its whole length. "The man who sails the Labrador must know it all
like his own back yard--not in sunny weather alone, but in the night,
when the headlands are like black clouds ahead, and in the mist, when
the noise of breakers tells him all that he may know of his
whereabouts. A flash of white in the gray distance, a thud and swish
from a hidden place: the one is his beacon, the other his fog-horn. It
is thus, often, that the Doctor gets along."
Labrador has an Arctic climate in winter. The extreme cold of the
country is caused by the Arctic current washing its shores. All winter
the ocean is frozen as far as one can see. In June, when the ice
breaks away, the great Newfoundland fishing fleet of little schooners
sails north to remain until the end of September catching cod, for
here are the finest cod fishing grounds in the world.
In 1892 there were nearly twenty-five thousand Newfoundlanders on this
fleet. Doctor Grenfell's mission was to aid and assist these deep sea
fishermen. In those days there was no doctor with the fleet and none
on the whole coast, and any one taken seriously ill or badly injured
usually died for lack of medical or surgical care. Of course, Grenfell
was also to help the people who lived on the coast, that is, the
native inhabitants, who needed him. This service he was giving free.
At this season there is more fog than sunshine in those northern
latitudes. It settles in a dense pall over the sea, adding to the
dangers of navigation. Now the fog was so thick that they could
scarcely see the length of the vessel. On the fourth day out the fog
lifted for a brief time, and Cape Bauld the northeasterly point of
Newfoundland Island, showed his grim old head, as if to bid them
goodbye and to wish them good luck "down on The Labrador." Then they
were again swallowed by the fog and plunged into the rough seas where
the Straits of Belle Isle meet the wide ocean.
No more land was seen, as they ploughed northward through the fog,
until August 4th. This was a Thursday. Like the lifting of a curtain
on a stage the fog, all at once, melted away, to reveal a scene of
marvellous though rugged beauty. As though touched by a hand of magic,
the atmosphere, for so many days dank and thick, suddenly became
brilliantly clear and transparent, and the sun shone bright and warm.
Off the port bow lay The Labrador, the great silent peninsula of the
north. Doctor Grenfell turned to it with a thrill. Here was the land
he had come so far to see! Here he would find the people to whom he
was to devote his life work!
There before him lay her scattered islands, her grim and rocky
headlands and beetling cliffs, and beyond the islands, rolling away
into illimitable blue distances her seared hills and the vast unknown
region of her interior, whose mysterious secrets she had kept locked
within her heart through all time. Back there, hidden from the world,
were numberless lakes and rivers and mountains that no white man had
ever seen.
[Illustration: "SAILS NORTH TO REMAIN UNTIL THE END OF SUMMER CATCHING
COD"]
The sea rose and fell in a lazy swell. Not far away a school of whales
were playing, now and again spouting geysers of water high into the
air. Shoals of caplin[A] gave silver flashes upon the surface of the
sea where thousands of the little fish crowded one another to the
surface of the water. Countless birds and sea fowl hovered before the
face of the cliffs and above the placid sea.
A half hundred icebergs, children of age-old glaciers of the far
North, were scattered over the green-blue waters. Some of them were of
gigantic proportions and strange outlines. There were hills with lofty
summits, marvellous castles, turreted and towered, and majestic
cathedrals, their icy pinnacles and spires reaching high above the
top-masts of the ship and their polished adamantine surfaces sparkling
in the brilliant sunshine and scintillating fire and colour with the
wondrous iridescent beauty of mammoth opals.
"There's Domino Run," said the pilot.
"Domino Run? What is that?"
"'Tis a fine deep run behind the islands," explained the pilot. "All
the fleets of schooners cruisin' north and south go through Domino
Run. There's a fine tidy harbor in there, and we'd be findin' some
schooners anchored there now."
"We'll go in and see."
"I think 'twould be well and meet some of the fleet. There's liviyeres
in there too. There's some liviyeres handy to most of the harbors on
the coast."
"Liveyeres? What are liveyeres?"
"They're the folk that live on the coast all the time,--the whites and
half-breeds. Newfoundlanders only come to fish in summer, but
liveyeres stay the winter. The shop keepers we calls planters. They're
set up by traders that has fishin' places. The liveyeres has their
homes up the heads of bays in winter, and when the ice fastens over
they trap fur. In the summer they come out to the islands to fish."
