends since Grenfell served under him in a London -hospital: he has leaned on him always for perceptive advice and sympathy -unfailing. It is one of the paramount satisfactions of his life to meet -other minds in his profession that stimulate his own. In the ceaseless -round of his activities little time is left him to read books: but if he -could he would enjoy no pastime more than to browse in a well-chosen -library. The victories of science hold for him the fascination of -romance. - -The discovery of the electron, in his opinion, might make it possible to -have an entire city in which every material substance should be -invisible. “There is no reason why the forces in action should make a -visible city. We believe today in the unity of matter. It has almost -been demonstrated that we can turn soda into copper. Uranium passes into -radium. Carrel is growing living protoplasm outside the body. Adami has -shown how an electric stimulus applied to the ovum of frogs produces -twins. The electron is the manifestation of force. - -“It is almost certain that there is no such thing as physical life. No -matter could exist without movement—the sort of movement you behold -when the spinthariscope throws the radiations from bromide of radium on -a fluorescent screen. If there is no physical life, there is no death. -So many things exist that we do not see. We cannot see ether or weigh -it, but we know that it exists. There is a physical explanation of the -resurrection. The whole universe is incessant motion, just as sound is -vibration—the ordinary C with 256 vibrations, the octave with 512, the -next octave with 1,024 vibrations to the second. - -“Tin is a mass of whirling electrons. Gold is composed of a different -number of electrons. That’s why we can’t cross from one to the other.” - -It is not quite fair to put down these random remarks, on an extremely -abstruse matter—thrown over the Doctor’s shoulder as he flits about a -village, the dogs at his heels—without quoting his more deliberate -formulation of his ideas in an article in “Toilers of the Deep.” In that -article he writes: - -“If chemistry of today has made it certain that there is no such thing -in the human body as a transcendental entity called ‘life,’ and every -function and every organ of the body can be chemically or physically -accounted for, then it is obvious that we have no reason to weep for it. -More infinitely marvellous the more we learn of it, so marvellous that -no one can begin to appreciate it but the man of science, it helps us to -realize how easily He who clothed us with it can provide another equally -well adapted to the needs of that which awaits us when we go ‘home.’ We -have learned to enlarge our physical capacities, our ‘selves,’ the -microscope, the ultramicroscope, the spectroscope, the electroscope, the -spinthariscope, the ophthalmoscope, the fluoroscope, the telescope, and -other man-made machines have made the natural range of the eye of man a -mere bagatelle compared with what it now commands and reveals. The -microphone, the megaphone, the audophone, the wireless and other -machinery have as greatly enlarged our command of the field of sound. -Space has been largely conquered by electric devices for telephoning, -telegraphing, and motor power. On the land, under the sea, in the air, -man is rapidly acquiring a mastery that is miraculous. - -“The marvels of manufacture are miracles. Machinery can now do anything, -even talk and sing far beyond the powers of normal human capacities. The -plants and animals of normal nature can be improved beyond recognition. -The old deserts are being forced to blossom like roses; the most potent -governing agencies of the life of the body, like adrenalin, can be made -from coal tar. Seas are linked by broad water pathways, countries are -united by passages through mountains and under the water. We can see -through solid bodies, we can weigh the stars in balances, we can tell -their composition without seeing them. We can describe the nature and -place of unseen heavenly bodies, and know the existence and properties -of elements never seen or heard of. We know that movement is not a -characteristic of life, unless we are to believe that the very rocks are -alive, for we can see that it is movement alone that holds their -ultimate atoms together. - -“The mere ‘Me,’ the resultant of all past and present influences on the -‘I,’ is so marvellous, that we must find it ever increasingly impossible -to conceive that we are the products of blind chance, or the sport of a -cruelty so horrible as to make the end one inconceivable tragedy. - -“No, if science teaches that there is no entity called ‘life,’ and it -seems to do so, I for my part gladly accept it as yet another tribute at -the feet of the Master Builder who made and gave my spirit—mine, if you -please—a spirit so insignificant, so unworthy, such an unspeakable gift -as that of a body with capacities such as this one, to be the mechanical -temple and temporary garment of my spirit, and to offer me a chance to -do my share to help this wonderful world. ‘No life,’ says science, -‘there is no life.’ But a knowledge more reliable than current -knowledge, that entered the world with the advent of man, and that has -everywhere in every race of mankind been in the past his actually most -valued possession, replies ‘Yes, and there is no death either.’” - -One day his morning greeting was: “Nitrogen is gone!” “Too bad!” I said. -“You can search me. I haven’t got it.” “I mean,” he explained, “that -here in this copy of the ‘Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of -Canada’ Sir Ernest Rutherford sets forth the theory that the molecule of -nitrogen is a helium universe with hydrogen for its satellites and -helium as the sun.” He was almost as much interested in the discovery as -if it were a hole in the bottom of his boat. - -“I’ve just been reading a magazine article on the subject of psychic -research by Booth Tarkington,” he added presently. “It’s well written -and exceedingly interesting. Most men of science have been convinced of -the reality of the spiritual body.” - -He is an artist of no slight attainment and in his home at St. Anthony -specimens of his handicraft abound, but not obtrusively. Dr. Grenfell -never puts anything that he is or has done on view to be admired. - -He is a keen ornithologist, and even when he is at top speed to get back -to his boat and weigh anchor he will pause to note the friendly grackles -hopping about a wharf or the unfettered grace of the gyrations of the -creaking gulls. He is a collector of butterflies. “I was out driving -with a man who didn’t see the butterflies and had no interest in them. -Just think what such a man misses in his life!” - -He also collects birds’ eggs, flowering plants (many of which have been -named at Cambridge), seaweed and shells. The great book he wrote and -edited on Labrador gives a clear idea of his interest in the geology as -well as the fauna and flora of the region. - -I found him the last thing at night at St. Anthony trying to discover -why one of a pair of box kites he had made wouldn’t remain aloft as it -should. - -He is perpetually acquisitive and inquisitive: the diversity of his -interests rivals the appetite of Roosevelt for every sort of -information. Sir Frederick Treves mourned that a great surgeon was lost -to London when Grenfell embarked on the North Sea to the healing and -helping of fishermen. But Grenfell has become much more than a great -surgeon. With all that he is and does, he gives to every part of his -almost boundless field of interests a careful, methodical, analytic -intellect. Haste and the constant pressure of his over-driven life have -not made him superficial. He sets a sail with the same care he gives to -the setting of a compound fracture: he is of the number of those who -believe that there is but one right way to do everything. Of such is the -kingdom of science and of inestimable service. - - - - - VIII - THE MAN OF LAW - - -In his capacity as magistrate, the Doctor never sidesteps trouble. Law -in his part of the world is a matter not merely of the letter but of the -spirit—not of the statute alone but of shrewd common sense. His -decisions are luminous with a Lincolnian light of acumen and sympathy at -once. He lets the jot and tittle—the mint, anise-seed and cummin—take -care of themselves, and considers the real significance of the situation -and the essential nature of the offence. Red tape is not the important -thing, and the imaginary dignity of an invisible judicial ermine is not -besmirched because Magistrate Grenfell discusses the case with a culprit -as a father might talk things over with a son, and makes it plain why -wrong was done—if it was done—and why there must henceforth be a -different course on the part of the offender. He “lays down the law” not -as if it were a Mosaic dispensation from a beclouded mountain top, but -as if it were the simple and discreet way to walk for God-fearing and -reasonable mankind. To him, forever, a man’s own soul is a matter more -important than an ordinance, and he spares no pains to make his meaning -so plain that the dullest apprehension cannot fail to grasp it. You will -see Grenfell at his best when—in a whipping wind, bareheaded, -sweatered, rubber-booted—he stands in the clear glitter of a bracing -sunny day on the beach with the dogs aprowl around him, painstakingly -explaining to a fisherman why it is right to do thus and reprehensible -to do otherwise. And now and then a hearty laugh or a timely -anecdote—Lincoln’s trait again—clears the atmosphere. Sometimes there -are more formidable leets and law courts held among the whalemeat -barrels and the firewood on the _Strathcona_: but more often it is a -plain matter of a tête-à-tête while Grenfell is on his rambling rounds -of a hamlet with his dilapidated leather bag of instruments and -medicines. - -Forteau offered its own problems to Dr. Grenfell, the Magistrate. There -is an isle not far away where that sometimes toothsome bird the puffin -makes his home. Fishermen from Forteau, hard put to it to secure -anti-scorbutic fresh meat, might now and then shoot one of the birds, -and the duty of the faithful lighthouse-keeper, Captain Coté, an -appointed game-warden, was to see that the law’s majesty made itself -respected. One day Coté caught a hunter red-handed. “By what warrant do -you arrest me?” said the man behind the gun. “By this!” said Coté, -flourishing a revolver. Is a magistrate to blame if he believes that -common sense should differentiate between a poor fisherman desperate -with hunger, and a pot-hunter who commits wholesale murder among the -eider-ducks sitting on their nests? Usually it is the poor fisherman who -is fined and made to give up his gun, because he pleads “guilty,” while -the pot-hunter who unblushingly pleads “not guilty” goes scot-free. A -fisherman at Flower’s Cove told me that a late lamented coast -magistrate—who got half of the fines he imposed—was making “big money” -from his calling. He fined one man $100 for importing a second-hand -stove without paying customs duties. When the _Strathcona_ hove in -sight, bearing Dr. Grenfell, this profiteering magistrate weighed anchor -in haste, and in a heavy beam sea and shallow water made his “get-away.” - -There are always disputes between traders and fishermen to be -adjudicated. Two men within an hour of each other clambered over the -rail of the _Strathcona_ to display dire written threats of wrath to -come from the same West Coast merchant, in a court summons served by a -constable. This document, accompanying a bill of particulars, says that -if they don’t pay at once the balance due they’ll have to go to St. -John’s at a cost of fifty dollars in addition to whatever the amount may -be which the law assesses against them. It isn’t just the amount of the -ticket to St. John’s, or the board while they are there: it’s the loss -of time from the traps that is exacerbating. - -The trader isn’t in the wrong just because he is a trader. The fisherman -hasn’t all the right on his side by the fact of being a fisherman, but -the bookkeeping of these traders seemed to be at very loose ends indeed. -Long after the debtor thought he had paid all his debt, in cash or in -kind, the trader unearthed on the books items of 1915, 1916 or 1917 -which he forgot to charge for. Here they bob up like a bay seal, to the -consternation of the man who thought the slate had been sponged off -clean “far away and long ago.” - -One of the two who brought their present perplexity to the Doctor had -had the misfortune to lose his house by fire, and all the trader’s -receipts therein, so that he had no written line to show against the -trader’s bill. - -I found out later that the trader’s daughters kept the books—in fact, I -saw them behind the counter at their father’s store—and they were said -to be indifferent and slovenly misses indeed, who used their thumbs for -erasures and made as many mistakes in a day’s work as there are -blueberries on Blomidon. Perhaps they were in love—but their -hit-or-miss accountancy meant a terrible worriment for sea-faring men -two hundred miles distant, and a pother of trouble for Dr. Grenfell and -a St. John’s lawyer—a friend of the Doctor’s who befriends those who -cannot afford or do not know how to obtain legal advice. - - - - - IX - THE MAN OF GOD - - -In his formal addresses Dr. Grenfell exemplifies the homely, pithy -eloquence that comes from speaking directly “to men’s business and -bosoms” out of the fulness of the heart: but those who have heard him in -the little, informal, offhand talks he gives among his own people in his -own bailiwick appreciate them even more than what he has to say to a -congregation of strangers in a great city far from the Labrador. - -It must be understood that the quotations that follow are merely -extemporaneous, unrevised sentences taken down without the Doctor’s -knowledge, and of a nature wholly casual and unpremeditated. - -At a service held in the tiny saloon of the _Strathcona_ for the crew -and the patients who happened to be with us, the Doctor said: - -“We so often think that religion is bound to be dull and solemn and -monotonous: we don’t follow the example of Christ who spread light and -joy wherever he went. None of us is perfect, but God doesn’t denounce -Dr. Grenfell and Will Sims and Albert Ash (naming members of the crew) -for their shortcomings. That isn’t his way. He knows us as we are, with -all our weaknesses. He loved David—he said that David was a man after -his own heart. Yet David was a bad man—he was an adulterer and -incidentally a murderer, and he got his people into trouble that lost -thousands of their lives. But God loved him in spite of his human -frailties, because he did such a lot of good in the world. - -“It doesn’t do to take a single text. For instance—we read ‘The world -is established so that it cannot be moved,’ but we know that it is all -movement: we know that it moves at a pace six times as fast as the -fastest aeroplane. But the Church looked at that verse and said that he -who denied it was denying the truth. I was reading this morning about -Copernicus, who insisted that this world is round. Up to his time men -had insisted that it was flat and that you might fall off the edge. Then -there was Galileo, who said that it moved: and they put him under the -thumbscrews, and when he came out he said, ‘and still it does move.’ - -[Illustration: DR. GRENFELL LEADING MEETING AT BATTLE HARBOUR.] - -“So often Christian people think it’s their duty to forbid and to -repress and to bring gloom with a long face where they go. But that -wasn’t Christ’s way and it isn’t God’s way. If religious people do these -things people begin to suppose that religion is something to destroy the -joy of living. But that isn’t what it’s for. It’s to make us kinder to -fathers and mothers and sisters and friends, and true to the duty -nearest our hand. - -“I love to think of David as the master musician who went about -scattering good and dispelling the clouds of heaviness. We ought to -follow his example. Sometimes we say ‘Oh, they’ve all been so mean to me -I’ll take it out on them by being sour and dull and jealous and bitter!’ -Here in this crew we get to know one another almost as well as God knows -us, and we see one another’s faults. It’s so easy to spy out faults when -we’re so close together, day after day. But we should be blind to some -things—like Nelson at Copenhagen. You remember when they gave the -signal to retreat he put his blind eye to the telescope. - -“If God looked for the faults in us, who could stand before Him? None of -us is perfect. Let us judge not that we be not judged, and mercifully -learn to make allowances. I knew a man who had been the cause of a loss -of $20,000 to his employer, through costly litigation that was the -result of his mistakes. His master, nevertheless, gave him a second -chance, with an even better job. Later I asked him if the man was making -good. He replied, ‘He is the best servant I have.’ Even so we ought to -learn to be long-suffering with others, as God is lenient until seventy -times seven with us.” - -In the little church at Flower’s Cove the Doctor spoke on the meaning of -the words of Christ in Mark 8, 34, as given in the vernacular version: -“If any man wishes to walk in my steps, let him renounce self, take up -his cross, and follow me.” - -“What is there that a man values more than his life? - -“When I was here early in the spring there was a man who was in a -serious way. I told him he should come to the hospital at St. Anthony -for an operation. He said he must get his traps and his twine ready. -Then when I came again in June I saw that he was worse, and I again gave -him warning that in six months at most the results might be fatal. Still -he said that he could not go. When I came ashore today I learned that he -was dead. The twine was ready—but he was gone. That is the way with so -many of us. We say we are too busy—we can always give that excuse—and -then death finds us, grasping our material possessions, perhaps, but -with the great ends of life unwon. Its only a stage that we cross for a -brief transit, coming in at this door and going out at that. It won’t do -to play our part just as we are making our exit—we must play it while -we are in the middle of the stage. - -“At Sandwich Bay we followed a stream and the two men on the other side -called my attention to the tracks of a bear: and when we came back to -the boat the men aboard said they had seen two bears wandering about. -The bears were unable to hide their tracks, and even so you and I cannot -conceal the traces of our footsteps where we went. Captain Coté at the -Greenly Island Light showed us the model of a steamship—made with a -motor costing a dollar and a half that ran it in a straight line for an -hour. It had no volition of its own. Man is not like that soulless boat: -he has a mind of his own. We are surrounded by amazing discoveries: -great scientists are ever toiling on the problem of communication with -the dead. Men laughed at the alchemists of old: we laugh no longer at -the idea of changing one substance into another. We can change water -with electricity and change one frog’s egg into twins. We can fly from -St. John’s to England in a day. We can see through solid -substances—come to St Anthony and I will show it to you with the X-ray -apparatus. What fools we are to deny immortality and the resurrection! -What are realized values as compared with the spiritual? There was the -ship _Royal Charter_ for Australia that went ashore at Moidra in Wales. -A sailor wrapped himself in gold and it drowned him. Would you say that -he had the gold or that the gold had him? - -“The carol of good King Wenceslaus tells us of the blessings that came -to the little lad who followed in the footsteps of the king. Even so, -better things than any temporal benefits come to us if we walk in the -steps of Christ. - -“Some of the soldiers of the war returning to this country are not -acting as soldiers should. They are importing foreign vices. I have seen -lately horrible examples of the suffering of the innocents as a result -of their misdeeds. There are more communicable diseases in the present -year than we have ever had before on this coast. A man has no right to -the title of a soldier who does not walk in Christ’s steps—he has no -right to the name, when he pleases self and damns his country and his -fellow-men and fellow-women. - -“We have among us the deplorable spectacle of many weak sectarian -schools—and it is a wicked thing that we do not combine them in strong -undenominational ones. So many things cry out for changing. Today I -visited a family and found the father had tuberculosis. The -mother?—tuberculosis. The children?—tuberculosis. Then I saw a baby -whose head was not filled up, whose arms were puny, whose shoulders were -constricted. From what? From rickets. The rickets came from bad feeding -due to ignorance. I saw another child with the same complaint from the -same cause. - -“American bank-notes are made of paper that comes from Dalton, -Massachusetts. The finest quality of paper is made of rags. They can use -old rags and dirty rags—but they cannot use red ones. In explaining the -manufacture to children I heard the manager speak of the rags as being -‘willing’ or ‘unwilling.’ The red ones were the ‘unwilling’ ones, and -one of the children afterward said she’d rather be a willing rag. We may -be poor and sorry objects—we may be rags—but there is something to be -made of us if only we are willing rags. - -“I came to a paralyzed boy. He said, ‘What can I do, Dr. Grenfell?’ I -said, ‘You can smile upon all those who minister to you or come where -you are. You can spread the spirit of good cheer even from your -bedside.’” - -“I was present at Pilley’s Island when a soldier came home who had won -the V. C. What a welcome he received! There was a triumphal arch and the -town turned out to do honour to its hero. He was the right sort of -soldier.” - -Norman Duncan wrote a delightful book called “Doctor Luke of the -Labrador” which very faithfully mirrors the atmosphere of Dr. Grenfell’s -days and doings. But the book is not to be taken as faithful biography -_verbatim et literatim_, in the passages relating to the titular hero. - -The Doctor has nothing in the open book of his past life for which he -needs to make amends; but the hero of “Doctor Luke” has something -mysterious to live down, the precise nature of which is not divulged. In -many admirable qualities the portrait of “Doctor Luke” is a faithful -likeness of Dr. Grenfell, and that is why there is a danger that the -reader will think that in all particulars the book man and the real man -correspond. “Doctor Luke” goes to the Labrador to flee from his own -shadow—a man pursued by bitter memories of what he has done, and by -mocking wraiths of sin, their fingers pointed at him. Dr. Grenfell went -to the Labrador because the spirit moved him to go to the help of men -whose lives were as cold as the ice and as hard as the rock that hemmed -them in. He went not as one who sorrows over misspent years but as one -who rejoices in the belief that his work has the smile of God upon it. -Dr. Grenfell has the spirit of any first-rate missionary—he will not -admit that he has elected a life of brain-fag, bodily travail and -spiritual torment. His joy in doing and giving is unaffected. When he -invites the rest of us to find life beautiful and bountiful he does not -pose nor prate. He walks in the steps and in the name of Christ with a -child’s humility, a man’s strength, an almost feminine tenderness and -never a breath of that maudlin, unctuous sanctimoniousness which always -must repel the virile and vertebrate fibre of the Thomas Hughes brand of -“muscular Christianity.” Dr. Grenfell likes gospel hymns where some -prefer sonatas and concertos, but he likes them when they carry a plain -and pointed message from the heart to the heart, and build up a -consciousness of our human interdependence: he would not care for them -if they merely blew into flame the emotional fire-in-straw that burns -itself out uselessly because of the want of substantial fuel. - -To the humble millionaire or the haughty workingman his manner is the -same. He knows what it means “to walk with kings nor lose the common -touch.” Nor is he easily fooled. “Though I give my body to be burned, -and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” - -“I talked with Mr. A.,” he told me, referring to his visit with a -Croesus of New York who to certain ends has given largely, “and I felt -somehow that, with all his giving, he had not given himself!” - -That is the secret, it seems to me, of Dr. Grenfell’s own cogent power -upon other lives—that he goes and does in his own energetic person. He -does not stand at a distance issuing commands. He is entirely willing to -help anybody, anywhere. He holds back nothing that he can bestow, and he -never despairs. His ruddy optimism is a matter of actual daily practice -and not of a cloistered philosophy. You never could persuade him that -with all the heavy burden that he bears, the myriad interruptions and -vexations that occur, he is not having a grand good time. He would be -entirely ready to say with Stevenson: - - “Glad did I live and gladly die - And I laid me down with a will!” - - - - - X - SOME OF HIS HELPERS - - -I should like to write a whole book about his helpers. He is not a man -who seeks to shine by surrounding himself with mediocrities. He would be -ready to say with Charles M. Schwab: “I want you to work not for me but -with me.” His presence is quickening and engenders loyalty. It is fun to -be wherever Dr. Grenfell is because something is always going on. - -His helpers never are given to feel that they are ciphers while he is -the integer. Some of the ablest surgeons of America and of Europe have -ministered to the patients at Battle Harbour, Indian Harbour and St. -Anthony and on the _Strathcona_. There is an utter absence of “side” and -“swank” in this the good physician, and he never decks himself out in -the borrowed plumage of another’s virtue. He delights to see a thing -well done, and is the first to bestow the word of earned praise on the -doer. Conversely, he is not happy if a job is put through in a bungling, -half-hearted, messy fashion; but he keeps his breath to cool his -porridge, and never wastes it by mere “blowing off” when the mischief is -done and palaver will not mend matters. - -Human beings are not angels, and even those who are upheld by a sense of -righteous endeavour may get tired and short-tempered and disheartened -and lonely. Those who attach themselves to this enterprise for the weeks -of summer sunlight only do not have much time to develop nostalgia. But -“there ain’t no busses runnin’ from the bank to Mandalay,” and the -Labrador has no theatres, no picnics, no ball games and few dances. -Think of the large-hearted Moravian Brethren of the Labrador whose -missions are linked with London by one visit a year from their mission -ship the _Harmony_. Think of the man (Mr. Stewart) who sticks it out by -himself at Ungava round the chill promontory of Cape Chidley in Ungava -Bay. Think of the agents of the Hudson Bay and other companies dealing -with the “silent, smoky Indian” in the vast reaches of the North. -Whoever essays to serve God and man in this country must haul his own -weight and bear others’ burdens too. He must lay aside hindrances—he -must forfeit love of home and kindred—he must learn to keep normal and -cheerful in the aching solitudes. - -Many are with the Doctor for a season or so. Some like Dr. Little, Dr. -Paddon and Dr. Andrews and certain others who deserve to be named -_honoris causa_—have stood by him year after year. But by this time -there is a small army of short-term or long-term Grenfell graduates—men -and women—who had “their souls in the work of their hands” and whose -precious memories are of the days they spent in assuaging the torment, -physical or spiritual, of plain fisher-folk. It is not possible to -separate in this case the care of bodies from the cure of souls. The -“wops” who brought the schooner _George B. Cluett_ from Boston year -after year, laden with lumber and supplies, and then went ashore to be -plumbers and carpenters and jacks-of-all-trades for love and not for -hire have their own stories to tell of “simple service simply given to -their own kind in their human need.” Most of them knew just what they -would be up against; they knew it would not be a glorified house-party; -but they accepted the isolation and the crudeness and the cold and the -unremitting toil, and in the spirit of good sportsmanship which is the -ruling spirit of the Grenfell undertaking they played the game, and what -they did is graven deep in the Doctor’s grateful memory. - -The Doctor wins and keeps the enthusiastic loyalty of his colleagues -because he is so ready with the word of emphatic praise for what they do -when it is the right thing to do. He is fearless to condemn, but he -would rather commend, and the flush of pleasure in the face of the one -praised tells how much his approval has meant to the recipient. He knows -how many persons in this human, fallible world of ours travel faster for -a pat than for a kick or a blow. - -A halt was called at Forteau for a few hours’ conference with one of the -remarkable women who have put their shoulders under the load of the -Labrador—Sister Bailey, once a co-worker with Edith Cavell. At Forteau -she has a house that holds an immaculate hospital-ward and an up-to-date -dispensary. For twelve years—except for two visits in England—she has -held the fort here without the company of her peers, except at long -intervals. She has kept herself surrounded with books and flowers, and -her geraniums are exquisite. Sister Bailey’s cow, bought for $40 in a -bargain at Bonne Esperance (“Bony,”) is a wonder, and I took pains to -stroke the nose of this “friendly cow” and praise her life-giving -endeavours. For each day at the crack of dawn there is a line-up of -people with all sorts of containers to get the milk. The dogs, of -course, would cheerfully kill the animal if they could pull her down, -but she fights them off with her horns, and they have learned a -wholesome fear. She is not like the cow at Bonne Esperance today, which -has suffered the loss of part of its hind quarters because it was too -gentle. - -Under Sister Bailey’s roof three maids, aged 12, 13 and 22, are being -educated in household management. She has a garden with the dogs fenced -out, and there is a skirmish with the weeds all through the summer into -which winter breaks so suddenly. There is no spring; there is no fall; -flowers, vegetables and weeds appear almost explosively together. - -Artificial flowers are beautifully made—with dyes from Paris—by the -girls of Forteau Cove, under Sister Bailey’s supervision. The hues are -remarkably close to the original and the imitation of petal and leaf is -so close as to be startling. - -[Illustration: ST. ANTHONY HOSPITAL IN WINTER.] - -[Illustration: SOME OF THE HELPERS.] - -No description of Dr. Grenfell’s “parish,” as Norman Duncan aptly styled -it, could be complete without mention—that would be much more extended -did she permit—of the part Mrs. Grenfell fills in all that the Doctor -does. Mrs. Grenfell was Miss Anna MacClanahan, of Chicago, and she is a -graduate of Bryn Mawr. The Doctor went to the Labrador years before his -marriage, but since she took her place at his side with her tact, her -humour, her common sense, her sound judgment and her broad sympathies, -she has been a tower of strength, a well-spring of solace and of -healing, and altogether an indispensable factor in her husband’s -enterprise. - -She is his secretary, and the number of letters to be written, of -patients’ records to be kept, of manuscripts to be prepared for the -press is enormous. The Doctor pencils a memorandum when and where he -can—perhaps sitting atop of a woodpile on the reeling deck of the -_Strathcona_; and then Mrs. Grenfell tames the rebellious punctuation or -supplies the missing links of predicates or prepositions and evolves a -manuscript that need not fear to face the printer. - -The letters of appeal are almost innumerable, of protest occasional, of -sympathy and friendship—with or without subscriptions—very numerous, -and Mrs. Grenfell has the happy gift of saying “thank you” in such warm -and gracious, individualizing terms that the donor is enlisted in a -lifelong friendship for the Grenfell idea. - -Mrs. Grenfell is “the life of the party” wherever she goes. Like the -Doctor, she refuses to grow tired of the great game of living, and it is -a game they play together in a completely understanding and sympathetic -copartnership. - -General “Chinese” Gordon once gave as the reason for not marrying the -fact that he had never found the woman who would follow him anywhere. -Dr. Grenfell has been more fortunate. A friend of theirs tells me that -Dr. Grenfell proposed on shipboard, almost the minute he met his wife. -Astounded by his precipitancy, she said: “But, Doctor, you don’t even -know my name!” “That doesn’t make any difference; I know what it’s going -to be,” is said to have been his characteristic answer. - -Mrs. Grenfell was translated from a life that might have been one of -ease and pleasure and social preoccupation into a life of unremitting -toil and no small measure of actual hardship, and she meets the day and -whatever it brings in the same high-hearted mood that her husband -carries to the various phases of his crowded existence. She is his -mentor—without being a tormentor; she is his business memory and a deal -of his common sense and social conscience: but she never lets her fine, -keen mind, her quick wit and her readily divining intuition become -absorbed in the mechanic phases of the regulation of household or -boatload business. She has the happy faculty of instant transplantation -from the practical task to the ideal atmosphere. She is the Doctor’s -workmate, playmate and helpmate: the complete and inspiring counterpart. -She knows better than anybody else that she has a great man for a -husband, but she never lets that consciousness become oppressive, and -she knows that it is good for them both to yield to the playful spirit -of rollicking nonsense and absurd horseplay now and then. So you needn’t -be surprised if you should find the pair chasing each other about the -deck pretending a mortal combat with billets of birch-wood, while the -distracted Fritz the dog cannot make up his mind whether he is in duty -bound to bite his mistress or his master. You needn’t be surprised if -the Doctor goes through a mighty pantomime of barricading his chart-room -as though his better half had no business in it, or hides some one of -her cherished Lares and Penates and assumes an innocent ignorance of its -whereabouts. When he is at play Dr. Grenfell is not a bit older than the -youngest of his three delightful children whose combined ages cannot be -much more than fifteen years. He is the same sort of amusing and devoted -father as the mourned and beloved head of the household at Sagamore -Hill, who to Dr. Grenfell—of course—is the pattern of all that the -head of a family and the soul of a nation should be. - -The family life of the Grenfells and the perfect mutuality of thought -and feeling between Dr. Grenfell and his wife stand out in clear-cut -lines as an example to those who never have known the meaning of the -complete community of ideals in the family life and in the relationship -of wife and husband. It stands in rebuke to the sorrowful travesty the -modern marriage so often exhibits. It shows how the strength of either -partner in the marriage of true minds is multiplied tenfold and how the -yoke is easy and the burden is light when love has entered in— - - “The love you long to give to one - Made great enough to hold the world.” - - - - - XI - FOUR-FOOTED AIDES: DOGS AND REINDEER - - -In few places are the dogs so numerous and so noisy as at Forteau, and -Sister Bailey’s team held the primacy for speed and condition and -obedience to command—yet she ruled them by moral suasion and not by -kicks and curses. That does not mean they were dog angels. Every “husky” -is in part a wolf, and the gentlest and most amiable that fawns upon you -will in a twinkling go from the Dr. Jekyll to the Mr. Hyde in his -make-up when the breaking-point is passed. The leaders of the pack were -two monsters named Scotty and Carlo, and they were rivals to the end of -the tether. Carlo was a sentimentalist of a hue between fawn and grey: -his greatest pleasaunce was to put his forepaws on your shoulders and -lick your nose ere you could stave him off. Scotty’s nose—he was black -and white—was embossed with the marks of many bitter duels. Probably -the other dogs could read those marks, as a Bret Harte cowboy could read -the notches on a gun, and he won respect commensurate with the length -and breadth of the scratches. Scotty came with us on the _Strathcona_, -as his mistress was leaving for a rest in England shortly. It was a job -to persuade him aboard the boat, but once there he entered into a tacit -agreement, as between gentlemen, that he should have the after deck -while Fritz, our official dog, monopolized the prow. Scotty had the -better of the bargain, for his bailiwick included the cook’s galley. But -Fritz could sleep on the floor of my cabin, though whenever I looked for -him on the floor he was snugly ensconced in a forbidden lower bunk, -curled up like a jelly roll. He learned to vacate without even a word -when I gazed at him reproachfully. - -All Sister Bailey’s dogs, and a great many more, converged upon the -beach when Fritz swam ashore and shook himself free from such marine -algae as he might have collected on his course. We kept Fritz close at -heel, but there were constant alarums and incursions. As we sauntered -along the shore path by the fish-flakes where the women were turning -over the fish under the threat of rain, Fritz was in a measure taken -into the loosely cohesive _plunderbund_ of Sister Bailey’s pack. They -seemed to be saying to him after their fashion: “Oh, well, you are a -foreigner from that ship out yonder in the cove, to be sure, but here we -are passing one hostile tribe after another, and we may need you any -time to help us out in a scrap, so you may as well travel along with our -bushy tails—though yours points toward the ground, and you can’t be -very much of a dog, after all.” - -For dogs appeared in squads, platoons, companies, battalions, even as -iron-filings cluster to a magnet. There was a most outrageous and unholy -pow-wow when we had gone about five houses from the beach. All the dogs -from near and far piled into it like hornets from a broken nest. There -was no speech nor language known to dogdom in which their voices were -not heard with howls and imprecations. Alas! even the gentle Sister -Bailey had to abandon for the nonce her policy of moral suasion and get -in among her protégés with thwackings of a bit of driftwood and a few -well-directed pushes (not to say kicks) of the foot. Any moderate -impact, when a scrap is in full swing, rebounds from the tough -integuments like hailstones landing on a tin roof. Even an every-day -argument of these beasts sounds like wholesale murder. It is a pathetic -fact that with all the affectionate responsiveness of some of the -animals to human notice there always lurks a danger. If you are a -stranger, meeting a strange pack, it is well to keep your eyes upon -them, and if you have not a stick in your hand, or a stone ready to -throw, it is wholesome to stoop groundward and pretend you have a -missile. Then, nine times out of ten, they will scatter. So often one -would like to believe they are all dog, with all of the dog’s graces and -goodnesses—but there reigns in the breast of each a vulpine jealousy -that easily and instantly mounts to a blood-heat of maddened fury. Dogs -of the same litter will fight as furiously and savagely as born enemies, -though they may recognize in the traces intuitively the leadership of -their mother at an age far beyond that at which civilized puppies become -as contemptuous of their mother as she is of them. - -Unhappily, there are many cases on authentic record when young children -and old people, unable to defend themselves, have been devoured by -dogs—not necessarily when the dogs were starving. A grewsome climax was -reached when in the “flu” epidemic of 1918-19 on the Labrador the dogs -fell on the dead and the dying and the enfeebled survivors could not -stem the onslaught. No wonder, then, that Dr. Grenfell, with all his -manifest affection for dogs that he has known, insists that the -importation of reindeer is the salvation and the solution. Stubbornly -the folk of the northern tip of the peninsula and the Labrador coast -cling to the huskies that were banished, in favour of cows, horses, pigs -and chickens, by their more sophisticated southern neighbours. Uncle -Philip Coates at Eddy’s Cove is the only man on that shore, as far as is -known, who keeps pigs. - -A fisherman landing on an island off Cape Charles, on the side away from -his home, found himself the object of the unwelcome attentions of a pack -of dogs who were acting on the principle of the uncouth villager of the -old story who cried: “’Ere’s a stranger, Bill—let’s ’eave ’arf a brick -at him.” He is sure they would have pounced on him and polished off his -bones, had he not seen one dog he knew—the leader. He called the dog’s -name; the wolfish creature halted instantly. When the name was repeated, -the dog slunk off, his ragged retinue at his heels. - -It is sad to think that the dogs that will perform so nobly in the -traces are such bad actors when they have nothing to do but to pick a -quarrel in places where perhaps there is no foliage but the proud curled -plumage of their tails. They are beside themselves with excitement when -after the summer siesta they are harnessed to the komatik again. When -the driver smartly rubs his hands and cries, “See the deer!”