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Petit Nord, Le

November 1 My world is transformed into fairyland. Light snow has fallen during the night, and every "starigan," every patch of "tuckamore" is "decked in sparkling raiment white." As I was dressing I looked out of my window, and for the first time in my life saw a dog team and komatik passing. The day was full of adventure. For the children the snow meant only rejoicing; but as the highway was as slippery as glass, and the older folk had not yet got their "winter legs," there were many minor casualties. Mrs. Uncle Life, aged seventy and small and spherical, solved the problem of the hills by sitting down and sliding. She commended the method to me, saying that it served very well on week days, but was lamentably detrimental to her Sunday best. Ananias is developing fast and bids fair to rival Topsy. He has a mania for eating anything and everything, and what he cannot eat, he destroys. Within the past few weeks he has swallowed the arm of his Teddy bear, half a cake of soap, and a tube of tooth-paste. He has also bitten through two new hot-water bottles. During the short time he has been here he has broken more windows than any other child in the Home. If he thinks politeness will save the day, he says in the sweetest way possible, "Excuse me, Teacher, for doing it"; but if he sees by my face that retribution is swift and sure, he says in the most pathetic of tones, "Teacher, I have a pain." <div class="fig">> <ANTIMG border="0" src="images/imagep095.png" width-obs="75%" alt=""Teacher, I have a pain"" /> "Teacher, I have a pain" </div> I must make you acquainted with our "Yoho." Every well-regulated fishing village has one, but we have to thank our neighbour, the Eskimo, for the picturesque name. In our more prosaic parlance it is plain "ghost." Many years ago when the Mission was in need of a building in which to accommodate some of its workers, it purchased a house belonging to a local trader by the name of Isaac Spouseworthy. This made an admirable Guest House; but it has since fallen into disuse for its original purpose, and is being employed as a temporary repository for the clothing sent for the poor, till the fine new storehouse shall have been built. This old Guest House has been selected by our local apparition as a place of visitation. It is affirmed, on the incontrovertible testimony of the Prophet and no inconsiderable following, that the spirit returns of an evening to the old house he built forty years ago, to wander through the familiar rooms. The villagers see lights there nightly; and though all our investigation has failed to reveal any presence (barring the rats), bodily or otherwise, the bravest of them would hesitate many a long minute before he would enter the haunted spot after nightfall. Rumour has it that the Guest House is built on the site of an old French cemetery. Our "irrepressible Ike" therefore cannot lack for society, though how congenial it is cannot be determined. Judging from the records of the ceaseless rows between the French and English on Le Petit Nord, there must be some lively nights in ghostland. The doctor suggested that if a burglar wished to steal the clothing, this spook would be his most effective accomplice, but such tortuous psychology has failed to satisfy the fishermen. To them we seem callous souls, to whom the spirit world is alien. This ghostly encroachment on our erstwhile quiet domain has had more than one inconvenient result. The Mission is very short of houses for its workmen, and was planning to rebuild and put in order a part of this now haunted domicile for one family. The man for whom it was destined now refuses to live there, as his children have vetoed the idea. In this land the word of the rising generation is law, and this refusal is therefore final. The children of this North Country are given what they wish and when and how. Naturally the results of such a policy are serious. There are many cases of hopeless cripples about here who refused to go to hospital for treatment when their trouble was so slight that it could have been rectified. Now the children must look forward to a life of disability through their parents' short-sightedness. But when I think of what it means to these poor women to have perhaps ten children to care for, and all the rest of the work of the house and garden on their shoulders, I cannot wonder that their motto is "peace at any price." Spirits might be called the outstanding feature of our harbour, for the Piquenais rocks at the very entrance are the abode of another familiar revenant. The Prophet assures me that thirty years ago a vessel and crew were wrecked there, and on every succeeding stormy evening since that day, the captain, with creditable perseverance, waves his light on that wind-and surf-swept rock. In this instance the prophetical authority is in dispute, for there are those who assert that the light is shown by fairies to toll boats to their doom on the foggy point. The more scientifically minded explain the mysterious light