Doctor Grenfell had heard all this before, but now as he looked at the
dreary desolation of the rocks it seemed almost incredible that
children could be born and grow to manhood and womanhood and live
their lives here, forever fighting for mere existence, and die at last
without ever once knowing the comforts that we who live in kindlier
warmer lands enjoy.
Presently a beautiful and splendid harbor opened before the _Albert_.
Several schooners were lying at anchor within the harbor's shelter,
and the strange new ship created a vast sensation as she hove to and
dropped her anchor among them, and hoisted the blue flag of the Deep
Sea Mission.
From masthead after masthead rose flags of greeting. It was a glorious
welcome for any visitor to receive. A warmer or more cordial greeting
could scarcely have been offered the Governor General himself. It was
given with the fine hearty fervour and characteristic hospitality of
the Newfoundland fishermen and seamen.
The _Albert's_ anchor chains had scarce ceased to rattle before boats
were pulling toward her from every vessel in the harbor. Ships enough
sailed down the coast, to be sure, but if they were not fishing
vessels they were traders looking to barter for fish, bearing sharp
men who drove hard bargains with the fishermen, as we shall see. But
here was a different vessel from any of them. Everybody knew that
_this_ was not a fisherman, and that she was _not_ a trader. What
_was_ her business? What had she come for? What did her blue flag
mean? These were questions to which everybody must needs find the
answer for himself.
Great was their joy when it was learned that the _Albert_ was a
hospital ship with a real doctor aboard come to care for and heal
their sick and injured, and that the doctor made no charge for his
services or his medicine. This was a big point that went to their
hearts, for there was scarce a man among them with any money in his
pocket, and if Doctor Grenfell had charged them money they could not
have called upon him to help them, for they could not have paid him.
But here he was ready to serve them without money and without price.
The richest, who were poor enough, and the poorest, could alike have
his care and medicine. Here, indeed, was cause to wonder and rejoice.
Many of the fishermen took their families with them to live in little
huts at the fishing places during the summer, and to help them prepare
the fish for market. Forty or fifty men, women and children were
packed, like figs in a box, on some of the schooners, with no other
sleeping place than under the deck, on top of the cargo of provisions
and salt in the hold, wherever they could find a place big enough to
squeeze and stow themselves. Under such conditions there were ailing
people enough on the schooners who needed a doctor's care.
The mail boat from St. Johns came once a fortnight, to be sure, and
she had a doctor aboard her. But he could only see for a moment the
more serious cases, and not all of them, hurriedly leave some medicine
and go, and then he would not return to see them again in another two
weeks. The mail boat had a schedule to make, and the time given her
for the voyage between St. Johns and The Labrador was all too short,
and she never reached the northernmost coast.
There were calls enough from the very beginning to keep Doctor
Grenfell busy with the sick folk of the schooners. All that day the
people came, and it was late that evening when the sick on the
schooners had been cared for and the last of the visitors had
departed.
Thus, on that first day in this new land, in the Harbor of Domino Run,
Doctor Grenfell's life work among the deep sea fishermen of The
Labrador began in earnest.
But even yet Doctor Grenfell's day's work was not to end. He was to
witness a scene that would sicken his heart and excite his deepest
pity. An experience awaited him that was to guide him to new and
greater plans and to bigger things than he had yet dreamed of.
For a long while a rickety old rowboat had been lying off from the
_Albert_. A bronzed and bearded man sat alone in the boat, eyeing the
strange vessel as though afraid to approach nearer. He was thin and
gaunt. The evening was chilly, but he was poorly clad, and his
clothing was as ragged and as tattered as his old boat.
Finally, as though fearing to intrude, and not sure of his reception,
he hailed the _Albert_.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] A small fish about the size of a smelt.
V
THE RAGGED MAN IN THE RICKETY BOAT
Grenfell, who had been standing at the rail for some time watching the
decrepid old boat and its strange occupant, answered the hail
cheerily.
"Be there a doctor aboard, sir?" asked the man.
"Yes," answered Grenfell. "I'm a doctor."
"Us were hearin' now they's a doctor on your vessel," said the man
with satisfaction. "Be you a _real_ doctor, sir?"