—or -anything he pleases—it augments the fever. In Labrador “ouk, ouk!” -turns the team to the right—perchance with a disconcerting -promptness—and “urrah, urrah!” swerves it to the left. The -corresponding directions in Newfoundland are “keep off!” and “hold in.” -No reins are used—some drivers use no whip. The books of Dr. Grenfell -abound in affectionate reference to the better nature of these animals -and their extraordinary fidelity to duty. Like most of the people of the -land, they do not fear to die. Their life is largely of neglect and -pain: they spend much of their time crawling under the houses to get out -of the way. Their pleasure is the greater when they find a human -playmate ready to throw a stick into the water for them. Grand swimmers -are they, and they will plunge into the coldest sea; and if they are -hungry they dive in for a small fish without concern. It is hard to find -a time when they are not ready to set their fangs to food—“full-fed” is -an ideal condition to which most of them seldom attain. A square meal of -whalemeat is their millennium. “I don’t see what satisfaction they get -out of it,” said “Bill” Norwood—one of the volunteer “wops” building -the Battle Harbour reservoir. “The meat in winter comes to them in -frozen hunks, and they slide it down at one gulp, to melt in their -stomach. That’s not quite my idea of enjoying a meal.” - -In a yawl that the _Strathcona_ dragged astern three plaintive huskies, -to be committed to the pack at St. Anthony, hungrily sniffed the -meat-laden breeze that blew from our deck. They were perturbed at -finding themselves going to sea. I may add that when they got ashore the -youngest of the three—a mere baby—jumped on a rock and bit the nose of -the leader of the St. Anthony pack, Eric by name, thereby winning -respect for himself and his two comrades among the aborigines who might -otherwise have fallen upon them and rent them limb from limb. - -The dogs at Battle Harbour live up to the name of the settlement. Like -all other “huskies,” they are ready to fight on slight provocation, and -the night is made vocal with their long-drawn ululations. Their appetite -is insatiable—they devour with enthusiasm whatsoever things are thrown -out at the kitchen door—they even ate a towel that went astray—and -when nothing better offers they will wade into the water in quest of -caplin, or cods’ heads. In their enthusiasm for food the dogs will dig -through boards to get at cattle and pigs, and cows and chickens seldom -live where the dogs are numerous. - -The murderous proclivities of the dogs of the Labrador furnished one of -the chief reasons, as has been said before, why the Doctor went to such -great pains and to such a relatively large expense to import and -domicile the reindeer. - -“It was wildly exciting work, I can tell you, lassoing those reindeer -and tying their legs in that country over yonder,” he said, as the -_Strathcona_ rounded the rugged bread-loaf island of Cape Onion. He -pointed to the settlement of Island Bay behind it. “There we were blown -across the bay on the ice—dogs, komatik and all—roaring with laughter -at our own predicament, helpless before the great gale of wind.” Thus he -recalls without bitterness the costly undertaking whose fruition has -been—and still is—one of his dearest dreams. Conveying the captured -reindeer across the Strait in a schooner to Canada with almost nobody to -help him was a Herculean task. Some day the Legislature at St. John’s -may see fit to divert a little money to establishing the docile and -reliable reindeer in place of treacherous and predatory dogs. It is a -greater loss to the island than to Grenfell that the scheme must wait. - -With a mob of dogs in every village, a mob actuated most of the time by -an insatiable hunger driving it forth in quest of any sort of food, it -has been impossible in most places to keep a cow or a goat, and hay is -prohibitively costly to import. Dr. Grenfell has described with pathos -how Labrador mothers, in default even of canned milk for the baby, are -in the habit of chewing hard bread into a pulpy mass to fill the -infant’s mouth and thus produce the illusion of nutriment until it is -able to masticate and assimilate “loaf” for itself. In few countries is -milk so scarce. - -The reindeer might be the cow of the Labrador. The reindeer is able to -find a square meal amid the moss and lichens, and it yields milk so rich -as to require dilution to bring it down to the standard of cow’s milk, -while it is free from the peculiar flavour of the milk of the goat. The -Lapps make the milk into a “cream cheese” which Dr. Grenfell has tried -out on his sledge journeys and heartily endorses. - -Nearly three hundred reindeer were obtained by Dr. Grenfell in Lapland -in 1907, with three Lapland families to herd them and teach herding. -They were landed at Cremailliere, (locally called “Camelias”), three -miles south of St. Anthony. At the end of four years the herd numbered a -thousand. In 1912, twelve hundred and fifty at once were corraled. -Poaching and want of police protection made it desirable to transfer the -animals across the Straits to Canada. Some of them, by virtue of -strenuous effort, were collected in 1918 and transported to the St. -Augustine River district where now they flourish and increase in number. -Some day, it would seem from the great success of the reindeer-herds of -Alaska—introduced by Dr. Sheldon Jackson and fostered by the United -States Government—these fine animals will surely replace the dogs on -the Labrador, when local prejudice against them has been overcome or has -evaporated. They are useful not merely for the milk but for the meat and -the skins, as well as for transportation. They live at peace instead of -on the precarious verge of battle. The “experiment” has not collapsed in -dismal failure. It is only in abeyance to the ultimate assured success, -and it is not too much to predict that another generation or two will -see the reindeer numerous and useful throughout the Labrador. - - - - - XII - A WIDE, WIDE “PARISH” - - -To take the measure of the man Dr. Grenfell is and the work he does it -is necessary to know something of the land and the waters round about, -where he puts his life in jeopardy year after year, day unto day, to -save the lives of others. There is much more to “Dr. Grenfell’s parish” -than the “rock, fog and bog” of the old saying. Such observations as are -here assembled are the raw material for the Doctor’s inimitable tales of -life on the Labrador. - -The great fact of life here is the sea, and much of existence is in -giving battle to it. The little boys practice jumping across -rain-barrels and mud-puddles, because some day they hope to get a -“ticket” (a berth on a sealer) and go to the ice, and when it is “a good -big copy from pan to pan”—that is to say, a considerable distance from -one floating ice-cake to the next—their ability to jump like their own -island sheep may save their lives. - -[Illustration: SIGNAL HILL, HARBOUR OF ST. JOHNS.] - -The word “copy” comes from the childish game of following the leader and -doing as he does. A little piece of ice is called a knob, and a larger -piece is a pan. A pan is the same thing as a floe, but the latter -expression is not in common usage. - -Every youth who aspires to qualify as a skipper must go before an -examining board of old sea-wise and weather-wise pilots, and prove -himself letter-perfect in the text of that big book, “The Newfoundland -and Labrador Pilot and Guide.” His examiners scorn the knowledge of the -book, very often, for they have the facts at the fingers’ ends from long -and harsh experience of the treacherous waters, with the criss-cross -currents, the hidden reefs, the sudden fogs, the contrary winds. So they -delight to make life miserable for the young mariner by heckling him. - -The disasters that now and then overtake the sealing-fleet are ever -present in the minds of those who do business in these waters. They know -what it means for a ship’s company to be caught out on the ice in a -snow-storm, far from the vessel. In early March the wooden ships race -for the Straits of Belle Isle, and three days later the faster iron -ships follow. When they get to where the seals are sunning themselves -around the blow-holes in the ice, the crew go out with their gaffs -(staves) and kill the usually unresisting animals by hitting them over -the back of the head. It sounds like simple and easy hunting, and in -good weather it is. But a long-continued storm changes the complexion of -the adventure to that of the gravest peril. - -One captain saved his men by making them dance like mad the long night -through, while he crooned the music to them. At the end of each five -minutes he let them rest on their piles of gaffs, and then they were -made to spring to their feet again and resume the frantic gyrations that -kept them from freezing to death. In the same storm, the _Greenland_ of -Harbour Grace lost 52 of her 100 men. - -They still talk of the fate of the _Queen_ on Gull Island off Cape St. -John, though the wreck took place nigh unto forty years ago. There was -no lighthouse then. The island lifts its head hundreds of feet above the -mean of the tides, and only the long rank grass and the buttercups live -there in summer. But this was in a December night, and the wind blew a -gale. There were six passengers—a woman among them. When the passengers -had battled their way ashore through the leaping surf, the crew went -back on the doomed ship to salvage some of the provisions. For they knew -that at this forsaken angle of the island no help from any passing ship -was likely till the spring. - -The passengers toiled to the top of the bleak islet, lugging with them a -fragment of a sail. The crew, aboard the vessel, were carried by the -furious winds and waters out to the Old Harry Shoals, where they lost -their lives when the sea beat the vessel to pieces. - -The sequel is known by a little diary in which a doctor—one of the -hapless half-dozen—made notes with his own blood till his stiffening -fingers refused to scrawl another entry. - -It seems from this pathetic note-book that the six at the end of a few -days, tortured with thirst and starvation, drew lots to see who should -die. - -The lot fell to the woman. Her brother offered himself in her place. - -Then the entries in the book cease; and the curtain that fell was not -lifted till spring brought a solitary hunter to the island. He shot a -duck from his boat, and it fell in the breakers. Afterwards he said it -was a phantom fowl, sent from heaven to guide him. For he did not see it -again, though he landed and searched the beach. - -But he saw splinters flung high by the surf that seemed to him a clear -indication of a wreck. - -He clambered to the top of the islet. There he found, under the rotted -sail, the six bodies, and in the hand of one, was a piece of flesh torn -from one of the bodies. - -Even when their lives are endangered the fishermen preserve their keen -mindfulness of the religious proprieties. Caught on an ice-pan together, -Protestants and Catholics prayed, their backs to one another, on -opposite sides of the pan—and the same thing has happened in ships’ -cabins. The sailors are not above a round oath now and then, but there -are many God-fearing, prayerful men among them. “These are my sailing -orders, sir,” said an old retired sea-dog to me as he patted the cheek -of his Bible. - -Phrases of the sea enter into every phase of daily human intercourse. -“You should have given yourself more room to veer and haul,” said the -same old sailor to me when I was in a hurry. Fish when half-cured are -said to be “half-saved,” and a man who is “not all there” is likely to -be styled “half-saved.” - -“Down killik” is used impartially on arrival at the fishing grounds or -at home after a voyage—the “killik” being a stone anchor for small -craft or for nets. (A “killy-claw” is of wood with the stone in the -middle.) You may hear an old fisherman say of his retirement from the -long warfare with the sea for a living: “My killiks are down; my boat is -moored.” One of them who was blind in his left eye, said as he lay -dying, referring to his own soul: “She’s on her last tack, heading for I -don’t know where: the port light is out, and the starboard is getting -very dim.” A few minutes later he passed away. - -The ordinary talk is full of poetry. “If I could only rig up a derrick, -now, to hoist me over the fore part of the winter,” an old salt will -say, “wi’ the help o’ God and a sou’westerly wind and a few swyles I -could last till the spring.” By “swyles,” of course, he means “seals.” A -man’s a man when he has killed his seal. Seal-meat is an anti-scorbutic, -and the sealers present the “paws,” or flippers, as great delicacies to -their friends. A “big feed” is a “scoff.” Sealing brings men together in -conviviality and comaraderie, and it is the great ambition of most of -the youth of Newfoundland to “go to the ice.” Many are the stowaways -aboard the sealing craft. If a man goes “half his hand” it means he gets -half his catch for his labour. - -“Seal” is pronounced “swyle,” “syle,” or “swoyle” and Swale Island also -takes its name from this most important mammal. Seals wandering in -search of their blow-holes have been found as far as six or seven miles -inland. - -As might be expected, there survives in the vernacular—especially of -the older people—many words and phrases that smack of their English -dialect origin, and words that were the English undefiled of Chaucer’s -or Shakespeare’s day. Certain proper names represent a curious -conversion of a French name no longer understood. - -In Dorsetshire dialect v is used for f, and in Newfoundland one hears -“fir” pronounced “vir” or “var.” Firewood is “vir-wood.” Women who are -“vuzzing up their vires” are fussing (making ready) their fires. We have -“it wouldn’t be vitty” in place of “it wouldn’t be fitting.” A pig -“veers”; it does not farrow. The use of “thiccy” for “this” is familiar -to readers of “Lorna Doone.” “The big spuds are not very jonnick yet” -means that the potatoes are not well done. If something “hatches” in -your “glutch,” it catches in your throat. Blizzard is a word not used, -and a lass at school, confusing it with gizzard, said it meant the -insides of a hen. The remains of birds or of animals are the “rames.” “O -yes you, I ’low” is a common form of agreement. To be photographed is to -be “skitched off,” and of snapshots it is sometimes said by an old -fisherman to a “kodak fiend”: “I heard ye firin’ of ’em.” - -“Cass ’n goo,” for “can’t you go” may be heard at Notre Dame Bay, as -well as “biss ’n gwine” for “aren’t you going?” and “thees cass’n do it” -for “thee can’t do it.” The berries called “harts” (whorts) are, I -presume, the “hurts” of Surrey. - -A vivid toast for a sealer going to the icefields was “Bloody decks to -’im!” - -When bad weather is brewing, “We’re going to have dirt” is a common -expression. - -A fisherman who had hooked a queer creature that must have been first -cousin to the sea-serpent said, “It had a head like a hulf, a neck like -a harse; I cut the line and let it go to hell.” - -Here is a puzzler: “Did ye come on skits or on cart and dogs?” That -means, “Did you come on skates or on a dog-sledge?” Dog-cat is a -dog-sledge. Cat is short for catamaran, which is not a sea-boat but a -land-sledge, so that when you hear it said: “He’s taken his dog and his -cat and gone to the woods” you may know that it means “He’s taken his -dog and his sledge.” - -Just as we change the position of the _r_ in going from _three_ to -_third_, we find the letters transposed in “aps” for aspen, “haps” for -hasp, “waps” for “wasp” and “wordle” for world. Labrador is Larbador, -and “down to the Larbador” or “down on the Larbador” are common -expressions. - -Instead of “the hatch” the telescoped form “th’ ’atch” is used. We have -“turr” for “tern” and “loo” for “loon,” and “yammit” (emmet) for “ant.” - -The tendency to combine syllables is illustrated in the pronunciation of -Twillingate as Twulngate. - -A scaffolding for fish is known as a “flake.” Here the split cod are -outspread to dry and, by the way, a decision of the Newfoundland Supreme -Court declares “cod” and “fish” synonymous. The scaffolding is made of -poles called longers, and it is suggested that these “longers” are the -“longiores” which Caesar used to build bridges, according to his -Commentaries. A silk hat is known as a beaver, or behaviour, and so when -you hear it said, “I saw Tom Murphy; he must have been at a funeral; he -had his behaviour on,” it means not that he was circumspect in his -conduct, but that he wore the formal headgear. “Sammy must ’a’ been -writin’ some poetry. I saw him just now a-humourin’ of it with his -foot.” Cannot you see the bard beating out the rhythm with his foot, as -a musician sometimes does when he is sure that he is in time and the -rest are mistaken? - -“South’ard,” “north’ard,” “east’ard,” “west’ard” are current maritime -usage, and the adjective “wester” is heard. - -Legal Latin is drawn upon for “tal qual”—_talis qualis_—applied in a -bargain for fish “just as they come.” - -Here is a quaint one. The end of a pile, above the surface of a wharf, -is a gump-head. Gump and block are one and the same thing. We of the -United States use the word “gump” or “chump” figuratively for a -“blockhead.” - -“The curse o’ Crummle on ye” is a rural expression still heard, and -refers to Cromwell’s bloody descent on Ireland. - -“I find my kinkhorn and I can’t glutch” means “I have a pain in my -throat and I can’t swallow.” The kinkhorn is the Adam’s apple. A man at -Chimney Cove remarked: “I have a pain in my kinkhorn and it has gone to -my wizen (chest).” - -A dog is often called a “crackie.” Caribou is shortened to “boo.” A door -that has stuck is said to be “plimmed up.” A man who ate hard bread and -drank water said “It plimmed up inside and nearly killed me.” - -To say of a girl that she “blushed up like a bluerag” refers to the -custom of enclosing a lump of blueing in a cloth when laundering -clothes. “The wind baffles round the house” is a beautiful way of saying -that it was blustering. - -“Bruise” is a very popular dish of hard bread boiled with fish, and with -“scrunchins” (pork) fried and put over it. It is the equivalent of -Philadelphia’s famous “scrapple.” A guide, admitting that bread and tea -are the staple articles of diet in many an outpost, said reflectively: -“Yes, that’s all those people live on. Now there’s other things. There’s -beans.” - -When a man says that his hands are “hard afrore” (hard frozen) we -remember Milton in “Paradise Lost,” “the air burns frore.” Frozen -potatoes are “frosty tiddies.” Head is often called “heed.” “Tigyer,” -said by an old man to a mischievous lad, means “Take yerself off.” “Is -en?” is a way of saying “Is he?” An old man cut his finger and said that -he had a “risen” on it, which is certainly more of a finality than a -“rising.” “I’m going chock to Gargamelle” means “I’m going all the way -to Gargamelle,” the latter name from “garçon gamelle,” said to signify -“the boy who looks after the soup.” - -Instead of “squashed,” “squatted” is a common word, as in the expression -“I squatted my finger.” And there are many other provincialisms not in -the dictionaries. - -The fathom is a land-measure of length, as well as a sea-measure of -depth. The leading dog of a team is six or seven “fathoms” ahead of the -komatik. - -“Start calm” means perfectly calm, and then they may say expressively -“The wind’s up and down the mast.” - -“Puddick” is a common name for the stomach. - -“Take it abroad” is “take it apart”; “do you relish enough,” is “have -you eaten plenty?” “Poor sign fish” means that fish are scarce. Woods -that are tall are said to be “taunt.” - -These few examples of distinctive phraseology might be multiplied a -thousand-fold. - -As for the proper names, a fascinating field of research lies before a -patient investigator who commands the leisure. Here are but a few of -countless examples that might be cited. - -French names have been Anglicized in strange ways. Isle aux Bois thus -becomes Isle of Boys—or, as pronounced on the south coast, Oil of Boys -or Oil o’ Boy. Baie de Boules has lost the significance of boulders that -bestud its shores in the name Bay Bulls. The famous and dreaded Cape -Race, near the spot where the beautiful _Forizel_ was lost, gets its -name from the French “razé,” signifying “sheer.” Reucontre is Round -Counter; Cinq Isles has become St. Keels, and Peignoir is altered to -Pinware or Pinyare. Grand Bruit is Grand Brute; the rocky headland of -Blomidon that nobly commands the mouth of the Humber is commonly called -Blow-me-down; Roche Blanche is Rose Blanche. - -One would scarcely recognize Lance-au-Diable in Nancy Jobble. Bay -d’Espoir has been turned into its exact antithesis, in the shape of Bay -Despair. L’Argent Bay is now Bay Le John. Out of Point Enrage is evolved -Point Rosy, and St. Croix is modified to Sancroze (Sankrose). - -Children’s names are likely to be Biblical. They are often called by the -middle name as well—William James, Henry George, Albert Edward. -Merchants’ ledgers must take account of a vast number of nicknames that -are often slight variants on the same name—Yankee Peter, Foxy Peter, -Togo Ben, Sailor Ben, Bucky Ben, Big Tom, Deaf Tom, Young Tom, Big Jan, -Little Jan, Susy’s Jan, Ripple Jan, Happy Jack. Thomas Cluett comes to -be called Tommy Fiddler, whereupon all the children become Fiddlers, and -the wife is Mrs. Fiddler. The family of Maynards is known as the Miners. - -The little boys have a mischievous way of teasing one another as “bay -noddies.” The noddy is a stupid fish that is very good at catching the -smaller fry and then easily allows itself to be robbed of its prey. The -children cry: - - “Bay boy, bay boy, come to your supper, - Two cods’ heads and a lump o’ butter.” - -We find the children using instead of “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo” this -formula: - - “Hiram, Jiram, bumbo lock - Six knives in a clock; - Six pins turning wins. - Dibby, dabby, o-u-t spells out.” - -Or: - - “Little man driving cattle - Don’t you hear his money rattle? - One, two, sky blue, - Out goes y-o-u.” - -Or: - - “Silver lock, silver key, - Touch, go run away!” - -Or: - - “Eetle, ottle, blue bottle, - Eetle, ottle, out!” - -Still another is: - - “Onery, ury, ickery, Ann, - Fillissy, follissy, Nicholas John, - Kubee, Kowbee, Irish Mary - -They throw marbles against a wall for a sort of carom-shot, and call it -“bazzin’ marbles.” “The real precursor of the spring, like the sure -mating of the birds,” said an old man of the game. - -In some places there is a local celebrity with a real talent for the -composition of what are known as “come-all-ye’s,” from the fact that the -minstrel is supposed to invite all who will to come and hear him chant -his lay. Every big storm or shipwreck is supposed to be commemorated in -appropriate verse by the laureate. For instance, one of these ballads -begins: - - “The Lily Joyce stuck in the ice, - So did the Husky too; - Captain Bill Ryan left Terry behin’ - To paddle his own canoe.” - -Another runs thus: - - “’Twas on the 29th of June, - As all may know the same; - The wind did blow most wonderful, - All in a flurry came.” - -This was written and sung to a hymn tune. - -Song is a common accompaniment of a shipboard task: - - “Haul on the bow-line, - Kitty is me darlin’; - Haul on the bow-line, - Haul, boys, haul.” - -If a boy doesn’t go across the Straits before he is sixteen, he must be -“shaved by Neptune.” It is almost a disgrace not to have gone to the -Labrador. Neptune is called “Nipkin.” “Nipkin’ll be aboard to shave you -tonight.” - -When they are cleaning fish, the last man to wash a fish for the season -gets ducked in the tub. - -Some of the older residents are walking epitomes of the island lore. -They know a great deal that never found lodgment in books. Matty -Mitchell, the 63-year old Micmac guide, now a prospector for the -Reid-Newfoundland Company, was a fellow-passenger on the mail-boat. He -was full of tales of the days when the wolf still roamed the island’s -inner fastnesses. I asked him when the last of which he knew were at -large. He said: “About thirty years ago I saw three on Doctor’s Hill. I -have seen none since. There are still lots of bears and many lynxes. -Once I was attacked by six wolves. I waited till the nearest was close -to me—then I shoved my muzzle-loader into his mouth and shot him and -the other five fell away. Another time I was attacked by three bears who -drove me into a lake where I had to stay till some men who had been with -me came to the rescue. - -“My grandfather was with Peyton when Mary March and another Indian woman -were captured at Indian Lake. Mary March died at St. John’s, and was -buried there; the other one was brought back to the shore of the lake.” - -“How do you know what minerals you are finding when you are -prospecting?” I asked. - -“I was three times in the Museum at St. John’s,” he answered. “I see -everything in the place. That way I know everything that I look at when -I go to hunt for minerals and metals. I hear a thing once—I got it. I -see a thing once—I got it. I never found gold—but I got pearls from -clams, weighing as much as forty grains. I can’t stay in the house. I -must be out in the open. If I stay inside I get sick. I take colds. I’ve -been twice to the Grand Falls in Labrador. At the upper falls the river -rises seven times so”—he arched the back of his hand—“before the water -goes over. The biggest flies I ever saw are there. They bite right -through the clothes. You close the tent—sew up the opening. You burn up -all the flies inside. Next morning there are just as many.” - -Another passenger was the Rev. Thomas Greavett, Church of England -“parson,” with a parish 100 miles long on the West Coast between Cow -Head and Flower’s Cove. He had to be medicine-man and lawyer too, and in -his black satchel he carried a stomach-pump, a syringe, eight -match-boxes of medicine and Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall.” He told me how -he hated to use the mail-boat for his parish visiting, for it generally -meant sleepless nights of pacing the deck or sitting in the lifeboat in -default of a berth. He carried a petition, to go before the Legislature, -reciting the many reasons why the poor little boat on which we were -travelling is inadequate to the heavy freight and passenger traffic in -which she is engaged. With accommodations for hardly more than 50 -passengers, she has carried 210, 235 and even 300, which meant acute -discomfort for everybody and the open deck, night and day, for many -passengers. What is wanted is a big, heavy ice-breaker. The _Ethie_ -never was meant by her Glasgow builders to fight the Humboldt Glacier -bit by bit as it falls into the sea. In December she was wrecked off Cow -Head in a gale, fortunately with no loss of life. - -I don’t know of a harder-working lot than the crew and captain of a boat -that undertakes to carry freight and passengers between southern ports -of Newfoundland and the Labrador. - -Take the experience of this vessel, the _Ethie_, in the summer of 1919 -as an example. Under a thoroughly capable and chart-perfect skipper, -Captain English, she made several ineffectual attempts to get to Battle -Harbour through the dense ice-jam before she finally made that roadstead -on June 24. When I met her at Curling to go north, a week late, at the -end of August, she had just come out of a viscous fog of four days’ -duration in the Strait of Belle Isle and in that fog she had escaped by -the closest of shaves a collision with a berg that towered above her -till the top of it was lost in the fog. She carried so many passengers, -short-haul or long-distance, that every seat in the dining saloon was -filled with weary folk at night and some paced the decks or sat on the -piles of lathes or the oil-barrels. Lumber and barrels were stored -everywhere, the hold was crammed, and cattle in the prow came and went -mysteriously as the vessel moved into one cove or bight or tickle after -another in the dead of the night or the silver cool of the early -morning. The clatter of the steam-winch with the tune of babies strange -to the sea-trip, the slap and scuffle of the waves on our sheet-iron -sides and the banging of the doors as the vessel writhed in her -discomfort made an orchestra of many tongues and percussions. The boat -was so heavy with her cargo of machinery, oil, lumber, flour ($24 a -barrel at Battle Harbour), cattle and human beings that the deck outside -my stateroom was hardly two feet out of water. There were four of us in -the stateroom, but the population changed almost hourly from port to -port, so that I had barely time to get acquainted with a -fellow-passenger ere I lost him to look after his lobster or fish, or -his missionary labours. One of the ship’s company was going to teach -school at Green Island Cove at the northern tip of Newfoundland. He told -me he would get $275 for ten months’ work and out of it would have to -pay board. Yet out of that salary he meant to put by money to pay for -part of a college education at St. John’s. “How old are you?” I asked. -“Not yet eighteen, sir.” - -It is easy to see why Dr. Grenfell’s heart and hand go out in a -practical and helpful sympathy to those whose battle with grim, -unmitigated natural forces and with harsh circumstance is unending. The -commonest question asked of anyone who returns from a visit to the -Labrador is “Why do people live there?” Despite the fog and the cold, -the sea-perils and the stark barrenness of the rocks, the Labrador has -an allurement all its own. It has brought a sturdy explorer like William -B. Cabot of Boston (“Labrador” Cabot) again and again to the rivers and -inlets and the central fastnesses, where he shares the life of the -Montagnais and the Nauscapee Indians; and the same magic has endeared -the Labrador to those who year upon year continue the quest of the cod -and the seal and know no life other than this. Whatever place a man -calls his home is likely to become unreasonably dear to him, however -bare and poor it looks to visitors; and that is the way with the -Labrador. But he who cannot find by sea or land a wild and terrible -beauty in the waters and the luminous skies and the long roll and lift -of the blue hills must be insensible to some of the fairest vistas that -earth has to show. Grenfell and his colleagues do not concede that life -on the Labrador is dull or that the environment is sterile and -monotonous and cheerless. As one of the brave Labrador missionaries, the -Rev. Henry Gordon, has written, “Not only does Labrador rejoice in some -of the finest scenery in North America, but she also possesses a people -of an exceptionally fine type.” Surely it is not right to think of such -a country as a land only of rocks, snows and misery. - - - - - XIII - A FEW “PARISHIONERS” - - -A typical interior gladdened by the Doctor’s presence is this on the -Southern Labrador. A drudge from Nancy Jobble (Lance-au-Diable) is -scrubbing the floor, for the mother is too ill to look to the ways of -her household. The drudge instead of singing is chewing on something -that may be tobacco, paper or gum, and as she slings the brush about -heartlessly she gives furtive eyes and ears to the visitors. The walls -are bestuck with staled and yellowed newspapers. There are no pictures -or books. There is a wooden bench before the linoleum-covered table, on -which are loaves of bread, ill-baked. There is a stove, of the -“Favourite” brand with kettle and teapot simmering. A tarnished -alarm-clock from Ansonia, a mirror, a wash-stand, shelves with china, -tin cans and shreds of bread, a baby’s crib, a rocking-chair and two -more benches forlornly complete the inventory. There is nothing green in -sight from the besmirched windows but grass and people. - -A telegraph operator was reading a volume of the addresses of Russell -Conwell when we entered his not overtasked laboratory. The book bore the -title “How to Get Rich Honestly.” “’Fraid I’ll never get any further -than reading about it!” exclaimed the man of the keys and wires. Dr. -Grenfell took the book and presently became engrossed in the famous -address called “Acres of Diamonds.” It seemed to him the sort of -literature to fire the ambition of his neighbours under the Northern -Lights, with its instances of those who made their way defiant of the -odds and in spite of all opposition. - -A very young minister at another Labrador watering-place said to the -Doctor: “You needn’t leave any of your books here. I’m not interested in -libraries. I’m only interested in the spiritual welfare of the people.” - -A run of six miles by power-boat across Lewis Inlet took us to Fox -Harbour and the house of Uncle George Holley. In recent years the -power-boat, even with gasoline at the prevailing high prices, has become -the fisherman’s taxicab or tin Lizzie, and Oh! the difference to him. He -bobs and prances out over the war-dance of the waves with his barrels -and boxes easily, where once it was a mighty toiling with the sweeps to -make his way. The run across the inlet went swiftly and surely past an -iceberg white as an angel’s wing though with the malign suggestion of -the devil behind it: and there were plenty of chances to take -photographs from every possible angle. - -Uncle George had on the stage a skinned seal, some whalemeat, salted cod -and a few barrels of salmon. His wife showed us a tiny garden with -cabbages, lettuce, rhubarb, radishes and “greens.” One year, she said, -she had a barrel of potatoes. Indoors she managed to raise balsam, -bachelor’s buttons and nasturtiums. Nowhere in the world do flowers mean -more to those that plant them. Constantly there comes to mind H. C. -Brunner’s poem about a geranium upon a window-sill: for the flowers -which it needs incessant care to keep from the nipping frost come to be -regarded as not merely friends but members of the family. Uncle George, -a fine, patriarchal type, told vividly how with a dog whip nine fathoms -long the expert hand could cut off the neck of a glass bottle without -upsetting the bottle, and take the bowl from a man’s pipe or the buttons -off his coat. No wonder the huskies slink under the houses when they see -a stranger coming. - -The winter of 1918-19 was especially terrible—or “wonderful” as would -be said here—because of the visitation of the “flu.” Conditions were -bad enough in Newfoundland, but in Labrador the “liveyers” (those who -remain the year round) fought their battles in a hopeless isolation -illumined by heroic self-abnegation on the part of a tiny handful of -persons. - -When spring released the Labrador Coast from the grip of the ice, and -the tragic tale of the winter was told, the Newfoundland Government -dispatched the _Terra Nova_ (Scott’s Antarctic vessel) to the aid of the -afflicted. Then news filtered out to the world of plague conditions -during that terrible winter more dreadful than those which De Foe has -chronicled. While reading the gruesome details, one is reminded of the -long, lonely and hopeless fight of the early Jamestown colony against -sickness and starvation. Throughout the bitter months the Red Death -stalked its dread way up and down the Coast, with almost no doctors, -nurses or medicines to check the disease. Whole families were stricken, -the living were too weak to bury the dead or even to fight off the gaunt -dogs that hovered hungrily about the houses; and hamlets were wiped out -while neighbouring villages were unable to send aid. - -A few sentences from the diary of Henry Gordon, the brave missionary at -Cartwright, on Sandwich Bay, will suffice to show what a hideous winter -his people passed through. Of this man Dr. Grenfell said to me: “Instead -of a stick with a collar on it we have a man with a soul in him.” He is -always laughing—incurably an optimist, and a great Boy Scout leader. -The following are condensed excerpts. - -“Wednesday, Oct. 30, 1918. Reached Cartwright 8 a.m. Mail-boat had -brought ‘the great Plague’ and nearly half the population was down with -it. - -“Thursday, Oct. 31. Nearly everybody down now. - -“Nov. 1. Whole households stretched inanimate on floors, unable even to -feed themselves or keep fires going. - -“Nov. 2. Feeling rotten. Head like a bladderful of wind. - -“Nov. 7. Busy all a.m. arranging graves and coffins. - -“Nov. 8. Gale N. E. with snow-storms. - -“Nov. 17. Two of bodies too much doubled up to put in coffin. - -“Nov. 21. Will Leaming in from Indian Harbour with news that ten are -dead at North River still unburied and only three coffins. The rest are -too sick and dismayed to help. - -“Nov. 22. (At North River). Some had lain in their beds three weeks and -the stench was appalling. Old Mrs. L. W., aged 71, only survivor of -five, lived alone for a fortnight with four dead. No fire, no wood, only -ice, which she thawed under her arms. - -“Nov. 26. Number burials now totals 26. Population little over 100. - -“Dec. 14. Find five little orphans living alone in a deserted house in a -deserted cove, bread still frozen. - -“Dec. 19. 12 dead in North River out of population of 21. - -“Dec. 25. (Christmas Day). Service 10.30. Only six communicants, but -considerable ‘Communion of saints.’ - -“Jan. 1, 1919. (At Cape Porcupine, in Herbert Emb’s one-room house). ‘A -sort of damp earthy smell met one on entering, but thanks to frost, body -was not so bad as expected. More like mouldering clay than anything. -Right on his side was his little girl, actually frozen on to him, so -that bodies came off the bunk in one piece.’ - -“Jan. 3. Grave-blasting. - -“Jan. 8. Total deaths: Cartwright, 15; Paradise, 20; Separation Point, -7; North River, 13; Strandshore, 9; Grady, 1; Hare Islands, 4; -Sandhills, 4; Boulter’s Rock, 5; North, 12.” - -These do not seem large figures, but in settlements of half a dozen -houses or less they represent a very large proportion of the -inhabitants. - -News of the armistice with Germany did not reach Mr. Gordon until -January 9, which shows how far from the world was this region within a -hundred miles of the summer hospital at Battle Harbour. - -It is to be noted that nearly all the children who died perished of -starvation, because their elders could no longer feed them and the -“loaf” was too frozen to be eaten. - -The Eskimo settlements suffered still more grievously. The bodies were -buried at sea. Dogs were eating the bodies, and had to be shot. -Sometimes the survivors were too weak to drive the dogs from the dead -and the dying. - -Hebron was wiped out. At Okkak 200 died of 267, and on August 15 there -were four widows and two little girls left, who were waiting to be taken -away. Nain was not so hard hit, but it is said that forty perished out -of several hundred. Zoar and Ramah had already passed out of existence -before the “flu” came. It is estimated that the resident Eskimo -population on the coast, numbering 600 to 700, was cut nearly in half. - -The people seem to think that Dr. Grenfell can accomplish miracles. One -is reminded of the words of the sister of Lazarus, “Lord, if thou hadst -been here, my brother had not died.” - -“Richard Dempster, our mail-carrier,” said good Parson Richards, of -Flower’s Cove, “owes his life to the Doctor. Something had infected his -knee. The poison spread to his hip. He wouldn’t have lived twelve hours -if the Doctor hadn’t made seven incisions in his right leg with his -pocket-knife to let out the poisoned blood. - -[Illustration: HAPPY DAYS AT THE ORPHANAGE, ST. ANTHONY.] - -“Once when I was travelling with him, at Pine’s Cove we found a family -had left because the woman had seen a ghost. The Doctor prayed with her, -and offered to go and live in the house himself to prove that she was -the victim of an illusion. At Eddy’s Cove there was hard glitter ice -which would have cut the dog’s paws. We thought we couldn’t go on. While -we debated what to do there came a snowfall that spread the ice with a -glorious soft blanket, ideal for travel. That’s just the way Providence -always seems to favour the Doctor when he goes abroad. - -“That man never came to the parsonage and went without leaving me with -the desire to do better and be better. Every single time it was the -same. - -“Once we were on the go with the dogs and the komatik four days from St. -Anthony to Cricket (Griguet). Much of the time the Doctor had to run -beside the komatik. He struck out a new way, deep in snow. ‘Don’t you -ever get tired, Doctor?