A Labrador Doctor Part 16

"Haven't you got any books?"

"Yes, Doctor, I've got two, but I've read them through and through long ago."

"What kind are they?"

"One is the 'Works of Josephus,'" he answered, "and the other is 'Plutarch's Lives.'"

I thought that I had discovered the first man who could honestly and truthfully say that he would prefer for his own library the "best hundred books," selected by Mr. Ruskin and Dr. Eliot, without even so much as a sigh for the "ten best sellers."

He was soon bounding away over the seas in his little craft, the happy possessor of one of our moving libraries, containing some fifty books, ranging from Henty's stories to discarded tomes from theological libraries.

Each year the hospital ship moves these library boxes one more stage along the coast. As there are some seventy-five of them, they thus last the natural life of books, since we have only rarely enjoyed the help of a trained librarian enabling us to make the most use of these always welcome a.s.sets for our work. Later, some librarian friends from Brooklyn, chief among whom was Miss Marion Cutter, came down to help us; but our inability to have continuity when the ladies cannot afford to give their valuable services, has seriously handicapped the efficiency of this branch of the work. This, however, only spells opportunity, and when this war releases the new appreciation of service, we feel confident that somehow we shall be able to fill the gap, and some one will be found to come and help us again to meet this great need.

The cooperation of teachers and librarians more than doubles the capacity of each alone, and we believe sincerely that they do that of doctors, as they unquestionably do that of the clergy. All the world's workers have infinitely more to gain by cooperation than they often suspect. And indeed we who are apostles of cooperation, as essential for economy in distribution and efficiency in production, realize that groups of workers pulling together always increase by geometrical progression the result obtained.

None of our methods, however, tackled the smallest settlements, hidden away here and there in these fjords, especially those unreached by the mail steamers and devoid of means of transportation. Mahomet just could not come to the mountain, so it had to go to him. A lady and a Doctor of Philosophy, Miss Ethel Gordon Muir, whose life had been spent in teaching, and who would have been excused for discontinuing that function during her long vacations, came down at her own cost and charges to carry the light to one of these lonely settlements. She has with loyal devotion continued to carry on and enlarge that work ever since, till finally she has built up a work that the clergyman of the main section of coast affected, and also the Superintendent of Education, have declared is the most effective branch of our Mission.

Her band of teachers are volunteers. They come down to these little hamlets for the duration of their summer vacations. They live with the fishermen in their cottages and gather their pupils daily wherever seems best. Lack of proper accommodation and pioneer conditions throughout in no way deter them. We expected that their criticism would be, "It is not worth while." That has never been the case.

Before the war they came again and again, as a testimony to their belief in the value of the effort. Some have given promising children a chance for a complete education in the States. Indeed, one such lad, taken down some years ago by one of the students, entered Amherst College last year; while several were fighting with the American boys "Over There."

The only real joy of possession is the power which it confers for a larger life of service. Has it been the reader's good fortune ever to save a human life? A cousin of mine, an officer in the submarine service of the Royal Engineers, told me a year or two before the war that he was never quite happy because he had spent all his life acquiring special capacities which he never in the least expected to be able to put to practical use. This war has given to him, at least, what possessions could never have offered.

It almost requires the fabulous Jack to overcome the h.o.a.ry giants of prejudice and custom, or the irrepressible energy of the Gorgon. It has been helpful to remember away "down North" the stand which Archbishop Ireland took for public schools. When the Episcopal clergyman for Labrador, whom we had been influential in bringing out from England, decided to start an undenominational boarding-school on his section of the coast, we began to hope that we might yet live to see our sporadic effort become a policy. Laymen in St. John's, led by the Rev. Dr. Edgar Jones, a most progressive clergyman, sympathized in dollars, and we were able to back the effort. A splendid volunteer head teacher will arrive in the spring to begin work. The effort still needs much help; but I am persuaded that a chain of undenominational schools can be started that will react on the whole country. Already a scheme for a similar uplift for the west coast is being promulgated.

In a letter written to my wife some years ago I find that my convictions on the subject of education were no less firm than they are to-day. One came to the conclusion that "ignorance is the worst cause of suffering on our coast, and our 'religion' is fostering it.

True, it has denominational schools, but these are to bolster up special ecclesiastical bodies, and are not half so good as Government schools would be. The 'goods delivered' in the schools are not educational in the best sense, and are all too often inefficiently offered. Instead of making the children ambitious to go on learning through life, they make them tired. There is no effort to stimulate the play side; and in our north end of the Colony's territory there are no trades taught, no new ideas, no manual training--it is all so-called 'arts' and Creeds."