"Yes," assured the Doctor. "I hope I am."
"They's a man ashore that's wonderful bad off, but us hasn't no
money," suggested the man, adding expectantly, "You couldn't come to
doctor he now could you, sir?"
"Certainly I will," assured the Doctor. "What's the matter with the
man? Do you know?"
"He have a distemper in his chest, sir, and a wonderful bad cough,"
explained the man.
"All right," said the Doctor. "I'll go at once. How far is it?"
"Right handy, sir," said the man with evident relief.
"Pull alongside and I'll be with you in a jiffy," and the Doctor
hurried below for his medicine case.
The man was alongside waiting for him when he returned a few moments
later, and he stepped into the rickety old boat. As the liveyere rowed
away Grenfell may have thought of his own famous flat-boat that sank
with him and his brother in the estuary below Parkgate years before
when they were left to swim for it. But in his mental comparison it is
probable that the flat-boat, even in her oldest and most decrepid
days, would have passed for a rather fine and seaworthy craft in
contrast to this rickety old rowboat. The boat kept afloat, however,
and presently the liveyere pulled it alongside the gray rock that
served for a landing. They stepped out and the guide led the way up
the rocks to a lonely and miserable little sod hut. At the door he
halted.
"Here we is, sir," he announced. "Step right in. They'll be wonderful
glad to see you, sir."
Grenfell entered. Within was a room perhaps twelve by fourteen feet in
size. A single small window of pieces of glass patched together was
designed to admit light and at the same time to exclude God's good
fresh air. The floor was of earth, partially paved with small round
stones. Built against the walls were six berths, fashioned after the
model of ship's berths, three lower and three upper ones. A broken old
stove, with its pipe extending through the roof into a mud protection
rising upon the peak outside in lieu of a chimney, made a smoky
attempt to heat the place. The lower berths and floor served as seats.
There was no furniture.
The walls of the hut were damp. The atmosphere was dank and
unwholesome and heavy with the ill-smelling odor of stale seal oil and
fish. The place was dirty and as unsanitary and unhealthful as any
human habitation could well be.
Six ragged, half-starved little children huddled timidly into a corner
upon the entrance of the visitor from the ship and gazed at the Doctor
with wide-open frightened eyes. In one of the lower bunks lay the sick
man coughing himself to death. At his side a gaunt woman, miserably
and scantily clothed, was offering him water in a spoon.
It was evident to the trained eye of the Doctor that the man was
fatally ill and could live but a short time. He was a hopeless
consumptive, and a hasty examination revealed the fact that he was
also suffering from a severe attack of pneumonia.
Doctor Grenfell's big sympathetic heart went out to the poor sufferer
and his destitute family. What could he do? How could he help the man
in such a place? He might remove him to one of the clean, white
hospital cots on the _Albert_, but it would scarcely serve to make
easier the impending death, and the exposure and effort of the
transfer might even hasten it. Then, too, the wife and children would
be denied the satisfaction of the last moments with the departing
soul of the husband and father, for the _Albert_ was to sail at once.
The summer was short, and up and down the coast many others were in
sore need of the Doctor's care, and delay might cost some of them
their lives.
Grenfell sat silently for several minutes observing his patient and
asking himself the question: "What can I do for this poor man?" If
there had only been a doctor that the man could have called a few days
earlier his life, at least might have been prolonged.
There was but one answer to the question. There was nothing to do but
leave medicine and give advice and directions for the man's care, and
to supply the ill-nourished family much-needed food and perhaps some
warmer clothing.
If there were only a hospital on the coast where such cases could be
taken and properly treated! If there were only some place where
fatherless and orphaned children could be cared for! These were some
of the thoughts that crowded upon Doctor Grenfell as he left the hut
that evening and was rowed back to the _Albert_. And in the weeks that
followed his mind was filled with plans, for never did the picture of
the dying man and helpless little ones fade as he saw it that first
day in Domino Run.
Another call to go ashore came that evening, and the Doctor answered
it promptly. Again he was guided to a little mud hut, but this had an
advantage over the other in that it was well ventilated. The one
window which it boasted was an open hole in the side wall with no
glass or other covering to exclude the fresh air. There was no stove,
and an open fire on the earthen floor supplied warmth, while a large
opening in the roof, for there was no chimney, offered an escape for
the smoke, an offer of which the smoke did not freely take advantage.
