IN STRANGE LANDS
Mr. Winslow and his nephew Edward Norman were sportsmen who, as many
other sportsmen had done before them and have done since, had gone as
passengers with the sealing fleet that they might see the big ice and
secure for themselves trophies of the seal hunt of their own killing.
And so it came about that they met Bobby, and took him under their care.
Indeed, Mr. Winslow felt an unusual interest in the lad from the moment
he met him, for Bobby had an open, frank countenance and a pleasing
manner.
But they would not permit him to talk or tell them much of his story
until they had him on shipboard, and Bobby had eaten and bathed and
changed his ill-smelling skin clothing for a suit that Edward Norman
pressed upon him. And though the clothes were a trifle large, and the
trousers two or three inches longer than was necessary, they set Bobby
off to good advantage and wrought a wonderful change in his appearance.
"You're to stay in the cabin as our guest," said Mr. Winslow when Bobby
was dressed, and would have gone forward to the sailors' quarters. "I
have arranged it with the Captain. I am very much interested in what you
said about Skipper Ed. His name, you said, is Edward Norman. Who is he?"
"Skipper Ed's our nearest neighbor," Bobby explained simply.
"Do you call him 'Skipper' because he is a sea captain? Has he always
lived on the Labrador coast? You see," added Mr. Winslow, "I'm greatly
interested because his name is the same as my nephew's. It is a strange
coincidence, and we should like to learn all about him."
"We've always called him 'Skipper,'" answered Bobby. "He was a sailor
once, but that was long before I came. He's lived at Abel's Bay, I heard
him say, over twenty years. He's told Jimmy and me a lot about Harvard
College, and when he was a boy he lived in a place called Carrington--"
"What! Carrington?" exclaimed Mr. Winslow. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, sir," said Bobby. "He's often told Jimmy and me about his home
there when he was a boy."
The two men looked at each other and they were plainly excited, and in
an intensely expectant voice Mr. Winslow asked:
"Did he ever speak of his family?"
"Yes, sir--of his father and mother and brother and sister," said Bobby.
"Anything else?"
"Why, yes, sir; about the trees and flowers and garden and--"
"I mean about himself," interrupted Mr. Winslow. "Did he ever tell you
about a bank, or why he left home?"
"No, sir," said Bobby. "I remember, though, a story he used to tell us
about two boys whose father had a bank. One borrowed some money from the
bank and lost it gambling, and because he had a wife and little child
the other brother told their father that he did it, though he didn't
know anything about it until after it was done. The brother that took
the money tried to stop him. The father of the boys sent the one who
said he took the money away, and he went and settled in a land like The
Labrador, and never saw his old home or any of his people again."
The two men were leaning eagerly forward during this recital. When Bobby
had finished they sat back and looked into each other's eyes, and after
a moment Mr. Winslow spoke:
"There is no doubt, Edward, that Skipper Ed is your uncle--your father's
brother who disappeared so long ago, when you were a baby."
"Yes," agreed Edward, "and we must go to him and take him home again."
"You--don't--mean--you're Skipper Ed's people?" stammered the astonished
Bobby.
"Yes," said Mr. Winslow, "Edward's father and Skipper Ed were, I believe
from what you have told us, brothers, and in that case Mrs. Winslow is
Skipper Ed's sister. She was a little girl when he went away. We must
look into the matter, and we shall all be very glad if it proves to be
true."
And then they talked for a long while, and drew from Bobby the story of
their life at Abel's Bay--of how Skipper Ed had taught him and Jimmy,
and the evenings spent in talking and studying in the easy chairs before
the big box stove in Skipper Ed's cabin, and about Abel Zachariah and
Mrs. Abel--so much, in fact, about their daily lives and hopes and
disappointments that presently his two hearers felt that they had known
Bobby and his friends all their life.
And Bobby told them the story of his own coming to the Coast, as he had
heard it from Abel and Mrs. Abel many a time, of how he had been found
drifting in a boat with a dead man, of the grave Abel had made on
Itigailit Island for his dead companion, and the cairn he himself had
built.
"We have the boat yet," said Bobby, "for it was a good boat. Father has
always taken great care of it. He and Mother always say it's the boat
God sent me in out of the mists from the far beyond, where storms are
born."
"What a romantic life you've led!" said Edward. "Your very advent upon
the Coast was romantic--and tragic. And the way we found you today is no
less so."
