laughter and his smiling face. Doctor Grenfell missed him sorely. He
could not forget the suffering, naked little boy that he had rescued
from the rocks of Nachvak Bay, and he decided that some provision
should be made to care for the other orphaned, homeless, neglected
children of Labrador. In some way, he decided, the funds for such a
home had to be found, though he had no means then at his disposal for
the purpose. He further decided that the home must not be an
institution merely but a real home made pleasant for the boys and
girls, where they would have motherly care and sympathy, and where
they should have a school to go to like the children of our own
favoured land.
With cheerful optimism and heroic determination Doctor Grenfell set
for himself the task of establishing such a home. And in the end great
things grew out of the suffering and death of Gabriel Pomiuk. The
splendid courage and cheerfulness of the little Eskimo lad was to
result in happiness for many other little sufferers. Now, as always it
was, with Doctor Grenfell, "I can if I will,"--none of the uncertainty
of, "I will if I can." He pitched into the work of raising money to
build that children's home. He lectured, and wrote, and talked about
it in his usual enthusiastic way, and money began to come to him from
good people all over the world. At length enough was raised and the
home was built.
He had already picked up and taken into his mission family so many
boys and girls, orphans or otherwise, that were without home or
shelter, and that he could not leave behind him to suffer and die,
that he had nearly enough on his hands to populate the new building
before it was ready for them. Indeed he soon found himself almost in
the position of the "old woman that lived in a shoe," and "had so
many children she didn't know what to do." His big kind fatherly heart
would never permit him to abandon a homeless child, and so he took
them under his care, and somehow always managed to provide for them.
It was about the time of Pomiuk's death, I believe, that the first of
these children came to him. One day, when cruising north in the
_Strathcona_, he was told that a family living in an isolated and
lonely spot on the Labrador coast required the attention of a doctor.
He answered the call at once.
When he approached the bleak headland where the cabin stood, and his
vessel hove her anchor, he was quite astonished that no one came out
of the cabin to offer welcome, as is the custom with Labradormen
everywhere when vessels anchor near their homes. He and his mate were
put ashore in a boat, and as they walked up the trail to the cabin
still no one appeared and no smoke issued from the stovepipe, which,
rising through the roof, served as a chimney. When he lifted the latch
he was quite decided no one, after all, was at home.
Upon entering the cabin a shocking scene presented itself. The mother
of the family lay upon the bed with wide-open stare. Doctor Grenfell's
practiced eye told him she was dead. The father, a Scotch fisherman
and trapper, was stretched upon the floor, helplessly ill, and a hasty
examination proved that he was dying. Five frightened, hungry, cold
little children were huddled in a corner.
That night the father died, though every effort was made to revive him
and save his life. Grenfell and his crew gave the man and woman as
decent a Christian burial as the wilderness and conditions would
permit, and when all was over the Doctor found five small children on
his hands.
An uncle of the children lived upon the coast and this uncle
volunteered to take one of them into his home. The other four Doctor
Grenfell carried south on the hospital ship. There was no proper
provision for their care at St. Anthony, his headquarters hospital,
and he advertised in a New England paper for homes for them. One
response was received, and this from the wife of a New England farmer,
offering to provide for two. The Doctor sent two to the farm, the
other two remaining at St. Anthony hospital.
The next child to come to him was a baby of three years. The child's
father had died and the mother married a widower with a large family
of his own. He was a hard-hearted rascal, and the mother was a selfish
woman with small love for her baby. The man declined to permit her to
take it into his home and she left it in a mud hut, a cellar-like
place, with no other floor than the earth. A kind-hearted woman, who
lived near by, ran in now and again to see the baby and to take it
scraps of food and give it some care. She could not adopt it, for she
and her husband were scarce able to feed the many mouths in their own
family.