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know that I ever was tired in -my life,’ was his answer. - -“A day or two after that dreadful experience on the ice-pan which he -described in a book, he was at Cricket, and I went to see him. He was -still suffering from the effects of the frost-bite. ‘Will you come to -the mass meeting of the churches tonight?’ I said. He didn’t hesitate a -moment. ‘Yes—send a dog-team and I’ll come.’ He not merely came but -delivered an address of an hour’s duration, and I never heard him speak -with greater fervour. He seemed spiritualized by the experience through -which he had so recently passed.” - - - - - XIV - NEEDS, BIG AND LITTLE - - -It is high time to give Dr. Grenfell’s great work the broad, sure -underpinning of a liberal endowment. It may be true that “an institution -is the lengthened shadow of one man”; but the one-man power of -Grenfell’s personality is not immortal, and the work is too important to -be allowed to lapse or to languish when he no longer directs, inspires -and energizes all. To endow the work now, when many concerns of lesser -moment are claiming their millions of dollars and their thousands of -devotees is to relieve the Doctor of the ordeal of stumping the United -States, Canada and the British Isles to keep his great plant going. -Despite the volunteer assistants, despite the aid of good men and women -banded in associations or toiling in groups or as individuals at points -far from Battle Harbour and St. Anthony, despite the economy practised -everywhere and always, there is ever a need, a haunting need, of funds; -and a few insular politicians and traders may talk as elaborately as -they please about Grenfell as an interloper, with a task that does not -belong to him, but as long as Newfoundland does not provide a sufficient -subsidy, most of the money must come from somewhere off the island. I -have heard some “little-islanders” say that Dr. Grenfell ought to get -out, and that Newfoundland should take over his whole business, but as -long as Newfoundland does not move to that end, and there is a woeful -want of doctoring and nursing at any outport on the map, somebody with -the flaming zeal of this crusader has a place. Grenfell is doing the -work not of one man but of a hundred. Could his cured patients have -their say, there would be no doubt about that endowment. If grateful -words were dollars, Grenfell would be a multi-millionaire. - -It should not be necessary to explain in circumstantial detail the -constant and pressing need of funds to carry on an enterprise that -covers so large a territory and involves so many and such various -activities. A chain of hospitals and dispensaries, manned in large part -by eager and devoted volunteers, an orphanage, an industrial school, a -fleet of boats—including the schooner _George B. Cluett_—a Seamen’s -Institute, a number of dwellings for the staff personnel, the supplies -of food and coal and surgical apparatus and medical equipment—all these -items impose a burden on the overtaxed time and strength of the Doctor -so considerable that it is not even humane or moral to expect him to -speak two or three times a day as he does when he ought to be taking a -well-earned vacation. Countless thousands are eager to hear the man -himself describe his work, and there is usually a throng whenever and -wherever he appears, but to let him wear himself out in appealing for -the means to carry on is a waste of the enormous man-power of a great -leader of the age. He does not cavil or repine, but he ought to be saved -from his own willingness to overdo. - -“I never put up a building without having the funds in hand,” he -declared. “But when it comes to work—I believe in beginning first and -asking afterwards. The support will somehow come, if there is faith, but -faint-heartedness means paralysis of effort.” - -One of the most important producers and consumers of all Dr. Grenfell’s -institutions is the King George V. Seamen’s Institute at St. John’s. The -cornerstone of the four-story brick building was laid in 1911. Sir Ralph -Williams (the Governor), Bowring Brothers, Job Brothers, Harvey and -Company, MacPherson Brothers and other loyal and forward-looking -citizens got behind the plan: and when the stone was swung into place by -wire from Buckingham Palace as King George V. pressed the button, the -sum of $175,000 was in hand. The site contributed by Bowring Brothers -was valued at $13,000. - -The enumeration of beds occupied, meals served, baths taken, games -played, books loaned, films shown and lectures heard does not begin to -tell the story. Fishermen and sailormen ashore are traditionally -forlorn. Men from the outports who drift into St. John’s are like -country lads who come wide-eyed to a great city. It is not morally so -bad for them as it was ere prohibition came and clamped the lid upon the -gin-mills. But still, these are lonely men, friendless men, with very -little money: and the Institute has a helping hand out for them, to -befriend them from the moment they set foot on shore. Moreover, there is -a dormitory given over to the use of outport girls: since it is seen -that hard as things may be for Jack ashore they are harder yet for -sister Jill, who knows even less of the great round world outside the -bay and needs even more protection than her brother. - -The Institute at last is able to show a small balance on the right side -of the ledger. Since the first thought of those who ran it has been -service, they are satisfied to come out only a little better than even. -No charge of graft or profiteering lies here: and those who are fed and -housed and warmed find it “a little bit of heaven” to be made so -comfortable at an expense so small. - -At the start, less than a decade ago, there were croakers who said there -would be but a slim and scattering patronage: but now nearly all the -beds are in use every night. In the dread influenza year, 1918, the -Institute was invaluable as an Emergency Hospital, which treated 267 -patients. The city hospital at St. John’s is small and always -overcrowded. If the Institute had not been available the results of the -epidemic would have been still more terrible. When in February, 1918, -the _Florizel_ was wrecked on the coast between St. John’s and Cape Race -the survivors were brought here, and the Institute also prepared the -bodies of the dead for burial. And on other occasions it has done good -service. - -Demobilized men of the Army and Navy coming into town from the outports -use the building as a clubhouse. - -Since the high cost of living has not spared Newfoundland, the rate for -the young women who are permanent boarders has had to be raised to $4.00 -a week. In parts of Newfoundland that is a good deal of money, but it is -not much compared with what these girls would have to pay in the absence -of the Institute. - -The successful operation of the Institute is an outstanding -object-lesson, and a source of particular satisfaction to its founder -and chief promoter. It has triumphantly answered and silenced the -objections of those who at the start declared that the only possible -result would be calamitous failure. It has survived the shock of the -discovery that some of its earlier administrators were unworthy of their -charge; it has outlived the era of struggle and set-back; it has so -clearly proved its place and its meaning in the community where it is -established that if it were destroyed the merchants themselves would be -prompt to undertake its replacement. It is as impressive a monument as -any to the enduring worth of the devoted labours of Wilfred Thomason -Grenfell, and as conspicuous a proof as could be offered that his great -work by land and sea deserves an Endowment Fund. - - * * * * * - -Transcriber’s Notes: - -Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without -note. Some illustrations have been moved slightly to keep paragraphs -intact. - -[End of _With Grenfell on the Labrador_ by Fullerton Waldo] - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH GRENFELL ON THE -LABRADOR *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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} - .tab1c1 { } - .tab1c2 { } - .tab1c3 { } - .tab1c4 { } - .tab2c1 { } - .tab2c2 { } - .tab2c3 { } - .tdStyle0 { - padding: 0px 5px; text-align:right; vertical-align:top; - } - .tdStyle1 { - padding: 0px 5px; text-align:left; vertical-align:top;padding-left:29px; text-indent:-24px; - } - .tdStyle2 { - padding: 0px 5px; text-align:left; vertical-align:top; - } - .pindent { margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:1.5em; } - .noindent { margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:0; } - .hang { padding-left:1.5em; text-indent:-1.5em; } - .literal-container { text-align:center; margin:0 0; } - .literal { display:inline-block; text-align:left; } - </style> - <style type="text/css"> - h1 { font-size: 1.3em; font-weight:bold;} - .pindent {margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0em;} - .poetry-container { margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em } - </style> - </head> - <body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of With Grenfell on the Labrador, by Fullerton Waldo</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: With Grenfell on the Labrador</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Fullerton Waldo</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 3, 2022 [eBook #67551]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net from page images generously made available by the Internet Archive</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH GRENFELL ON THE LABRADOR ***</div> -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0000' style='width:70%;height:auto;'/> -</div> - -<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' --> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.3em;font-weight:bold;'>WITH GRENFELL ON THE</p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.3em;font-weight:bold;'>LABRADOR</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'><a id='docg'></a></p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i002.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0001' style='width:70%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>DR. GRENFELL, A.B.<br/>(Three ratlins were broken on the ascent).</p> -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' --> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:2em;font-weight:bold;'>WITH GRENFELL ON</p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:2em;font-weight:bold;'>THE LABRADOR</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'><span style='font-size:smaller'>BY</span></p> -<p class='line'>FULLERTON L. WALDO</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'><span class='it'>ILLUSTRATED</span></p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i004.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0002' style='width:15%;height:auto;'/> -</div> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='sc'>New York</span> <span class='sc'>Chicago</span></span></p> -<p class='line'>Fleming H. Revell Company</p> -<p class='line'><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='sc'>London and Edinburgh</span></span></p> -<p class='line'> </p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' --> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'>Copyright, 1920, by</p> -<p class='line'>FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'>New York: 158 Fifth Avenue</p> -<p class='line'>Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.</p> -<p class='line'>London: 21 Paternoster Square</p> -<p class='line'>Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' --> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'>To</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'><span style='font-size:larger'>DORIS KENYON</span></p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'>OF</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'>COMPANY L., 307th INFANTRY,</p> -<p class='line'>77th DIVISION;</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'>HONORARY SERGEANT, U.S.A.</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='7' id='Page_7'></span><h1>FOREWORD</h1></div> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:2.5em;'>Aboard the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>,</p> -<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:0em;margin-bottom:0.5em;'>Red Bay, Labrador, Sept. 9, 1919.</p> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:left;margin-left:0em;'><span class='sc'>Dear Waldo</span>:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It has been great having you on board for a -time. I wish you could stay and see some -other sections of the work. When you joined -us I hesitated at first, thinking perhaps it would -be better to show you the poorer parts of our -country, and not the better off—but decided to -let you drop in and drop out again of the -ordinary routine, and not bother to ‘show you -sights.’ Still I am sorry that you did not see -some other sections of the people. There is to -me in life always an infinite satisfaction in -accomplishing anything. I don’t care so much -what it is. But if it has involved real anxiety, -especially as to the possibility of success, it -always returns to me a prize worth while.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Well, you have been over some parts, where -things have somehow materialized. The reindeer -experiment I also estimate an accomplished -success, as it completely demonstrated -our predictions, and as it is now in good hands -and prospering. The Seamen’s Institute, in -having become self-supporting and now demanding -more space, has also been a real encouragement -to go ahead in other lines. But -there is one thing better than accomplishment, -and that is opportunity; as the problem is -better than the joy of writing Q. E. D.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So I would have liked to show you White -Bay as far as La Scie, where our friends are -fighting with few assets, and many discouragements. -It certainly has left them poor, and -often hungry and naked, but it has made men -of them, and they have taught me many lessons; -and it would do your viewpoint good to -see how many debts these people place me -under.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>If life is the result of stimuli, believe me we -ought to know what life means in a country -where you are called on to create every day -something, big or small. On the other hand, -if life consists of the multitude of things one -possesses, then Labrador should be graded far -from where I place it, in its relation to Philadelphia.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A thousand thanks for coming so far to -give us your good message of brotherly -sympathy.</p> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:5em;'>Yours sincerely,</p> -<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:0em;'><span class='sc'>Wilfred T. Grenfell</span>.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>CONTENTS</h1></div> - -<table id='tab1' summary='' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 2.5em;'/> -<col span='1' style='width: 17.5em;'/> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'/> -<col span='1' style='width: 0.5em;'/> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'><span style='font-size:x-small'>CHAPTER</span></td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><span style='font-size:x-small'>PAGE</span></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'></td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>Foreword</span>, by Doctor Grenfell</td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_7'>7</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>I</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'>“<span class='sc'>Doctor</span>”</td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_15'>15</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>II</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>A Fisher of Men</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_27'>27</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>III</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>At St. Anthony</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_39'>39</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>IV</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>All in the Day’s Work</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_53'>53</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>V</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>The Captain of Industry</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_78'>78</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>VI</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>The Sportsman</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_97'>97</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>VII</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>The Man of Science</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_106'>106</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>VIII</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>The Man of Law</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_114'>114</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>IX</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>The Man of God</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_119'>119</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>X</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>Some of His Helpers</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_130'>130</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>XI</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>Four-Footed Aides: Dogs and Reindeer</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_139'>139</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>XII</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>A Wide, Wide “Parish”</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_150'>150</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>XIII</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>A Few “Parishioners”</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_173'>173</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>XIV</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span class='sc'>Needs, Big and Little</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle2'><a href='#Page_183'>183</a></td><td class='tab1c4 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i012.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0003' style='width:75%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>LABRADOR AND NEWFOUNDLAND<br/><br/><span style='font-size:smaller'>PREPARED FOR DR. WILFRED T. GRENFELL, C.M.G.</span><br/></p> <br/><span class='it'>From “AMONG THE DEEP SEA FISHERS”</span><br/><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='it'>By Courtesy of The Grenfell Association of America</span></span> -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>ILLUSTRATIONS</h1></div> - -<table id='tab2' summary='' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 17.5em;'/> -<col span='1' style='width: 2.5em;'/> -<col span='1' style='width: 0.5em;'/> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'></td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><span style='font-size:x-small'>PAGE</span></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'>Dr. Grenfell, A.B.</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><a href='#docg'>Title</a></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'>Fritz and His Master</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><a href='#frit'>38</a></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'>“Doctor”</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><a href='#doct'>38</a></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'>Battle Harbour, Spreading Fish for Drying</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><a href='#batt'>60</a></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'>“Please Look at My Tongue, Doctor”</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><a href='#plea'>98</a></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'>“Next”</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><a href='#next'>98</a></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'>Dr. Grenfell Leading Meeting at Battle Harbour</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><a href='#drgr'>120</a></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'>St. Anthony Hospital in Winter</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><a href='#stan'>134</a></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'>Some of the Helpers</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><a href='#some'>134</a></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'>Signal Hill, Harbour of St. Johns</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><a href='#sign'>150</a></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'>Happy Days at the Orphanage St. Anthony</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'><a href='#happ'>180</a></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle1'></td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle0'> </td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle2'> </td></tr> -</table> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='15' id='Page_15'></span><h1>I<br/>“DOCTOR”</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>Grenfell and Labrador are names -that must go down in history together. -Of the man and of his sea-beaten, -wind-swept “parish” it will be said, as Kipling -wrote of Cecil Rhodes:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“Living he was the land, and dead</p> -<p class='line0'>His soul shall be her soul.”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>Some folk may try to tell us that Wilfred -Thomason Grenfell, C.M.G., gets more credit -than is due him: but while they cavil and -insinuate the Recording Angel smiles and -writes down more golden deeds for this descendant -of an Elizabethan sea-dog. Sir -Richard Grenville, of the <span class='it'>Revenge</span>, as Tennyson -tells us—stood off sixty-three ships of -Spain’s Armada, and was mortally wounded -in the fight, crying out as he fell upon the -deck: “I have only done my duty, as a man -is bound to do.” That tradition of heroic -devotion to duty, and of service to mankind, -is ineradicable from the Grenfell blood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’ve had a hideous winter,” the Doctor -said, as I clasped hands with him in June at -the office of the Grenfell Association in New -York. His hair was whiter and his bronzed -face more serious than when I last had seen -him; but the unforgettable look in his eyes -of resolution and of self-command was there -as of old, intensified by the added years of -warfare with belligerent nature and sometimes -recalcitrant mankind. For a few moments -when he talks sentence may link itself -to sentence very gravely, but nobody ever -knew the Doctor to go long without that -keen, bright flash of a smile, provoked by a -ready and a constant sense of fun, that -illumines his face like a pulsation of the -Northern Lights, and—unless you are hard as -steel at heart—must make you love him, and -do what he wants you to do.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor on this occasion was a month -late for his appointment with the board of -directors of the Grenfell Association. His -little steamer, the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>, had been frozen -in off his base of operations and inspirations -at St. Anthony. So he started afoot for -Conch to catch a launch that would take him -to the railroad. He was three days covering -a distance which in summer would have required -but a few hours, in the direction of -White Bay on the East Coast. He slept on -the beach in wet clothes. Then he was caught -on pans of ice and fired guns to attract the -notice of any chance vessel. Once more -ashore, he vainly started five times more from -St. Anthony harbour. Finally he went north -and walked along the coast, cutting across -when he could, eighty miles to Flower’s Cove. -In the meantime the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>, with Mrs. -Grenfell aboard, was imprisoned in the ice on -the way to Seal Harbour; and it was three -weeks before Mrs. Grenfell, with the aid of -two motor-boats, reached the railroad by way -of Shoe Cove.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At Flower’s Cove the Doctor rapped at the -door of Parson Richards. That good man -fairly broke into an alleluia to behold him. -With beaming face he started to prepare his -hero a cup of tea. But there came a cry at -the door: “Abe Gould has shot himself in -the leg!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Out into the cold and the dark again the -Doctor stumbled. He put his hand into the -leg and took out the bone and the infected -parts with such instruments as he had. Then -he sat up all night, feeding his patient sleeping -potions of opium. With the day came -the mail-boat for the south, the Ethie, beaten -back from two desperate attempts to penetrate -the ice of the Strait to Labrador.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Two months later I rejoined the Doctor at -Croucher’s wharf, at Battle Harbour, Labrador.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The little <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>, snuggling against the -piles, was redolent of whalemeat for the dogs, -her decks piled high with spruce and fir, white -birch and juniper, for her insatiable fires. -(Coal was then $24 a ton.)</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where’ve you been all this time?” the -Doctor cried, as I flung my belongings to his -deck from the <span class='it'>Ethie’s</span> mail-boat, and he held -out both hands with his radiant smile of greeting. -“I’m just about to make the rounds of -the hospital. This is a busy day. We pull -out for St. Anthony tonight!” With that -he took me straight to the bedside of his -patients in the little Battle Harbour hospital -that wears across its battered face the legend: -“Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least -of these my brethren ye did it unto me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The first man was recovering from typhoid, -and the Doctor, with a smile, was satisfied with -his convalescence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The next man complained of a pain in the -abdomen. Dr. Grenfell inquired about the intensity -of the pain, the temperature, the appetite -and the sleep of the patient.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He has two of the four cardinal symptoms,” -said the Doctor, “pain and temperature. -Probably it’s an appendical attack. -We had a boy who—like this man—looked -all right outwardly, and yet was found to have -a bad appendix.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor has a way of thinking aloud as -he goes along, and taking others into his confidence—frequently -by an interrogation which -is flattering in the way in which he imputes -superior knowledge to the one of whom the -question is asked. It is a liberal education in -the healing craft to go about with him, for he -is never secretive or mysterious—he is frankly -human instead of oracular.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How about your schooner?” was his next -question. “Do you think that they can get -along without you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He never forgets that these are fishermen, -whose livelihood depends on getting every -hour they can with their cod-traps, and the -stages and the flakes where the fish is salted -and spread to dry.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The third patient was a whaler. He had -caught his hand in a winch. The bones of the -second and third fingers of the right hand -were cracked, and the tips of those fingers had -been cut off. The hand lay in a hot bath.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dirty work, whaling,” was the Doctor’s -comment, as he examined the wound. -“Everything is rotten meat and a wound -easily becomes infected.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Number four was a baffling case of multiple -gangrene. This Bonne Bay fisherman had a -nose and an ear that looked as if they had -turned to black rubber. His toes were -sloughing off. The back of his right hand -was like raw beef. His left leg was bent at -an angle of 90 degrees, and as it could not -bear the pressure of the bedclothes a scaffolding -had been built over it. The teeth were -gone, and when the dressings were removed -even the plucking of the small hairs on the -leg gave the patient agony.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What have you been eating?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Potatoes, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What else?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Turnips, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You need green food. Fresh vegetable -salts.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor looked out of the window and -saw a dandelion in the rank green grass. -“That’s what he ought to have,” was his -comment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On the verandah were four out-of-door -patients to whom fresh air was essential. One -had a tubercular spine. A roll of plaster had -been coming by freight all summer long and -was impatiently awaited. But a delay of -months on the Labrador is nothing unusual. -Dr. Daly, of Harvard, presented the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> -with a searchlight, and it was two years -on the way—most of that time stored in a -warehouse at North Sydney.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Around these fresh-air cases the verandah -was netted with rabbit-wire. That was to keep -the dogs from breaking in and possibly eating -the patients, who are in mortal terror of the -dogs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the Doctor took a probe from the -hand of a trusted assistant he was careful to -ask if it was sterile ere he used it. He constantly -took his juniors—in this instance, -Johns Hopkins doctors—into consultation. -“What do you think?” was his frequent -query.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The use of unhallowed patent medicines -gave him distress. “O the stuff the people -put into themselves!” he exclaimed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have we got a Dakin solution?” he asked -presently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’ve been trying to get a chloramine solution -all summer,” answered one of the young -physicians.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor made a careful examination of -the man with the tubercular spine, who was -encased in plaster from the waist up. “After -all,” was his comment as he rose to his feet, -“doctors don’t do anything but keep things -clean.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the women’s ward the Harris Cot, the -Torquay Cot, the Northfield Cot, the Victoria -Cot, the Kingman Cot, the Exeter Cot were -filled with patient souls whose faces shone as -the Doctor passed. “More fresh air!” he -ejaculated, and other windows were opened. -Those who came from homes hermetically -sealed have not always understood the Doctor’s -passion for ozone. One man complained -that the wind got in his teeth and a girl said -that the singing on Sundays strained her -stomach.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had a remarkable memory for the history -of each case. “The day after you left -her heart started into fibrillation,” said an -assistant. “It was there before we left,” -answered the Doctor quietly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At one bedside where an operation of a -novel nature had been performed he remarked, -“I simply hate leaving an opening when I -don’t know how to close it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He never pretends to know it all: he never -sits down with folded hands in the face of a -difficulty or “passes the buck” to another. -In his running commentary while he looks the -patient over he confesses his perplexities. Yet -all that he says confirms rather than shakes -the patient’s confidence in him. Those whom -he serves almost believe that he can all but -raise the dead.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now this rash,” he said, “might mean -the New World smallpox—but probably it -doesn’t. We’ve only had two deaths from that -malady on the coast. It ran synchronously -with the ‘flu.’ In one household where -there were three children and a man, one -child and the man got it and two children -escaped it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This woman’s ulcers are the sequel to -smallpox. She needs the vegetable salts of a -fresh diet. How to get green things for her -is the problem. And this patient has tubercular -caries of the hip. The X-ray apparatus -is across the Straits at St. Anthony, sixty miles -away. If we only had a portable X-ray -apparatus of the kind they used in the war! -Now you see, no matter what the weather, this -woman must be taken across the Straits because -we are entirely without the proper appliances -here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Screens were put around the cots as the -examination was made, so that the others -wouldn’t be harrowed by the sight of blood -or pain.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sick seemed to find comfort merely in -being able to describe their symptoms to a -wise, good man. Much of the trouble seemed -actually to evaporate as they talked to him. -Miss Dohme and the other nurses kept the -rooms spotlessly clean, and gay bowls of -buttercups were about.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t feel nice, Doctor,” said the next -woman. “Some mornings a kind of dead, -dreary feeling seems to come out of me stummick -and go right down me laigs. Sometimes -it flutters; sometimes it lies down. The -wind’s wonderful strong today, and it’s -rising.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Usually the diagnosis is not greatly helped -by the patient, who meekly answers the questions -with “Yes, Doctor,” or “No, Doctor,” -or describes the symptoms with such poetic -vagueness that a great deal is left to the -imagination. It takes patient cross-questioning—in -which the Doctor is an adept—to elicit -the truth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Here is a dear little baby, warmly muffled, -on the piazza with the elixir of the sun and the -pine air. The pustular eczema has been -treated with ammoniate of mercury—but what -will happen when the infant goes home to the -old malnutrition and want of sanitation? If -only the Doctor could follow the case!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Bathtubs are a mystery to some of the patients, -who after they have been undressed -and led to the water’s edge ask plaintively, -“What do you want me to do now?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So many times in this little hospital one was -smitten by the need of green vegetables which -in so many places are not to be had—“greens” -(like spinach), lettuce, radishes and -the rest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As we came away the Doctor spoke of the -feeling that he used to have that wherever a -battle for the right was on anywhere he must -take part in it. “But I have learned that they -also serve who simply do their duty in their -places. These dogs hereabouts seem to think -they must go to every fight there is, near or -far. But none of us is called upon to do all -there is to do. I often read of happenings in -distant parts of the earth and feel as though -I ought to be there in the thick of things. -Then I realize that if we all minded our own -business exactly where we are we’d be doing -well. And when such thoughts come to me I -just make up my mind to be contented and to -buckle down to my job all the harder.”</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='27' id='Page_27'></span><h1>II<br/>A FISHER OF MEN</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>That evening Dr. Grenfell spoke in -the little Church of England, taking as -his text the words from the twelfth -chapter of John: “The spirit that is ruling in -this world shall be driven out.” Across the -tickle the huskies howled at the moon, and one -after another took up the challenge from either -bank. But one was no longer conscious of the -wailful creatures, and heard only the speaker; -and the kerosene lamps lighted one by one in -the gloom of the church became blurred stars, -and the woman sitting behind me in a loud -whisper said, “Yes! yes!” as Dr. Grenfell, -in the earnest and true words of a man -who speaks for the truth’s sake and not for -self’s sake, interpreted the Scriptures that he -has studied with such devotion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When I was young,” he said, “I learned -that man is descended from a monkey, and I -was told that there is no God.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When I became older and did my own -thinking I refused to believe that God chose -one race of mankind and left the rest to be -damned.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No one has the whole truth, whether he -be Church of England, Methodist or Roman -Catholic.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The simple truth of Christianity is what -the world needs. How foolish seem the tinsel -and trumpery distinctions for which men -struggle! What is the use of being able to -string the alphabet along after your name? -Character is all that counts.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Some say that religion is for the saving -of your soul. But it is not a grab for the -prizes of this world, and the capital prize of -the life eternal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The things the world holds to be large, -Christ tells us, are small. Jesus says the -greatest things are truth and love.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Love is so big a thing that it forgets self -utterly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How many of us know what it is to love? -It is not mere animal desire.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If we all truly loved, what a world it -would be!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Suppose a doctor loved all his patients. -He wouldn’t be satisfied then to say: ‘Your -leg is better,’ or ‘Here is a pill.’</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Suppose a clergyman loved his people. -He wouldn’t say: ‘I wonder how many in this -congregation are Church of England.’</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“God Himself is love and truth. Jesus -lived the beautiful things He taught. He was -them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Every man has something in him that -forces him to love what is unselfish and true -and altogether lovely and of good report.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In the war, in the midst of all the horror -and the terror and the pity of it, a noble spirit -was made manifest among men—a heroic -spirit of self-control and a sense of true -values.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If I couldn’t have a palace I could have -a clean house; if I couldn’t speak foreign -languages I needn’t speak foul language. We -may be poor fishermen or poor London doctors: -we can serve in our places, and we can -let our lives shine before men. If I have -done my duty where I am, I don’t care about -the rest. I shall not care if they leave my -old body on the Labrador coast or at the bottom -of the Atlantic for the fishes, if I have -fought the good fight and finished the course. -Having lived well, I shall die contented.