as a defunct animal giving out gas. It must be a persistent gas which can retain its efficacy for thirty long and adventurous years. <div class="fig">> <ANTIMG border="0" src="images/imagep100.jpg" width-obs="85%" alt="The Yoho" /> The Yoho </div> In the course of these researches several interesting points of natural history and science have been elucidated. Doubtless you do not know that all cats are related to the devil, but you can readily see the brimstone in their fur if you have the temerity to rub them on a dusky evening. Neither has it come to your attention that under no consideration must you allow the water in which potatoes have been washed to run over your hands. In the latter event, warts innumerable will result. Our cook has just come in with the news that supper is not to be forthcoming. 'Senath was left in charge while Tryphena went on an errand for me. Left-over salad was to have formed the basis of the evening meal, but the said basis has now disintegrated, 'Senath having placed the dish in a superheated oven. The nature of the resultant object is indeterminate, but uneatable. I solace myself that sanctified starvation will be beneficial to my "fine and hearty" figure. We have suffered again with the dogs. One of the children's birthdays fell on Saturday, and we decided to give the whole "crew" ice-cream to fittingly celebrate the event. It was made in good time and put out to keep cool in what we took to be a safe spot. The party preceding the pièce de résistance was in full swing when an ominous disturbance was detected from the direction of the woodshed. Investigation revealed two angry dogs alternately snarling at each other and devouring the last lick of the treat. The catholicity of canine taste was no solace to the aggrieved assembly. The children have lately been making excursions into the theological field. The latest problem brought to me for settlement was, "Does God live in the Methodist Church?" Truly a two-horned dilemma. If I said "yes" the anthropomorphic teaching was undoubted; while if the answer were in the negative I should be guilty of fostering the abominable denominational spirit which ruins this land. My reply must have been unconvincing, for I overheard the children later deciding, the Methodist Church having been barred as a place of residence, that the attic was the only remaining possibility. It is the one spot in the Home unvisited by them, and therefore "unseen." Unseemly altercations have summoned me to the kitchen, and I return to close this over-long chronicle. I was met there by Tryphena, a large sheet in her hands, and an accusing expression on her face which stamped her as a family connection of the Prophet's. "It's not my fault, miss," she began. "No, Tryphena? Well, whose is it, and what is it?" "Look at that sheet, miss, a new one. 'Senath was ironing, and had folded it just ready to put away. Then she suddenly wants a drink, so she goes off leaving the iron in the middle of the sheet. Half an hour later she remembers. When she got back, of course the iron had burnt its way straight through all the layers." Aside from destruction, in what direction would you say that 'Senath's forte did lie? November 17 I have received your letter with its pointed remarks about the long delays of the mail-carrier. I consider them both unnecessary and unkind. But as David would say, "I am going to be good all the time now." We have this moment returned from church, to which the children love to go; it is the great excitement of the week. They sit very quietly, except Topsy, but how much they understand I cannot say. The people sing with deliberation, each syllable being made to do duty for three, to prolong the enjoyment—or the agony—according as your musical talent decides. Frequently there is no one to play the instrument, and the hymns are started several times, until something resembling the right pitch is struck. Sometimes a six-line hymn will be started to a common metre tune, and all goes swimmingly until the inevitable crash at the end of the fourth line. But nothing daunted, we try and try again. I have supplied our smiling-faced cherubs with hymn books in order that <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Their voices may in tune be found Like David's harp of solemn sound" </div> </div> —excuse the adaptation. This morning the service was particularly dreary. Hymn after hymn started to end in conspicuous failure, followed by an interminable discourse on the sufferings of the damned. But we ended cheerfully by warbling forth the joys of heaven— <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Where congregations ne'er break up And Sabbaths never end!" </div> </div> Last week we had a thrilling event; one of the girls formerly in this Home was married, and we all went to the wedding, even the little tots who are too young for regular services. They afterwards told me they would like to go on Sundays, so I imagine they think the marriage ceremony a regular item of Divine worship. Alas! I almost disgraced myself when the clergyman solemnly