On a wooden bench in a corner of the room a man sat doubled up with
pain. Here too was a family consisting of the man's wife and several
children.
"What's the trouble?" asked the Doctor.
"I'm wonderful bad with a distemper in my insides, sir," answered the
man with a groan.
"Been ill long?"
"Aye, sir, for three weeks."
"We'll see what can be done."
"Thank you, sir."
"We'll patch you up and make you as well as ever in a little while,"
assured the Doctor after a thorough examination, for this proved to be
a curable case.
"That'll be fine, sir."
Medicine was provided, with directions for taking, and, as the Doctor
had promised, and as he later learned, the man soon recovered his
health and returned to his fishing.
The _Albert_ sailed north. Into every little harbor and settlement
she dropped her anchor for a visit. She called at the trading posts of
the old Hudson's Bay Company at Cartwright, Rigolet and Davis Inlet
and the Moravian Missions among the Eskimos in the North. She was
welcomed everywhere, and everywhere Doctor Grenfell found so many sick
or injured people that the whole summer long he was kept constantly
busy.
The waters of this coast were unknown to him. He knew nothing of their
tides or reefs or currents. But with confidence in himself and a
courage that was well-nigh reckless, he sought out the people of every
little harbor that he might give them the help that he had come to
give. If there was too great a hazard for the schooner, he used a
whale-boat. Once this whale-boat was blown out to sea, once it was
driven upon the rocks, once it capsized with all on board, and before
the summer ended it became a complete wreck.
Nine hundred cases were treated, some trivial though perhaps painful
enough maladies, others most serious or even hopeless. Here was a
tooth to be extracted, there a limb to be amputated,--cases of all
kinds and descriptions, with never a doctor to whom the people could
turn for relief until Doctor Grenfell providentially appeared.
With all the work, the voyage was one of pleasure. Not only the
pleasure of making others happier,--the greatest pleasure any one can
know,--but it was a rattling fine adventure finding the way among
islands that had never appeared on any map and were still unnamed. It
was fine fun, too, cruising deep and magnificent fjords past lofty
towering cliffs, and exploring new channels. And there were the
Eskimos and their great wolfish dogs, and their primitive manner of
living and dressing. It was all interesting and fascinating.
Never, however, since that August night in Domino Run, had the little
mud hut, the dying man, the grief-stricken, miserable mother, and the
neglected and starving little ones been out of Doctor Grenfell's
thoughts, and often enough his big heart had ached for the stricken
ones. He had never before witnessed such awful depths of poverty.
In other harbors that he had visited in his northern voyage similar
heartrending cases had, to be sure, fallen under his attention. In one
harbor he found a poor Eskimo both of whose hands had been blown off
by the premature discharge of a gun. For days and days the man had
endured indescribable agony. Nothing had been done for him, save to
bathe the stubs of his shattered arms in cold water, until Doctor
Grenfell appeared, for there was no surgeon to call upon to relieve
the sufferer.
Everywhere there was a mute cry for help. The people were in need of
doctors and hospitals. They were in need of hospital ships to cruise
the coast and visit the sick of the harbors. They were in need of
clothing that they were unable to purchase for themselves. They were
in great need of some one to devise a way that would help them to free
themselves from the ancient truck system that kept them forever
hopelessly in debt to the traders.
The case of the man in the little mud hut at Domino Run, however,
first suggested to Grenfell the need of these things and the thought
that he might do something to bring them about. As a result of this
visit, he made, during his northward cruise, a most thorough
investigation of the requirements of the coast.
It was early October, and snow covered the ground, when the _Albert_,
sailing south, again entered Domino Run and anchored in the harbor.
Grenfell was put ashore and walked up the trail to the hut. The man
had long since died and been laid to rest. The wife and children were
still there. They had no provisions for the winter, and Grenfell, we
may be sure, did all in his power to help them and make them more
comfortable.