So alone this tiny little girl of three lived in the mud hut through
the long days and the longer and darker nights. There was no mother's
knee at which to kneel; no one to teach her to lisp her first prayer;
no one to tuck her snugly into a little white bed; no one to kiss her
before she slept. O, how lonely she must have been! Think of those
chilly Labrador nights, when she huddled down on the floor in the
ragged blanket that was her bed! How many nights she must have cried
herself to sleep with loneliness and fear!
Here, in the mud hut, Doctor Grenfell found her one day. She was
sitting on the earthen floor, talking to herself and playing with a
bit of broken crockery, her only toy. He gathered her into his big
strong arms and I have no doubt that tears filled his eyes as he
looked into her innocent little face and carried her down to his boat.
In a locker on his ship, the _Strathcona_, there were neat little
clothes that thoughtful children in our own country had sent him to
give to the destitute little ones of Labrador. He turned the baby girl
over to his big mate, who had babies of his own at home. The mate
stroked her tangled hair with a brawney hand, and talked baby talk to
her, and as she snuggled close in his fatherly arms, he carried her
below decks. The baby's mother would not have known her little
daughter if, two hours later, she had gone aboard the _Strathcona_ and
heard the peals of laughter and seen the happy little thing, bathed,
dressed in neat clean clothes, and well fed, playing on deck with a
pretty doll that Doctor Grenfell had somewhere found.
It was on his last cruise south late one fall, and not long before
navigation closed, that Doctor Grenfell learned that a family of
liveyeres encamped on one of the coastal islands was in a destitute
condition, without food and practically unsheltered and unclothed.
He went immediately in search, steaming nearly around the island, and
discerning no sign of life he had decided that the people had gone,
when a little curl of smoke rising from the center of the island
caught his eye. He at once brought his vessel to, let go the anchor,
lowered away a boat and accompanied by his mate pulled ashore. Making
the boat fast the two men scrambled up the rocks and set out in the
direction from which they had seen the smoke rise.
Near the center of the island they suddenly brought up before a cliff,
against which, supported by poles, was stretched a sheet of old
canvas, pieced out by bits of matting and bagging, to form the roof of
a lean-to shelter. In front of the lean-to a fire burned, and under
the shelter by the fire sat a scantily clad, bedraggled woman. In her
arms she held a bundle of rags, which proved to envelop a tiny new
born baby, nursing at her breast.
A little girl of five, barefooted and ragged, slunk timidly back as
the strangers approached. The woman grunted a greeting, but did not
rise.
"Where is your man?" asked Doctor Grenfell.
"He's right handy, huntin' gulls," she answered.
Upon inquiry it was learned that there were three boys in the family
and that they were also "somewheres handy about." A search discovered
two of them, lads of seven and eight, practically naked, but tough as
little bears, feeding upon wild berries. Their bodies were tanned
brown by sun and wind, and streaked and splotched with the blue and
red stain of berry juice. They were jabbering contentedly and both
were as plump and happy in their foraging as a pair of young cubs.
Snow had begun to fall before Doctor Grenfell followed by the two lads
returned to the fire at the cliff, soon to be joined by the boys'
father, tall, gaunt and bearded. His hair, untrimmed for many weeks,
was long and snarled. He was nearly barefooted and his clothing hung
in tatters. In one hand he carried a rusty old trade gun, (a
single-barreled, old-fashioned muzzle loading shotgun), in the other
he clutched by its wing a gull that he had recently shot. Following
the father came an older lad, perhaps fourteen years of age, little
better clothed than his two brothers and as wild and unkempt in
appearance as the father.
"Evenin'," greeted the man, as he leaned his gun against the cliff and
dropped the gull by its side.
It was cold. The now thickly falling snow spoke loudly of the Arctic
winter so near at hand. The liveyere and his family, however, seemed
not to feel or mind the chill in the least, and apparently gave no
more thought to the morrow or the coming winter, upon whose frigid
threshold they stood, than did the white-winged gulls flying low over
the water.
Fresh wood was placed upon the fire, and Grenfell and the mate joined
the family circle around the blaze.