announced to the intending bride and bridegroom that the holy estate of matrimony had been "ordained of God for the persecution of children"! How you would have laughed to see me the other night. The steamer arrived at midnight, and as we were expecting some children I went down to meet them. There were three little boys, Esau, Joseph, and Nathan, eight, six, and four years of age. I bore them in triumph to the bathroom, feeling that even at that late hour cleanliness should be compulsory. But I soon desisted from my purpose and as quickly as possible bundled the dirty children into my neat, snowy beds! They kicked, they fought, they bit, they yelled and they swore! All my sleeping innocents awoke at the noise and added their voices to the confusion. I momentarily expected an in-rush of neighbours, and a summons the following day for cruelty to children. Uriah has come to inform me that he cannot "cleave the splits," as his "stomach has capsized." I felt it incumbent to administer a dose of castor oil, thinking that might be sufficient punishment for what I had reason to believe was only a dodge to escape work. It was hard for me to give the oil, but harder still to have the boy look up after it with a quite cherubic smile, and ask if it were the same oil as Elisha gave the widow woman! Whatever can survive in this land of difficulties survives with a zeal and vitality which only proves the strength of the obstacles overcome. The flies, the mosquitoes, and the rats are proofs. We have none of your meek little wharf rats here. Ours are brazen imps, sleek and shameless, undaunted by cats or men. Their footmarks are as big as those of young puppies (withal not too well-fed puppies), and their raids on man and beast alike ally them with the horde Pandora loosed. Each day the toll mounts. One morning Miss Perrin, the head nurse, awakened to find one of her prize North Labrador boots gnawed to the rim. All that remained to tell the tale was the bright tape by which it was hung up, and the skin groove through which the tape threads. <div class="fig">> <ANTIMG border="0" src="images/imagep108.png" width-obs="55%" alt="They ate the Entire Boot" /> They ate the Entire Boot </div> On the next occasion of their public appearance the night nurse was summoned by agonized shrieks to the children's ward. A large rodent had climbed upon Ishimay's bed and bitten her. There were the marks of his teeth in her hand, and the blood was dripping. Nor do they limit their depredations to the hospital. The barn man turned over a bale of hay last week and disclosed no less than twenty-seven rats young and old, fat and lean, though chiefly fat. I rejoice to record that this galaxy at least has departed Purgatory-wards. The dentist left a whole bag of clean linen on the floor of his bedroom. The morning following he found that the raiders had eaten their way through the sack, cutting a series of neat round holes in each folded garment as they progressed. The scuffling and the squealing and the scraping and the gnawing and the scratching of rats in the walls and cupboards are worse than any phalanx of "Yohos" ever summoned from spookland! Oh! Pied Piper of Hamelin, why tarry so long! December 14 The last boat of the season has come and gone and now we settle down to the real life of the winter. Plans innumerable are under way for winter activities, and the children are on tiptoe over the prospect of approaching Christmastide. Their jubilations fill the house, and writing is even more difficult than usual. For days before the last steamer finally reached us there were speculations as to her coming. Rumour, a healthy customer in these parts, three times had it that she had gone back, having given up the unequal contest with the ice. As all our Christmas mail was aboard her, the atmosphere was tense. Then came the news from Croque that she was there, busily unloading freight. Six hours later her smoke was sighted, and from the yells my bairns set up, you would have thought that the mythical sea serpent was entering port. She butted her way into the standing harbour ice as far as she could get, and promptly began discharging cargo. Teams of dogs sprang up seemingly out of the snow-covered earth, and in a mere twinkling our frozen and silent harbour was an arena of activity. The freight is dumped on the ice over the ship's side with the big winch, and each man must hunt for his own as it descends. Some of the goods are dropped with such a thud that the packages "burst abroad." This is all very well if the contents are of a solid and resisting nature; but if butter, or beans, or such like receive the shock, most regrettable results ensue. During the hours of waiting here she froze solidly into the ice, and had to be blasted out before she could commence her journey to the southward. She has taken the mails with her, and this letter must come to you by dog team—your first by that method. In the early part of this summer three little orphan girls came to us from Mistaken Cove. Their names are Carmen, Selina, and Rachel, and their