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As soon as the service in the church was -over a meeting was held in the upper room of -the hospital. The room was filled, and Dr. -Grenfell spoke again. Before his address -familiar hymns were sung, and—noting that -two of those present had violins and were accompanying -the cabinet organ—he referred to -their efforts in his opening words.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We all have the great duty and privilege -of common human friendliness,” he said. -“We may show it in the little things of every -day. For everybody needs help, everywhere. -There is no end to the need of human sympathy. -It may be shown with a fiddle—or -perhaps I ought to say ‘violin’ (apologizing -to a Harvard student who was officiating).</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have always loved Kim in Kipling’s story -of that name. Kim is just a waif. Nobody -knows who his father is; but he is called -‘the little friend of all the world.’</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There is a book which has found wide -acceptance called ‘Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage -Patch.’ Mrs. Wiggs lived in a humble cottage -with only her cabbage patch, but everybody -came to her for sunshine and healing. -She had plenty of troubles of her own, but -just because she had them she knew how to -help others. Whoever we are, whatever we -are, we may wear the shining armour of the -knights of God: there is work waiting for -our hands to do, there is good cheer for us -to spread.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dreamer and doer live side by side in amity -in Dr. Grenfell’s make-up. At the animated -dinner-table of the nurses and the doctors in -the Battle Harbour hospital, after asking a -blessing, he was talking eagerly about the -League of Nations, the industrial situation in -England and America and the future for -Russia while brandishing the knife above the -meat pie and letting no plate but his own go -neglected.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dr. Grenfell is happy and his soul is free -at the wheel of the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>. That wheel -bears the words, “Jesus saith, Follow me and -I will make you fishers of men.” At the peak -of the mainmast is likely to be the blue pennant -bearing the words, “God is Love.” The -<span class='it'>Strathcona</span> is ketch-rigged. Her mainmast, -that is to say, is in the foremast’s place; and -above the mainsail is a new oblong topsail that -is the Doctor’s dear delight. The other sail -has above it a topsail of orthodox pattern, and -there are two jibs. So that when she has -her full fuel-saving complement of canvas -spread, the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> displays six sails at -work. Could the Doctor always have his way, -all the sails would be up whenever a breeze -stirs. With a good wind the ship is capable -of eight knots and even more an hour: five -knots or so is her average speed under steam -alone. In the bow, his paws on the rail, or -out on the bowsprit sniffing the air and seeing -things that only he can see, is the incomparable -dog Fritz—Fritz of “57 varieties”—brown -and black, like toast that was burned -in the making. No one knows the prevailing -ancestry of Fritz, but a strain of Newfoundland -is suspected. He will take a chance on -swimming ashore if we cast anchor within -half a mile of it, though the water is near -congealment, and he knows that a pack of his -wolfish brethren is ready to dispute the shoreline -with him when he clambers out dripping -upon the stony beach with seaweed in his -hair. When he swims back to the ship again -his seal-like head is barely above the waves -as he paddles about, a mute appeal in his -brown eyes for a bight of rope to be hitched -about his body to help him aboard.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dr. Grenfell keeps unholy hours, and -dawn is one of his favourite out-door sports. -He may nominally have retired at twelve—which -is likely to mean that he began to read -a book at that hour. He may have risen at -two, three and four to see how the wind lay -and the sea behaved: and perhaps five o’clock -will find him at the wheel, bareheaded, -the wind ruffling the silver locks above his -ruddy countenance, his grey-brown eyes—which -are like the stone labradorite in the -varying aspects they take on—watching the -horizon, the swaying bowsprit, the compass, -and the goodness of God in the heavens.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor is a great out-of-doors -man. He scorns a hat, and in his own -element abjures it utterly. He wears a brown -sweater, high in the neck, and above it he -smokes a briarwood pipe that is usually right -side up but appears to give him just as much -satisfaction when the bowl is inverted. The -rest of his costume is a symphony of grey or -brown, patched or threadbare but neat always, -ending in boots high or low of red rubber or -of leather.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>You may think that the dog Fritz out on -the bowsprit is enjoying all the morning there -is, but the Doctor is transformed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I love these early mornings,” he says—and -he is innocent of pose when he says it: -it is not a mere literary emotion. “It’s a -beautiful sight in autumn with the ice when -the banks are red with the little hills clear-cut -against the sky and the sea a deep, deep -blue. Isn’t it a beautiful world to live in? -Isn’t it fun to live?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>You have to admit that it is.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A man can’t think just of stomachs all -the time. Sometimes I have to go away for -a day or two. But I can’t say when I’ve -ever been tired.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A great little ship she is. She is very -human to me. She has done her bit—she -has carried her load. On that small deck and -down below we once took 56 Finns from the -wreck of the <span class='it'>Viking</span> off Hamilton Inlet. We -had nothing but biscuit and dry caplin on -which to feed them. Once we were caught in -a storm with seven schooners. We had 60 -fathoms out on two chains for our anchors. -Six of the other seven ships went ashore. -Then the seventh overturned—ours was the -only ship that stood. All of a sudden our -main steampipe burst. We had to use cold -sea-water. It was a hard struggle to bring -our ship into shallow water at 1½ fathoms. -Another time we had to tow 19 small boats -at once.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We always have something up our sleeve -to get out of trouble.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then suddenly spying other vessels with -their sails up, Dr. Grenfell proceeds to study -them for a lesson as to the way his own ship -is to take. He calls out to Albert Ash, his -pessimistic mate, “She’s well-ballasted, that -two-master. Have those others tacked?” -His talk runs on easily as he swings the ship -about and the sails are bellying with a favouring -breeze. “This wind’ll run out three knots. -I’m cheating it up into the wind. We’ll let -her go by a bit. This is Chimney Tickle in -here. A beautiful harbour. The tide and the -polar current meet here. It’s always open -water. It’s the place they’re thinking of for a -transatlantic harbour. It’s only 1,625 miles -from here to Galway. The jib and mainsail -aren’t doing the work. That man has no idea -of trimming a jib!” He rushes out to the -wheelhouse and does most of the work of -setting the mainsail himself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m so fond of those words ‘The sea is -His,’ ” he says, coming back to the spokes -again. “I think it runs in the blood. I like -to think of the old sea-dogs—like Frobisher -and Drake and Cabot. Shackleton told Mrs. -Grenfell that the first ship that came to Labrador -was named the <span class='it'>Grenfell</span>.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The comings and goings of the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> -mean much to these people,” said Dr. -McConnell. “At Independence a woman -met us on the wharf, the great tears rolling -down her cheeks. She lost her husband and -her son in the ‘flu’ epidemic. She told me that -her son said to her: ‘Mother, if Dr. Grenfell -were only here, he could save me.’ At Snack -Cove the people went out on the rocks and -cried bitterly when the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> passed -them by—as we learned when to their great -relief we dropped in upon them a fortnight -later.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>We cast anchor at Pleasure Harbour because -of rough weather and for a few hours -had one of the Doctor’s all too infrequent -play-times, while waiting for the Strait to -abate its fury to permit of a possible crossing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Here a delicious trout stream tumbled and -swirled from sullen, mist-hung uplands into a -piratical cove where two small schooners -swung at anchor. Like so many of these -places the cove was a complete surprise—you -came round the rock with no hint that it was -there till you found it, placid as a tarn and -deep and black, with big blue hills stretching -to the northward beyond the fuzzy fringes of -the nearer trees and the mottled barrens where -the clouds were poised and the ghosts of the -mist descended. (A tuneful, sailor-like name -it is that the Eskimoes give to a ghost—the -“Yo-ho”: and they say that the Northern -Lights are the spirits of the dead at play).</p> - -<p class='pindent'>An unhandy person with a rod, I was -allowed by Dr. Grenfell and Dr. McConnell -to go ahead and spoil the nicest trout-pools -with my fly. Even though cod fishermen at -the mouth of the stream had unlawfully placed -a net to keep the trout from ascending, there -were plenty of trout in the brook, and in the -course of several hours forty-nine were good -enough to attach themselves to my line. The -banks were soggy under the long green -grass: the water was acutely cold: and in two -places there were small fields of everlasting -snow in angles of the rock. It was an ideal -trout-brook, for it was full of swirling black -eddies, rippling rapids, and deep, still pools. -The brook began at a lake which was roughened -by a wind blowing steadily toward us. -Dr. Grenfell cast against the wind where the -lake discharged its contents into the brook, -and the line was swept back to his boots. -With unwearying patience he cast again and -again, and while I strove in vain to land a -single fish from the lake he caught one monster -after another, almost at his own feet. All -the way up the brook he had successfully fished -in the most unpromising places, that we had -given over with little effort, and here he was -again getting by far the best results in the most -difficult places of all. There seemed to be a -parallel here with his medical and spiritual -enterprise on the Labrador. He has worked -for poor and humble people, when others have -asked impatiently: “Why do you throw -away your life upon a handful of fishermen -round about a bleak and uncomfortable island -where people have no business to live anyway?” -He could not leave the fishermen’s -stage at the mouth of the brook this time -without being called upon to examine a fisherman -troubled by failing eyesight. On the -run of a couple of hundred yards in a rowboat -to the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> the thunder-clouds rolled up, -with lightning, and as we set foot on board -the deluge came.</p> - -<p class='pindent'><a id='frit'></a></p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i038a.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0004' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>FRITZ AND HIS MASTER.</p> -</div> - -<p class='pindent'><a id='doct'></a></p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i038b.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0005' style='width:70%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>“DOCTOR.”</p> -</div> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='39' id='Page_39'></span><h1>III<br/>AT ST. ANTHONY</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>Next evening found us at St. Anthony. -Doctors and nurses were on the wharf -to greet their chief after his absence -of several weeks. Dr. Curtis showed the -stranger through the clean and well-appointed -hospital, with its piazza for a sun-bath and -the bonny air for the T. B. patients, its X-ray -apparatus and its operating room, its small -museum of souvenirs of remarkable operations. -I saw Dr. Andrews of San Francisco -perform with singular deftness an operation -for congenital cataract, with a docile little girl -who had been blind a long time, and whose -sight would probably be completely restored by -the two thrusts made with a needle at the -sides of the cornea. Her eyes were bandaged -and she was carried away by the nurse, -broadly smiling, to await the outcome. For -ten years or so this noted oculist, no longer -young except in the spirit, has crossed the -continent to spend the summer in volunteer -service at St. Anthony—a fair type of the -men that are naturally drawn to the work in -which the Doctor found his life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One of the St. Anthony doctors visiting -out-patients came upon a woman who was -carefully wrapped in paper. This explanation -was offered: “If us didn’t use he, the bugs -would lodge their paws in we.” “Bugs” are -flies, and the use of “he” for “it” is characteristic. -A skipper will talk about a lighthouse -as he, just as he feminizes a ship, and -the nominative case serves also as the -objective.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Another woman had been wrapped by her -neighbours in burnt butter and oakum. -“Now give her a bath,” was Dr. Grenfell’s -advice after he had made his examination. -“You can if you like, Doctor,” the volunteer -nurse said. “If you do it and she dies we -shan’t be blamed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the hospital the Doctor was concerned -with a baby twelve months old whose -feet were twisted over till they were almost -upside down. The mother had massaged the -feet with oil for hours at a time. The baby -cried constantly with pain, and neither the -child nor the mother had known a satisfactory -night’s rest since it was born. When the -Doctor said the condition was curable, because -she had brought her child in time, the -look of relief in the mother’s face defied -recording. It is a look often seen with his -patients, and since he scarcely ever asks or -receives a fee worth mentioning, it constitutes -a large part of his reward.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The herd of reindeer that the Doctor imported -from Lapland and installed between -St. Anthony and Flower’s Cove with two Lapp -herders are now flourishing under Canadian -auspices in (Canadian) Labrador in the -vicinity of the St. Augustine River. The -Doctor himself took a hand in the difficult job -of lassoing them and tying their feet, and -still there were about forty of the animals -that could not be found. The Doctor says -it was “lots of fun” catching them—but he -gives that description to many transactions -that most of us would consider the hardest -kind of hard work.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Next in importance after the hospital, -Exhibit A is the spick-and-span orphanage, -with thirty-five of the neatest and sweetest -children, polite and friendly and more than -willing to learn. The boys who are not named -Peter, James or John are named Wilfred. -“Suffer little children to come unto me” is -in big letters on the front of the building. On -the hospital is the inscription: “Faith, hope -and love abide, but the greatest of these is -love.” Over the Industrial School stands -written, “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as -unto the Lord.” Here the beautiful rugs are -made—hooked through canvas—according to -lively designs of Eskimoes and seals and polar -bears prepared in the main by the Doctor. -Even the bird-house has its legend: “Praise -the Lord, ye birds of wing.” There is a thriving -co-operative store, next door to the well-kept -little inn. A sign of the Doctor’s devising -and painting swings in front of the store. On -one side is a picture of huskies with a komatik -(sled) bringing boxes to a settler’s door, and -the inscription is, “Spot cash is always the -leader.” On the other side of the sign a ship -named <span class='it'>Spot Cash</span> is seen bravely ploughing -through mountainous waves and towering -bergs. Underneath it reads: “There’s no -sinking her.” “That is a reminiscence,” -smiled the Doctor, “of my fights with the -traders. Do you think these signs of mine -are cant? I don’t mean them that way. I -want every one of them to count.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A school, a laundry, a machine-shop and -a big store are other features of the plant at -St. Anthony. The dock is a double-decker, -and from it a diminutive tramway with a -hand-car sends “feeders” to the various -buildings and even up the walk to the Doctor’s -house. All the mail-boats now turn in at this -harbour. The captain of a ship like the -<span class='it'>Prospero</span>—which in the summer of 1919 -brought on four successive trips 70, 70, 60 and -50 patients to overflow the hospital—appreciates -the facilities offered by this modern -wharfage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As the Doctor goes about St. Anthony he -does not fail to note anything that is new, -or to bestow on any worthy achievement a -word of praise, for which men and women -work the harder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To “The Master of the Inn” he expressed -his satisfaction in the smooth-running, cleanly -hostelry. “He is one of my boys,” he remarked -to me after the conversation. “He -was trained here at St. Anthony, and then at -the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then he meets the electrician. “Did you -get your ammeter?” he asks. And then: -“How did you make your rheostat?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He points with satisfaction to a little Jersey -bull recently acquired, and then he critically -surveys the woodland paths that lead from his -dooryard to a tea-house on the hill commanding -the wide vista of the harbour and the -buildings of the industrial colony. “Nothing -of this when we came here,” he observes. -“The people seem possessed to cut down all -their trees: we do our best to save ours, and we -dote on these winding walks, which are an -innovation.” Then he laughs. “A good -woman heard me say that lambs were unknown -in Labrador, and that we had to speak -of seals instead when we were reading the -Scriptures. She sent me a lamb and some -birds, stuffed, so that the people might understand. -She meant well, but in transit the -lamb’s head got sadly twisted on one side, and -the birds were decrepit specimens indeed with -their bedraggled plumage.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The house itself is delightful, and it is only -too bad that the Doctor and his wife see so -little of it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It is a house with a distinct atmosphere. -The soul of it is the living-room with a wide -window at the end that opens out upon a -prospect of the wild wooded hillside, with an -ivy-vine growing across the middle, so that -it seems as if there were no glass and one could -step right out into the clear, pure air. There -is a big, hearty fireplace; there is a generously -receptive sofa; there is an upright Steinway -piano, where a blind piano-tuner was working -at the time of my visit.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Lupins, the purple monk’s hood and the -pink fireweed grow along the paths and about -the house. A glass-enclosed porch surrounds -it on three sides, and in the porch are antlered -heads of reindeer and caribou, coloured views -of scenery in the British Isles and elsewhere, -snowshoes and hunting and fishing paraphernalia, -a great hanging pot of lobelias, and—noteworthily—a -brass tablet bearing this -inscription:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>    To the Memory of</p> -<p class='line0'>    Three Noble Dogs</p> -<p class='line0'>        Moody</p> -<p class='line0'>        Watch</p> -<p class='line0'>        Spy</p> -<p class='line0'>whose lives were given for</p> -<p class='line0'>    mine on the ice</p> -<p class='line0'>    April 21, 1908</p> -<p class='line0'>            Wilfred Grenfell</p> -<p class='line0'>                St. Anthony</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>It is the kind of house that eloquently -speaks of being lived in.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It is comfortable, but the note of idle luxury -or useless ostentation is absent. There is no -display for its own sake. The books bear -signs of being fireside companions. Dr. -Grenfell is fond of running a pencil down the -margin as he reads. He is very fond of the -books of his intimate friend Sir Frederick -Treves, in whose London hospital he was -house-surgeon. “The Land that is Desolate” -was aboard the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>. Millais’ book on -Newfoundland was on the writing desk at -St. Anthony, and had been much scored, as, -indeed, had many of his other books.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>I asked him to name to me his favourite -books. Offhand he said: “The Bible first, -naturally. And I’m very fond of George -Borrow’s ‘The Bible in Spain.’ I admire Borrow’s -persistence until he sold a Testament in -Finisterre. ‘L’Avengro’ and ‘Romany Rye’ -are splendid, too. I’m very fond of Kipling’s -‘Kim.’ Then I greatly care for the lives of -men of action. Autobiography is my favourite -form of reading. The ‘Life of Chinese Gordon’—the -‘Life of Lord Lawrence’—the -‘Life of Havelock.’ You see there is a strong -strain of the Anglo-Indian in my make-up. -My family have been much concerned with -colonial administration in India. The story -of Outram I delight in. He was everything -that is unselfish and active—and a first-class -sportsman. Boswell’s ‘Johnson’ is a great -favourite of mine. I take keen pleasure in -Froude’s ‘Seamen of the 16th Century.’ In -the lighter vein I read every one of W. W. -Jacob’s stories. Mark Twain is a great man. -What hasn’t he added to the world!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then there is ‘Anson’s Voyages.’ It’s a -capital book. He describes how he lugged off -two hundred and ten old Greenwich pensioners -to sail his ships, though they frantically fled -in every direction to avoid being impressed -into the service. All of them died, and he -lost all of his ships but the one in which he -fought and conquered a Spanish galleon after -a most desperate battle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I used to have over my desk the words -of Chinese Gordon:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>‘To love myself last;</p> -<p class='line0'>To do the will of God,’</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='noindent'>and the rest of his creed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The only man whose picture is in my Bible -is the Rev. Jeremiah Horrox, a farmer’s -son. He was the first to observe the transit -of Venus. That was in 1640. The picture -shows him watching the phenomenon through -the telescope. It inspired me to think what a -poor lonely clergyman could accomplish. He -and men like him stick to their jobs—that’s -what I like.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have in my Bible the words of Pershing -to the American Expeditionary Force in -France in 1917—the passage beginning -‘Hardship will be your lot.’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>I was privileged to look into that Bible. It -is the Twentieth Century New Testament -This he likes, he says, because the vernacular -is clear, and sheds light on disputed passages -which are not clear in other versions.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I care more for clearness than anything -else,” he declared. “When I read to the -fishermen I want them to understand every -word. But I have often read from this version -to sophisticated congregations in the United -States and had persons afterwards ask me -what it was. Many passages are positively -incorrect in the King James Version. For -instance, the eighth chapter of Isaiah, which is -the first lesson for Christmas morning, is -misleading in the Authorized Version.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>We debated the relative merits of the King -James Version and the Twentieth Century -Version for a long time one evening. I was -holding out for the old order, in the feeling that -the revised text deliberately sacrificed much of -the majestic beauty and poetry of the style of -the King James Version and that—despite an -occasional archaism—the meaning was clear -enough, and the additional accuracy did not -justify putting aside the earlier beloved translation. -Dr. Grenfell earnestly insisted that -the most important thing is to make the meaning -of the Scriptures plain to plain people—that -the sense is the main consideration, and -the truth is more important than a stately -cadence of poetic prose.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t want the language of three hundred -years ago,” he asserted. “I want the -language of today.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It is his custom to crowd the margins of his -Bibles with annotations. He fills up one copy -after another—one of these is in the possession -of Mrs. John Markoe of Philadelphia, who -prizes it greatly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>By the name of George Borrow and the -picture of Jeremiah Horrox on the fly-leaf of -the copy he now uses, he has written “My -inspirers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There is much interleaving and all the inserted -pages are crowded with trenchant -observations and reflections on the meaning -of life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Adhering to the inner side of the front -corner is a poem:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“Is thy cruse of comfort failing?</p> -<p class='line0'>Rise and share it with another.</p> -<p class='line0'>  . . . . . .</p> -<p class='line0'>Scanty fare for one will often</p> -<p class='line0'>Make a royal feast for two.”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>There is a clipping from the <span class='it'>Outlook</span>, of -an article by Lyman Abbott quoting Roosevelt -to American troops, June 5, 1917, on the -text from Micah, “What more doth the Lord -require of thee than to do justly and to love -mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then there is a quotation from Shakespeare:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do,</p> -<p class='line0'>Nor light them for ourselves. For if our virtues</p> -<p class='line0'>Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike</p> -<p class='line0'>As if we had them not.”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>Pages of meditation are given to dreams—service—conversion—going -to the war in 1915 -with the Harvard Medical Unit—the place of -religion in daily life—the will—the religion -of duty.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Another clipping—in large print—bears the -words: “Not to love, not to serve, is not to -live.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the back of the book is pasted an extended -description of the death of Edith -Cavell.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In one place he writes: “I don’t want a -squashy credulity weakening my resolution -and condoning incompetency—but just a faith -of optimism which is that of youth and makes -me do things regardless of the consequences.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His marginal annotations disclose the profound -and the devoted student of the Bible—the -man who without the slightest shred of -mealy-mouthed sanctimoniousness searches -the Scriptures, and lives close to the spirit of -the Master. Anyone who sees even a little -of Grenfell in action must realize how faithful -his life is to the pattern of Christ’s life on -earth. There are many passages of Christ’s -experience—as when the crowd pressed in -upon Him—or when learned men were supercilious—or -when He perceived that virtue -had gone out of Him—or when He was -reproached because He let a man die in His -absence—that remind one of Grenfell’s -thronged and hustled life. Many believe that -Grenfell can all but work a miracle of healing; -and the lame, the halt and the blind are brought -to him from near and far, at all times of the -day or the night, even as they were brought to -the Master. In his love of children, in his -patience with the doer of good and his -righteous wrath aflame against the evil-doer, in -his candour and his sunny sweetness and his -unfailing courage Grenfell translates the -precepts of the Book into the action and the -speech of the living way. He cannot live by -empty professions of faith; he is happy only -when he is putting into vivid practice the creed -which guides his living.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='53' id='Page_53'></span><h1>IV<br/>ALL IN THE DAY’S WORK</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>It was hard to say where the Doctor’s -day began or ended. One night he rose -several times to inspect wind and weather -ere deciding to make a start; and at twenty -minutes before five he was at the wheel himself. -Mrs. Grenfell clipped from “Life” and -pinned upon his tiny stateroom mirror a -picture of a caterpillar showing to a class of -worms the early bird eating the worm. The -legend beneath it ran: “Now remember, dear -children, the lesson for today—the disobedient -worm that would persist in getting up too early -in the morning.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His books and articles are usually written -between the early hours of five and seven -o’clock in the morning. The log of the -<span class='it'>Strathcona</span>, religiously kept for the information -of the International Grenfell Association, -was likely to be pencilled on his knee -while sitting on a pile of firewood on the -reeling deck. Just as Roosevelt wrote his -African game-hunting articles “on safari,” -while so wearied with the chase that he could -hardly keep his eyes open, the Doctor has -schooled himself to do his work without considering -his pulse-beat or his temperature or -his blood pressure. After a driving day afloat -and ashore, as surgeon, magistrate, minister -and skipper, he rarely retires before midnight, -and often he sits up till the wee small hours -engrossed in the perusal of a book he likes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the Doctor enters a harbour unannounced -and drops anchor, within a few -minutes power-boats and rowboats are flocking -about the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>, and the deck fills -with fishermen, their wives and their children, -all with their major and minor troubles. -Sometimes it requires the whole family to -bring a patient. Often after a diagnosis it -seems advisable to place a patient in the hospital -at Battle Harbour or St. Anthony, and -so the “Torquay Cot” or another in the -diminutive hospital on the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> is filled, -or perhaps the passenger goes to hob-nob with -the good-natured crew and consume their -victuals. Many a crying baby, in the limited -space, makes the narrow quarters below-decks -reverberate with the heraldry of the fact that -he is teething or has the tummyache.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor operates at the foot of the -companion-ladder leading down into the -saloon, which is dining-room, living-room and -everything else. “I always have a basin of -blood at the foot of the ladder,” he grimly -remarks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>I told him I thought I would call what I -wrote about him “From Topsails to Tonsils,” -since with such versatility he passed from the -former to the latter. “That reminds me,” he -said with a laugh, “of the time I went ashore -with Dr. John Adams, and the first thing we -did was to lay three children out on the table -and remove their tonsils. That was a mighty -bloody job, I can tell you!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The hatchway over his head as he operates -is always filled with the heads of so many -spectators—including frequently the Doctor’s -dog, Fritz—that the meagre light which -comes from above is nearly shut off. Often -a lamp is necessary, and as electric flash-lamps -are notoriously faithless in a crisis, it is usually -a kerosene lamp. Often an impatient patient -starts to come down before his time, or an -over-eager parent or husband thinks he must -accompany the one that he has brought for -the doctor’s lancet. It is hard to get elbow-room -for the necessary surgery, and every -operation is a more or less public clinical -demonstration.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Usually the description of the symptoms is -of the vaguest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m chilled to the cinders,” said an -anxious Irishman.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, we can put on some fresh coal,” -was the Doctor’s answer. “How old are -you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Forty-six, Doctor!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A mere child!” the doctor replies, and -the merry twinkle in his eyes brings an answering -smile to the face of the sufferer. -The Doctor himself was fifty-five years old in -February, 1920.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So many fishermen get what are called -“water-whelps” or “water-pups,”—pustules -on the forearm due to the abrasion of the -skin by more or less infected clothing. Cleaning -the cod and cutting up fish produces many -ugly cuts and piercings and consequent sores, -and there is always plenty of putrefying -matter about a fishing-stage to infect them. -So that a very common phenomenon is a great -swelling on the forearm—and an agonizing, -sleep-destroying one it may be—where pus -has collected and is throbbing for the lance. -It is a joy to witness the immediate relief that -comes from the cutting, and as the iodine is -applied and deft fingers bandage the wound -the patient tries to find words to tell of his -thankfulness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One afternoon just as the Doctor thought -there was a lull in the proceedings four -women and a man came over the rail at once. -The first woman had a “bad stummick”; the -second wanted “turble bad” to have her tooth -“hauled”; the third had “a sore neck, Miss” -(thus addressing Mrs. Grenfell); the fourth -woman had something “too turble to tell”; -the man merely wanted to see the Doctor on -general principles.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Here is a bit of dialogue with a woman who -couldn’t sleep.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What do you do when you don’t sleep?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I bide in the bed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you do any work?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you cook?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you wash the children?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Scattered times, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the husband put in: “She couldn’t do -her work and it overcast her. She overtopped -her mind, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was a fine, dignified old fellow, and it -was a real pleasure to see how tender he was -toward his poor fidgety, neurasthenic spouse. -She hadn’t any teeth worth mentioning, and -her lips were pursed together with a vise-like -grip. I shall not forget how Doctor Grenfell -murmured to me in a humorous aside: -“Teeth certainly do add to a lady’s charm!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When medicine is administered, it is hard -to persuade the afflicted one that the prescription -means just what it says.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This lady was told to take three pills, and -she took two. But most of them exceed their -instruction. To a woman at Trap Cove Dr. -Fox gave liniment for her knee. It helped her. -Then she took it internally for a stomach-ache, -arguing logically enough that a pain is a pain, -a medicine is a medicine, and if this liniment -was good for a hurt in the knee it must be -good for any bodily affliction. Luckily she -lived to tell the tale.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When I was in the North Sea the sailors -if they got the chance ransacked my medicine -cupboard and drank up everything they could -lay their hands on.” Such autobiographic -confessions are often made while the Doctor -mixes a draught or concocts a lotion. “Here -it is the same way. I have had my customers -drain off the whole bottle of medicine at once, -on the theory that if one teaspoonful did you -good, a bottle would be that much better.” -His questions, like his lancet, go right to -the root of the trouble. Nothing phases him. -He answers every question. He never tells -people they are fools; his inexhaustible forebearance -with the inept and the obtuse is not -the least Christlike of his attributes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It is difficult for these men to come to the -hospital in summer, for their livelihood depends -on their catch, and then on their salting -and spreading the fish: and after the cod-fishery -has fallen away to zero the herring -come in October, and the cod to some extent -return with them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When I tell them they must go to the -hospital, they always say ‘I haven’t time: I -want to stay and mind my traps.’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor hates above all things—as I -have indicated—to leave a wound open, or -a malady half-treated, and hustle on. It is -the great drawback and exasperation in his -work that the interval before he sees the -patient again must be so long. He mourns -whenever he has to pull a tooth that might be -saved if he could wait to fill it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He is always working against time, against -the sea, against ignorance, against a want of -charity on the part of nominal Christians who -ought to help him instead of carping and -denouncing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But he is working with all honest and -sincere men, all who are true to the high -priesthood of science, all who are on the side -of the angels.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One man thus describes his affliction, letting -the Doctor draw his own deductions:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Like a little round ball the pain will start, -sir; then it will full me inside; and the only -rest I get is to crumple meself down.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>An unhappy woman reciting the history of -her complaint declared: “The last doctor -said I had an impression of the stomach and -was full of glams.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Bless God!” exclaimed another, speaking -of her children. “There’s nothing the matter -with ’em. They be’s off carrying wood. They -just coughs and heaves, that’s all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One mother, asked what treatment she was -administering to her infant replied: “Oh, I -give ’er nothing now. Just plenty of cold -water and salts and spruce beer; ne’er drop -o’ grease.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When there is no doctor to be had the -services of the seventh son of a seventh son -are in demand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'><a id='batt'></a></p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i062.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0006' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>BATTLE HARBOUR—SPREADING FISH FOR DRYING.