CHAPTER XVI

"WHO HATH DESIRED THE SEA?"

We are somewhat superst.i.tious down here still, and not a few believe that shoals and submerged rocks are like sirens which charm vessels to their doom.

On one occasion, as late in the fall we were creeping up the Straits of Belle Isle in the only motor boat then in use there, our new toy broke down, and with a strong onsh.o.r.e wind we gradually drifted in toward the high cliffs. It was a heavy boat, and though we rowed our best we realized that we must soon be on the rocks, where a strong surf was breaking. So we lashed all our lines together and cast over our anchors, hoping to find bottom. Alas, the water was too deep.

Darkness came on and the prospect of a long, weary night struggling for safety made us thrill with excitement. Suddenly a schooner's lights, utterly unexpected, loomed up, coming head on toward us. Like Saul and his a.s.ses, we no longer cared about our craft so long as we escaped. At once we lashed the hurricane light on the boat-hook and waved it to and fro on high to make sure of attracting attention. To our dismay the schooner, now almost in hail, incontinently tacked, and, making for the open sea, soon left us far astern. We fired our guns, we shouted in unison, we lit flares. All to no purpose. Surely it must have been a phantom vessel sent to mock us. Suddenly our amateur engineer, who had all the time been working away at the sc.r.a.p-heap of parts into which he had dismembered the motor, got a faint kick out of one cylinder--a second--a third, then two, three, and then a solitary one again. It was exactly like a case of blocked heart. But it was enough with our oars to make us move slowly ahead.

By much stimulating and watchful nursing we limped along on the one cylinder, and about midnight found ourselves alongside the phantom ship, which we had followed into the harbour "afar off." Angry enough at their desertion of us in distress, we went aboard just to tell them what we thought of their behaviour. But their explanation entirely disarmed us. "Them cliffs is haunted," said the skipper. "More'n one light's been seen there than ever any man lit. When us saw you'se light flashing round right in on the cliffs, us knowed it was no place for Christian men that time o' night. Us guessed it was just fairies or devils trying to toll us in."

We had no lighthouses on Labrador in those days, and though hundreds of vessels, crowded often with women and children, had to pa.s.s up and down the coast each spring and fall, still not a single island, harbour, cape, or reef had any light to mark it, and many boats were unnecessarily lost as a result.

Most of the schooners of this large fleet are small. Many are old and poorly "found" in running gear. Their decks are so crowded with boats, barrels, gear, wood, and other impedimenta, that to reef or handle sails on a dark night is almost impossible; while below they were often so crowded with women and children going North with their men for the summer fishing on the Labrador sh.o.r.e, that I have had to crawl on my knees to get at a patient, after climbing down through the main hatch. These craft are quite unfitted for a rough night at sea, especially as there always are icebergs or big pans about, which if touched would each spell another "vessel missing." So the craft all creep North and South in the spring and fall along the land, darting into harbours before dark, and leaving before dawn if the night proves "civil." Yet many a time I have seen these little vessels with their precious cargoes becalmed, or with wind ahead, just unable to make anchorage, and often on moonless nights when the barometer has been low and the sky threatening. As there were no lights on the land, it would have been madness to try and make harbours after sundown.

I have known the cruel, long anxiety of heart which the dilemma involved. It has been our great pleasure sometimes to run out and tow vessels in out of their distress. I can still feel the grip of one fine skipper, who came aboard when the sea eased down. The only harbour available for us had been very small, and the water too deep for his poor gear. So when he started to drift, we had given him a line and let him hold on to us through the night, with his own stern only a few yards from the cliffs under his lee, and all his loved ones, as well as his freighters, a good deal nearer heaven than he wished them to be.

We had frequently written to the Government of this neglect of lights for the coast. But Labrador has no representative in the Newfoundland Parliament, and legislators who never visited Labrador had unimaginative minds. Year after year went by and nothing was done. So I spoke to many friends of the dire need for a light near Battle Harbour Hospital. Practically every one of the Northern craft ran right by us many times as they fished first in the Gulf and later on the east coast, and so had to go past that corner of land. I have seen a hundred vessels come and anchor near by in a single evening. When the money was donated, our architect designed the building, and a friend promised to endow the effort, so that the salary of the light-keeper might be permanent. The material was cut and sent North, when we were politely told that the Government could not permit private ownership of lights--a very proper decision, too. They told us that the year before money had been voted by the House for lights, and the first would be erected near Battle Harbour. This was done, and the Double Island Light has been a veritable G.o.dsend to me as well as to thousands of others many times since that day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FISH ON THE FLAKES]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRYING THE SEINES]

