Le Petit Nord Part 6

At one place the postmaster cannot even read, and the letters have to be marked with crosses at the previous stopping-places, to indicate the direction of their destination. Another postmaster, well known for his dishonesty, failed to get removed by the authorities because he was the only man in the place who could either read or write, and was therefore indispensable. Formerly all the letters had to go to St.

John's, a day's extra journey, and be sorted there, sent back across the island to Run-by-Guess, eight hours across Cabot Straits, and then across the Atlantic to England. In this way a letter might take nearly three months to make the journey, and we are sometimes that length of time without news.

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

_February 11_

Last week I had a three days' "cruise" while the doctor considerately sent a nurse up here to try her hand at my family. This time the cruise was "on the dogs" instead of the rolling sea. We left for Belvy (Bellevue) Bay in good time in the morning--"got our anchors early,"

as our "carter" put it. The animation of the dogs, the lovely snow-covered country, the bright winter's sun pouring down, and doubly brilliant by reflection from the dazzling snow, the huge bonfire in the woods where we "cooked the kettle," all make one understand the call which the gipsy answers. Of course there is another side to the story, when one is caught out in bitter weather in a blizzard of driving snow and sleet, and loses the way, or perhaps has to stay out in the open through the night. For instance, this winter four of the Mission dogs have perished through frost-bite on these journeys; and only last week we heard that one of the mail carriers on the west coast had been frozen to death.

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

He was found dead in the morning on the open bay.

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

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

The next night we spent at Lance au Diable, locally known as "Lancy Jobble." In this place there is a "medicine man," with methods unique in science. He is the seventh son of a seventh son, and his healing powers are reputed to be little short of miraculous. Legend has it that such must never request payment for services, nor must the patient ever thank him, lest the efficacy of the cure be nullified. He is an unselfish man, a thorough believer in his own "gift"; and last summer, for instance, right in the middle of the fishing season, he walked thirty miles through swamp and marsh ridden with black flies, to see a sick woman who desired his aid. Doubtless the spell of his buoyant personality does bring comfort and relief. In the adjoining settlement of Bareneed lives an enormously fat old woman of seventy-odd summers. Life pa.s.ses over her, and its only effect is to make her rotund and unwieldy. When the sick come to Brother Luke for treatment, if any of the few drugs which he has acc.u.mulated chance to have lost their labels--a not uncommon contingency in this land of mist and fog--he takes down a likely-looking bottle from the shelf, and tries a dose of the contents on this Mrs. Goochy--and awaits results. If nothing untoward transpires, he then pa.s.ses the medicine on to the patient. Mrs. Goochy has a strong acquisitive bias, and raises no objections to this vicarious proceeding. She argues: "I doesn't need 'un now, but there be's no tellin'. I may need 'un when I can't get 'un."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SEVENTH SON]

Occasionally the sailing is not so smooth. While we were there the doctor saw a case of a woman from whom this aesculapius had attempted to extract an offending molar, his only instrument being a kind of miniature winch which screws on to the undesired tooth. Its action proved so prompt and powerful that not only did it remove the tooth intended, but four others as well, and the entire alveolar process connected with them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ITS ACTION WAS PROMPT AND POWERFUL]

It often made me feel ashamed to find how much some of these people have made of their meagre opportunities. At one house a mother told me that she had only been able to go to school for six months when she was a girl, yet she had taught herself to read, and later her children also. She showed me most interesting articles which she had written for a Canadian newspaper describing the life on Le Pet.i.t Nord.

She often had to sit up until two in the morning to knit her children's clothes, and rise again at dawn to prepare breakfast for the men of the household.

The following day saw us homeward bound, only this time the travelling was not so romantic, for a "mild" had set in, and the going was superlatively slushy. The dogs had all they could do to drag the komatik with the luggage on it. The humans walked, generally in front of the dogs, and on snow racquets, to make the trail a bit easier for the animals. This may sound an interesting way to spend a winter's day, but after twenty minutes of it you would cry "enough." When we reached Belvy Bay the ice around the sh.o.r.e was broken into great pans, but in the middle it looked good. To go round is an endless task, so we risked crossing. It was easy to get off to the centre, for the big pans at the edge would float a far greater weight than a komatik and dogs and three people. The ice in the middle, however, which had looked so sure from the landwash, proved to be "black"--that is, very, very thin, though being salt-water ice, it was elastic. It was waving up and down so as almost to make one seasick, but in its elasticity lay our only chance of safety. We flung ourselves down at full length on the komatik to give as broad a surface of resistance as possible, and what encouragement was given the dogs we did with our voices. Four miles did we drive over that swaying surface, and though at the time we were too excited to be nervous, we were glad to reach the "_terra firma_" of the standing ice edge.