His plans had crystalized. He had determined upon the course he should
take. He would go back to England and exert himself to the utmost to
raise funds to build hospitals and to provide additional doctors and
nurses for The Labrador. He would return to Labrador himself and give
his life and strength and the best that was in him for the rest of his
days in an attempt to make these people happier. Grenfell the athlete,
the football player, the naturalist, and, above all, the doctor, was
ready to answer the human call and to sacrifice his own comfort and
ease and worldly possessions to the needs of these people. The man
that will freely give his life to relieve the suffering of others
represents the highest type of manhood. It is divine. It was
characteristic of Grenfell.
And so it came about that the ragged man in the rickety boat who led
Doctor Grenfell to the dying man in the mud hut was the indirect means
of bringing hospitals and stores and many fine things to The Labrador
that the coast had never known before. The ragged man in going for the
doctor was simply doing a kindly act, a good turn for a needy
neighbor. What magnificent results may come from one little act of
kindness! This one laid the foundation for a work whose fame has
encircled the world.
VI
OVERBOARD!
When Grenfell set out to do a thing he did it. He never in all his
life said, "I will if I can." His motto has always been, "I _can_ if I
will." He had determined to plant hospitals on the Labrador coast and
to send doctors and nurses there to help the people. When he
determined to do a thing there was an end of it. It would be done. A
great many people plan to do things, but when they find it is hard to
carry out their plans, they give them up. They forget that anything
that is worth having is hard to get. If diamonds were as easy to find
as pebbles they would be worth no more than pebbles.
That was a hard job that Grenfell had set himself, and he knew it.
When you have a hard job to do, the best way is to go at it just as
soon as ever you can and work at it as hard as ever you can until it
is done. That was Grenfell's way, and as soon as he reached St. Johns
he began to start things moving. Someone else might have waited to
return to England to make a formal report to the Deep Sea Missions
Board, and await the Board's approval. Not so with Grenfell. He knew
the Board would approve, and time was valuable.
Down on The Labrador winter begins in earnest in October. Already the
fishing fleets had returned from Labrador when the _Albert_ reached
St. Johns, and the fishermen had brought with them the news of the
_Albert_'s visit to The Labrador and the wonderful things Doctor
Grenfell had done in the course of his summer's cruise. Praise of his
magnificent work was on everybody's lips. The newspapers, always
hungry for startling news, had published articles about it. Doctor
Grenfell was hailed as a benefactor. All creeds and classes welcomed
and praised him,--fishermen, merchants, politicians. Even the
dignified Board of Trade had recorded its praise.
It was November when Grenfell arrived in St. Johns. He immediately
waited upon the government officials with the result that His
Excellency, the Governor of the Colony, at once called a meeting in
the Government House that Grenfell might present his plans for the
future to the people. All the great men of the Colony were there. They
listened with interest and were moved with enthusiasm. Some fine
things were said, and then with the unanimous vote of the meeting
resolutions were passed in commendation of Doctor Grenfell's summer's
work and expressing the desire that it might continue and grow in
accordance with Doctor Grenfell's plans. The resolutions finally
pledged the "co-operation of all classes of this community." Here was
an assurance that the whole of the fine old Colony was behind him, and
it made Grenfell happy.
But this was not all. It is not the way of Newfoundland people to hold
meetings and say fine things and pass high-sounding resolutions and
then let the whole matter drop as though they felt they had done their
duty. Doctor Grenfell would need something more than fine words and
pats on the back if he were to put his plans through successfully,
though the fine words helped, too, with their encouragement. He would
need the help of men of responsibility who would work with him, and
His Excellency, the Governor, recognizing this fact, appointed a
committee composed of some of Newfoundland's best men for this
purpose.
Then it was that Mr. W. Baine Grieve arose and began to speak. Mr.
Grieve was a famous merchant of the Colony, and a member of the firm
of Baine Johnston and Company, who owned a large trading station and
stores at Battle Harbor, on an island near Cape Charles, at the
southeastern extremity of Labrador. He was a man of importance in St.
Johns and a leader in the Colony. As he spoke Grenfell suddenly
realized that Mr. Grieve was presenting the Mission with a building at
Battle Harbor which was to be fitted as a hospital and made ready for
use the following summer.
What a thrill must have come to Grenfell at that moment! The whole
Newfoundland government was behind him! His first hospital was already
assured! We can easily imagine that he was fairly overwhelmed and
dazed with the success that he had met so suddenly and unexpectedly.