One hundred miles north of Indian Tickle, a place also directly in the run of all the fishing schooners, a light was much needed. On a certain voyage coming South with the fleet in the fall, we had all tried to make the harbour, but it shut down suddenly before nightfall with a blanket of fog which you could almost cut with a knife, and being inside many reefs, and unable to make the open, we were all forced to anchor. Where we were exactly none of us knew, for we had all pushed on for the harbour as much as we dared. There were eleven riding-lights visible around us when a rift came in the fog. We hoped against hope that we had made the harbour. A fierce northeaster gathered strength as night fell, and a mighty sea began to heave in.

Soon we strained at our anchors in the big seas, and heavy water swept down our decks from bow to stern. Our patients were dressed and our boats gotten ready, though it all had only a psychological value.

Gradually we missed first one and then another of the riding-lights, and it was not difficult to guess what had happened. When daylight broke, only one boat was left--a large vessel called the Yosemite, and she was drifting right down toward us. Suddenly she touched a reef, turned on her side, and we saw the seas carry her over the breakers, the crew hanging on to her bilge. Steaming to our anchors had saved us. All the vessels that went ash.o.r.e became matchwood. But before we could get our anchors or slip them, our main steam pipe gave out and we had to blow down our boilers. It was now a race between the engineers trying to repair the damage and the shortening hours of daylight. On the result depended quite possibly the lives of us all. I cannot remember one sweeter sound than the raucous voice of the engineer just in the nick of time calling out, "Right for'ard," and then the signal of the engine-room bell in the tell-tale in our little wheel-house. The Government has since put a fine little light in summer on White Point, the point off which we lay.

Farther north, right by our hospital at Indian Harbour, is a narrow tickle known as the "White c.o.c.kade." Through this most of the fleet pa.s.s, and here also we had planned for a lighthouse. When we were forbidden to put our material at Battle Harbour, we suggested moving to this almost equally important point. But it fell under the same category, and soon after the Government put a good light there also.

The fishermen, therefore, suggested that we should offer our peripatetic, would-be lighthouse to the Government for some new place each year.

We have not much now to complain of so far as the needs of our present stage of evolution goes. We have wireless stations, quite a number of lights, not a few landmarks, and a ten times better mail and transport service than the much wealthier and more able Dominion of Canada could and ought to give to her long sh.o.r.e from Quebec to the eastern "Newfoundland" boundary on the Straits Labrador.

He is not a great legislator who only makes provision for certainties.

True, the West has shown such riches and capacity that it has paid better to develop it first. But there is no excuse now whatever for neglecting the East. The Dominion would have been well advised, indeed, had she years ago built a railway to the east coast, shortening the steamer communication with England to only two nights at sea, and saving twenty-four hours for the mails between London and Toronto. The war has shown how easily she could have afforded it. Most ardently I had hoped that she might have turned some of her German prisoner labour in so invaluable a direction.

Had the reindeer installation been handled by the Newfoundland Government years ago as it should have been, Labrador would have yielded to our boys in France a very material a.s.sistance in meat and furs. Canada now could and should, if only in the interest of her native population, begin on this problem as soon as peace is declared.

The fact that a thing possesses vitality is a guarantee that it will grow if it can. Each new focus will expand, and caterpillar-like cast off its old clothing for better. The first necessity for economy and efficiency in our work has been to get our patients quickly to us or to be able to get to them. Experience has shown us that while boats entirely dependent on motors are cheapest, it is not always safe to do open-sea work in such launches without a secondary and more reliable means of progression. The stories of a doctor's work in these launches would fill a volume by themselves. The first Northern Messenger, a small "hot-head" boat, was replaced and sold to pay part of the cost of Northern Messenger number two. This in its turn was wrecked on an uncharted shoal with Dr. West on board, and her insurance used to help to procure Northern Messenger number three--which is the beautiful boat which now serves Harrington, our most westerly hospital. We are largely indebted for her to Mr. William Bowditch, of Milton, Ma.s.sachusetts.

Dr. Hare, our first doctor at that station, never wrote his own experiences, but one of the Yale volunteers who worked under him wrote a story founded on fact, from which the following incident is suggestive.