At each place we were received with the most cordial welcome, and scarcely allowed even to express our grat.i.tude. It was always they who were so eager to thank us for giving them unasked the "pleasure of our company." Their reception is always very touching. They put the best they have before you and will take nothing for their hospitality.

In my various letters to you I have so often taken away the characters of our dogs that I must tell you of one, just to show that I have not altered in my devotion to our "true first friend." This dog's name was "Black," and he lived many years ago at Mistaken Cove. The tales of his beauty, his cleverness at tricks, and his endurance of difficulties are still told, but chiefly of his devotion to his master. After years of this companionship the beloved master died and was buried in the woods near his lonely little house. Black was inconsolable. He would eat nothing; he started up at every slightest noise hoping for the familiar whistle; he haunted the well-worn woodpath where they had had so many happy days together. Finally he discovered his master's grave and was found frantically tearing at the hard earth and heavy stones. Nor would he leave the spot. Food was brought him daily, but it went untouched. For one whole week he lay in the wind and weather in the hole he had dug on the grave. There the children found him on the eighth morning curled up and apparently asleep. His long quest and vigil were ended, for he had reached the happy hunting grounds. Who shall say that a beloved hand and voice did not welcome him home?

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

Of one thing I am certain, we must have a new Home, for this house is not fit for habitation, and it is not nearly large enough. Even after my recent return from living in the tiny homes of the people which one would fancy to be far less comfortable, this is forcibly impressed upon me. We simply cannot go on refusing to take in children who need its shelter so badly. So please spread this broadcast among the friends in England. This Home has been enlarged once since it was built, and yet it is not nearly big enough for our present needs. We have no nursery, and I only wish you could see the tiny room which has to do duty for a sewing-room. It is certainly only called "room" by courtesy, for there is scarcely s.p.a.ce to sit down, much less to use a needle without risk of injury to one's neighbour. The weekly mend alone, without the making of new things, means now between two and three hundred garments in addition to the boots, which the boys repair. As you can imagine, this is no light task and we are often driven almost distracted. I think the stockings are the worst, sometimes a hundred pairs to face at once! I fear we must once have been led into making some rather pointed remarks on this subject, for later, on going into the sewing-room, we found a slip of printed paper, cut from a magazine, and bearing the t.i.tle of an article: "DON'T SCOLD THE CHILDREN WHEN THEY TEAR THEIR STOCKINGS."

This building rocks like a ship at sea; the roof continually leaks, the windows are always "coming abroad," and the panes drop out at "scattered times," while even when shut, the wind whistles through as if to show his utter disdain of our inhospitable and paltry efforts to keep him outside. On stormy nights, in spite of closed windows, the rooms resemble huge snowdrifts. Seven maids with seven mops sweeping for half a year could never get it clear. The building heaves so much with the frost that the doors constantly refuse to work, because the floors have risen, and if they are planed, when the frost disappears, a yawning chasm confronts you. Our storeroom is so cold in winter that we put on Arctic furs to fetch in the food, and in summer it is flooded so that we swim from barrel to barrel as Alice floated in her pool of tears. But far above all these minor discomforts is the one overwhelming desire not to have to refuse "one of these little ones."

One's heart aches when one remembers all the money and effort and love expended on a single child at home, that he may lack nothing to be prepared in body and spirit to meet the vicissitudes of his coming life journey. But in this land are hundreds of children, our own blood and kin, who must face their crushing problems often with bodies stunted from insufficient nourishment in childhood, and minds unopened and undeveloped, not through lack of natural ability, but because opportunity has never come to them. As one looks ahead one sees clearly what a contribution these eager children could offer their "day" if only their cousins at home had "the eyes of their understanding purged to behold things invisible and unseen."

_March 10_

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

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

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

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

Some of the men were prevented from being on the spot for bird shooting as promptly as they desired by the fact that their boats, having lain up all winter, were not "plymmed." If you put a dried apple, for instance, into water it "plymms"; so do beans, and so do boats. When a boat is not "plymmed," it leaks in all its seams, and is therefore looked upon as unsafe for these sub-Arctic waters by the more conservative amongst us. To stop a boat leaking you "chinch" the seams with oak.u.m. Our fisherman s.e.xton has just told me that "the church was right chinched last night."