ages, ten, seven, and five. Their father has been dead for some years, and the mother recently died of tuberculosis. They did look such a pathetic little trio when they first arrived. I went down to the wharf to meet them, and three quaint little figures stepped from the hospital boat, with dresses almost to their feet. Carmen held the hands of her two sisters, and greeted me with "Are you the woman wot's going to look after we?" I assured her that I hoped to perform that function to the best of my ability, and then she confided to me that she had brought with her a box containing her mother's dresses and her mother's hair. I fancy the responsibility of the entire household must have rested on Carmen's tiny shoulders; she is like a little old woman, and even her voice is care-worn. I hunted up some dolls for the two younger kiddies, but had not the courage to offer one to their elder sister. She evidently felt that dolls were altogether too precious for common use, and carefully explained to her charges that they were only for Sundays! When I next went to the playroom it was to find the three little sisters sitting solemnly in a row on the locker with their dolls safely packed away beneath. I persuaded them that dolls were not too good for "human nature's daily food," and since then they have been supremely happy with their babies. Carmen is so devoted to little Rachel that she cannot bear the thought of her being in trouble. Rachel is very human, and in the brief time she has been with us has had many falls from the paths of rectitude. One day shortly after their arrival Rachel had been naughty, and I had taken her upstairs to explain to her the enormity of her offence, Carmen standing meanwhile at the bottom of the stairs wringing her hands. When Rachel reappeared and announced that she had not even been punished, Carmen was seen to give her a good slap on her own account, although evidently well pleased that no one else had dared to touch her child. Carmen is extremely religious, and her prayers at night are lengthy and devout. She starts off with the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed; several collects follow, and she concludes with a "Hail Mary!" You have already made the acquaintance of Billy the Ox, the now dear departed, who constitutes our winter's frozen meat supply. Our allotted portion of him is hung in the balcony outside my window. Being on the second floor it was thought to be sanctuary from marauders. Last night I was awakened by an uneasy feeling of a presence entering my room. Starting up, I made out in the moonlight the great tawny form of one of our biggest dogs. He was in the balcony making so far futile leaps to secure a section of Billy. My shout discouraged him, and he jumped off the roof to the snow beneath. He had managed to scale the side of the house—but how? For some time I was at a loss to discover, till I remembered a ladder which had been placed perpendicularly against the wall on the other side. One of the double windows had broken loose in a recent storm of wind, and the barn man had had to go up and mend it. True to type he had left the ladder in statu quo. Up master dog had climbed straight into the air, along the slippery rungs of the ladder. When he reached the level of the tempting odour, he had alighted on the balcony roof. Then, pursuing the odour to its lair, he had discovered Billy, and me! At breakfast I told my adventurette, and the story was instantly capped with others. Only one shall you have. The doctor was away on a travel last winter, and late one blustersome night came to a little village. He happened to have a very beautiful leader of which he was inordinately careful, so he asked his host for the night if he had a shed into which he could put Spider out of the weather. "Why, to be sure, just at the left of the door." It was dark and blowing, and the doctor went outside and thrust the beastie into the only building in sight. After breakfast he went with his host to get the dogs. When he started to open the door of the shelter in which Spider was incarcerated, the fisherman burst out in dismay, "You never put him in there? That's where I keeps my only sheep." At that second the dog appeared, a spherical and satisfied specimen. He had taken the stranger in—completely. <div class="fig">> <ANTIMG border="0" src="images/imagep117.png" width-obs="75%" alt="He had taken the Stranger in" /> He had taken the Stranger in </div> The cold is intense, and to combat it in these buildings of green lumber is a task worthy of Hercules. We make futile attempts to keep the pipes from freezing; but the north wind has a new trump each night. He squeezes in through every chink and cranny, and once inside the house goes whistling malignantly through the chilly rooms and corridors. We keep an oil stove burning in our bathroom at night with a kettle of water on it ready for our morning ablutions. To-day, when I went in to dress—one does not dress in one's bedroom, but waits in bed till the bathroom door's warning slam informs that the coast is clear—there