The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador Part 9

As Dr. Grenfell has often said, the Labradorman is a fountain of faith and hope and inspiration. If the fishing season is a failure he turns to his winter's trapping with unwavering faith that it will yield him well. If his trapping fails his hope and faith are none the less when he sets out in the spring to hunt seals. Seals may be scarce and the reward poor, but never mind! The summer fishing is at hand, and _this_ year it will certainly bring a good catch! "The Lard be wonderful good to us, _what_ever."

XII

A DOZEN FOX TRAPS

On that same voyage along the coast when Uncle Willie Wolfrey was found with a broken thigh, Dr. Grenfell, after he had operated upon Uncle Willie, in the course of his voyage, stopping at many harbors to give medical a.s.sistance to the needy ones, ran in one day to Kaipokok Bay, at Turnavik Islands.

As the vessel dropped her anchor he observed a man sitting on the rocks eagerly watching the ship. The jolly boat was launched, and as it approached the land the man arose and coming down to the water's edge, shouted:

"Be that you, Doctor?"

"Yes, Uncle Tom, it is I?" the Doctor shouted back, for he had already recognized Uncle Tom, one of the fine old men of the coast.

When Grenfell stepped ash.o.r.e and took Uncle Tom's hand in a hearty grasp, the old man broke down and cried like a child. Uncle Tom was evidently in keen distress.

"Oh, Doctor, I'm so glad you comes. I were lookin' for you, Doctor,"

said the old man in a voice broken by emotion. "I were watchin' and watchin' out here on the rocks, not knowin' whether you'd be comin'

this way, but hopin', and prayin' the Lard to send you. He sends you, Doctor. 'Twere the Lard sends you when I'm needin' you, sir, sorely needin' you."

Uncle Tom is seventy years of age. He was born and bred on The Labrador, but he has not spent all his life there. In his younger days he shipped as a sailor, and as a seaman saw many parts of the world.

But long ago he returned to his home to settle down as a fisherman and a trapper.

When the war came, the brave old soul, stirred by patriotism, paid his own pa.s.sage and expenses on the mail boat to St. Johns, and offered to volunteer for service. Of course he was too old and was rejected because of his age.

Uncle Tom, his patriotism not in the least dampened, returned to his Labrador home and divided all the fur of his winter's hunt into two equal piles. To one pile he added a ten dollar bill, and that pile, with the ten dollars added, he shipped at once to the "Patriotic Fund"

in St. Johns. He had offered himself, and they would not take him, and this was all he could do to help win the war, and he did it freely and wistfully, out of his n.o.ble, generous patriotic soul.

"What is the trouble, Uncle Tom?" asked Grenfell, when Uncle Tom had to some extent regained his composure, and the old man told his story.

He was in hard luck. Late the previous fall (1920) or early in the winter he had met with a severe accident that had resulted in several broken ribs. Navigation had closed, and he was cut off from all surgical a.s.sistance, and his broken ribs had never had attention and had not healed. He could scarcely draw a breath without pain, or even rest without pain at night, and he could not go to his trapping path.

He depended upon his winter's hunt mainly for support, and with no fur to sell he was, for the first time in his life, compelled to contract a debt. Then, suddenly, the trader with whom he dealt discontinued giving credit. Uncle Tom was stranded high and dry, and when the fishing season came he had no outfit or means of purchasing one, and could not go fishing.

Besides his wife there were six children in Uncle Tom's family, though none of them was his own or related to him. When the "flu" came to the coast in 1918, and one out of every five of the people around Turnavik Islands died, several little ones were left homeless and orphans. The generous hearts of Uncle Tom and his wife opened to them and they took these six children into their home as their own. And so it happened that Uncle Tom had, and still has, a large family depending upon him.

"As we neared the cottage," said Doctor Grenfell, "his good wife, beaming from head to foot as usual, came out to greet us. Optimist to the last ditch, she _knew_ that somehow provision would be made. She, too, had had her troubles, for twice she had been operated on at Indian Harbor for cancer."

Uncle Tom must have suffered severely during all those months that he had lived with his broken ribs uncared for. Now Dr. Grenfell, without loss of time, strapped them up good and tight. Mrs. Grenfell supplied the six youngsters with a fine outfit of good warm clothes, and when Dr. Grenfell sailed out of Kaipokok Bay Uncle Tom and Mrs. Tom had no further cause for worry concerning the source from which provisions would come for themselves and the six orphans they had adopted.

These are but a few incidents in the life of the people to whom Dr.

Grenfell is devoting his skill and his sympathy year in and year out.

I could relate enough of them to fill a dozen volumes like this, but s.p.a.ce is limited.

There is always hardship and always will be in a frontier land like Labrador, and Labrador north of Cape Charles is the most primitive of frontier lands. Dr. Grenfell and his helpers find plenty to do in addition to giving out medicines and dressing wounds. A little boost sometimes puts a family on its feet, raising it from abject poverty to independence and self-respect. Just a little momentum to push them over the line. Grenfell knows how to do this.