"Do you kill much game here on the island?" asked Doctor Grenfell.
"One gull is all I gets today," announced the man. "They bides too far
out. I has no shot. I uses pebbles for shot, and 'tis hard to hit un
with pebbles. 'Tis wonderful hard to knock un down with no shot."
"What have you to eat?" inquired the Doctor. "Have you any provisions
on hand?"
"All us has is the gull," the man glanced toward the limp bird. "We
eats berries."
"'Tis the Gover'me't's place to give us things," broke in the woman in
a high key. "The Gov'me't don't give us no flour and nothin'."
"It's snowing and the berries will soon be covered," suggested
Grenfell. "You can't live without something to eat and now winter is
coming you'll need a house to live in. You haven't even a tent."
"Us would make out and the Gover'me't gave us a bit o' flour and tea
and some clodin' (clothing)," harped the woman. "The Gover'me't don't
give un to us. The Gover'me't folks don't care what becomes o' we."
"How are you going to take care of these children this winter?" asked
Grenfell. "You can't feed them and without clothing they'll freeze.
Let us take them with us. We'll give them plenty to eat and clothe
them well."
"Don't be sayin' now you'll let un go!" broke in the mother in a high
voice, turning to the man, who stood mute. "Don't be givin' away your
own flesh and blood now! Don't let un go."
"You can't keep yourselves and these children alive through the
winter. Some of you will starve or freeze," persisted Grenfell.
"Suppose you let us have the two young lads and the little maid. We'll
take good care of them and we'll give you some clothing we have aboard
the vessel, and some flour and tea to start you."
"And a bit o' shot for my gun?" asked the man, showing interest.
"Don't be givin' away your own flesh and blood!" interjected the woman
in the same high key. "'Tis the Gov'me't's place to be givin' us what
we needs, clodin' and grub too."
"I'll let you have one o' th' lads and you lets me have a bit o'
shot," the man compromised.
The sympathetic mate, with no intention of giving the man an
opportunity to change his mind, seized the naked boy nearest him,
tucked the lad, kicking and struggling, under one arm, and started for
the boat, but upon Doctor Grenfell's suggestion waited, with the lad
still under his arm, for developments.
In the beginning, to be sure, Doctor Grenfell had intended to issue
supplies to the man, whether or no. But no matter how much or what
supplies were issued there was no doubt these people would be reduced
to severe suffering before summer came again. He wished to save the
children from want, and to give them a chance to make good in the
world as he believed they would with opportunity.
The oldest boy could be of assistance to his father in the winter
hunting, and he could scarce expect the mother to give up her new-born
baby. Therefore negotiations were confined to a view of securing the
two small boys and the little girl.
Presently, in spite of violent protests from the mother, the father
was moved, by promises of additional supplies, to consent to Grenfell
taking the other boy. And immediately the man had said, "Take un
both," the mate seized the second lad and with a youngster struggling
under each arm, and with four bare legs kicking in a wild but vain
effort for freedom and two pairs of lusty young lungs howling
rebellion, he strode exultantly away through the falling snow to the
boat with his captives.
No arguments and no amount of promised stores could move the father
to open his mouth again, and Grenfell was finally compelled to be
content with the two boys and to leave the little girl behind him to
face the hardships and rigors of a northern winter. Poor little thing!
She did not realize the wonderful opportunity her parents had denied
her.
When negotiations were ended Doctor Grenfell arranged for the
liveyeres to occupy a comfortable cabin on the mainland. He conspired
with the agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, with the result that they
were properly clothed and provisioned, a better gun was found for the
man and an ample supply of ammunition.
Hundreds of stories might be told of the destitute little ones that
have been, since the day he found Pomiuk on the rocks of Nochvak,
gathered together by Doctor Grenfell and tenderly cared for in the
Children's Home that was built at St. Anthony. There was a little girl
whose feet were so badly frozen that her father had to chop them both
off with an ax to save her life, and who Doctor Grenfell found
helpless in the poor little cabin where her people lived. I wish there
was time and room to tell about her. He took her away with him, and
healed her wounds, and fitted cork feet to her stumps of legs so that
she could go to school and run around and play with the other
children. Indeed, she learned to use her new feet so well that today,
if you saw her you would never guess that her feet were not her real
ones.