</p> -</div> - -<p class='pindent'>Elemental human misery made itself heard -in the dolorous accents of a corpulent lady of -fifty. “I works in punishment on account of -my eyes. Sometimes I piles two or three fish -on top of each other and I has to do it over. -I cries a good deal about it.” Her gratification -as she was fitted to a pair of “plus” -glasses that greatly improved her sight was -worth a long journey to witness. Many pairs -of glasses were put on her nose en route to the -discovery of the most satisfactory pair, and -each time she would say “Lovely! Beautiful!” -with crescendo of fervour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>I heard a fond father tell the Doctor that -there was a “rale squick (real squeak) bawling -on the inside of” his offspring.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A man who climbed down the companion -way with an aching side, a rupture, and a -hypertrophic growth on his finger, was asked -what he did for his ribs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I rinsed them,” was the response.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor is always on the lookout for -the “first flag of warning”—as he calls it—of -the dreaded “T. B.” which is responsible -for one death in every four in Newfoundland. -Much of his talk with a patient has to do with -fresh air and fresh vegetables. The Eskimoes -may know better than some native Newfoundlanders. -“I like air. I push my whiphandle -through the roof,” said one of the Eskimoes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Here is a typical excerpt, from a conversation -with a young man who to the layman -looked very robust.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How old are you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Twenty-two, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have any in your family had tuberculosis?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Father’s brother Will and Aunt Clarissa -died of it, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you suffering?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It shoots up all through my stomach, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you read and write?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, Doctor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“See clearly?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Doctor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you able to get any greens?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sometimes, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dock-leaves?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What greens have you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Alexander greens, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Any berries?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Doctor. And bake apples.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s good. You must eat plenty of -them. You must have good food. As good -as you can afford. I’m sorry it’s so hard -where you live to get anything fresh. Do you -sleep well?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Doctor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Anybody else sleep in the same bed?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, Doctor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When you go to bed do you keep the -windows open?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Doctor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s right. That’s very important. Do -people spit around you?” (The Doctor is -always on the war-path against this disgusting -and dangerous habit.)</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quite sure?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, we use spit-boxes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you burn the contents?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you wear warm things?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Doctor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sweat a lot?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Doctor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You mustn’t get wet without changing -your clothes. Now, when you eat potatoes I -want you to eat them baked, with the skins -on. I don’t mean eat the skins. But the part -right under the skins is very important.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Doctor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As one listens to such catechizing it becomes -clear that the Doctor lays great stress -on fresh air and fresh food as medicines, -“Cold is your friend and heat is your enemy” -is his oft-reiterated dictum to consumptives.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Once he said to me, “I attach great importance -to the sun-bath. I believe in exposing -the naked body to all it can get of the air.” -In the nipping cold of the early morning on -the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> I emerged from beneath four -double blankets to hear the Doctor joyfully -cry: “I’ve just had my bucket on deck. You -could have had one too, but I lost the bucket -overboard.” It has been a pastime of his to -row with a boatload of doctors and nurses to -an iceberg and go in swimming from the platform -at the base of the berg.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sometimes the Macedonian cry comes by -letter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Here is a pencilled missive from an old -woman who evidently got a kindly neighbour -to write it for her, for the signature is misspelled:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Pleas ducker grandlield would you help -me with a little clothing I am a wodow 85 yars -of age.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Grandlield” is not further from the name -than a great many have come. Here are some -other common variants:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>Gumpin</p> -<p class='line0'>Grinpiel</p> -<p class='line0'>Greenfield</p> -<p class='line0'>Gramfull</p> -<p class='line0'>Gremple</p> -<p class='line0'>Gransfield</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>From a village in White Bay, where the -fishing was woefully poor in 1919, comes this -pathetic plea:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To Dr. and Mrs. Grenfell: Dear Friends: -I am writing to see if you will help me a little.—My -husband got about 1 qtl of fish (1 quintal—pronounced -kental—of 112 pounds, -worth at most $11.20) this summer, and I have -four children, 15, 13, 11, 6 years, and his -Father, and we are all naked as birds with no -ways or means to get anything. What can I -do; if you can do anything for me I hope -God will bless you. It is pretty hard to look -at a house full of naked children.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Grenfell visited White Bay in July and -in two villages found a number of people all -but utterly destitute. They were living on -“loaf” (bread) and tea. They had icefields -instead of fish. Six of the breadwinners got -a job at St. Anthony. The villagers had few -pairs of shoes among them, In several instances -the foot-gear was fashioned of the -sides of rubber boots tied over the feet with -pieces of string. The people of this neighbourhood -are folk of the highest character, and -richly deserving, though poverty-stricken.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Another characteristic letter:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dr. dear sir. please send two roals fielt -(rolls of felt) one Roal Ruber Hide (rubberoid) -one ten Patent for Paenting Moter -Boat some glass for the bearn (barn) thanks -veary mutch for the food you sent me. Glad -two have James Home and his Leg so well -you made a splended Cut of it this time I -will all way Pray for you while I Live Potatoes -growing well on the Farm Large Enough -two Eaght all redey. But I loast my Cabbages -Plants wit the Big falls rain and snow i the -first of the summer, but I have lotes of turnips -Plants I have all the Caplen (a small fish) -I wants two Put on the farm this summer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“dr—dear sir I want some nails to finesh -the farm fance I farn.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In a fisherman’s house in an interval between -examinations of children for tonsils and -adenoids the Doctor related this incident to a -spellbound group. He never has any trouble -holding an audience with stories that grow out -of his work, and the fishermen delight as he -does in his informal chats with them and with -their families.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We had a long hunt for a starving family -of which we had been told by the Hudson Bay -Company agent, on an island at Hamilton -Inlet in Labrador. The father was half -Eskimo. He had a single-barrelled shotgun -with which he had brought down one gull. -With his wife and his five naked children he -was living under a sail. The children, though -they had nothing on, were blue in the face -with eating the blueberries, and they were fat -as butter. The mate took two of the little ones, -as if they were codfish, one under each arm, -and carried them aboard. There were tears -in his eyes, for he had seven little ones of his -own, and he was very fond of children. Both -were carefully brought up at our Childrens’ -Home and one of them, who can now both -read and write, is aboard at present as a member -of the crew of the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After evening prayers on Sunday, at which -the Doctor has spoken, he has treated as many -as forty persons.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In one place after removing a man’s tonsils -it was a case of eyeglasses to be fitted, then -came one who clamoured to have three teeth -extracted. The teeth were “hauled” and a -bad condition of ankylosis at the roots was -revealed. Then a girl had a throat abscess -lanced, and she was followed by a boy with -a dubious rash and a tubercular inheritance. -The Doctor is ever on the lookout for the -“New World” smallpox: but the stethoscope -detected a pleuritic attack, and strong supporting -bandages were wound about the lower part -of his chest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Another group was this:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>1. An operation on a child’s tonsils. A -local anaesthetic was given—10 per cent. cocaine. -A tooth was also removed. The total -charge was $1.00.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>2. A fisherman came for ointments—zinc -oxide and carbolic.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>3. An eight months old infant was brought -in, blind in the right eye. This condition -might have been obviated had boric acid been -applied at the time of the baby’s birth. The -mother said that only a little warm water had -been used.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So many, though they may not say so, appear -to believe with Mary when she said to -Jesus, “Lord, if thou hadst been here my -brother had not died.” They think the Doctor -has something like supernatural powers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With the utmost care he prepared to administer -novocaine and treat the wound of a -man who had run a splinter into his left hand -between the first and second fingers, leaving -an unhealed sinus. “Wonderful stuff, this -novocaine!” he remarked, as he put on a pair -of rubber gloves, washed them in alcohol, and -then gave his knives a bath in a soup-plate -of alcohol.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In the inflamed parts none of these local -anaesthetics work very well,” was his next -comment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the patient scarcely felt it when he ran -a probe through the hand till it all but protruded -through the skin on the inner side.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The bad blood was spooned out, and then -the deep cavity swallowed about six inches of -iodoform gauze. When the wound had been -carefully packed the hand was bandaged. For -nearly an hour’s work requiring the exercise of -rare skill and the utmost caution the charge -was—a dollar. And that included a pair of -canvas gloves and another pair of rubber mitts, -of the Doctor’s own devising, drawn over the -bandages and tied so that the man might continue -at his work without getting salt-water -or any contaminating substance in the wound -and so infecting it badly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>These two importunate telegrams arrived -while he was paying a flying visit to headquarters -at St. Anthony:</p> - -<div class='blockquote'> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do your best to come and operate me I -have an abscess under right tonsil will give you -coal for your steamer am getting pretty weak.</p> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:1em;'>Capt. J. N. Coté, Long Point.”</p> - -</div> - -<p class='pindent'>A second telegram arriving almost simultaneously -from the same man read: “Please -come as fast as you can to operate me in the -throat and save my life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Captain Coté is the keeper of the Greenly -Island Lighthouse, near Blanc Sablon. It is -a very important station.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor, true to form, at once made up -his mind to go. Greenly Island is about 100 -miles from St. Anthony, and on the opposite -side of the Straits, on the Canadian side of -the line that divides Canadian Labrador from -Newfoundland Labrador. The short cut took -us through Carpoon (Quirpon) Tickle, and -there we spent the night, for much as the Doctor -wanted to push ahead the wind made the -Strait so rough that—having it against us—the -<span class='it'>Strathcona</span> could not have made headway. -“I remember,” said the Doctor with a smile, -“that once we steamed all night in Bonavista -Bay, full speed ahead, and in the morning -found ourselves exactly where we were the -night before. Coal is too scarce now.” On -one occasion the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> distinguished herself -by going ashore with all sails set.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>By the earliest light of morning we were -under way. The tendency of a land-lubber at -the wheel off this cruel coast was naturally to -give the jagged and fearsome spines of rock -as wide a berth as possible. In the blue distance -might be seen a number of bergs, large -and small, just as a reminder of what the ice -can do to navigation when it chooses; and in -the foreground were fishermen’s skiffs bobbing -about and taking their chances of crossing the -track of our doughty little steamer. But the -Doctor called in at the door of the wheelhouse: -“Run her so close to those rocks that -you almost skin her!” He was thinking not -of his ship, not of himself, but of the necessity -of getting to the lonely lighthouse-keeper at -the earliest possible moment, to perform that -operation for a subtonsillar abscess. There -was a picture in his mind of the valiant French -Canadian engineer gasping for breath as the -orifice dwindled, and now he was burning not -the firewood but coal—a semi-precious stone -in these waters in this year of grace. The -<span class='it'>Strathcona</span> labours and staggers; Fritz the dog -goes to the bowsprit and sniffs the sun by day -and the moon by night; the ship is carrying -all the bellying sails she has; and the Doctor -mounts to the crow’s-nest to make sure that -his beloved new topsail is doing its full share. -He tools the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>—when he is at the -wheel—as if she were a taxicab. So the long -diagonal across the Strait is cut down, seething -mile by mile, till between Flower’s Cove -and Forteau—where the Strait is at the -narrowest, and the shores are nine miles and -three-quarters apart—it almost seems as if an -hour’s swim on either hand would take one -to the eternal crags where the iris blows and -the buttercup spreads her cloth of gold.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>We drew near Blanc Sablon (pronounced -Sablow) with Grant’s Wharf by the river. -West of that river for several hundred yards -it is no man’s land between the two Labradors—that -is to say, between Canada and Newfoundland. -A man stood up in a jouncing -power-boat and waved an oar, and then—his -overcoat buttoned up to his ears—our patient, -Captain Coté, stood up beside him. They had -come out to meet us to save every moment of -precious time. It was a weak and pale and -shaky man that came aboard—but he was a -man every bit of him, and he did not wince -when the Doctor, in the crypt-like gloom of -the <span class='it'>Strathcona’s</span> saloon, while the tin lamp was -held in front of the Captain’s mouth, reached -into the throat with his attenuated tongs and -scissors and made the necessary incision after -giving him several doses of the novocaine solution -as a local anaesthetic.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then the Captain sat back white and gasping -on the settle, and—with a strong Canadian -French flavour in his speech—told us a little -of his lonely vigil of the summer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In eighteen days, Doctor, I never saw a -ship for the fog: but I kept the light burning—two -thousand gallons of kerosene she -took.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All summer long it was fog—fog—fog. -I show you by the book I keep. Ever since -the ice went out we have the fog. Five days -we have in July when it was clear—but never -such a clear day as we have now. Come -ashore with me on Greenly Island and you -shall have the only motor car ride it would be -possible for you to have in Labrador.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>We accepted the invitation. At the head of -the wharf were men spreading the fish to -dry—grey-white acres of them on the flakes -like a field of everlastings. In the lee of a -hill they had a few potato-plants, fenced away -from the dogs. In a dwelling house with -“Please wipe your feet” chalked on the door -we found a spotless kitchen and two fresh-cheeked, -white-aproned women cooking. It -was a fine thing to know that they were upholding -so high a standard of cleanliness and -sanitation in that lonely outpost—as faithful -as the keeper of the light in his storm-defying -tower.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>From the fish-flakes of the ancient “room” -over half a mile of cinderpath and planking -we rode on the chassis of a Ford car, which -the keeper uses to convey supplies.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The first joy-ride I ever had in Labrador,” -said the Doctor, and the Captain grinned and -let out another link to the roaring wind that -flattened the grass and threatened to lift his -cabbage-plants out of their paddock under his -white housewalls.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Safe in his living-room, with wife and children, -two violins, a talking-machine, an -ancient Underwood typewriter and even a -telephone that connected him with the wharf, -Captain Coté pulled out his wallet, selected -three ten-dollar bills and offered them to the -Doctor, saying: “I will pay you as much more -as you like.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dr. Grenfell took one of the bills, saying, -“That will be enough.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Captain, mindful of his promise about -the coal, said, “How much coal do you -want?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“On the understanding that the Canadian -Government supplies it,” answered the Doctor, -“I will let you put aboard the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> -just the amount we used in coming here—5½ -tons.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Captain went to the telephone and -talked with a man at the wharf. Then he -turned away from the transmitter and said: -“He tells me that he can’t put the coal on -board today, because it would blow away while -they were taking it out to the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> on -the skiff. We have no sacks to put it in.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Very well,” returned the Doctor, “when -it’s convenient you might store it at Forteau. -They will need it there this winter at Sister -Bailey’s nursing station.” Then he dismissed -the subject of the fee and the fuel-supply -to tell us how pleased he was to find -that Mackenzie King, author of “Industry and -Humanity,” had become the Liberal leader in -Canada. King is a Harvard Doctor of -Philosophy, a man of thought and action of -the type by nature and training in sympathy -with Grenfell’s work. It is a great thing for -Canada that a man of his calibre and scholarly -distinction has been raised to the place he -holds.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>From the site of the lighthouse there are -observed most singular wide shelves of smooth -brown rock presenting their edges to the fury -of the surf, and over the broad brown expanse -are scattered huge boulders that look -as though the Druids who left the memorials -at Stonehenge might have put them there. -Captain Coté said the winter ice-pack tossed -these great stones about as if it were a child’s -game with marbles.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A happy man he thought himself to have his -children with him. The lighthouse-keeper at -Belle Isle lost six of his family on their way -to join him; another at Flower’s Cove lost -five. As a remorseless graveyard of the deep -the region is a rival of the dreaded Sable -Island off Newfoundland’s south shore.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A wire rope indicates the pathway of two -hundred yards between the light and the foghorn: -and in winter the way could not be -found without it. The foghorn gave a solo -performance for our benefit, at the instigation -of either member of a pair of Fairbanks-Morse -15 horse-power gasoline engines. -We were ten feet from it, but it can be heard -ten miles and more.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A “keeper of the light” like Captain Coté, -or Peter Bourque, who tended the Bird Rock -beacon for twenty-eight years, is a man after -Grenfell’s own heart. For Grenfell himself -lets his light shine before men, and knows the -need of keeping the flame lambent and bright, -through thick and thin.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='78' id='Page_78'></span><h1>V<br/>THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>Dr. Grenfell in his battles with -profiteering traders has incurred their -enmity, of course—but he has been -the people’s friend. The favourite charge -of those who fight him is that he is amassing -wealth for himself by barter on the side, and -collecting big sums in other lands from which -he diverts a golden stream for his own uses. -The infamous accusation is too pitifully lame -and silly to be worth denying. The most unselfish -of men, he has sometimes worked his -heart out for an ingrate who bit the hand that -fed him. His enterprise, whose reach always -exceeds his grasp, is money-losing rather than -money-making.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The International Grenfell Association has -never participated in the trading business. Dr. -Grenfell, however, started several stores with -his own money and took it out after a time -with no interest. He delights in the success -of those whose aim is no more than a just -profit, who buy from the fisherman at a fair -price and sell to him in equity. There is a -co-operative store of his original inspiration -and engineering at Flower’s Cove, and another -is the one at Cape Charles, which in five years -returned 100 per cent. on the investment with -5 per cent. interest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Accusations of graft he is accustomed to -face, and a commission appointed by the Newfoundland -Legislature investigated him, -travelled with him on the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>, and completely -exonerated him. Some persons had -even gone so far as to accuse him of making -money out of the old clothes business aboard -what they were pleased to term his “yacht.” -They descended to such petty false witness as -to swear that he had taken a woman’s dress -with $12 in it. It is wearisome to have to -dignify such charges by noticing them. They -are about on a par with the letter of a bishop -who wrote to him: “I should like to know -how you can reconcile with your conscience -reading a prayer in the morning against -heresy and schism, and then preaching at a -dissenting meeting-house in the afternoon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A vestryman objected to his preaching in -the church at a diminutive and forlorn settlement -because “he talks about trade.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor is never embittered by his traducers. -He knows the meaning of J. L. -Garvin’s saying, “He who is bitter is beaten.” -Nothing beclouds for long his sunny temperament, -but his unfailing good-humour -never dulls the fighting edge of his courage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I bought a boat for a worthy soul, to set -him on his feet,” the Doctor told me. “She -had been driven ashore in North Labrador. I -had to buy everything separately—and the -total came to $500. The boat was to work -out the payment. This she did—Alas! later -on she went ashore on Brehat (‘Braw’) -Shoals. Only her lifeboat came ashore, with -the name—<span class='it'>Pendragon</span>—upon it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor put $1,000 of his money into -the co-operative store at Flower’s Cove, and -when the enterprise was fairly launched and -the Grenfell Association decided to abstain -from lending help to trade he drew it out, and -asked no interest. That store in its last fiscal -year sold goods to the value of more than -$200,000, paying fair prices and selling at a -fair profit. It had three ships in the summer -of 1919 carrying fish abroad—“foreigners.” -The proprietor bought for $50 a schooner that -went ashore at Forteau, dressed it in a new -suit of sails worth $1,250, and now has a -craft worth $8,000 to him. Dr. Grenfell has -personally great affection for some of the -traders—it is the “truck system” he hates. -“Trading in the old days,” the Doctor observes, -“was like a pond at the top of a hill. -It got drained right out. The money was not -set in circulation here on the soil of Newfoundland. -The traders in two months took -away the money that should have been on the -coast. 1919 was the first year in which the -co-operative stores themselves sent fish to the -other side. A vessel from Iceland came here -to the Flower’s Cove store; another was a -Norwegian; a third came from Cadiz with -salt; and today a small vessel is preparing to -go across.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At Red Bay is another store to which -Dr. Grenfell loaned money, which he drew -out, sans interest, when it was prosperous. It -has saved the people there, as every soul in -the harbour will testify.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The fishermen on the West Coast in 1919 -enjoyed something like affluence as compared -with their brethren on the East Coast, where -the fish were scarce.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Where there were lobsters, they were -getting $35.50 or $35.00 per case of 48 one-pound -cans. For cod, $11.20 a quintal of 112 -pounds was paid. In 1918 over $15 per quintal -was paid.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On the other hand, with pork at $100 a -barrel, coal at $24 a ton, and gasoline at 70 -cents a gallon, the big prices for fish were -matched by an alarming cost of the necessaries -of life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Some fishermen make but $200 a year; a -few make as much as $2,000 and even more. -The merchant princes as a rule are the store-keepers -who deal with the fishermen. There -were two big bank failures in St. John’s years -ago, and since that time many persons have -hidden their money in the ground. One -fisherman of whose case I heard had but $35 -in cash as the result of his season’s effort, and -he had eight to support besides himself. The -small amount of ready money on which people -can live with a house, a vegetable garden, and -a supply of firewood at their backs in the -timbered hillsides is unbelievable. If a man -was fortunate enough to possess any grassland, -he might get as much as $65 a ton for -his hay in 1919, if he could spare it from his -own cows and sheep. It is too bad that for -the sake of the sheep the noble Newfoundland -dog that chased them has had to perish. It -is almost impossible today to find a pure-breed -example of the dog that spread the name of -the island to the ends of the earth. Such dogs -as there are are remarkably intelligent and -make excellent messengers between a man at -work and his house.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The “Southerners” go to the Grand Banks -for their fishing; the others go to the Labrador. -The three classes of fishermen are the shore -fishermen, the “bankers,” and the “floaters”—those -of the Labrador. Ordinarily the -catch is reckoned by quintals (pronounced -kentals) of 112 pounds. Those who live on -the Labrador coast the winter through are -known as the “liveyers”—the live-heres—and -those who come regularly to the fishing are -“stationers” or “planters.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>During the war big prices have been realized -for the fish, and unprecedented prosperity has -come to the fishermen. The growth in the -number of motor-boats is an index of this -condition, though with gasoline at 70 cents a -gallon on the Labrador (for the imperial -gallon, slightly larger than ours), the question -of fuel has been a disturbing one to many. Of -late much of the fish has been marketed on -favourable terms in the United States and -Canada, but before this the preferred markets -in order have been Spain and Portugal, Brazil -and the West Indies. The three grades -recognized, from the best to the lowest, are -“merchantable,” “Madeira,” and “West Indies” -(“West Injies”), the last-named for -the negroes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>An industry of growing importance to the -future of the Grenfell mission is the manufacture -and sale of “hooked” rugs by the -women trained at the industrial school at St. -Anthony. Large department stores in the -United States have begun to buy these rugs -in considerable quantities, and the demand is -lively and increasing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor’s delightful sense of humour -comes to the fore in his designs for these -rugs, made of rags worked through canvas. -The dyes are vivid green, blue, red, black, -brown—the white rivals the driven snow, and -the workmanship is of the best. A favourite -pattern shows the dogs harnessed to the -komatik eager to be off, turning in the traces -as if to ask questions of the driver, their attitude -alert and alive, while their two masters -standing by the baggage on the komatik, in -hoods and heavy parkas (blouses) rimmed -with red and blue, are discussing the route to -take and pointing with their mittened hands. -Or the design may show Eskimoes stealthily -stalking polar bears upon an ice-pan of a -wondrous green at the edges. There is a -glorious Turnerian sunset in the background; -the sea bristles with bergs arched and pinnacled. -The wary hunters approach their -hapless quarry in a kyak. One is paddling -and the other has the rifle across his knees, -and the polar bears are nervously pacing the -ice-pan as though conscious of the fate impending. -Another motif in these diverting -rugs—which are often used for wall adornments -instead of floor-covering—is a stately -procession of three bears uphill past the solemn -green sentinels of pagoda-like fir trees. What -an improvement these designs are over the -former rugs which showed meaningless -blotches of pink and green that might have -been thrown at one another, as if a mason’s -trowel had splashed them there!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Since the Labrador is innocent in most -places of anything like a store where you can -go to the counter, lay down your money and -ask for what you want, the nearest thing the -women know to the luxury of a shopping-expedition -or a bargain-sale is a chance to exchange -firewood or fish for the old clothing -carried on her missionary journeys by the -<span class='it'>Strathcona</span>.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why isn’t this clothing given away?” -someone may query unthinkingly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The object of the mission is not to pauperize, -and the pride of the people themselves -in most cases forbids the acceptance of an -outright gift.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To preserve self-respect by the exchange of -a <span class='it'>quid pro quo</span>, some of the clothing contributed -by friends in the States and elsewhere -is allocated to the fishermen’s families in return -for the supplies of firewood. The value -varies according to the place where the wood -is cut and piled. It may be worth $7 a cord -on a certain point or $3 at the bottom of a -bay. (Cutting the wood is called “cleaving -the splits.”) The payment must be very -carefully apportioned, so that Mrs. B. shall -not have more or better than Mrs. A.—or else -there will be wailing and gnashing and heart-burning -after the boat weighs anchor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Before making the rounds of the Straits or -of White Bay, or going on the long trail down -North, or wherever else the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> may -be faring on her mission, the big boxes of -wearables are opened on the deck and stored in -a pinched triangular stateroom forward of the -saloon. There are quantities of clothing for -men—overcoats, sweaters of priceless wool, -reefers, peajackets, shooting-coats, dressing-gowns, -underwear—some of it brand new and -most of it thick and good; there are woolen -socks excellently made by many loving hands, -shoes joined by the laces or buttoned together, -trousers, jackets, whole suits more or less in -disrepair but capable of conversion to all sorts -of useful ends. Generally the Doctor and -Mrs. Grenfell find a pretext for giving some -of the clothing to a needy family even when -the fiction of payment in kind is not maintained. -Rarely does the article offered—let -us say a hooked rug in garish colours—meet -the value of the garments that are given. But -the important thing is that the recipient is -made to feel that he pays for what he gets -and is not a pauper.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There is ever a want of clothing for the -women and children. Few complete dresses -for women find their way to the <span class='it'>Strathcona’s</span> -storeroom. There are not nearly enough -garments for babies or suits for little boys. -Women’s underclothing is badly needed. But -most of those who come aboard in quest of -clothing are grateful for whatever is given -them and make no fuss. They will ingeniously -adapt a shirt into a dress for Susy, and -cut a big man’s trousers in twain for her two -small brothers. The Northern housewife -learns to make much of little in the way of -textile materials. A barrel of magazines and -cards and picture scrap-books shielded with -canvas, stands at the head of the companion -way. Bless whoever pasted in the stories and -pictures on the strong sheets of brown cartridge-paper! -Those will be pored over by -lamp-light from cottage to cottage till they -fall apart, just as the wooden boxes of books -carried aboard for circulating libraries will -provide most of the life intellectual all winter -long for many a village. Many of the fishermen’s -families from the father down are -unlettered, but those who can read and write -make up for it by their intellectual activity, -and even the little boys sometimes display a -nimbleness of wit and fancy altogether delightful. -They will sing you a song or tell -you a fairy-tale with a naïveté foreign to the -American small boy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A woman came aboard with her husband—pale, -thin, forlorn she was—and asked for -clothing for him. She held each garment -critically to the light, and somewhat disdainfully -rejected any that showed signs of mending. -Finally I said: “You’re not taking -anything for yourself. Don’t you need -something?” I knew the pitiful huddle of -fishermen’s houses ashore from which she -came—the entire population of the settlement -was 141, not counting the vociferous array of -Eskimo dogs that greeted us when we landed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d like a dress,” she admitted—“for -street wear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>I thought of the straggling path amid the -rocks where the dogs growled and bristled, -but I did not smile. For I realized what this -chance to go shopping meant to her isolated -life. In the city she would have had huge -warerooms and piled counters from which to -make a choice. Here two bunks, a barrel and -a canvas bag held the whole stock in trade.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She rejected a sleeveless ball gown of -burgundy. “I must have black,” she said—“we -lost a son in the war.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The husband began to apologize for the -trouble they caused. But we were more than -ever bound to please them now. All the new -skirts were found to be too short or too long -or too gay or too youthful or something else, -and the upshot of the dickering was that two -pairs of golfer’s breeches were given in lieu -of proper habiliments for a poor, lonely -woman in Labrador. They could be cut down, -she explained, for her boys.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There isn’t much for a woman, in most of -these places, but cooking and scrubbing the -floor and minding the baby—something like -the Kaiser’s ideal of feminine existence. And -when the floor is clean, booted fishermen -come in and spit upon it even though the white -plague is plainly written in the children’s -faces.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A new chapter in the industrial history of -the Labrador will be written when it becomes -possible to utilize the vast supply of news-print -available from the pulp-wood of the Labrador -“hinterland,” even as Northcliffe is getting -paper for his many publications from the plant -at Grand Falls in Northern Newfoundland. -The difficulty, of course, will be to get the -timber away from the coast in the short season -when the land is released from the grip of the -ice-pack. But the great demand for news-print -which leads to anxious examination and -utilization of the supplies of Alaska and Finland -cannot much longer neglect the available -resources so near at hand on the coast of the -North Atlantic.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At Humbermouth it was my good fortune -to encounter Captain Daniel Owen, of Annapolis -Royal, Nova Scotia, Captain of the H. V. -Greene Labrador Aerial Expedition. The -little vessel <span class='it'>Miranda</span> had limped in on her way -to Halifax, to get her boiler mended.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Captain Owen, himself, deserves more than -passing mention. A member of the Royal -Flying Corps, he had his left eye shot out in -combat with five German planes that brought -him to the ground 60 miles within their lines. -The observer’s leg was shattered in nine places -by their fire. There followed a sojourn of -seven months in three German prison-camps. -The chivalrous surgeon who was first to -operate on Captain Owen’s comrade amused -himself and the nurses by twisting bits of bone -about in the leg, laughing, while the nurses -laughed too, at the patient’s agony.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Flying at a height of 2,000 to 8,700 feet, -Captain Owen’s party in Labrador added to -the industrial map 1,500,000 acres (about -2,300 square miles) of land timbered with firs -and spruces suitable for pulp-wood, the property -lying on the Alexis, St. Louis and Gilbert -Rivers about 15 miles north of Battle Harbour. -This tract will, it is estimated, produce as -much as 115 cords to the acre for a maximum, -and on the average 40 to 50 cords. 