"Have you no clue that would help you identify yourself? No clue as to
where you came from? Was there nothing to identify the dead man?" asked
Mr. Winslow.
"No," answered Bobby, "and I've never thought about it very much. Mother
has the clothes I wore, wrapped in a bundle and stowed into a chest.
I've often seen the bundle, but I never undid it or meddled with it for
she prizes it so."
"It was probably a boat from a whaling or fishing ship that was
wrecked," Mr. Winslow suggested. "Perhaps you were the captain's son.
You should look into the bundle; it may help to identify you, and you
may have relatives living, perhaps in Newfoundland, who would be glad to
know of you."
For two weeks the _Fearless_, which was the ship upon which Mr. Winslow
and his nephew were passengers, remained near the ice, her crew of
nearly two hundred men engaged in killing seals and in loading them
aboard, and then at last, with a cargo of nearly forty thousand
carcasses, she set sail to the southward.
The days were lengthening rapidly now, and with every mile the
atmosphere grew milder. The Labrador coast was still ice-bound, and it
would be many weeks before the harbors were cleared and vessels could
enter them, but Mr. Winslow promised Bobby that as early as conditions
would permit they would sail northward to Abel's Bay, and perhaps
charter a vessel for the journey. Indeed, he and Edward were nearly if
not quite as anxious for this as Bobby.
It was during the first week in April that the _Fearless_ steamed into
St. John's harbor, and Bobby for the first time in his life saw a city,
and great buildings, and railway trains, and horses--horses were his
great mark of admiration--and very shy he was, for he had been
transported to a world that was new to him.
And then, in a swirl of ever-growing wonders, they were away on a
railway train, and for a night on a steamer, and again on a train,
moving at a gait that made Bobby's head whirl, and at last budding trees
were seen, and green fields--all the marvelous things of which Skipper
Ed had so often told him.
At last they left the train one evening at Carrington, which, as
everyone knows, is a suburb of Boston. Bobby was hurried with Mr.
Winslow and Edward Norman into an automobile, which whirled away with
them to a great old house, where they were greeted at the door by Mrs.
Winslow, whom Bobby thought nice and motherly, and whom he loved at
once; and by a white-haired old gentleman and old lady who Bobby learned
were Edward's grandparents.
Bobby was made quite dizzy by much talking and by innumerable questions
that he was called upon to answer, and when Mrs. Winslow and the
white-haired old lady cried at the story of Skipper Ed, and the old
gentleman repeated over and over again: "Is it possible! Is it possible!
My poor Edward! My long lost boy!" he almost cried himself, though he
could see nothing to cry about, really, except Jimmy's supposed death.
And then came wonderful days while Bobby watched the marvelous
blossoming of the trees in the garden, and as they were transformed into
masses of pink and white, and flower beds became spots of glowing color,
he believed a miracle had been performed before his very eyes--as,
indeed, one had. And there were times when he believed he must be
dreaming, and not living in the world at all, and then he would pinch
himself to make certain he was really alive and awake, and that he had
not perished on the ice after all and awakened in Paradise.
But in his room of nights when the lights were out and he was alone and
all was still, he had many sleepless and homesick hours. Then it was he
longed for the old times again in the cozy cabins, and for Abel
Zachariah and Mrs. Abel, and Skipper Ed and Jimmy, and felt that he
would give all the world to have them back.
And so the weeks passed until the lengthening days of June were well
advanced, and Mr. Winslow announced that he had chartered a small
auxiliary schooner and that she was ready for the northern voyage, and
then for two nights before their departure for St. John's, where the
schooner was in waiting, Bobby could scarcely sleep at all, so eager was
he to return home to Abel Zachariah and Mrs. Abel, that they might know
he still lived, for he often thought of them there in the cabin, very
lonely without him.
One day late in June Mr. and Mrs. Winslow, with Edward Norman and Bobby,
went down to Boston, where they boarded their steamer, and immediately
the lines were thrown off and the steamer had turned her prow seaward,
Bobby nearly shouted with joy, and every throb of the steamer's engine,
and every turn of the propeller, brought fresh delight to his heart,
for they were beating away the miles that separated him from home.
In Halifax there was a day's vexatious delay while they awaited the St.
John's steamer, but at last it came, and at last they were on board the
schooner _Gull_ in St. John's harbor, and at last the _Gull_ was plowing
northward past stately icebergs glimmering in the sunshine, and vagrant
pans of ice rising and falling on the swell, and home was drawing near.