Several years ago Dr. Grenfell anch.o.r.ed his vessel in Big Bight, and went ash.o.r.e to visit David Long. David had had a hard winter, and among other kindnesses to the family, Dr. Grenfell presented David's two oldest boys, lads of fifteen or sixteen or thereabouts, with a dozen steel fox traps. Lack of traps had prevented the boys taking part in trapping during the previous winter.

The next year after giving the boys the traps, Grenfell again cast anchor in Big Bight, and, as usual, rowed ash.o.r.e to visit the Longs.

There was great excitement in their joyous greeting. Something important had happened. There was no doubt of that! David and Mrs.

Long and the two lads and all the little Longs were exuding mystery, but particularly the two lads. Whatever this mysterious secret was they could scarce keep it until they had led Dr. Grenfell into the cabin, and he was comfortably seated.

Then, with vast importance and some show of deliberate dignity, David opened a chest. From its depths he drew forth a pelt. Dr. Grenfell watched with interest while David shook it to make the fur stand out to best advantage, and then held up to his admiring gaze the skin of a beautiful silver fox! The lads had caught it in one of the dozen traps he had given them.

"We keeps un for you," announced David exultantly.

"It's a prime one, too!" exclaimed the Doctor, duly impressed, as he examined it.

"She _be_ that," emphasized David proudly. "No finer were caught on the coast the winter."

"It was a good winter's work," said the Doctor.

"'Twere _that_ now! 'Twere a _wonder_ful good winter's work--just t'cotch that un!" enthused Mrs. Long.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Doctor Grenfell.

"We keeps un for you," said David. "The time was th' winter when we has ne'er a bit o' grub but what we hunts, all of our flour and mola.s.ses gone. But we don't take _he_ to the trade, _what_ever. We keeps _he_ for you."

Out on a coast island Captain William Bartlett, of Brigus, Newfoundland, kept a fishing station and a supply store. Captain Will is a famous Arctic navigator. He is one of the best known and most successful masters of the great sealing fleet. He is also a cod fisherman of renown and he is the father of Captain "Bob" Bartlett, master of explorer Peary's _Roosevelt_, and it was under Captain Will Bartlett's instruction that Captain "Bob" learned seamanship and navigation. Captain William Bartlett is as fine a man as ever trod a deck. He is just and honest to a degree, and he has a big generous heart.

Doctor Grenfell accepted the silver fox pelt, and as he steamed down the coast he ran his vessel in at Captain Bartlett's station. He had confidence in Captain Bartlett.

"Here's a silver fox skin that belongs to David Long's lads," said he, depositing the pelt on the counter. "I wish you'd take it, and do the best you can for David, Captain Will. I'll leave it with you."

Captain Bartlett shook the pelt out, and admired its l.u.s.trous beauty.

"It's a good one! David's lads were in luck when they caught _that_ fellow. I'll do the best I can with it," he promised.

"They'll take the pay in provisions and other necessaries," suggested Grenfell.

"All right," agreed Captain Will. "I'll send the goods over to them."

On his way to the southward a month later Doctor Grenfell again cast anchor at Big Bight. David Long and Mrs. Long, the two big lads, and all the little Longs, were as beaming and happy as any family could be in the whole wide world. Captain Bartlett's vessel had run in at Big Bight one day, and paid for the silver fox pelt in merchandise.

The cabin was literally packed with provisions. The family were well clothed. There was enough and to spare to keep them in affluence, as affluence goes down on The Labrador, for a whole year and longer. Need and poverty were vanished. Captain Will had, indeed, done well with the silver fox pelt.

These are stories of life on The Labrador as Doctor Grenfell found it. From the day he reached the coast and every day since his heart has ached with the troubles and poverty existing among the liveyeres.

He has been thrilled again and again by incidents of heroic struggle and sacrifice among them. He has done a vast deal to make them more comfortable and happy, as in the case of David Long. Still, in spite of it all, there are cases of desperate poverty and suffering there, and doubtless will always be.

In every city and town and village of our great and prosperous country people throw away clothing and many things that would help to make the lives of the Longs and the hundreds of other liveyeres of the coast who are toiling for bare existence easier to endure. Enough is wasted every year, indeed, in any one of our cities to make the whole population of Labrador happy and comfortable. And there's the pity. If Grenfell could _only_ be given _some_ of this waste to take to them!

From the beginning this thought troubled Doctor Grenfell. And in winter when the ice shuts the whole coast off from the rest of the world, he turned his attention to efforts to secure the help of good people the world over in his work. Making others happy is the greatest happiness that any one can experience, and Grenfell wished others to share his happiness with him. Nearly every winter for many years he has lectured in the United States and Canada and Great Britain with this in view. The Grenfell a.s.sociation was organized with headquarters in New York, where money and donations of clothing and other necessaries might be sent.[B]

As we shall see, many great things have been accomplished by Doctor Grenfell and this a.s.sociation, organized by his friends several years ago. Every year a great many boxes and barrels of clothing go to him down on The Labrador, filled with good things for the needy ones. Boys and girls, as well as men and women, send warm things for winter. Not only clothing, but now and again toys for the Wee Tots find their way into the boxes. Just like other children the world over, the Wee Tots of The Labrador like toys to play with and they are made joyous with toys discarded by the over-supplied youngsters of our land.