15,000 -photographs were taken, and moving pictures -also were made. The aerodrome was 28 miles -up the Alexis River, and according to Captain -Owen it was an extremely serious matter to -find the way back to it each time after a flight -for there was no other suitable place to land -anywhere in the neighbourhood. “I never felt -so anxious for the return of an aeroplane in -the Western Front as I felt for the safety of -ours,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The flying took place on five different days—and -in that time as much was accomplished -as might have been done in from six to ten -years of the usual land cruising which—in -sample areas—was used to check up the results -of the airmen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The propeller of the Curtiss biplane was a -mass of blood from the flies it sucked in. Dr. -Murdock Graham, second in command, kept -some of these flies in a bottle as souvenirs, and -they were portentous insects.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We enjoyed nothing more,” said Dr. -Graham, “than an evening spent with Dr. -Grenfell at Battle Harbour where, lolling at -ease in corduroy and his old Queen’s College -blazer with the insignia over the left breast-pocket, -pulling a corn-cob pipe, he spun one -yarn after another of the life at the Front -with the Harvard contingent in 1915-16.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Murphy, the mail-man from Battle Harbour, -friend of the Grenfell mission, friend of -everybody, is a man worth knowing. I can -hear now his genial ‘Does ye smoke, boy? -Has ye any on ye? Does ye mind, boy?’ He -said to one of our Greene Expedition doctors, -‘Doctor, are all the Americans like ye? Ye -has a kind word for everybody. Has ye any -tobacco?’ ‘By gorry, that’s fine,’ he said of -the aeroplane. ‘How do it do it?’ He was -as modest as he was plucky. ‘I don’t want to -go and eat with all those gentlemen, with their -fine clothes on,’ he would say. Of one of the -young ‘liveyeres’ he remarked: ‘If he had -the learn there’d be a fine job for him’—which -alas! is true of so many on the Labrador.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No member of our expedition heard any -swearing from the forty men we employed—with -the exception of a single Newfoundlander. -I asked one of the men how they came -to be so clean of profanity, and he answered -simply: ‘We doesn’t make a practice of that, -we doesn’t.’</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“At Williams Harbour on the Alexis River -there was three weeks’ schooling by a visiting -teacher from the Grenfell mission. In two -families with a joint membership of eighteen -one person could read and write.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They have had no minister since the war -and in the winter the bottom falls out of everything. -The people on the rivers have no doctor -for a year and a half and two years at a -time. At Williams Harbour they swarmed to -Dr. Twiss and Dr. MacDonald. One woman -in desperation had been treating pneumonia -with salt-water, snow and white moss.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dr. Grenfell and his people have more -than they can do. We all of us realize today -as we never understood before the meaning to -the people of the North of the presence of -Grenfell and his people among them. We -caught the spirit of the work inevitably, and -tried to do what good we could while we were -there.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The folk of the Alexis and the St. Louis -River districts, as a rule, can’t afford the price -of gas to go to Battle Harbour. It’s a day’s -run, and there’s nobody to mind their cod-traps -when they’re away. So one can imagine -how completely they’d be shut out of the world -but for the contacts which the mission provides -even at such long intervals.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“William Russell is the grand old man of -Williams Harbour. He is the most-travelled -and the best-educated man of those parts, and -he represents the finest type of patriarch. He -never saw a horse or a cow or an automobile; -he has never been south of Battle Harbour, -though he has visited that diminutive settlement -four times. He was dumfounded at our -aeroplane.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In his family the father’s word was law -to the twelve children. They never thought -of questioning his authority. They were the -best behaved and most dutiful children I have -ever seen. Their obedience was absolute, and -their manner to strangers was deferential. -They always said ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir,’ -most politely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“At his house thirty-one gathered to hear -the gramophone—for the first time. They -were packed in as tight as could be, choking -the room with their tobacco-smoke. The first -night they were silent. The next night they -were excited, and on the third they became -hilarious.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As I said, following the Grenfell example, -we did what doctoring we could on the side. -The constant diet of bread and tea, tea and -bread is hard on the teeth. There is much -pyorrhea due to this diet, to limestone in the -water, and to failure to clean the teeth. At -Blanc Sablon we treated a little boy who had -suffered for three weeks with the toothache. -It was a simple case of congested pulp. The -relief was immediate. It is a joy and a reward -to behold the gratitude of those who are -helped.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I tell you if these people who question the -value of Grenfell’s work, or wonder why he -chooses to spend his life in bleak and barren -places, could just see his ‘parishioners’ -and know their gratitude toward their benefactors, -they would understand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There was a picturesque soul at Blanc -Sablon who asked for tobacco, which we gave -him. He was never off the coast. I don’t -know where he had heard a violin. But to -make some return to us for the smoke, he gave -us an imitation of a man first tuning and then -playing a violin, which was perfect in its way.”</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='97' id='Page_97'></span><h1>VI<br/>THE SPORTSMAN</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>As we were coming off to the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> -one evening, the Doctor, bareheaded, -pulling at the oars with the zest of a -schoolboy on a holiday, and every oar-dip -making a running flame of phosphorescence, -said: “At college we worshipped at the shrine -of athletics. Of course that wasn’t right, but -it did establish a standard—it did teach a man -that he must keep his body under if he would -be physically fit. I realized that if I wanted -to win I couldn’t afford to lose an ounce, and -so I was a rigid Spartan with myself. The -others sometimes laughed at me as a goody-goody, -but they saw that I could do things -that couldn’t be done by those who indulged -in wild flings of dissipation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My schooling before Oxford I now feel -was wretched. They didn’t teach me how to -learn. The teachers themselves were mediocre. -They may have had a smattering of the classics—but -that doesn’t constitute fitness to teach. -Have you read the chapter on education in -H. G. Well’s ‘Joan and Peter’? That strikes -me as true.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m glad my orphan children at St. Anthony -are getting the right kind of training -from those who understand their business.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor still cherishes the insignia of -rowing and athletic clubs to which he was -attached while at Oxford. One of his pet coats -wears the initials “O. U. R. F. C.” for the -Oxford University Rugby Football Club. He -also stroked the <span class='it'>Torpid</span> crew, and the crew -of the London Hospital.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He hates—in fact, he refuses, like Peter -Pan—to grow up or to grow old. “Isn’t it too -bad that just when our minds have struck their -stride and are doing their best work we should -have to end it all?” Not that he has the least -fear of Death. In the country of his loving -labour, the fisher-folk face Death so often in -their lawful occasions, for the sake of you and -me who enjoy the savour of the codfish and the -lobster, that when Death finally comes he -comes not as a dark and awful figure but as -a familiar and a friend.</p> - -<p class='pindent'><a id='plea'></a></p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i101a.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0007' style='width:75%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>“PLEASE LOOK AT MY TONGUE, DOCTOR!”</p> -</div> - -<p class='pindent'><a id='next'></a></p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i101b.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0008' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>“NEXT!”</p> -</div> - -<p class='pindent'>The conflict of elemental forces in nature -finds at once an echo in the breast of him who -has met “with a frolic heart” every mood and -tense of sky and sea “down north.” At -Pleasure Harbour the sunset amid dark purple -clouds edged with a rosy fleece brought “vital -feelings of delight”: and when we came -nearest the Dominion’s northern tip the Doctor -said: “I wish you could see the strait ice and -the Atlantic ice fight at Cape Bauld. They go -at each other hammer and tongs, with a roaring -and rending like huge wild animals, -rampant and foaming and clashing their -tusks.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On a foggy, super-saturated day, the sails -and the deck beaded and dripping, he will -fairly rub his hands in ecstasy and exclaim: -“Oh, what a fine day!” Or he will thrust his -ruddy countenance out of his chart-room door -to call: “Isn’t it great to be alive?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Off Cape Norman, when the foghorn was -blaspheming and the sea ran high, I tried to get -the Doctor to concede that it was half a gale, -but he would only admit that it was a “nice -breeze.” The new topsail stubbornly declined -to blossom out as it should, though the five -other sails were in full bloom. “We’ll burst -it out,” said the Doctor. The offending sail -was forthwith hauled down and stretched like -a sick man on the deck; then it was tied in -three places with tarry cords, the Doctor -scurried up the mast, the sail was raised into -place by means of the clanking winch, and -then, with violent tugs of the fierce wind like -a fish plucking at a tempting bait the three -confining strings snapped in explosive succession -and like a flag unfurling the sail sprang -out to the breeze. We raised a cheer as -the perceptible lift of the additional sail-cloth -thrilled the timbers underfoot.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>You’d hear him trotting about the deck in -the cool dawn inquiring about steam or tide -and humming softly (or lifting with the -fervour of a sailor’s chantey), that favourite -Newfoundland hymn, written by a Newfoundlander, -“We love the place, O God, wherein -thine honour dwells.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the wheelhouse as he looks out over the -sea and guides the prow, as if it were a sculptor’s -chisel, through calm or storm, there comes -into his eyes a look as of communing with a -far country: his soul has gone to a secret, -distant coast where no man and but one -woman can follow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sometimes of an evening the Doctor brought -out the chessboard and I saw another phase -of his versatile entity—his fondness for an indoor -game that is of science and not blind -chance. The red and white ivory chessmen, -in deference to the staggering ship, had sea-legs -in the shape of pegs attaching them to the -board. Two missing pawns—“prawns,” the -Doctor humorously styled them—had as substitutes -bits of a red birthday candle, and two -of the rooks were made of green modelling-wax -(plasticine).</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I love to attack,” said the Doctor, and his -tactics proved that he meant what he said. He -has what Lord Northcliffe once named to me -as the capital secret of success—concentration.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he has once moved a piece forward he -almost never moves it back again. He likes -to go ahead. He seeks to get his pieces out and -into action, and a defensive, waiting game—the -strategy of Fabius the Cunctator—is not -for him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Once in a while he defers sufficiently to the -conventions to move out the King’s pawn at -the start, but often his initial move is that of -a pawn at the side of the board. He works -the pawns hard and gives them a new significance. -His delight is to march a little platoon -of them against the enemy—preferably against -the bishops. Somehow the bishops seem to -lose their heads when confronted by these -minor adversaries.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>If you get him into a tight corner, the opposition -stiffens—the greater the odds the more -vertebral his attitude.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I make it a rule to go ahead if I possibly -can, and not to be driven back.” This remark -of his over the board of the mimic fray applies -just as well to his constant strife with the sea -to get where he is wanted—as on the present -occasion when we were threading the needle’s -eye of the rocky outlet at Carpoon.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor has the real chess mind—the -mind that surveys and weighs and analyzes—with -the uncanny faculty of looking many -moves ahead, of balancing all the alternatives, -of remembering the disposal of the forces at -a previous stage of the game. He becomes -so completely immersed in the playing—though -he rarely finds an antagonist—that it -is a real rest to him after the teeming day, -where many a man would only find it a culminant -exhaustion. “Isn’t it queer,” he observed, -“that most men who are good at this -game aren’t good for much else?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His use of the pawns in chess is like his use -of the weaker reeds among men in his day’s -work. Since he cannot always get the best -(though his hand-picked helpers at St. Anthony, -Battle Harbour and elsewhere are as a -rule exceptionally able), he learns to use the -inferior and the lesser, and with exemplary -gentleness and patience he keeps his temper and -lets them think they are assisting though they -may be all but hindering. He gives you to -feel that if you hold a basin or sharpen a knife -or fetch a bottle or bring him a chair you are -of real value in the performance of an operation—even -if the basin was upset and the knife -was dull and the bottle wasn’t the one and the -chair had a broken leg.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Christ used ordinary men,” he remarked. -“He was a carpenter, and I try to teach people -that he was a good sportsman.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>All through his chess games, too, runs the -Oxford principle of sport for its own sake: -he wins, but the strife is more than the victory. -He is never vainglorious when the checkmate -comes; he is neither unduly elated by success -nor depressed by adversity—indeed, his enjoyment -is keenest when he is beset. He shows -then the same strain that comes out when the -ship is anchored and Mate Albert Ash pokes -his head in and says: “If she drags, we’ve got -but one chain out!” Then he will say nothing, -or with a humorous twinkle he will cry in -mock despair: “All is lost!” or “if you knew -how little water there was under her you would -be scared!”—and then he will go on with -what he is doing. Whether it is the chessboard -or life’s battlefield, he plays the game.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On the end of a hackmatack (juniper) log -lying on the deck for firewood I pencilled for -fun: “The Log of the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>.” The -Doctor saw it, laughed, and got a buck-saw. -Two fishermen clambered over the rail between -him and the woodpile, to get zinc ointment -and advice. When he had “fixed them -up” he sawed off the log-end, and drew a picture -of the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>—an entirely correct -picture, of course, as far as it went—and then -put his signature (à la Whistler butterfly) in -the form of a roly-poly elf, as rotund as a -dollar. “I like to draw myself stout and -round,” he laughed. The strange gnome he -drew was the very antithesis of his own lithe, -spare, close-knit figure.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So good a playmate and so firm a master—so -rare a combination of gentleness and -strength, of self-respect and rollicking fun is -difficult to match in real life or in biographic -literature.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Were one to seek a historic parallel for -Grenfell one might not go far wrong in picking -Xenophon. Xenophon was a leader who -pointed the way not from the rear but from -the head of the column, and asked of his men -nothing that he would not do himself. The -reader of the “Anabasis” will remember that -Xenophon awoke in the night and asked himself -“Why do I lie here? For the night goes -forward. And with the morn it is probable -that the enemy will come.” Even so, Grenfell -feels that he must do the works of the Master -while it is yet day, for all too soon the night -cometh when no man can work.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Xenophon had sedition on his hands, and -his men would not go out into the snows of -the mountains of Armenia and cut the wood. -So he left his tent and seized an ax and hewed -so valorously that they were shamed into -following suit. That is just what Wilfred -Grenfell would have done: it is what his forbear -Sir Richard Grenville would have done. -In such ways as this when the hour strikes -the born leader of men asserts himself and -takes command.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='106' id='Page_106'></span><h1>VII<br/>THE MAN OF SCIENCE</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor admires certain of his -scientific colleagues greatly: he is -candidly a hero-worshipper. “I love -Cushing and Finney,” he says outspokenly of -the noted Harvard and Johns Hopkins surgeons. -A clinic by Dr. George de Schweinitz -or an operation by Dr. John B. Deaver is a -rare treat to him. Sir Frederick Treves, the -great English surgeon, has been among his -closest friends since Grenfell served under him -in a London hospital: he has leaned on him -always for perceptive advice and sympathy unfailing. -It is one of the paramount satisfactions -of his life to meet other minds in his -profession that stimulate his own. In the -ceaseless round of his activities little time is -left him to read books: but if he could he -would enjoy no pastime more than to browse -in a well-chosen library. The victories of -science hold for him the fascination of -romance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The discovery of the electron, in his opinion, -might make it possible to have an entire city -in which every material substance should be -invisible. “There is no reason why the forces -in action should make a visible city. We believe -today in the unity of matter. It has -almost been demonstrated that we can turn -soda into copper. Uranium passes into -radium. Carrel is growing living protoplasm -outside the body. Adami has shown how an -electric stimulus applied to the ovum of frogs -produces twins. The electron is the manifestation -of force.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is almost certain that there is no such -thing as physical life. No matter could exist -without movement—the sort of movement you -behold when the spinthariscope throws the -radiations from bromide of radium on a -fluorescent screen. If there is no physical life, -there is no death. So many things exist that -we do not see. We cannot see ether or weigh -it, but we know that it exists. There is a -physical explanation of the resurrection. The -whole universe is incessant motion, just as -sound is vibration—the ordinary C with 256 -vibrations, the octave with 512, the next octave -with 1,024 vibrations to the second.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Tin is a mass of whirling electrons. Gold -is composed of a different number of electrons. -That’s why we can’t cross from one to the -other.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It is not quite fair to put down these random -remarks, on an extremely abstruse matter—thrown -over the Doctor’s shoulder as he flits -about a village, the dogs at his heels—without -quoting his more deliberate formulation of his -ideas in an article in “Toilers of the Deep.” -In that article he writes:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If chemistry of today has made it certain -that there is no such thing in the human body -as a transcendental entity called ‘life,’ and -every function and every organ of the body -can be chemically or physically accounted for, -then it is obvious that we have no reason to -weep for it. More infinitely marvellous the -more we learn of it, so marvellous that no one -can begin to appreciate it but the man of -science, it helps us to realize how easily He -who clothed us with it can provide another -equally well adapted to the needs of that which -awaits us when we go ‘home.’ We have -learned to enlarge our physical capacities, our -‘selves,’ the microscope, the ultramicroscope, -the spectroscope, the electroscope, the spinthariscope, -the ophthalmoscope, the fluoroscope, -the telescope, and other man-made machines -have made the natural range of the -eye of man a mere bagatelle compared with -what it now commands and reveals. The -microphone, the megaphone, the audophone, -the wireless and other machinery have as -greatly enlarged our command of the field of -sound. Space has been largely conquered by -electric devices for telephoning, telegraphing, -and motor power. On the land, under the -sea, in the air, man is rapidly acquiring a -mastery that is miraculous.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The marvels of manufacture are miracles. -Machinery can now do anything, even talk -and sing far beyond the powers of normal human -capacities. The plants and animals of -normal nature can be improved beyond -recognition. The old deserts are being forced -to blossom like roses; the most potent governing -agencies of the life of the body, like -adrenalin, can be made from coal tar. Seas -are linked by broad water pathways, countries -are united by passages through mountains and -under the water. We can see through solid -bodies, we can weigh the stars in balances, we -can tell their composition without seeing -them. We can describe the nature and place -of unseen heavenly bodies, and know the existence -and properties of elements never seen -or heard of. We know that movement is not -a characteristic of life, unless we are to believe -that the very rocks are alive, for we can see -that it is movement alone that holds their -ultimate atoms together.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The mere ‘Me,’ the resultant of all past -and present influences on the ‘I,’ is so marvellous, -that we must find it ever increasingly -impossible to conceive that we are the products -of blind chance, or the sport of a cruelty so -horrible as to make the end one inconceivable -tragedy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, if science teaches that there is no -entity called ‘life,’ and it seems to do so, I -for my part gladly accept it as yet another -tribute at the feet of the Master Builder who -made and gave my spirit—mine, if you please—a -spirit so insignificant, so unworthy, such -an unspeakable gift as that of a body with -capacities such as this one, to be the mechanical -temple and temporary garment of my spirit, -and to offer me a chance to do my share to -help this wonderful world. ‘No life,’ says -science, ‘there is no life.’ But a knowledge -more reliable than current knowledge, that -entered the world with the advent of man, and -that has everywhere in every race of mankind -been in the past his actually most valued -possession, replies ‘Yes, and there is no death -either.’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One day his morning greeting was: -“Nitrogen is gone!” “Too bad!” I said. -“You can search me. I haven’t got it.” “I -mean,” he explained, “that here in this copy -of the ‘Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society -of Canada’ Sir Ernest Rutherford sets -forth the theory that the molecule of nitrogen -is a helium universe with hydrogen for its -satellites and helium as the sun.” He was almost -as much interested in the discovery as if it -were a hole in the bottom of his boat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve just been reading a magazine article on -the subject of psychic research by Booth Tarkington,” -he added presently. “It’s well written -and exceedingly interesting. Most men of -science have been convinced of the reality of the -spiritual body.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He is an artist of no slight attainment and in -his home at St. Anthony specimens of his -handicraft abound, but not obtrusively. Dr. -Grenfell never puts anything that he is or has -done on view to be admired.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He is a keen ornithologist, and even when -he is at top speed to get back to his boat and -weigh anchor he will pause to note the friendly -grackles hopping about a wharf or the unfettered -grace of the gyrations of the creaking -gulls. He is a collector of butterflies. “I -was out driving with a man who didn’t see -the butterflies and had no interest in them. -Just think what such a man misses in his life!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He also collects birds’ eggs, flowering plants -(many of which have been named at Cambridge), -seaweed and shells. The great book -he wrote and edited on Labrador gives a clear -idea of his interest in the geology as well as -the fauna and flora of the region.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>I found him the last thing at night at St. -Anthony trying to discover why one of a pair -of box kites he had made wouldn’t remain -aloft as it should.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He is perpetually acquisitive and inquisitive: -the diversity of his interests rivals the appetite -of Roosevelt for every sort of information. -Sir Frederick Treves mourned that a great -surgeon was lost to London when Grenfell -embarked on the North Sea to the healing and -helping of fishermen. But Grenfell has become -much more than a great surgeon. With -all that he is and does, he gives to every part -of his almost boundless field of interests a -careful, methodical, analytic intellect. Haste -and the constant pressure of his over-driven -life have not made him superficial. He sets a -sail with the same care he gives to the setting -of a compound fracture: he is of the number -of those who believe that there is but one right -way to do everything. Of such is the kingdom -of science and of inestimable service.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='114' id='Page_114'></span><h1>VIII<br/>THE MAN OF LAW</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>In his capacity as magistrate, the Doctor -never sidesteps trouble. Law in his part -of the world is a matter not merely of the -letter but of the spirit—not of the statute -alone but of shrewd common sense. His decisions -are luminous with a Lincolnian light -of acumen and sympathy at once. He lets the -jot and tittle—the mint, anise-seed and cummin—take -care of themselves, and considers the -real significance of the situation and the -essential nature of the offence. Red tape is -not the important thing, and the imaginary -dignity of an invisible judicial ermine is not -besmirched because Magistrate Grenfell discusses -the case with a culprit as a father might -talk things over with a son, and makes it plain -why wrong was done—if it was done—and -why there must henceforth be a different -course on the part of the offender. He “lays -down the law” not as if it were a Mosaic -dispensation from a beclouded mountain top, -but as if it were the simple and discreet way -to walk for God-fearing and reasonable mankind. -To him, forever, a man’s own soul is -a matter more important than an ordinance, -and he spares no pains to make his meaning so -plain that the dullest apprehension cannot fail -to grasp it. You will see Grenfell at his best -when—in a whipping wind, bareheaded, -sweatered, rubber-booted—he stands in the -clear glitter of a bracing sunny day on the -beach with the dogs aprowl around him, painstakingly -explaining to a fisherman why it is -right to do thus and reprehensible to do otherwise. -And now and then a hearty laugh or -a timely anecdote—Lincoln’s trait again—clears -the atmosphere. Sometimes there are -more formidable leets and law courts held -among the whalemeat barrels and the firewood -on the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>: but more often it is a plain -matter of a tête-à-tête while Grenfell is on his -rambling rounds of a hamlet with his dilapidated -leather bag of instruments and medicines.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Forteau offered its own problems to Dr. -Grenfell, the Magistrate. There is an isle not -far away where that sometimes toothsome bird -the puffin makes his home. Fishermen from -Forteau, hard put to it to secure anti-scorbutic -fresh meat, might now and then shoot one of -the birds, and the duty of the faithful lighthouse-keeper, -Captain Coté, an appointed -game-warden, was to see that the law’s majesty -made itself respected. One day Coté caught -a hunter red-handed. “By what warrant do -you arrest me?” said the man behind the gun. -“By this!” said Coté, flourishing a revolver. -Is a magistrate to blame if he believes that -common sense should differentiate between a -poor fisherman desperate with hunger, and a -pot-hunter who commits wholesale murder -among the eider-ducks sitting on their nests? -Usually it is the poor fisherman who is fined -and made to give up his gun, because he -pleads “guilty,” while the pot-hunter who unblushingly -pleads “not guilty” goes scot-free. -A fisherman at Flower’s Cove told me that -a late lamented coast magistrate—who got half -of the fines he imposed—was making “big -money” from his calling. He fined one man -$100 for importing a second-hand stove without -paying customs duties. When the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> -hove in sight, bearing Dr. Grenfell, this -profiteering magistrate weighed anchor in -haste, and in a heavy beam sea and shallow -water made his “get-away.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There are always disputes between traders -and fishermen to be adjudicated. Two men -within an hour of each other clambered over -the rail of the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> to display dire -written threats of wrath to come from the -same West Coast merchant, in a court summons -served by a constable. This document, -accompanying a bill of particulars, says that -if they don’t pay at once the balance due -they’ll have to go to St. John’s at a cost of -fifty dollars in addition to whatever the -amount may be which the law assesses against -them. It isn’t just the amount of the ticket -to St. John’s, or the board while they are -there: it’s the loss of time from the traps that -is exacerbating.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The trader isn’t in the wrong just because -he is a trader. The fisherman hasn’t all the -right on his side by the fact of being a fisherman, -but the bookkeeping of these traders -seemed to be at very loose ends indeed. Long -after the debtor thought he had paid all his -debt, in cash or in kind, the trader unearthed -on the books items of 1915, 1916 or 1917 -which he forgot to charge for. Here they bob -up like a bay seal, to the consternation of the -man who thought the slate had been sponged -off clean “far away and long ago.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One of the two who brought their present -perplexity to the Doctor had had the misfortune -to lose his house by fire, and all the -trader’s receipts therein, so that he had no -written line to show against the trader’s bill.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>I found out later that the trader’s daughters -kept the books—in fact, I saw them behind the -counter at their father’s store—and they were -said to be indifferent and slovenly misses indeed, -who used their thumbs for erasures and -made as many mistakes in a day’s work as -there are blueberries on Blomidon. Perhaps -they were in love—but their hit-or-miss accountancy -meant a terrible worriment for sea-faring -men two hundred miles distant, and a -pother of trouble for Dr. Grenfell and a St. -John’s lawyer—a friend of the Doctor’s who -befriends those who cannot afford or do not -know how to obtain legal advice.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='119' id='Page_119'></span><h1>IX<br/>THE MAN OF GOD</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>In his formal addresses Dr. Grenfell exemplifies -the homely, pithy eloquence that -comes from speaking directly “to men’s -business and bosoms” out of the fulness of -the heart: but those who have heard him in -the little, informal, offhand talks he gives -among his own people in his own bailiwick -appreciate them even more than what he has -to say to a congregation of strangers in a -great city far from the Labrador.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It must be understood that the quotations -that follow are merely extemporaneous, unrevised -sentences taken down without the Doctor’s -knowledge, and of a nature wholly casual -and unpremeditated.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At a service held in the tiny saloon of the -<span class='it'>Strathcona</span> for the crew and the patients who -happened to be with us, the Doctor said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We so often think that religion is bound -to be dull and solemn and monotonous: we -don’t follow the example of Christ who spread -light and joy wherever he went. None of us -is perfect, but God doesn’t denounce Dr. Grenfell -and Will Sims and Albert Ash (naming -members of the crew) for their shortcomings. -That isn’t his way. He knows us as we are, -with all our weaknesses. He loved David—he -said that David was a man after his own -heart. Yet David was a bad man—he was an -adulterer and incidentally a murderer, and he -got his people into trouble that lost thousands -of their lives. But God loved him in spite -of his human frailties, because he did such a -lot of good in the world.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It doesn’t do to take a single text. For -instance—we read ‘The world is established -so that it cannot be moved,’ but we know that -it is all movement: we know that it moves at -a pace six times as fast as the fastest aeroplane. -But the Church looked at that verse -and said that he who denied it was denying -the truth. I was reading this morning about -Copernicus, who insisted that this world is -round. Up to his time men had insisted that -it was flat and that you might fall off the -edge. Then there was Galileo, who said that -it moved: and they put him under the thumbscrews, -and when he came out he said, ‘and -still it does move.’</p> - -<p class='pindent'><a id='drgr'></a></p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i124.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0009' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>DR. GRENFELL LEADING MEETING AT BATTLE HARBOUR.</p> -</div> - -<p class='pindent'>“So often Christian people think it’s their -duty to forbid and to repress and to bring -gloom with a long face where they go. But -that wasn’t Christ’s way and it isn’t God’s -way. If religious people do these things people -begin to suppose that religion is something -to destroy the joy of living. But that isn’t -what it’s for. It’s to make us kinder to -fathers and mothers and sisters and friends, -and true to the duty nearest our hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I love to think of David as the master -musician who went about scattering good and -dispelling the clouds of heaviness. We ought -to follow his example. Sometimes we say -‘Oh, they’ve all been so mean to me I’ll take -it out on them by being sour and dull and -jealous and bitter!’ Here in this crew we -get to know one another almost as well as -God knows us, and we see one another’s -faults. It’s so easy to spy out faults when -we’re so close together, day after day. But -we should be blind to some things—like Nelson -at Copenhagen. You remember when -they gave the signal to retreat he put his blind -eye to the telescope.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If God looked for the faults in us, who -could stand before Him? None of us is perfect. -Let us judge not that we be not judged, -and mercifully learn to make allowances. I -knew a man who had been the cause of a -loss of $20,000 to his employer, through -costly litigation that was the result of his -mistakes. His master, nevertheless, gave him -a second chance, with an even better job. -Later I asked him if the man was making -good. He replied, ‘He is the best servant I -have.’ Even so we ought to learn to be long-suffering -with others, as God is lenient until -seventy times seven with us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the little church at Flower’s Cove the -Doctor spoke on the meaning of the words of -Christ in Mark 8, 34, as given in the vernacular -version: “If any man wishes to walk in -my steps, let him renounce self, take up his -cross, and follow me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is there that a man values more -than his life?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When I was here early in the spring there -was a man who was in a serious way. I told -him he should come to the hospital at St. Anthony -for an operation. He said he must get -his traps and his twine ready. Then when I -came again in June I saw that he was worse, -and I again gave him warning that in six -months at most the results might be fatal. -Still he said that he could not go. When I -came ashore today I learned that he was dead. -The twine was ready—but he was gone. That -is the way with so many of us. We say we -are too busy—we can always give that excuse—and -then death finds us, grasping our -material possessions, perhaps, but with the -great ends of life unwon. Its only a stage that -we cross for a brief transit, coming in at this -door and going out at that. It won’t do to -play our part just as we are making our -exit—we must play it while we are in the -middle of the stage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“At Sandwich Bay we followed a stream and -the two men on the other side called my attention -to the tracks of a bear: and when we -came back to the boat the men aboard said -they had seen two bears wandering about. The -bears were unable to hide their tracks, and even -so you and I cannot conceal the traces of -our footsteps where we went. Captain Coté -at the Greenly Island Light showed us the -model of a steamship—made with a motor -costing a dollar and a half that ran it in a -straight line for an hour. It had no volition -of its own. Man is not like that soulless -boat: he has a mind of his own. We are -surrounded by amazing discoveries: great -scientists are ever toiling on the problem of -communication with the dead. Men laughed -at the alchemists of old: we laugh no longer -at the idea of changing one substance into -another. We can change water with electricity -and change one frog’s egg into twins. We -can fly from St. John’s to England in a day. -We can see through solid substances—come to -St Anthony and I will show it to you with -the X-ray apparatus. What fools we are to -deny immortality and the resurrection! What -are realized values as compared with the -spiritual? There was the ship <span class='it'>Royal Charter</span> -for Australia that went ashore at Moidra in -Wales. A sailor wrapped himself in gold and -it drowned him. Would you say that he had -the gold or that the gold had him?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The carol of good King Wenceslaus tells -us of the blessings that came to the little lad -who followed in the footsteps of the king. -Even so, better things than any temporal benefits -come to us if we walk in the steps of -Christ.