was the stove still merrily burning, and there was the kettle of water on it—FROZEN. Next month there is to be a sale in Nameless Cove, twelve miles to the westward of us. The doctor has asked me to attend. I accepted delightedly, as twenty-four hours free from fear of rats and frozen pipes draws me like a magnet. Moreover, who wouldn't be on edge if it were one's first dog drive! I found Gabriel crying bitterly in bed the other night because he had in a fit of mischief thrown a stone at the Northern lights, which is regarded as an act of impiety by the Eskimo people. It was some time before I could pacify the child, or get him to believe that no dire results would follow his dreadful deed. But at length when "comforting time" was come for him, he consoled himself by supposing that Teacher must be "stronger than the devil." December 27 I certainly was never born to be a teacher and it is something to discover one's limitations. For several Sundays now I have been labouring to instruct our little ones in the story of the birth of Jesus, and I have repeated the details again and again in order to impress them upon their wandering minds. Last Sunday I questioned them, and finally asked triumphantly, "Well, David, who was the Babe in the manger?" With a wild look round the room for inspiration, David enunciated with swelling pride, "Beulah, Teacher." We had a lovely time on Christmas. The night before the children hung up their stockings, but it was midnight before I could get round to fill them, they were so excited and wakeful. I "hied me softly to my stilly couch," and was just dropping off into delicious slumber when at 1 A.M. the strains of musical instruments (which you had sent) were heard below. Then I appreciated to the full the sentiment of that poet who sang: <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Were children silent, we should half believe That joy were dead, its lamp would burn so low." </div> </div> Later in the day we had our Christmas tree, when Topsy was overjoyed at receiving her first doll. There is something very sweet about the child in spite of all her wilful ways, and she is a real little mother to her doll. We had a great dinner, as you may imagine. I overheard some of the little boys teasing Solomon, who is only three, to see if he would not forgo some particular choice morsel upon his plate, to which an emphatic "no" was always returned. Then by varying gradations of importance came the question, would he give it to Teacher? The answer not being considered satisfactory, Gabriel felt that the time had come for the supreme test, Would Solomon give it to God and the angels? The reply left so much to be desired that it is better unrecorded. In our harbour lives a blind Frenchman, François Détier by name. He came here in his youth to escape conscription. The fisher people have travelled a long road since the old feuds which scarred the early history of Le Petit Nord, and François is a much-loved member of the community. Since the oncoming of the inoperable tumour, which little by little has deprived him of his sight, the neighbours vie with each other by helping him. One day a load of wood will find its way to his door. The next a few fresh "turr," a very "fishy" sea auk, are left ever so quietly inside his woodshed—and so it goes. It is a constant marvel to me that these people, who live so perilously near the margin of want, are always so eager to share up. François is sitting in our cellar as I write pulling nails from old boxes with my new patent nail-drawer. A moment ago I could not resist the temptation of putting the Marseillaise on the gramophone, and I went down to find him with tears rolling down his cheeks as he hummed, <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Allons, enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé." </div> </div> We've invented a new job for him; he is to "serve" our pipes with bandages. This means swathing them round and round, and finally adding an outer covering of newspaper, which has a much-vaunted reputation for keeping cold out. Let me tell you the latest epic of the hospital pipes. Those to the bathroom run through the office. In the last blizzard they burst. The fire in the fireplace was a conflagration; the steam radiator was singing a credible song; and as the water trickled down the pipe from the little fissure, it froze solid before it was three inches on its way! A friend sent me for Christmas a charming little poem. One verse runs: <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "May nothing evil cross this door, And may ill fortune never pry About these Windows; may the roar And rains go by. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Strengthened by faith, these rafters will Withstand the battering of the storm; This hearth, though all the world grow chill, Will keep us warm." </div> </div> I am thinking of hanging the card opposite our pipes as a reminder of the "way they should go." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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