Grenfell: Knight-Errant of the North Part 16

But there they were cooped up behind a stockade, like creatures at the zoo, to amuse the crowd, and be giggled at and poked toward as if they were some newly imported breed of monkey. An Eskimo likes as little as any other human to have fun made of him.

Worst of all, they lived in the white man's houses, and found the four walls instead of the "wide and starry sky" intolerable. A snow house has its own kind of stuffiness--the smell of whale-blubber and seal-oil to Eskimo nostrils is a sweet perfume. To be cooped up in a bedroom, and expected to sleep on a mattress with pillows, is pure torture.

While they were on the exhibition stand, in the torrid heat, they had to wear those heavy clothes of furs and skins which the ladies said looked so picturesque. They knew how the polar bear felt in his cage away from his ice-blocks. The food the white man ate with relish was such queer stuff. They longed for that delicious tidbit, the flipper of a seal. How good the entrails of a gull, or a fox's stomach would have tasted! But the white men seemed to think that coffee, and watermelon and corn on the cob, and ham and eggs, and the pies their Eskimo mothers never used to make were good enough for them. Except for the warm blood of the seal, the Eskimo ordinarily has no use for a hot drink.

Several of the older Eskimo wilted away like flowers, and died. They were buried and forgotten; and when the dogs died they were buried and forgotten too: there was about the same lack of ceremony in the one case as in the other.

But little Pomiuk through thick and thin was the joyous life of the party. They worked him hard, because he amused the visitors. The visitors would throw nickels and dimes into the enclosure, and as the coins flickered in the air Pomiuk would lash out at them with his thirty-five foot whip. If he nicked the coin it was his. Then he would laugh--a very musical laugh, that could be heard a long way off. He was a jolly, friendly little soul, and he wore a smile that hardly came off even when he slept.

But there came a time when even happy little Pomiuk could not smile.

One day as he leapt high in the air, agile as a Russian dancer, to bring down one of those spinning coins with his whip, he fell on the boards, his hip striking a nail that stuck out.

His mother ran to pick him up. His face was twisted with agony.

He tried to stand, for her sake, but the effort was too much for him, and he sank back in her arms, weak as a baby. What was she to do? The men who ran the exhibit had not kept their promises. Pomiuk was the chief bread-winner for them all. The coins he had nicked with his whip were most of what they had to spend.

With this money they sent out and got a so-called "surgeon" who did not know his business, but took the money just the same. He patched up poor "Prince" Pomiuk so that the boy was worse off than before.

The Fair closed: the Eskimo were stranded. If that had happened on a sea-beach at home, they would have known what to do: they would have laughed--for they are merry people, like our southern negroes--and they would have killed sea-birds with stones and made their way alongsh.o.r.e. But to be stranded in Chicago is another story. G.o.d knows how a few survivors of the band found pity in men's hearts, and straggled back to their home at Nachoak Bay.

Pomiuk's wound never healed--he could not run about, nor walk, nor even stand. His mother had to carry him everywhere. In Newfoundland the fishermen and the sealers, desperately poor as they were, took them into their bare cabins, and gave them bread and tea taken from the mouths of their own hungry children.

Dr. Frederick Cook, creation's champion liar, did a golden deed for which the Recording Angel should give him a good mark in the Book of Life. He made room for several of the Eskimo on his journey to the Labrador coast: and fishing-schooners took the rest of the survivors.

Imagine how happy Pomiuk was, in spite of the pain in his hip, when he thought of crawling back into the mouth of his own snow house again, and rubbing noses with his father once more!

But when the mother and the child were put ash.o.r.e at Nachoak Bay--they were told that the father's spirit was at play with the rest among the northern lights. In this world they would not see him again. He had been murdered while his wife and child were in Chicago.

It was at that dark hour that Dr. Grenfell came into his life.