Once, running home before a wind in the Gulf, the doctor suddenly missed his little son Pat, and looking round saw him struggling in the water, already many yards astern. Dr. Hare, who was at the tiller at the time, instantly jumped over after him. The child was finally disappearing when he reached him at last and held his head above water. Meanwhile the engineer, who had been below, jumped on deck to find the sails flapping in the wind and the boat head to sea. With the intuitive quickness of our people in matters pertaining to the sea, he took in the situation in a second, and though entirely alone manoeuvred the boat so cleverly as to pick them both up before they perished in these frigid waters. Pat's young life was saved, only to be given a short few years later in France for the same fight for the kingdom of righteousness which his home life had made his familiar ideal.

The forty-five-foot, "hot-head" yawl Daryl, given us by the Dutch Reformed friends in New York, was sold to the Hudson Bay Company. At first she was naturally called the Flying Dutchman, and was most useful; but here we have learned when a better instrument is available that it is the truest economy to sc.r.a.p-heap the old. We were to give delivery of the boat in Baffin's Land. There were plenty of volunteers for the task, for the tough jobs are the very ones which appeal to real men. It would be well if the churches realized this fact and that therein lies the real secret of Christianity. The impression that being a Christian is a soft job inevitably brings our religion into contempt. I had been in England that spring, and had been able to arrange that the mail steamer bound for Montreal on which I took pa.s.sage should stop and drop me off Belle Isle if the crusaders who were to take this launch on her long voyage North would stand out across our pathway. Mr. Marconi personally took an interest in the venture. The launch was to wait at our most easterly Labrador station, and we were to keep telling her our position. The boat was in charge of Mr. John Rowland and Mr. Robert English, both of Yale. It created quite a furor among the pa.s.sengers on our great ship, when she stopped in mid-ocean, as it appeared to them, and lowered an erratic doctor over the side on to a midget, whose mast-tops one looked down upon from the liner's rail. The sensation was all the more marked as we disappeared over the rail clinging to two large pots of geraniums--an importation which we regarded as very much worth while.

With an old Hudson Bay man, Mr. George Ford, to act as interpreter, and a Harvard colleague, who to his infinite chagrin was recalled by a wireless from his parents almost before starting, the little ship and her crew of three disappeared "over the edge" beyond communication. I should mention that the Company had promised an engineer for the launch, but he had begged off when he understood the nature of the projected expedition; so Yale decided that they were men enough to do without any outside help.

September had nearly gone, and no news had come from the boys. I owe some one an infinite debt for a temperament which does not go halfway to meet troubles; but even I was a little worried when unkind rumours that we had sold a boat that was not safe were capped by a father's letter to say that he "had heard the reports"! Fortunately, two days later, as the Strathcona lay taking on whale meat for winter dog food at the northernmost factory, the Northern mail steamer came in. On board were our returned wanderers, and papa, who had gone down as far as the Labrador steamer runs to look for them, as proud and happy as a man has a right to be over sons who do things. The boys had not only reached Baffin's Land, but had explored over a hundred miles of its uncharted coast-line, crossed to Cape Wolstenholme, navigated Stupart's Bay--northeast of Ungava--and finally returned to Baffin's Land, coming back to Cartwright on the Hudson Bay Company's steamer Pelican. It was a splendid record, especially when we remember the fierce currents and tremendous rise and fall of tides in that distant land. This latter was so great that having anch.o.r.ed one night in three fathoms of water in what appeared to be a good harbour, they had awakened in the morning to the fact that they were in a pond a full mile in the country, left stranded by the retiring tide.

Our last "hot-head," the Pomiuk, in a heavy gale of wind was smashed to atoms on a terrible reef of rocks off Domino Point a mile from land--fortunately with no one aboard. Yet another of our fine yawls, the Andrew McCosh, given us by the students of Princeton, was driven from her anchors on to the dangerous Point Amour, where years ago, H.M.S. Lily was lost, and whose bones still lie bleaching on the rocky foresh.o.r.e at the foot of the cliffs. Much as I love the sea, it made one rather "sore" that it should serve us such a turn as wrecking the McCosh. I have been on the sea for over thirty years and never lost a vessel while aboard her, but to look on while the waves destroyed so beautiful a handmaid almost reconciled me to the statement that in heaven there shall "be no more sea."

It was near this same spot that in November, 1905, a very old vessel, while trying to cross the Straits in a breeze, suddenly sprung a leak which sent her to the bottom in spite of all the pumping which could be done. The six men aboard were able to keep afloat at that time of year in the open Atlantic out of sight of land for five days and nights. They had nothing to eat but dry bread, and no covering of any kind. The winds were heavy and the seas high all the while. By patiently keeping their little boat's head to the wind with the oars, for they had not any sails, day after day and night after night, and backing her astern when a breaker threatened to overwhelm them, they eventually reached land safe and sound.