And there was a little boy whose father was frozen to death at his
trapping one winter, a bright little chap now in the home and going to
school.
These are but a few of the many, many children that have been made
happy and have been trained at the Home and under Doctor Grenfell's
care to useful lives. Some of them have worked their way through
college. Some of the boys served in the Great War at the front. Many
are holding positions of importance. Let us see, however, what became
of those particular ones, mentioned in this chapter.
One of the Scotch trapper's daughters found by Doctor Grenfell in the
lonely cabin when her mother lay dead and her father dying is a
trained nurse. The others are also in responsible positions.
The baby of the mud hut is a charming young lady, a graduate of a
school in the United States, and the successful member of a useful
profession.
Both of the little naked boys taken from the island that snowy day are
grown men now, and graduates of the famous Pratt Institute in
Brooklyn, New York. One is a master carpenter, the other the manager
of a big trading store on the Labrador coast.
Now, as I write, in the fall of 1921, the walls of a new fine concrete
home for the children are under construction at St. Anthony, to be
used in conjunction with the original wooden building which is crowded
to capacity. Children of the United States, Canada, and Great Britain
giving of their pennies made the new building possible. More money is
needed to furnish it, but enough will surely be given for the homeless
little ones of the Labrador must be cared for.
And so, in the end, great things grew out of the suffering and death
of Gabriel Pomiuk, the little Eskimo lad. His splendid courage and
cheerfulness has led to happiness for many other little sufferers.
XVII
THE DOGS OF THE ICE TRAIL
One of the most interesting features of Labrador life in winter is dog
travel. The dogs are interesting the year round, for they are always
in evidence winter and summer, but in the fall when the sea freezes
and snow comes, they take a most important place in the life of the
people of the coast. They are the horses and automobiles and
locomotives of the country. No one can travel far without them.
The true Eskimo dog of Labrador, the "husky," as he is called, is the
direct descendant of the great Labrador wolf. The Labrador wolf is the
biggest and fiercest wolf on the North American continent, and the
Eskimo dog of northern Labrador, his brother, is the biggest and
finest sledge dog to be found anywhere in the world. He is larger and
more capable than the Greenland species of which so much has been
written, and he is quite superior to those at present found in Alaska.
The true husky dog of northern Labrador has the head and jawls and
upstanding ears of the wild wolf. He has the same powerful shoulders,
thick forelegs, and bristling mane. He does not bark like other dogs,
but has the characteristic howl of the wolf. There is apparently but
one difference between him and the wild wolf, and this comes,
possibly, through domestication. He curls his tail over his back,
while the wolf does not. Even this distinction does not always hold,
for I have seen and used dogs that did not curl their tail. These big
fellows often weigh a full hundred pounds and more.
Indeed these northern huskies and the wild wolves mix together
sometimes to fight, and sometimes in good fellowship. Once I had a
wolf follow my komatik for two days, and at night when we stopped and
turned our dogs loose the wolf joined them and staid the night with
them only to slink out of rifle shot with the coming of dawn.
One of my friends, an agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, was once
traveling with a native Labradorman driver along the Labrador coast,
when his train of eight big huskies, suddenly becoming excited, gave
an extra strain on their traces and snapped the "bridle," the long
walrus hide thong that connects the traces with the komatik. Away the
dogs ran, heading over a low hill, apparently in pursuit of some game
they had scented.
[Illustration: "PLEASE LOOK AT MY TONGUE, DOCTOR!"]
[Illustration: "NEXT!"]