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Some of the soldiers of the war returning -to this country are not acting as soldiers -should. They are importing foreign vices. I -have seen lately horrible examples of the suffering -of the innocents as a result of their misdeeds. -There are more communicable diseases -in the present year than we have ever had before -on this coast. A man has no right to the -title of a soldier who does not walk in Christ’s -steps—he has no right to the name, when he -pleases self and damns his country and his -fellow-men and fellow-women.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We have among us the deplorable spectacle -of many weak sectarian schools—and it is -a wicked thing that we do not combine them -in strong undenominational ones. So many -things cry out for changing. Today I visited -a family and found the father had tuberculosis. -The mother?—tuberculosis. The children?—tuberculosis. -Then I saw a baby -whose head was not filled up, whose arms were -puny, whose shoulders were constricted. -From what? From rickets. The rickets came -from bad feeding due to ignorance. I saw -another child with the same complaint from -the same cause.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“American bank-notes are made of paper -that comes from Dalton, Massachusetts. The -finest quality of paper is made of rags. They -can use old rags and dirty rags—but they cannot -use red ones. In explaining the manufacture -to children I heard the manager speak -of the rags as being ‘willing’ or ‘unwilling.’ -The red ones were the ‘unwilling’ ones, and -one of the children afterward said she’d rather -be a willing rag. We may be poor and sorry -objects—we may be rags—but there is something -to be made of us if only we are willing -rags.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I came to a paralyzed boy. He said, -‘What can I do, Dr. Grenfell?’ I said, ‘You -can smile upon all those who minister to you -or come where you are. You can spread the -spirit of good cheer even from your bedside.’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was present at Pilley’s Island when a -soldier came home who had won the V. C. -What a welcome he received! There was a -triumphal arch and the town turned out to do -honour to its hero. He was the right sort of -soldier.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Norman Duncan wrote a delightful book -called “Doctor Luke of the Labrador” which -very faithfully mirrors the atmosphere of Dr. -Grenfell’s days and doings. But the book is -not to be taken as faithful biography <span class='it'>verbatim -et literatim</span>, in the passages relating to the -titular hero.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor has nothing in the open book -of his past life for which he needs to make -amends; but the hero of “Doctor Luke” has -something mysterious to live down, the precise -nature of which is not divulged. In many admirable -qualities the portrait of “Doctor -Luke” is a faithful likeness of Dr. Grenfell, -and that is why there is a danger that -the reader will think that in all particulars the -book man and the real man correspond. “Doctor -Luke” goes to the Labrador to flee from -his own shadow—a man pursued by bitter -memories of what he has done, and by mocking -wraiths of sin, their fingers pointed at -him. Dr. Grenfell went to the Labrador because -the spirit moved him to go to the help -of men whose lives were as cold as the ice -and as hard as the rock that hemmed them in. -He went not as one who sorrows over -misspent years but as one who rejoices in the -belief that his work has the smile of God -upon it. Dr. Grenfell has the spirit of any -first-rate missionary—he will not admit that -he has elected a life of brain-fag, bodily travail -and spiritual torment. His joy in doing -and giving is unaffected. When he invites -the rest of us to find life beautiful and bountiful -he does not pose nor prate. He walks in -the steps and in the name of Christ with a -child’s humility, a man’s strength, an almost -feminine tenderness and never a breath of that -maudlin, unctuous sanctimoniousness which -always must repel the virile and vertebrate -fibre of the Thomas Hughes brand of “muscular -Christianity.” Dr. Grenfell likes gospel -hymns where some prefer sonatas and concertos, -but he likes them when they carry a -plain and pointed message from the heart to -the heart, and build up a consciousness of our -human interdependence: he would not care -for them if they merely blew into flame the -emotional fire-in-straw that burns itself out -uselessly because of the want of substantial -fuel.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To the humble millionaire or the haughty -workingman his manner is the same. He -knows what it means “to walk with kings nor -lose the common touch.” Nor is he easily -fooled. “Though I give my body to be -burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me -nothing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I talked with Mr. A.,” he told me, referring -to his visit with a Croesus of New -York who to certain ends has given largely, -“and I felt somehow that, with all his giving, -he had not given himself!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>That is the secret, it seems to me, of Dr. -Grenfell’s own cogent power upon other -lives—that he goes and does in his own energetic -person. He does not stand at a distance -issuing commands. He is entirely willing to -help anybody, anywhere. He holds back -nothing that he can bestow, and he never -despairs. His ruddy optimism is a matter of -actual daily practice and not of a cloistered -philosophy. You never could persuade him -that with all the heavy burden that he bears, -the myriad interruptions and vexations that -occur, he is not having a grand good time. He -would be entirely ready to say with Stevenson:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“Glad did I live and gladly die</p> -<p class='line0'>And I laid me down with a will!”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='130' id='Page_130'></span><h1>X<br/>SOME OF HIS HELPERS</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>I should like to write a whole book -about his helpers. He is not a man who -seeks to shine by surrounding himself -with mediocrities. He would be ready to say -with Charles M. Schwab: “I want you to -work not for me but with me.” His presence -is quickening and engenders loyalty. It is fun -to be wherever Dr. Grenfell is because something -is always going on.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His helpers never are given to feel that they -are ciphers while he is the integer. Some of -the ablest surgeons of America and of Europe -have ministered to the patients at Battle Harbour, -Indian Harbour and St. Anthony and -on the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>. There is an utter absence -of “side” and “swank” in this the good -physician, and he never decks himself out in -the borrowed plumage of another’s virtue. -He delights to see a thing well done, and is -the first to bestow the word of earned praise -on the doer. Conversely, he is not happy if a -job is put through in a bungling, half-hearted, -messy fashion; but he keeps his breath to cool -his porridge, and never wastes it by mere -“blowing off” when the mischief is done and -palaver will not mend matters.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Human beings are not angels, and even -those who are upheld by a sense of righteous -endeavour may get tired and short-tempered -and disheartened and lonely. Those who attach -themselves to this enterprise for the weeks -of summer sunlight only do not have much -time to develop nostalgia. But “there ain’t -no busses runnin’ from the bank to Mandalay,” -and the Labrador has no theatres, no -picnics, no ball games and few dances. Think -of the large-hearted Moravian Brethren of -the Labrador whose missions are linked with -London by one visit a year from their mission -ship the <span class='it'>Harmony</span>. Think of the man (Mr. -Stewart) who sticks it out by himself at -Ungava round the chill promontory of Cape -Chidley in Ungava Bay. Think of the agents -of the Hudson Bay and other companies dealing -with the “silent, smoky Indian” in the -vast reaches of the North. Whoever essays to -serve God and man in this country must haul -his own weight and bear others’ burdens too. -He must lay aside hindrances—he must forfeit -love of home and kindred—he must learn -to keep normal and cheerful in the aching -solitudes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Many are with the Doctor for a season or -so. Some like Dr. Little, Dr. Paddon and Dr. -Andrews and certain others who deserve to -be named <span class='it'>honoris causa</span>—have stood by him -year after year. But by this time there is a -small army of short-term or long-term Grenfell -graduates—men and women—who had -“their souls in the work of their hands” and -whose precious memories are of the days they -spent in assuaging the torment, physical or -spiritual, of plain fisher-folk. It is not possible -to separate in this case the care of bodies -from the cure of souls. The “wops” who -brought the schooner <span class='it'>George B. Cluett</span> from -Boston year after year, laden with lumber and -supplies, and then went ashore to be plumbers -and carpenters and jacks-of-all-trades for love -and not for hire have their own stories to -tell of “simple service simply given to their -own kind in their human need.” Most of -them knew just what they would be up against; -they knew it would not be a glorified house-party; -but they accepted the isolation and the -crudeness and the cold and the unremitting -toil, and in the spirit of good sportsmanship -which is the ruling spirit of the Grenfell undertaking -they played the game, and what they -did is graven deep in the Doctor’s grateful -memory.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Doctor wins and keeps the enthusiastic -loyalty of his colleagues because he is so ready -with the word of emphatic praise for what -they do when it is the right thing to do. He -is fearless to condemn, but he would rather -commend, and the flush of pleasure in the -face of the one praised tells how much his -approval has meant to the recipient. He -knows how many persons in this human, -fallible world of ours travel faster for a pat -than for a kick or a blow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A halt was called at Forteau for a few -hours’ conference with one of the remarkable -women who have put their shoulders under -the load of the Labrador—Sister Bailey, once -a co-worker with Edith Cavell. At Forteau -she has a house that holds an immaculate -hospital-ward and an up-to-date dispensary. -For twelve years—except for two visits in -England—she has held the fort here without -the company of her peers, except at long intervals. -She has kept herself surrounded with -books and flowers, and her geraniums are exquisite. -Sister Bailey’s cow, bought for $40 -in a bargain at Bonne Esperance (“Bony,”) -is a wonder, and I took pains to stroke the -nose of this “friendly cow” and praise her -life-giving endeavours. For each day at the -crack of dawn there is a line-up of people with -all sorts of containers to get the milk. The -dogs, of course, would cheerfully kill the -animal if they could pull her down, but she -fights them off with her horns, and they have -learned a wholesome fear. She is not like the -cow at Bonne Esperance today, which has suffered -the loss of part of its hind quarters because -it was too gentle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Under Sister Bailey’s roof three maids, aged -12, 13 and 22, are being educated in household -management. She has a garden with the dogs -fenced out, and there is a skirmish with the -weeds all through the summer into which winter -breaks so suddenly. There is no spring; -there is no fall; flowers, vegetables and weeds -appear almost explosively together.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Artificial flowers are beautifully made—with -dyes from Paris—by the girls of Forteau -Cove, under Sister Bailey’s supervision. The -hues are remarkably close to the original and -the imitation of petal and leaf is so close as -to be startling.</p> - -<p class='pindent'><a id='stan'></a></p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i139a.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0010' style='width:100%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>ST. ANTHONY HOSPITAL IN WINTER.</p> -</div> - -<p class='pindent'><a id='some'></a></p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i139b.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0011' style='width:100%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>SOME OF THE HELPERS.</p> -</div> - -<p class='pindent'>No description of Dr. Grenfell’s “parish,” -as Norman Duncan aptly styled it, could be -complete without mention—that would be -much more extended did she permit—of the -part Mrs. Grenfell fills in all that the Doctor -does. Mrs. Grenfell was Miss Anna MacClanahan, -of Chicago, and she is a graduate -of Bryn Mawr. The Doctor went to the -Labrador years before his marriage, but since -she took her place at his side with her tact, her -humour, her common sense, her sound judgment -and her broad sympathies, she has been -a tower of strength, a well-spring of solace -and of healing, and altogether an indispensable -factor in her husband’s enterprise.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She is his secretary, and the number of letters -to be written, of patients’ records to be -kept, of manuscripts to be prepared for the -press is enormous. The Doctor pencils a -memorandum when and where he can—perhaps -sitting atop of a woodpile on the reeling -deck of the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>; and then Mrs. Grenfell -tames the rebellious punctuation or supplies -the missing links of predicates or prepositions -and evolves a manuscript that need not -fear to face the printer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The letters of appeal are almost innumerable, -of protest occasional, of sympathy and -friendship—with or without subscriptions—very -numerous, and Mrs. Grenfell has the -happy gift of saying “thank you” in such -warm and gracious, individualizing terms that -the donor is enlisted in a lifelong friendship -for the Grenfell idea.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Grenfell is “the life of the party” -wherever she goes. Like the Doctor, she refuses -to grow tired of the great game of living, -and it is a game they play together in a -completely understanding and sympathetic -copartnership.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>General “Chinese” Gordon once gave as -the reason for not marrying the fact that he -had never found the woman who would follow -him anywhere. Dr. Grenfell has been -more fortunate. A friend of theirs tells me -that Dr. Grenfell proposed on shipboard, almost -the minute he met his wife. Astounded -by his precipitancy, she said: “But, Doctor, -you don’t even know my name!” “That -doesn’t make any difference; I know what it’s -going to be,” is said to have been his characteristic -answer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Grenfell was translated from a life -that might have been one of ease and pleasure -and social preoccupation into a life of unremitting -toil and no small measure of actual -hardship, and she meets the day and whatever -it brings in the same high-hearted mood that -her husband carries to the various phases of -his crowded existence. She is his mentor—without -being a tormentor; she is his business -memory and a deal of his common sense and -social conscience: but she never lets her fine, -keen mind, her quick wit and her readily divining -intuition become absorbed in the mechanic -phases of the regulation of household -or boatload business. She has the happy -faculty of instant transplantation from the -practical task to the ideal atmosphere. She -is the Doctor’s workmate, playmate and helpmate: -the complete and inspiring counterpart. -She knows better than anybody else that she -has a great man for a husband, but she never -lets that consciousness become oppressive, and -she knows that it is good for them both to -yield to the playful spirit of rollicking nonsense -and absurd horseplay now and then. So -you needn’t be surprised if you should find the -pair chasing each other about the deck pretending -a mortal combat with billets of birch-wood, -while the distracted Fritz the dog cannot -make up his mind whether he is in duty -bound to bite his mistress or his master. You -needn’t be surprised if the Doctor goes through -a mighty pantomime of barricading his chart-room -as though his better half had no business -in it, or hides some one of her cherished Lares -and Penates and assumes an innocent ignorance -of its whereabouts. When he is at play Dr. -Grenfell is not a bit older than the youngest -of his three delightful children whose combined -ages cannot be much more than fifteen -years. He is the same sort of amusing and -devoted father as the mourned and beloved -head of the household at Sagamore Hill, who -to Dr. Grenfell—of course—is the pattern of -all that the head of a family and the soul of -a nation should be.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The family life of the Grenfells and the -perfect mutuality of thought and feeling between -Dr. Grenfell and his wife stand out in -clear-cut lines as an example to those who -never have known the meaning of the complete -community of ideals in the family life -and in the relationship of wife and husband. -It stands in rebuke to the sorrowful travesty -the modern marriage so often exhibits. It -shows how the strength of either partner in the -marriage of true minds is multiplied tenfold -and how the yoke is easy and the burden is -light when love has entered in—</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“The love you long to give to one</p> -<p class='line0'>Made great enough to hold the world.”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='139' id='Page_139'></span><h1>XI<br/>FOUR-FOOTED AIDES: DOGS AND REINDEER</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>In few places are the dogs so numerous and -so noisy as at Forteau, and Sister Bailey’s -team held the primacy for speed and condition -and obedience to command—yet she -ruled them by moral suasion and not by kicks -and curses. That does not mean they were dog -angels. Every “husky” is in part a wolf, -and the gentlest and most amiable that fawns -upon you will in a twinkling go from the Dr. -Jekyll to the Mr. Hyde in his make-up when -the breaking-point is passed. The leaders of -the pack were two monsters named Scotty -and Carlo, and they were rivals to the end of -the tether. Carlo was a sentimentalist of a -hue between fawn and grey: his greatest -pleasaunce was to put his forepaws on your -shoulders and lick your nose ere you could -stave him off. Scotty’s nose—he was black -and white—was embossed with the marks of -many bitter duels. Probably the other dogs -could read those marks, as a Bret Harte cowboy -could read the notches on a gun, and he -won respect commensurate with the length and -breadth of the scratches. Scotty came with us -on the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span>, as his mistress was leaving -for a rest in England shortly. It was a job -to persuade him aboard the boat, but once -there he entered into a tacit agreement, as between -gentlemen, that he should have the after -deck while Fritz, our official dog, monopolized -the prow. Scotty had the better of the bargain, -for his bailiwick included the cook’s -galley. But Fritz could sleep on the floor of -my cabin, though whenever I looked for him -on the floor he was snugly ensconced in a forbidden -lower bunk, curled up like a jelly roll. -He learned to vacate without even a word -when I gazed at him reproachfully.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>All Sister Bailey’s dogs, and a great many -more, converged upon the beach when Fritz -swam ashore and shook himself free from -such marine algae as he might have collected on -his course. We kept Fritz close at heel, but -there were constant alarums and incursions. -As we sauntered along the shore path by the -fish-flakes where the women were turning over -the fish under the threat of rain, Fritz was in -a measure taken into the loosely cohesive -<span class='it'>plunderbund</span> of Sister Bailey’s pack. They -seemed to be saying to him after their fashion: -“Oh, well, you are a foreigner from that ship -out yonder in the cove, to be sure, but here -we are passing one hostile tribe after another, -and we may need you any time to help us out -in a scrap, so you may as well travel along -with our bushy tails—though yours points -toward the ground, and you can’t be very much -of a dog, after all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For dogs appeared in squads, platoons, companies, -battalions, even as iron-filings cluster -to a magnet. There was a most outrageous -and unholy pow-wow when we had gone about -five houses from the beach. All the dogs from -near and far piled into it like hornets from -a broken nest. There was no speech nor -language known to dogdom in which their -voices were not heard with howls and imprecations. -Alas! even the gentle Sister Bailey had -to abandon for the nonce her policy of moral -suasion and get in among her protégés with -thwackings of a bit of driftwood and a few -well-directed pushes (not to say kicks) of the -foot. Any moderate impact, when a scrap is -in full swing, rebounds from the tough integuments -like hailstones landing on a tin roof. -Even an every-day argument of these beasts -sounds like wholesale murder. It is a pathetic -fact that with all the affectionate responsiveness -of some of the animals to human notice -there always lurks a danger. If you are a -stranger, meeting a strange pack, it is well to -keep your eyes upon them, and if you have not -a stick in your hand, or a stone ready to throw, -it is wholesome to stoop groundward and pretend -you have a missile. Then, nine times -out of ten, they will scatter. So often one -would like to believe they are all dog, with -all of the dog’s graces and goodnesses—but -there reigns in the breast of each a vulpine -jealousy that easily and instantly mounts to -a blood-heat of maddened fury. Dogs of the -same litter will fight as furiously and savagely -as born enemies, though they may recognize -in the traces intuitively the leadership of their -mother at an age far beyond that at which -civilized puppies become as contemptuous of -their mother as she is of them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Unhappily, there are many cases on authentic -record when young children and old people, -unable to defend themselves, have been devoured -by dogs—not necessarily when the dogs -were starving. A grewsome climax was -reached when in the “flu” epidemic of -1918-19 on the Labrador the dogs fell on the -dead and the dying and the enfeebled survivors -could not stem the onslaught. No wonder, -then, that Dr. Grenfell, with all his manifest -affection for dogs that he has known, insists -that the importation of reindeer is the salvation -and the solution. Stubbornly the folk -of the northern tip of the peninsula and the -Labrador coast cling to the huskies that were -banished, in favour of cows, horses, pigs and -chickens, by their more sophisticated southern -neighbours. Uncle Philip Coates at Eddy’s -Cove is the only man on that shore, as far as -is known, who keeps pigs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A fisherman landing on an island off Cape -Charles, on the side away from his home, -found himself the object of the unwelcome attentions -of a pack of dogs who were acting on -the principle of the uncouth villager of the old -story who cried: “ ’Ere’s a stranger, Bill—let’s -’eave ’arf a brick at him.” He is sure they -would have pounced on him and polished off -his bones, had he not seen one dog he knew—the -leader. He called the dog’s name; the -wolfish creature halted instantly. When the -name was repeated, the dog slunk off, his -ragged retinue at his heels.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It is sad to think that the dogs that will perform -so nobly in the traces are such bad actors -when they have nothing to do but to pick a -quarrel in places where perhaps there is no -foliage but the proud curled plumage of their -tails. They are beside themselves with excitement -when after the summer siesta they are -harnessed to the komatik again. When the -driver smartly rubs his hands and cries, “See -the deer!”—or anything he pleases—it augments -the fever. In Labrador “ouk, ouk!” -turns the team to the right—perchance with -a disconcerting promptness—and “urrah, -urrah!” swerves it to the left. The corresponding -directions in Newfoundland are -“keep off!” and “hold in.” No reins are -used—some drivers use no whip. The books -of Dr. Grenfell abound in affectionate reference -to the better nature of these animals and -their extraordinary fidelity to duty. Like most -of the people of the land, they do not fear to -die. Their life is largely of neglect and pain: -they spend much of their time crawling under -the houses to get out of the way. Their -pleasure is the greater when they find a human -playmate ready to throw a stick into the water -for them. Grand swimmers are they, and they -will plunge into the coldest sea; and if they -are hungry they dive in for a small fish without -concern. It is hard to find a time when -they are not ready to set their fangs to food—“full-fed” -is an ideal condition to which most -of them seldom attain. A square meal of -whalemeat is their millennium. “I don’t see -what satisfaction they get out of it,” said -“Bill” Norwood—one of the volunteer -“wops” building the Battle Harbour reservoir. -“The meat in winter comes to them -in frozen hunks, and they slide it down at one -gulp, to melt in their stomach. That’s not -quite my idea of enjoying a meal.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In a yawl that the <span class='it'>Strathcona</span> dragged -astern three plaintive huskies, to be committed -to the pack at St. Anthony, hungrily sniffed -the meat-laden breeze that blew from our -deck. They were perturbed at finding themselves -going to sea. I may add that when they -got ashore the youngest of the three—a mere -baby—jumped on a rock and bit the nose of -the leader of the St. Anthony pack, Eric by -name, thereby winning respect for himself -and his two comrades among the aborigines -who might otherwise have fallen upon them -and rent them limb from limb.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The dogs at Battle Harbour live up to the -name of the settlement. Like all other -“huskies,” they are ready to fight on slight -provocation, and the night is made vocal with -their long-drawn ululations. Their appetite -is insatiable—they devour with enthusiasm -whatsoever things are thrown out at the -kitchen door—they even ate a towel that went -astray—and when nothing better offers they -will wade into the water in quest of caplin, or -cods’ heads. In their enthusiasm for food the -dogs will dig through boards to get at cattle -and pigs, and cows and chickens seldom live -where the dogs are numerous.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The murderous proclivities of the dogs of -the Labrador furnished one of the chief reasons, -as has been said before, why the Doctor -went to such great pains and to such a relatively -large expense to import and domicile the reindeer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was wildly exciting work, I can tell you, -lassoing those reindeer and tying their legs in -that country over yonder,” he said, as the -<span class='it'>Strathcona</span> rounded the rugged bread-loaf -island of Cape Onion. He pointed to the settlement -of Island Bay behind it. “There we -were blown across the bay on the ice—dogs, -komatik and all—roaring with laughter at -our own predicament, helpless before the great -gale of wind.” Thus he recalls without bitterness -the costly undertaking whose fruition -has been—and still is—one of his dearest -dreams. Conveying the captured reindeer -across the Strait in a schooner to Canada with -almost nobody to help him was a Herculean -task. Some day the Legislature at St. John’s -may see fit to divert a little money to establishing -the docile and reliable reindeer in place -of treacherous and predatory dogs. It is a -greater loss to the island than to Grenfell that -the scheme must wait.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With a mob of dogs in every village, a mob -actuated most of the time by an insatiable -hunger driving it forth in quest of any sort -of food, it has been impossible in most places -to keep a cow or a goat, and hay is prohibitively -costly to import. Dr. Grenfell has described -with pathos how Labrador mothers, in -default even of canned milk for the baby, are -in the habit of chewing hard bread into a pulpy -mass to fill the infant’s mouth and thus produce -the illusion of nutriment until it is able -to masticate and assimilate “loaf” for itself. -In few countries is milk so scarce.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The reindeer might be the cow of the Labrador. -The reindeer is able to find a square -meal amid the moss and lichens, and it yields -milk so rich as to require dilution to bring -it down to the standard of cow’s milk, while -it is free from the peculiar flavour of the milk -of the goat. The Lapps make the milk into -a “cream cheese” which Dr. Grenfell has -tried out on his sledge journeys and heartily -endorses.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nearly three hundred reindeer were obtained -by Dr. Grenfell in Lapland in 1907, -with three Lapland families to herd them and -teach herding. They were landed at Cremailliere, -(locally called “Camelias”), three miles -south of St. Anthony. At the end of four -years the herd numbered a thousand. In 1912, -twelve hundred and fifty at once were corraled. -Poaching and want of police protection -made it desirable to transfer the animals -across the Straits to Canada. Some of them, -by virtue of strenuous effort, were collected -in 1918 and transported to the St. Augustine -River district where now they flourish and increase -in number. Some day, it would seem -from the great success of the reindeer-herds -of Alaska—introduced by Dr. Sheldon Jackson -and fostered by the United States Government—these -fine animals will surely replace -the dogs on the Labrador, when local prejudice -against them has been overcome or has -evaporated. They are useful not merely for -the milk but for the meat and the skins, as -well as for transportation. They live at peace -instead of on the precarious verge of battle. -The “experiment” has not collapsed in dismal -failure. It is only in abeyance to the -ultimate assured success, and it is not too much -to predict that another generation or two will -see the reindeer numerous and useful throughout -the Labrador.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='150' id='Page_150'></span><h1>XII<br/>A WIDE, WIDE “PARISH”</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>To take the measure of the man Dr. -Grenfell is and the work he does it is -necessary to know something of the -land and the waters round about, where he -puts his life in jeopardy year after year, day -unto day, to save the lives of others. There -is much more to “Dr. Grenfell’s parish” than -the “rock, fog and bog” of the old saying. -Such observations as are here assembled are -the raw material for the Doctor’s inimitable -tales of life on the Labrador.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The great fact of life here is the sea, and -much of existence is in giving battle to it. -The little boys practice jumping across rain-barrels -and mud-puddles, because some day -they hope to get a “ticket” (a berth on a -sealer) and go to the ice, and when it is “a -good big copy from pan to pan”—that is to -say, a considerable distance from one floating -ice-cake to the next—their ability to jump like -their own island sheep may save their lives.</p> - -<p class='pindent'><a id='sign'></a></p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i156.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0012' style='width:70%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>SIGNAL HILL, HARBOUR OF ST. JOHNS.</p> -</div> - -<p class='pindent'>The word “copy” comes from the childish -game of following the leader and doing as he -does. A little piece of ice is called a knob, and -a larger piece is a pan. A pan is the same -thing as a floe, but the latter expression is -not in common usage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Every youth who aspires to qualify as a -skipper must go before an examining board of -old sea-wise and weather-wise pilots, and prove -himself letter-perfect in the text of that big -book, “The Newfoundland and Labrador -Pilot and Guide.” His examiners scorn the -knowledge of the book, very often, for they -have the facts at the fingers’ ends from long -and harsh experience of the treacherous -waters, with the criss-cross currents, the hidden -reefs, the sudden fogs, the contrary winds. -So they delight to make life miserable for the -young mariner by heckling him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The disasters that now and then overtake -the sealing-fleet are ever present in the minds -of those who do business in these waters. -They know what it means for a ship’s company -to be caught out on the ice in a snow-storm, -far from the vessel. In early March -the wooden ships race for the Straits of Belle -Isle, and three days later the faster iron ships -follow. When they get to where the seals are -sunning themselves around the blow-holes in -the ice, the crew go out with their gaffs -(staves) and kill the usually unresisting animals -by hitting them over the back of the head. -It sounds like simple and easy hunting, and -in good weather it is. But a long-continued -storm changes the complexion of the adventure -to that of the gravest peril.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One captain saved his men by making them -dance like mad the long night through, while -he crooned the music to them. At the end of -each five minutes he let them rest on their -piles of gaffs, and then they were made to -spring to their feet again and resume the frantic -gyrations that kept them from freezing to -death. In the same storm, the <span class='it'>Greenland</span> of -Harbour Grace lost 52 of her 100 men.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They still talk of the fate of the <span class='it'>Queen</span> on -Gull Island off Cape St. John, though the -wreck took place nigh unto forty years ago. -There was no lighthouse then. The island lifts -its head hundreds of feet above the mean of -the tides, and only the long rank grass and -the buttercups live there in summer. But this -was in a December night, and the wind blew -a gale. There were six passengers—a woman -among them. When the passengers had -battled their way ashore through the leaping -surf, the crew went back on the doomed ship -to salvage some of the provisions. For they -knew that at this forsaken angle of the island -no help from any passing ship was likely till -the spring.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The passengers toiled to the top of the bleak -islet, lugging with them a fragment of a sail. -The crew, aboard the vessel, were carried by -the furious winds and waters out to the Old -Harry Shoals, where they lost their lives when -the sea beat the vessel to pieces.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sequel is known by a little diary in -which a doctor—one of the hapless half-dozen—made -notes with his own blood till -his stiffening fingers refused to scrawl another -entry.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It seems from this pathetic note-book that -the six at the end of a few days, tortured with -thirst and starvation, drew lots to see who -should die.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The lot fell to the woman. Her brother -offered himself in her place.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the entries in the book cease; and the -curtain that fell was not lifted till spring -brought a solitary hunter to the island. He -shot a duck from his boat, and it fell in the -breakers. Afterwards he said it was a phantom -fowl, sent from heaven to guide him. For -he did not see it again, though he landed and -searched the beach.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But he saw splinters flung high by the surf -that seemed to him a clear indication of a -wreck.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He clambered to the top of the islet. There -he found, under the rotted sail, the six bodies, -and in the hand of one, was a piece of flesh -torn from one of the bodies.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Even when their lives are endangered the -fishermen preserve their keen mindfulness of -the religious proprieties. Caught on an ice-pan -together, Protestants and Catholics prayed, -their backs to one another, on opposite sides -of the pan—and the same thing has happened -in ships’ cabins. The sailors are not above a -round oath now and then, but there are many -God-fearing, prayerful men among them. -“These are my sailing orders, sir,” said an -old retired sea-dog to me as he patted the cheek -of his Bible.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Phrases of the sea enter into every phase of -daily human intercourse. “You should have -given yourself more room to veer and haul,” -said the same old sailor to me when I was in -a hurry. Fish when half-cured are said to be -“half-saved,” and a man who is “not all -there” is likely to be styled “half-saved.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Down killik” is used impartially on arrival -at the fishing grounds or at home after a -voyage—the “killik” being a stone anchor for -small craft or for nets. (A “killy-claw” is -of wood with the stone in the middle.) You -may hear an old fisherman say of his retirement -from the long warfare with the sea for -a living: “My killiks are down; my boat is -moored.” One of them who was blind in his -left eye, said as he lay dying, referring to his -own soul: “She’s on her last tack, heading for -I don’t know where: the port light is out, and -the starboard is getting very dim.” A few -minutes later he passed away.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The ordinary talk is full of poetry. “If I -could only rig up a derrick, now, to hoist me -over the fore part of the winter,” an old salt -will say, “wi’ the help o’ God and a sou’westerly -wind and a few swyles I could last -till the spring.” By “swyles,” of course, he -means “seals.” A man’s a man when he has -killed his seal. Seal-meat is an anti-scorbutic, -and the sealers present the “paws,” or flippers, -as great delicacies to their friends. A “big -feed” is a “scoff.” Sealing brings men together -in conviviality and comaraderie, and it -is the great ambition of most of the youth of -Newfoundland to “go to the ice.” Many -are the stowaways aboard the sealing craft. -If a man goes “half his hand” it means he -gets half his catch for his labour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Seal” is pronounced “swyle,” “syle,” or -“swoyle” and Swale Island also takes its -name from this most important mammal. -Seals wandering in search of their blow-holes -have been found as far as six or seven miles -inland.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As might be expected, there survives in the -vernacular—especially of the older people—many -words and phrases that smack of their -English dialect origin, and words that were -the English undefiled of Chaucer’s or Shakespeare’s -day. Certain proper names represent -a curious conversion of a French name no -longer understood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In Dorsetshire dialect v is used for f, and -in Newfoundland one hears “fir” pronounced -“vir” or “var.” Firewood is “vir-wood.” -Women who are “vuzzing up their -vires” are fussing (making ready) their fires. -We have “it wouldn’t be vitty” in place of -“it wouldn’t be fitting.” A pig “veers”; it -does not farrow. The use of “thiccy” for -“this” is familiar to readers of “Lorna -Doone.” “The big spuds are not very jonnick -yet” means that the potatoes are not well -done. If something “hatches” in your -“glutch,” it catches in your throat. Blizzard -is a word not used, and a lass at school, confusing -it with gizzard, said it meant the insides -of a hen. The remains of birds or of animals -are the “rames.” “O yes you, I ’low” is -a common form of agreement. To be photographed -is to be “skitched off,” and of snapshots -it is sometimes said by an old fisherman -to a “kodak fiend”: “I heard ye firin’ of -’em.