The special interest about the launches has always been the pleasant connection which they have enabled us to maintain with the universities. Yale crews, Harvard crews, Princeton crews, Johns Hopkins crews, College of Physicians and Surgeons crews, and combined crews of many others, have in succeeding years thus become interested.

Occasionally these men have taken back some of their Labrador shipmates to the United States for a year's education, and in that and other ways, so they say, have they themselves received much real joy and inspiration.

In order to maintain the interest which Canada had taken in our work, it had in some way to be organized. We had volunteer honorary secretaries in a few cities, but no way of keeping them informed of our needs and our progress. In New England a most loyal friend, Miss Emma White, who ever since has been secretary and devoted helper of the Labrador work there, had started a regular a.s.sociation with a board of directors and had taken an office in Beacon Street, Boston.

This a.s.sociation now and again published little brochures of our work, or ordered out a few copies of the English magazine called "The Toilers of the Deep." It was suggested that we might with advantage publish a quarterly pamphlet of our own. This was made possible by the generous help of the late Miss Julia Greenshields, of Toronto, who undertook not only to edit, but also personally to finance any loss on a little magazine to be ent.i.tled "Among the Deep-Sea Fishers." This has been maintained ever since, and has been responsible for helping to raise many of the funds to enable us to "carry on."

We had also begun to get friends in New York. Dr. Charles Parkhurst, famous especially for his plucky exposure of the former rottenness of the police force of that city, had asked me to give an ill.u.s.trated lecture at his mission in the Bowery. After my talk a gentleman present, to my blank astonishment, gave me a cheque for five hundred dollars. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship with one who has, for all the succeeding years, given far more than money, namely, the constant inspiration of his own att.i.tude to life and his wise counsel--to say nothing of the value of the endorsation of his name.

His eldest son, one of the ablest of the rising New York architects, became chairman of the Grenfell a.s.sociation of America, and gave us both of his time and talent--he being responsible, as voluntary architect, for many of our present buildings, including the Inst.i.tute at St. John's, Newfoundland.

This spread of interest in the United States greatly increased our correspondence, with an odd result. Americans apparently all believed that this Colony was part of Canada, and that the postage was two cents as to the Dominion. This mistake left us six cents to pay on every letter, and sixteen on any which were overweight. On one occasion the postmaster offered me so many taxable letters that I decided to accept only one, and let the others go back. That one contained a cheque for a hundred dollars for the Mission. I naturally took the rest, and found every one of them to be bills, gossip, or from autograph-hunters.

On inquiry, our Postmaster-General informed me that it was not possible to arrange a two-cent postal rate with America. It had been tried and abandoned, because Canada wanted a share for carrying the letters through her territory. He told me, however, that he would agree gladly if the United States offered it. On my visit to Washington I had the honour of dining with Lord Bryce, our Amba.s.sador there and an old friend of my father's, and I mentioned the matter to him. He could not, however, commend my efforts to the Government, as I had no credentials as a special delegate. There was nothing to do but take my place in the queue of importunates waiting to interview the Postmaster-General. When at length I had been moved to the top of the bench, I was called in, and very soon explained my mission. I received a most cordial hearing, but merely the information that a note would be made of my request and filed.

It suddenly flashed upon me that Americans had equal fishing rights with ourselves on the Labrador coast, and that quite a number visited there every year. Possibly the grant of a two-cent postage would be a welcome little "sop" to them. Mr. Meyer, who was the Postmaster-General at the time, said that it made all the difference if the reduced rate would in any way encourage the American mercantile marine. He bade me draw a careful list of reasons in favour of my proposal, and promised to give it careful attention.

It so happened that a few days later I mentioned the matter to Colonel McCook at whose home I was staying in New York. Colonel McCook, known as "Fighting McCook," from the fact that he was the only one of nine brothers not killed in the Civil War, at once took up the cudgels in my behalf, left for Washington the following day, and wired me on the next morning, "All arranged. Congratulations"--and I had the pleasure of telegraphing the Postmaster-General in St. John's that I had arranged the two-cent postage rate with the United States and Newfoundland. A few days later I received a marked copy of a Newfoundland paper saying how capable a Government they possessed, seeing that now they had so successfully put through the two-cent post for the Colony--and that was all the notice ever taken of my only little political intrigue; except that a year or two later, meeting Mr. Meyer in Cambridge, he whispered in my ear, "We were going out of office in four days, or you would never have got that two-cent post law of yours through so easily."