One by one our supplies are giving out or diminishing. Each week as I send down an order to the store it is returned with some item crossed off. These articles at home would be considered the indispensables.

Already potatoes have gone the way of all flesh; there is no more b.u.t.ter (though that is less loss than it sounds, for it was packed on the schooner directly next the kerosene barrels, and a liberal quant.i.ty of that volatile liquid incorporated itself in each tub of "oleo"). We are warned that the remaining amount of flour will not hold out till the spring boat--our first possible chance of getting reinforcements for our larder--unless we exercise the watchfulness of the Sphinx. The year before I came the first boat did not reach St.

Antoine till the 28th of June.

More excitement has just been communicated to me by Topsy: much more.

A man from the Baie des Francais has killed a huge polar bear. It took ten men and six dogs to haul the beast home after he had been finally dispatched. The man fired several shots at him, but did not hit a vital spot. One bullet only remained to him, and the bear was coming at him in a very purposeful manner. "Now or never," thought the fisherman, and fired. The creature fell dead almost at his feet. When they skinned him they found bullets in his legs and flank, but searched and searched in vain for the fatal one which had been the end of him. There was no mark on the skin in any vital spot. At last they found it. The ball had penetrated exactly through the bear's ear into his brain. All the countryside is now dining off bear steak; and there is a splendid skin to be purchased if you are so minded. I have eaten a bit of the steak, though I confess I did not sit down to the feast with any pleasurable antic.i.p.ation, as the men said that they found the remains of a recently devoured seal in Bruin's "tum." I had an agreeable surprise. The meat was fibrous and a little tough, but it was quite good--a vast improvement on the sea-birds which are so highly valued in the local commissariat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IT WAS HIS LAST BULLET]

The Prophet has a vivid idea of the processes going on in the heads of animals. He says that up to fifteen years ago there were bears innumerable "in the country." "And one day, miss," he explained, "the whole crew of them gets their anchors and leaves in a body." To hear him one would imagine that at a concerted signal the bears came out of their burrows and shook the dust of the land from their feet.

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

The story is the only deterrent I have from dressing in my white Russian hareskin coat, and sitting in the graveyard some dusky evening. The people claim that the place is haunted. I have never met a "Yoho" and never expect to, but I would dearly love to see how others act when they think they have. Only the suspicion that they would "plump for safety," and fire the inevitable muzzle-loader at my white garment, keeps me from making the experiment _in corpore vile_.

The birds and the seals and the bears and white foxes coming south on the moving ice are signs of spring. There is a stir in the air as if the people as well sensed that the back of the long winter was broken.

How it has flown! You cannot fancy my sensations of lonesomeness when I think that I shall never spend another in this country. You cannot describe or a.n.a.lyze the lure of the land and its people, but it is there, and grips you. I have grown to love it, and you will welcome home an uncomplimentary homesick comrade when September comes.

_April 1_

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

Oh! this Home. How little it deserves the name! Our English storms are nothing but babies compared with the appalling blasts which sweep down upon us from the north. In summer the furious seas dash against the cliffs as if to protect them from the desecration of human encroachment. The fine snow filters in between the roof and ceiling of this building, and in a "mild," such as we are now experiencing, it melts, and endless little rivulets trickle down in nearly every room.

The water comes in on my bed, on the kitchen range, and on the dining-room table. It falls on the sewing-machine in one room, on the piano and bookcase in another. Its catholicity of taste is plain disheartening!

You ask whether these kiddies have the stuff in them to repay what you are pleased to term "such an outlay of effort." My emphatic "yes"

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

Yesterday I attended the theatre, only it was the operating theatre.

The patient on this occasion was a doll, the surgeon a lad of seven, himself a victim of infantile paralysis, and the head nurse a.s.sisting was aged nine, and wears a brace on each leg. The stage was the children's ward of the hospital. Here are several pathetic little people, orthopedic cases, brought in for treatment during the winter, and who must stay till the spring boat arrives, as their homes are now cut off by interminable miles of snow wastes and icy sea. Nothing escapes their notice. They tear up their Christmas picture books, and when charged with the enormity of their offence, explain that they "must have adhesive tape for their operative work." d.i.c.k, the surgeon, was overheard the other day telling Margaret, the head nurse, as together they amputated the legs of her doll, "This is the way Sir Robert Jones does it."