Grenfell found the poor little boy, who had earned so much money, and brought so much glory to his tribe, lying naked on the rocks beside the hut. The mother had married again, and gone off "over the mountains" with the other children, leaving her crippled son to the tender mercy of the neighbors. It was indeed a "come-down" in the world for a "prince," whose father was a "king" among his fellows. It was deemed best to send Pomiuk south on the little hospital steamer with the Doctor. The Doctor could fix him up, if anybody could, and moreover--this was the clinching argument--he was "no good fishing."

So the next day found Pomiuk bound south, clasping his only worldly possession--a letter from a clergyman of Andover, Ma.s.sachusetts. There was a photograph with it. If you asked Pomiuk what he had there, he would turn on that magic smile and show you the picture, and say: "Me love even him."

The minister who wrote the letter sent money for the care of the poor "Prince." Next summer Grenfell saw him again, and the child laughed as he said, "Me Gabriel Pomiuk now." A Moravian missionary had given him the name. They had made him as comfortable as possible at the Indian Harbor hospital: his own disposition made him happy. He had been moved from the hospital to a near-by home, and he hopped about on crutches as gayly as though he could run and play like the other children.

But malignant disease in his hip was sapping his strength, just as the ants of Africa will eat away a leg of furniture till it is a hollow sh.e.l.l, and one day the whole table or chair falls crashing. His strength was ebbing fast. Suddenly he became very ill: he was put to bed, with high fever, and was often unconscious. In a week he was dead. But that little generous, courageous life was the foundation-stone of Dr. Grenfell's n.o.ble orphanage at St. Anthony, put up with the pennies of American children, where I had the pleasure of telling dog-stories to smiling Eskimo boys in the summer of 1919.

Gabriel is the angel of comfort: and this small Gabriel has left behind him the comfort of fatherless homes in Labrador for ages yet to be.

Dr. Grenfell says that on the night of his pa.s.sing the heavens were aflame with the aurora. It was as though little Prince Pomiuk's father had come to welcome him, and they were at play once more in the old games they knew.

VIII

CAPTURED BY INDIANS

In the lonely interior of Labrador in midsummer an old man sat on the rocky ground with a ring of Indians about him.

He was "Labrador" Cabot of Boston. Year after year he had gone to Labrador to visit the Indian tribes and study their ways. He could talk the Indian language and understand what they said to him.

"What's the matter with your leg?" asked the Chief, a big, strong fellow with keen eyes. "Can't you walk? We must get started if we want to find the deer."

"I think I must have broken my leg when I slipped and fell on the rocks," answered Mr. Cabot.

He made an effort to rise and stand, but sank back helplessly.

A curious, evil grin spread across the red man's face.

"You're sure you can't walk?"

Mr. Cabot shook his head.

"What will you do?"

"One thing is sure," said Mr. Cabot, "I'll have to stay with you if I'm to get out of this place alive."

"We can't let you keep us back," answered the Indian. "We might leave you here with a fire and something to eat."

"And what would I do after the fire went out, and the food was gone?"

The Indian shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know."

"Can't some of your men make a litter of boughs and carry me?" pleaded Mr. Cabot.

"They could if they wanted to," answered the Indian, coldly. "But I don't think they want to."

"Haven't we always been friends?" urged Mr. Cabot.

"I suppose so."

"Haven't I been here summer after summer, and helped you, and given medicine to sick people?"

The Indian picked up handfuls of sand and threw them on the fire.

"Yes, and you were always writing in a little book. Maybe when you went away from here you told lies to the world about us. Who knows?"

Mr. Cabot was puzzled. Was this the friendly, peaceful Chief he knew before he had the misfortune to fall and hurt his leg?

In spite of the pain he was suffering, he tried to talk calmly and not show that he was afraid of being left behind. "Why have you turned against me?"

"What do you mean?" the Indian chief answered.

"A little while ago you seemed like my friend. Now you are willing to leave me here where there are no fish, and the deer do not come, and the mosquitoes are worse than any wild animals. What is the meaning of all this?"

"I will tell you," the Indian answered, very slowly. "You must pay us for what a white man did to us."