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Cass ’n goo,” for “can’t you go” may be -heard at Notre Dame Bay, as well as “biss ’n -gwine” for “aren’t you going?” and “thees -cass’n do it” for “thee can’t do it.” The -berries called “harts” (whorts) are, I presume, -the “hurts” of Surrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A vivid toast for a sealer going to the icefields -was “Bloody decks to ’im!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When bad weather is brewing, “We’re going -to have dirt” is a common expression.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A fisherman who had hooked a queer creature -that must have been first cousin to the -sea-serpent said, “It had a head like a hulf, -a neck like a harse; I cut the line and let it -go to hell.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Here is a puzzler: “Did ye come on skits -or on cart and dogs?” That means, “Did you -come on skates or on a dog-sledge?” Dog-cat -is a dog-sledge. Cat is short for catamaran, -which is not a sea-boat but a land-sledge, -so that when you hear it said: “He’s -taken his dog and his cat and gone to the -woods” you may know that it means “He’s -taken his dog and his sledge.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Just as we change the position of the <span class='it'>r</span> in -going from <span class='it'>three</span> to <span class='it'>third</span>, we find the letters -transposed in “aps” for aspen, “haps” for -hasp, “waps” for “wasp” and “wordle” for -world. Labrador is Larbador, and “down to -the Larbador” or “down on the Larbador” -are common expressions.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Instead of “the hatch” the telescoped form -“th’ ’atch” is used. We have “turr” for -“tern” and “loo” for “loon,” and “yammit” -(emmet) for “ant.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The tendency to combine syllables is illustrated -in the pronunciation of Twillingate as -Twulngate.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A scaffolding for fish is known as a “flake.” -Here the split cod are outspread to dry and, -by the way, a decision of the Newfoundland -Supreme Court declares “cod” and “fish” -synonymous. The scaffolding is made of poles -called longers, and it is suggested that these -“longers” are the “longiores” which Caesar -used to build bridges, according to his Commentaries. -A silk hat is known as a beaver, -or behaviour, and so when you hear it said, -“I saw Tom Murphy; he must have been at -a funeral; he had his behaviour on,” it means -not that he was circumspect in his conduct, -but that he wore the formal headgear. -“Sammy must ’a’ been writin’ some poetry. -I saw him just now a-humourin’ of it with his -foot.” Cannot you see the bard beating out -the rhythm with his foot, as a musician sometimes -does when he is sure that he is in time -and the rest are mistaken?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“South’ard,” “north’ard,” “east’ard,” -“west’ard” are current maritime usage, and -the adjective “wester” is heard.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Legal Latin is drawn upon for “tal qual”—<span class='it'>talis -qualis</span>—applied in a bargain for fish “just -as they come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Here is a quaint one. The end of a pile, -above the surface of a wharf, is a gump-head. -Gump and block are one and the same thing. -We of the United States use the word -“gump” or “chump” figuratively for a -“blockhead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The curse o’ Crummle on ye” is a rural -expression still heard, and refers to Cromwell’s -bloody descent on Ireland.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I find my kinkhorn and I can’t glutch” -means “I have a pain in my throat and I can’t -swallow.” The kinkhorn is the Adam’s apple. -A man at Chimney Cove remarked: “I have -a pain in my kinkhorn and it has gone to my -wizen (chest).”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A dog is often called a “crackie.” Caribou -is shortened to “boo.” A door that has stuck -is said to be “plimmed up.” A man who ate -hard bread and drank water said “It plimmed -up inside and nearly killed me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To say of a girl that she “blushed up like -a bluerag” refers to the custom of enclosing -a lump of blueing in a cloth when laundering -clothes. “The wind baffles round the house” -is a beautiful way of saying that it was blustering.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Bruise” is a very popular dish of hard -bread boiled with fish, and with “scrunchins” -(pork) fried and put over it. It is the equivalent -of Philadelphia’s famous “scrapple.” A -guide, admitting that bread and tea are the -staple articles of diet in many an outpost, said -reflectively: “Yes, that’s all those people live -on. Now there’s other things. There’s -beans.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When a man says that his hands are “hard -afrore” (hard frozen) we remember Milton -in “Paradise Lost,” “the air burns frore.” -Frozen potatoes are “frosty tiddies.” Head -is often called “heed.” “Tigyer,” said by an -old man to a mischievous lad, means “Take -yerself off.” “Is en?” is a way of saying -“Is he?” An old man cut his finger and -said that he had a “risen” on it, which is -certainly more of a finality than a “rising.” -“I’m going chock to Gargamelle” means “I’m -going all the way to Gargamelle,” the latter -name from “garçon gamelle,” said to signify -“the boy who looks after the soup.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Instead of “squashed,” “squatted” is a -common word, as in the expression “I -squatted my finger.” And there are many -other provincialisms not in the dictionaries.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The fathom is a land-measure of length, as -well as a sea-measure of depth. The leading -dog of a team is six or seven “fathoms” -ahead of the komatik.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Start calm” means perfectly calm, and -then they may say expressively “The wind’s -up and down the mast.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Puddick” is a common name for the -stomach.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Take it abroad” is “take it apart”; “do -you relish enough,” is “have you eaten -plenty?” “Poor sign fish” means that fish -are scarce. Woods that are tall are said to be -“taunt.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>These few examples of distinctive phraseology -might be multiplied a thousand-fold.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As for the proper names, a fascinating field -of research lies before a patient investigator -who commands the leisure. Here are but a -few of countless examples that might be cited.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>French names have been Anglicized in -strange ways. Isle aux Bois thus becomes Isle -of Boys—or, as pronounced on the south -coast, Oil of Boys or Oil o’ Boy. Baie de -Boules has lost the significance of boulders -that bestud its shores in the name Bay Bulls. -The famous and dreaded Cape Race, near the -spot where the beautiful <span class='it'>Forizel</span> was lost, gets -its name from the French “razé,” signifying -“sheer.” Reucontre is Round Counter; Cinq -Isles has become St. Keels, and Peignoir is altered -to Pinware or Pinyare. Grand Bruit -is Grand Brute; the rocky headland of Blomidon -that nobly commands the mouth of the -Humber is commonly called Blow-me-down; -Roche Blanche is Rose Blanche.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One would scarcely recognize Lance-au-Diable -in Nancy Jobble. Bay d’Espoir has -been turned into its exact antithesis, in the -shape of Bay Despair. L’Argent Bay is now -Bay Le John. Out of Point Enrage is evolved -Point Rosy, and St. Croix is modified to Sancroze -(Sankrose).</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Children’s names are likely to be Biblical. -They are often called by the middle name as -well—William James, Henry George, Albert -Edward. Merchants’ ledgers must take account -of a vast number of nicknames that are -often slight variants on the same name—Yankee -Peter, Foxy Peter, Togo Ben, Sailor Ben, -Bucky Ben, Big Tom, Deaf Tom, Young Tom, -Big Jan, Little Jan, Susy’s Jan, Ripple Jan, -Happy Jack. Thomas Cluett comes to be -called Tommy Fiddler, whereupon all the children -become Fiddlers, and the wife is Mrs. -Fiddler. The family of Maynards is known -as the Miners.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The little boys have a mischievous way of -teasing one another as “bay noddies.” The -noddy is a stupid fish that is very good at -catching the smaller fry and then easily allows -itself to be robbed of its prey. The children -cry:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“Bay boy, bay boy, come to your supper,</p> -<p class='line0'>Two cods’ heads and a lump o’ butter.”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>We find the children using instead of -“Eeny, meeny, miny, mo” this formula:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“Hiram, Jiram, bumbo lock</p> -<p class='line0'>Six knives in a clock;</p> -<p class='line0'>Six pins turning wins.</p> -<p class='line0'>Dibby, dabby, o-u-t spells out.”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>Or:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“Little man driving cattle</p> -<p class='line0'>Don’t you hear his money rattle?</p> -<p class='line0'>One, two, sky blue,</p> -<p class='line0'>Out goes y-o-u.”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>Or:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“Silver lock, silver key,</p> -<p class='line0'>Touch, go run away!”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>Or:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“Eetle, ottle, blue bottle,</p> -<p class='line0'>Eetle, ottle, out!”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>Still another is:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“Onery, ury, ickery, Ann,</p> -<p class='line0'>Fillissy, follissy, Nicholas John,</p> -<p class='line0'>Kubee, Kowbee, Irish Mary</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>They throw marbles against a wall for a -sort of carom-shot, and call it “bazzin’ marbles.” -“The real precursor of the spring, like -the sure mating of the birds,” said an old man -of the game.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In some places there is a local celebrity with -a real talent for the composition of what are -known as “come-all-ye’s,” from the fact that -the minstrel is supposed to invite all who will -to come and hear him chant his lay. Every -big storm or shipwreck is supposed to be commemorated -in appropriate verse by the -laureate. For instance, one of these ballads -begins:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“The Lily Joyce stuck in the ice,</p> -<p class='line0'>So did the Husky too;</p> -<p class='line0'>Captain Bill Ryan left Terry behin’</p> -<p class='line0'>To paddle his own canoe.”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>Another runs thus:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“ ’Twas on the 29th of June,</p> -<p class='line0'>As all may know the same;</p> -<p class='line0'>The wind did blow most wonderful,</p> -<p class='line0'>All in a flurry came.”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>This was written and sung to a hymn tune.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Song is a common accompaniment of a shipboard -task:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“Haul on the bow-line,</p> -<p class='line0'>Kitty is me darlin’;</p> -<p class='line0'>Haul on the bow-line,</p> -<p class='line0'>Haul, boys, haul.”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>If a boy doesn’t go across the Straits before -he is sixteen, he must be “shaved by Neptune.” -It is almost a disgrace not to have -gone to the Labrador. Neptune is called -“Nipkin.” “Nipkin’ll be aboard to shave you -tonight.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When they are cleaning fish, the last man -to wash a fish for the season gets ducked in -the tub.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Some of the older residents are walking -epitomes of the island lore. They know a -great deal that never found lodgment in books. -Matty Mitchell, the 63-year old Micmac guide, -now a prospector for the Reid-Newfoundland -Company, was a fellow-passenger on the mail-boat. -He was full of tales of the days when -the wolf still roamed the island’s inner fastnesses. -I asked him when the last of which -he knew were at large. He said: “About -thirty years ago I saw three on Doctor’s Hill. -I have seen none since. There are still lots -of bears and many lynxes. Once I was attacked -by six wolves. I waited till the nearest -was close to me—then I shoved my muzzle-loader -into his mouth and shot him and the -other five fell away. Another time I was -attacked by three bears who drove me into -a lake where I had to stay till some men who -had been with me came to the rescue.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My grandfather was with Peyton when -Mary March and another Indian woman were -captured at Indian Lake. Mary March died -at St. John’s, and was buried there; the other -one was brought back to the shore of the -lake.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How do you know what minerals you -are finding when you are prospecting?” I -asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was three times in the Museum at St. -John’s,” he answered. “I see everything in -the place. That way I know everything that -I look at when I go to hunt for minerals and -metals. I hear a thing once—I got it. I see -a thing once—I got it. I never found gold—but -I got pearls from clams, weighing as much -as forty grains. I can’t stay in the house. I -must be out in the open. If I stay inside I -get sick. I take colds. I’ve been twice to the -Grand Falls in Labrador. At the upper falls -the river rises seven times so”—he arched -the back of his hand—“before the water goes -over. The biggest flies I ever saw are there. -They bite right through the clothes. You -close the tent—sew up the opening. You burn -up all the flies inside. Next morning there are -just as many.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Another passenger was the Rev. Thomas -Greavett, Church of England “parson,” with -a parish 100 miles long on the West Coast -between Cow Head and Flower’s Cove. He -had to be medicine-man and lawyer too, and -in his black satchel he carried a stomach-pump, -a syringe, eight match-boxes of medicine and -Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall.” He told me -how he hated to use the mail-boat for his -parish visiting, for it generally meant sleepless -nights of pacing the deck or sitting in the -lifeboat in default of a berth. He carried a -petition, to go before the Legislature, reciting -the many reasons why the poor little boat on -which we were travelling is inadequate to the -heavy freight and passenger traffic in which she -is engaged. With accommodations for hardly -more than 50 passengers, she has carried 210, -235 and even 300, which meant acute discomfort -for everybody and the open deck, night -and day, for many passengers. What is -wanted is a big, heavy ice-breaker. The <span class='it'>Ethie</span> -never was meant by her Glasgow builders to -fight the Humboldt Glacier bit by bit as it -falls into the sea. In December she was -wrecked off Cow Head in a gale, fortunately -with no loss of life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>I don’t know of a harder-working lot than -the crew and captain of a boat that undertakes -to carry freight and passengers between -southern ports of Newfoundland and the -Labrador.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Take the experience of this vessel, the <span class='it'>Ethie</span>, -in the summer of 1919 as an example. Under -a thoroughly capable and chart-perfect skipper, -Captain English, she made several ineffectual -attempts to get to Battle Harbour -through the dense ice-jam before she finally -made that roadstead on June 24. When I -met her at Curling to go north, a week late, -at the end of August, she had just come out -of a viscous fog of four days’ duration in -the Strait of Belle Isle and in that fog she had -escaped by the closest of shaves a collision -with a berg that towered above her till the -top of it was lost in the fog. She carried so -many passengers, short-haul or long-distance, -that every seat in the dining saloon was filled -with weary folk at night and some paced the -decks or sat on the piles of lathes or the oil-barrels. -Lumber and barrels were stored -everywhere, the hold was crammed, and cattle -in the prow came and went mysteriously as -the vessel moved into one cove or bight or -tickle after another in the dead of the night -or the silver cool of the early morning. The -clatter of the steam-winch with the tune of -babies strange to the sea-trip, the slap and -scuffle of the waves on our sheet-iron sides -and the banging of the doors as the vessel -writhed in her discomfort made an orchestra -of many tongues and percussions. The boat -was so heavy with her cargo of machinery, -oil, lumber, flour ($24 a barrel at Battle Harbour), -cattle and human beings that the deck -outside my stateroom was hardly two feet -out of water. There were four of us in the -stateroom, but the population changed almost -hourly from port to port, so that I had barely -time to get acquainted with a fellow-passenger -ere I lost him to look after his lobster or fish, -or his missionary labours. One of the ship’s -company was going to teach school at Green -Island Cove at the northern tip of Newfoundland. -He told me he would get $275 for ten -months’ work and out of it would have to pay -board. Yet out of that salary he meant to -put by money to pay for part of a college -education at St. John’s. “How old are you?” -I asked. “Not yet eighteen, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It is easy to see why Dr. Grenfell’s heart -and hand go out in a practical and helpful -sympathy to those whose battle with grim, unmitigated -natural forces and with harsh circumstance -is unending. The commonest question -asked of anyone who returns from a visit -to the Labrador is “Why do people live -there?” Despite the fog and the cold, the sea-perils -and the stark barrenness of the rocks, -the Labrador has an allurement all its own. -It has brought a sturdy explorer like William -B. Cabot of Boston (“Labrador” Cabot) -again and again to the rivers and inlets and the -central fastnesses, where he shares the life of -the Montagnais and the Nauscapee Indians; -and the same magic has endeared the Labrador -to those who year upon year continue the quest -of the cod and the seal and know no life other -than this. Whatever place a man calls his -home is likely to become unreasonably dear to -him, however bare and poor it looks to visitors; -and that is the way with the Labrador. -But he who cannot find by sea or land a wild -and terrible beauty in the waters and the luminous -skies and the long roll and lift of the -blue hills must be insensible to some of the -fairest vistas that earth has to show. Grenfell -and his colleagues do not concede that life on -the Labrador is dull or that the environment is -sterile and monotonous and cheerless. As one -of the brave Labrador missionaries, the -Rev. Henry Gordon, has written, “Not only -does Labrador rejoice in some of the finest -scenery in North America, but she also possesses -a people of an exceptionally fine type.” -Surely it is not right to think of such a -country as a land only of rocks, snows and -misery.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='173' id='Page_173'></span><h1>XIII<br/>A FEW “PARISHIONERS”</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>A typical interior gladdened by the -Doctor’s presence is this on the -Southern Labrador. A drudge from -Nancy Jobble (Lance-au-Diable) is scrubbing -the floor, for the mother is too ill to look to -the ways of her household. The drudge instead -of singing is chewing on something that -may be tobacco, paper or gum, and as she -slings the brush about heartlessly she gives -furtive eyes and ears to the visitors. The -walls are bestuck with staled and yellowed -newspapers. There are no pictures or books. -There is a wooden bench before the linoleum-covered -table, on which are loaves of bread, -ill-baked. There is a stove, of the “Favourite” -brand with kettle and teapot simmering. -A tarnished alarm-clock from Ansonia, -a mirror, a wash-stand, shelves with -china, tin cans and shreds of bread, a baby’s -crib, a rocking-chair and two more benches -forlornly complete the inventory. There is -nothing green in sight from the besmirched -windows but grass and people.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A telegraph operator was reading a volume -of the addresses of Russell Conwell when we -entered his not overtasked laboratory. The -book bore the title “How to Get Rich Honestly.” -“ ’Fraid I’ll never get any further than -reading about it!” exclaimed the man of the -keys and wires. Dr. Grenfell took the book -and presently became engrossed in the famous -address called “Acres of Diamonds.” It -seemed to him the sort of literature to fire -the ambition of his neighbours under the -Northern Lights, with its instances of those -who made their way defiant of the odds and -in spite of all opposition.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A very young minister at another Labrador -watering-place said to the Doctor: “You -needn’t leave any of your books here. I’m not -interested in libraries. I’m only interested in -the spiritual welfare of the people.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A run of six miles by power-boat across -Lewis Inlet took us to Fox Harbour and the -house of Uncle George Holley. In recent -years the power-boat, even with gasoline at -the prevailing high prices, has become the -fisherman’s taxicab or tin Lizzie, and Oh! the -difference to him. He bobs and prances out -over the war-dance of the waves with his -barrels and boxes easily, where once it was a -mighty toiling with the sweeps to make his -way. The run across the inlet went swiftly -and surely past an iceberg white as an angel’s -wing though with the malign suggestion of the -devil behind it: and there were plenty of -chances to take photographs from every possible -angle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Uncle George had on the stage a skinned -seal, some whalemeat, salted cod and a few -barrels of salmon. His wife showed us a -tiny garden with cabbages, lettuce, rhubarb, -radishes and “greens.” One year, she said, -she had a barrel of potatoes. Indoors she -managed to raise balsam, bachelor’s buttons -and nasturtiums. Nowhere in the world do -flowers mean more to those that plant them. -Constantly there comes to mind H. C. Brunner’s -poem about a geranium upon a window-sill: -for the flowers which it needs incessant -care to keep from the nipping frost come to -be regarded as not merely friends but members -of the family. Uncle George, a fine, -patriarchal type, told vividly how with a dog -whip nine fathoms long the expert hand could -cut off the neck of a glass bottle without upsetting -the bottle, and take the bowl from a -man’s pipe or the buttons off his coat. No -wonder the huskies slink under the houses -when they see a stranger coming.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The winter of 1918-19 was especially terrible—or -“wonderful” as would be said here—because -of the visitation of the “flu.” Conditions -were bad enough in Newfoundland, -but in Labrador the “liveyers” (those who -remain the year round) fought their battles -in a hopeless isolation illumined by heroic -self-abnegation on the part of a tiny handful -of persons.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When spring released the Labrador Coast -from the grip of the ice, and the tragic tale -of the winter was told, the Newfoundland -Government dispatched the <span class='it'>Terra Nova</span> -(Scott’s Antarctic vessel) to the aid of the -afflicted. Then news filtered out to the world -of plague conditions during that terrible winter -more dreadful than those which De Foe has -chronicled. While reading the gruesome details, -one is reminded of the long, lonely and -hopeless fight of the early Jamestown colony -against sickness and starvation. Throughout -the bitter months the Red Death stalked its -dread way up and down the Coast, with almost -no doctors, nurses or medicines to check the -disease. Whole families were stricken, the -living were too weak to bury the dead or even -to fight off the gaunt dogs that hovered hungrily -about the houses; and hamlets were wiped -out while neighbouring villages were unable -to send aid.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A few sentences from the diary of Henry -Gordon, the brave missionary at Cartwright, -on Sandwich Bay, will suffice to show what a -hideous winter his people passed through. Of -this man Dr. Grenfell said to me: “Instead -of a stick with a collar on it we have a man -with a soul in him.” He is always laughing—incurably -an optimist, and a great Boy Scout -leader. The following are condensed excerpts.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Wednesday, Oct. 30, 1918. Reached -Cartwright 8 a.m. Mail-boat had brought -‘the great Plague’ and nearly half the population -was down with it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thursday, Oct. 31. Nearly everybody -down now.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nov. 1. Whole households stretched inanimate -on floors, unable even to feed themselves -or keep fires going.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nov. 2. Feeling rotten. Head like a -bladderful of wind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nov. 7. Busy all a.m. arranging graves -and coffins.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nov. 8. Gale N. E. with snow-storms.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nov. 17. Two of bodies too much -doubled up to put in coffin.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nov. 21. Will Leaming in from Indian -Harbour with news that ten are dead at North -River still unburied and only three coffins. -The rest are too sick and dismayed to help.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nov. 22. (At North River). Some had -lain in their beds three weeks and the stench -was appalling. Old Mrs. L. W., aged 71, only -survivor of five, lived alone for a fortnight -with four dead. No fire, no wood, only ice, -which she thawed under her arms.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nov. 26. Number burials now totals 26. -Population little over 100.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dec. 14. Find five little orphans living -alone in a deserted house in a deserted cove, -bread still frozen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dec. 19. 12 dead in North River out of -population of 21.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dec. 25. (Christmas Day). Service -10.30. Only six communicants, but considerable -‘Communion of saints.’</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Jan. 1, 1919. (At Cape Porcupine, in -Herbert Emb’s one-room house). ‘A sort of -damp earthy smell met one on entering, but -thanks to frost, body was not so bad as expected. -More like mouldering clay than anything. -Right on his side was his little girl, -actually frozen on to him, so that bodies came -off the bunk in one piece.’</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Jan. 3. Grave-blasting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Jan. 8. Total deaths: Cartwright, 15; -Paradise, 20; Separation Point, 7; North -River, 13; Strandshore, 9; Grady, 1; Hare -Islands, 4; Sandhills, 4; Boulter’s Rock, 5; -North, 12.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>These do not seem large figures, but in -settlements of half a dozen houses or less they -represent a very large proportion of the inhabitants.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>News of the armistice with Germany did not -reach Mr. Gordon until January 9, which -shows how far from the world was this region -within a hundred miles of the summer hospital -at Battle Harbour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It is to be noted that nearly all the children -who died perished of starvation, because their -elders could no longer feed them and the -“loaf” was too frozen to be eaten.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Eskimo settlements suffered still more -grievously. The bodies were buried at sea. -Dogs were eating the bodies, and had to be -shot. Sometimes the survivors were too weak -to drive the dogs from the dead and the -dying.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hebron was wiped out. At Okkak 200 died -of 267, and on August 15 there were four -widows and two little girls left, who were -waiting to be taken away. Nain was not so -hard hit, but it is said that forty perished out -of several hundred. Zoar and Ramah had -already passed out of existence before the -“flu” came. It is estimated that the resident -Eskimo population on the coast, numbering -600 to 700, was cut nearly in half.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The people seem to think that Dr. Grenfell -can accomplish miracles. One is reminded of -the words of the sister of Lazarus, “Lord, -if thou hadst been here, my brother had not -died.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Richard Dempster, our mail-carrier,” said -good Parson Richards, of Flower’s Cove, -“owes his life to the Doctor. Something had -infected his knee. The poison spread to his -hip. He wouldn’t have lived twelve hours if -the Doctor hadn’t made seven incisions in his -right leg with his pocket-knife to let out the -poisoned blood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'><a id='happ'></a></p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/i187.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0013' style='width:100%;height:auto;'/> -<p class='caption'>HAPPY DAYS AT THE ORPHANAGE, ST. ANTHONY.</p> -</div> - -<p class='pindent'>“Once when I was travelling with him, at -Pine’s Cove we found a family had left because -the woman had seen a ghost. The Doctor -prayed with her, and offered to go and live in -the house himself to prove that she was the victim -of an illusion. At Eddy’s Cove there was -hard glitter ice which would have cut the dog’s -paws. We thought we couldn’t go on. While -we debated what to do there came a snowfall -that spread the ice with a glorious soft blanket, -ideal for travel. That’s just the way Providence -always seems to favour the Doctor when -he goes abroad.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That man never came to the parsonage and -went without leaving me with the desire to do -better and be better. Every single time it -was the same.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Once we were on the go with the dogs and -the komatik four days from St. Anthony to -Cricket (Griguet). Much of the time the -Doctor had to run beside the komatik. He -struck out a new way, deep in snow. ‘Don’t -you ever get tired, Doctor?’ I asked. ‘I don’t -know that I ever was tired in my life,’ was his -answer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A day or two after that dreadful experience -on the ice-pan which he described in -a book, he was at Cricket, and I went to see -him. He was still suffering from the effects -of the frost-bite. ‘Will you come to the mass -meeting of the churches tonight?’ I said. He -didn’t hesitate a moment. ‘Yes—send a dog-team -and I’ll come.’ He not merely came but -delivered an address of an hour’s duration, -and I never heard him speak with greater -fervour. He seemed spiritualized by the experience -through which he had so recently -passed.”</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='183' id='Page_183'></span><h1>XIV<br/>NEEDS, BIG AND LITTLE</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>It is high time to give Dr. Grenfell’s great -work the broad, sure underpinning of a -liberal endowment. It may be true that -“an institution is the lengthened shadow of -one man”; but the one-man power of Grenfell’s -personality is not immortal, and the work -is too important to be allowed to lapse or to -languish when he no longer directs, inspires -and energizes all. To endow the work now, -when many concerns of lesser moment are -claiming their millions of dollars and their -thousands of devotees is to relieve the Doctor -of the ordeal of stumping the United States, -Canada and the British Isles to keep his great -plant going. Despite the volunteer assistants, -despite the aid of good men and women banded -in associations or toiling in groups or as individuals -at points far from Battle Harbour -and St. Anthony, despite the economy practised -everywhere and always, there is ever a -need, a haunting need, of funds; and a few -insular politicians and traders may talk as -elaborately as they please about Grenfell as an -interloper, with a task that does not belong to -him, but as long as Newfoundland does not -provide a sufficient subsidy, most of the money -must come from somewhere off the island. I -have heard some “little-islanders” say that -Dr. Grenfell ought to get out, and that Newfoundland -should take over his whole business, -but as long as Newfoundland does not -move to that end, and there is a woeful want -of doctoring and nursing at any outport on -the map, somebody with the flaming zeal of -this crusader has a place. Grenfell is doing -the work not of one man but of a hundred. -Could his cured patients have their say, there -would be no doubt about that endowment. If -grateful words were dollars, Grenfell would -be a multi-millionaire.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It should not be necessary to explain in circumstantial -detail the constant and pressing -need of funds to carry on an enterprise that -covers so large a territory and involves so -many and such various activities. A chain of -hospitals and dispensaries, manned in large -part by eager and devoted volunteers, an orphanage, -an industrial school, a fleet of -boats—including the schooner <span class='it'>George B. -Cluett</span>—a Seamen’s Institute, a number of -dwellings for the staff personnel, the supplies -of food and coal and surgical apparatus and -medical equipment—all these items impose a -burden on the overtaxed time and strength of -the Doctor so considerable that it is not even -humane or moral to expect him to speak two -or three times a day as he does when he ought -to be taking a well-earned vacation. Countless -thousands are eager to hear the man himself -describe his work, and there is usually a -throng whenever and wherever he appears, -but to let him wear himself out in appealing -for the means to carry on is a waste of the -enormous man-power of a great leader of the -age. He does not cavil or repine, but he ought -to be saved from his own willingness to -overdo.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I never put up a building without having -the funds in hand,” he declared. “But when -it comes to work—I believe in beginning first -and asking afterwards. The support will -somehow come, if there is faith, but faint-heartedness -means paralysis of effort.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One of the most important producers and -consumers of all Dr. Grenfell’s institutions is -the King George V. Seamen’s Institute at St. -John’s. The cornerstone of the four-story -brick building was laid in 1911. Sir Ralph -Williams (the Governor), Bowring Brothers, -Job Brothers, Harvey and Company, MacPherson -Brothers and other loyal and forward-looking -citizens got behind the plan: and -when the stone was swung into place by wire -from Buckingham Palace as King George V. -pressed the button, the sum of $175,000 was in -hand. The site contributed by Bowring -Brothers was valued at $13,000.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The enumeration of beds occupied, meals -served, baths taken, games played, books -loaned, films shown and lectures heard does -not begin to tell the story. Fishermen and -sailormen ashore are traditionally forlorn. -Men from the outports who drift into St. -John’s are like country lads who come wide-eyed -to a great city. It is not morally so bad -for them as it was ere prohibition came and -clamped the lid upon the gin-mills. But still, -these are lonely men, friendless men, with -very little money: and the Institute has a -helping hand out for them, to befriend them -from the moment they set foot on shore. -Moreover, there is a dormitory given over to -the use of outport girls: since it is seen that -hard as things may be for Jack ashore they are -harder yet for sister Jill, who knows even less -of the great round world outside the bay and -needs even more protection than her brother.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Institute at last is able to show a small -balance on the right side of the ledger. Since -the first thought of those who ran it has been -service, they are satisfied to come out only a -little better than even. No charge of graft -or profiteering lies here: and those who are fed -and housed and warmed find it “a little bit -of heaven” to be made so comfortable at an -expense so small.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the start, less than a decade ago, there -were croakers who said there would be but a -slim and scattering patronage: but now nearly -all the beds are in use every night. In the -dread influenza year, 1918, the Institute was -invaluable as an Emergency Hospital, which -treated 267 patients. The city hospital at St. -John’s is small and always overcrowded. If -the Institute had not been available the results -of the epidemic would have been still more -terrible. When in February, 1918, the -<span class='it'>Florizel</span> was wrecked on the coast between St. -John’s and Cape Race the survivors were -brought here, and the Institute also prepared -the bodies of the dead for burial. And on -other occasions it has done good service.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Demobilized men of the Army and Navy -coming into town from the outports use the -building as a clubhouse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Since the high cost of living has not spared -Newfoundland, the rate for the young women -who are permanent boarders has had to be -raised to $4.00 a week. In parts of Newfoundland -that is a good deal of money, but -it is not much compared with what these girls -would have to pay in the absence of the Institute.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The successful operation of the Institute -is an outstanding object-lesson, and a source -of particular satisfaction to its founder and -chief promoter. It has triumphantly answered -and silenced the objections of those who at the -start declared that the only possible result -would be calamitous failure. It has survived -the shock of the discovery that some of its -earlier administrators were unworthy of their -charge; it has outlived the era of struggle and -set-back; it has so clearly proved its place and -its meaning in the community where it is established -that if it were destroyed the merchants -themselves would be prompt to undertake -its replacement. It is as impressive a -monument as any to the enduring worth of the -devoted labours of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, -and as conspicuous a proof as could be -offered that his great work by land and sea -deserves an Endowment Fund.</p> - -<hr class='tbk100'/> - -<p class='line' style='margin-top:2em;font-size:1.1em;font-weight:bold;'><a id='notes'></a>Transcriber’s Notes:</p> - -<p class='noindent'>Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected -without note. Some illustrations have been moved slightly to keep paragraphs -intact.</p> - -<p class='line'> </p> - -<p class='noindent'>[End of <span class='it'>With Grenfell on the Labrador</span> by Fullerton Waldo]</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH GRENFELL ON THE LABRADOR ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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