My friend, on snowshoes, ran in pursuit, while the driver made a
circuit around the hill in the hope of heading the dogs off. Ten
minutes later the team swung down over the hill and back to the
komatik. From a distance the men saw them and also turned back, but
to their astonishment they counted not the eight dogs that composed
their team, but thirteen. On drawing nearer they realized that five
great wolves had joined the dogs.
The men's guns were lashed on the komatik, and both were, therefore,
unarmed, and before they could reach the komatik and unlash the rifles
the wolves had fled over the hill and out of range. The dogs, however,
answered the driver's call and were captured.
One winter evening a few years ago I drove my dog team to the isolated
cabin of Tom Broomfield, a trapper of the coast, where I was to spend
the night. When our dogs were fed and we had eaten our own supper, Tom
went to a chest and drew forth a huge wolf skin, which he held up for
my inspection.
"He's a big un, now! A wonderful big un!" he commented. "Most big
enough all by hisself for a man's sleepin' bag!"
"It's a monster!" I exclaimed. "Where did you kill it?"
"Right here handy t' th' door," he grinned. "I were standin' just
outside th' door o' th' porch when I fires and knocks he over th'
first shot."
"He were here th' day before Tom kills he," interjected Tom's wife.
"He gives me a wonderful scare that wolf does. I were alone wi' th'
two young ones."
"Tell me about it," I suggested.
"'Twere this way sir," said Tom, spreading the pelt over a big chest
where we could admire it. "I were away 'tendin' fox traps, and I has
th' komatik and all th' dogs, savin' one, which I leaves behind. Th'
woman were bidin' home alone wi' th' two young ones. In th' evenin'[D]
her hears dogs a fightin' outside, and thinkin' 'tis one o' th' team
broke loose and runned home that's fightin' th' dog I leaves behind,
she starts t' go out t' beat un apart and stop th' fightin' when she
sees 'tis a wolf and no dog at all. 'Twere a wonderful big un too. He
were inside that skin you sees there, sir, and you can see for
yourself th' bigness o' he.
"Her tries t' take down th' rifle, th' one as is there on th' pegs,
sir. Th' wolf and th' dog be now fightin' agin' th' door, and th' door
is bendin' in and handy t' breakin' open. She's a bit scared, sir, and
shakin' in th' hands, and she makes a slip, and th' rifle, he goes
off, bang! and th' bullet makes that hole marrin' th' timber above th'
windy."
Tom arose and pointed out a bullet hole above the window.
"Then th' wolf, he goes off too, bein' scared at th' shootin'.
"I were home th' next day mendin' dog harness, when I hears th' dogs
fightin', and I takes a look out th' windy, and there I sees that wolf
fightin' wi' th' dogs, and right handy t' th' house. I just takes my
rifle down spry as I can, and goes out. When th' dogs sees me open th'
door they runs away and leaves th' wolf apart from un, and I ups and
knocks he over wi' a bullet, sir. I gets he fair in th' head first
shot I takes, and there be th' skin. 'Tis worth a good four dollars
too, for 'tis an extra fine one."
They are treacherous beasts, but, like the wolf, cowardly, these big
dogs of the Labrador. If a man should trip and fall among them, the
likelihood is he would be torn to pieces by their fangs before he
could help himself. You cannot make pals of them as you can of other
dogs. They would as lief snap off the hand that reared and feeds them
as not. It is never safe for a stranger to move among a pack of them
without a stick in his hand. But a threatened kick or the swing of a
menacing stick will send them off crawling and whining.
The Hudson's Bay Company once had a dozen or so of these big fellows
at Cartwright Post, in Sandwich Bay. They were exceptionally fine dogs
of the true husky breed, brought down from one of the more northerly
posts, and the agent was proud of them. This was the same agent whose
dogs ran away to chum with the wolves, and I believe these were some
of the same dogs. They were splendid animals in harness, well broken
and tireless travelers on the trail.
One evening, late in the fall, the agent's wife was standing at the
open door of the post house, and her little boy, a lad of about your
years, was playing near the doorstep.
Labrador dogs are fed but once a day, and this is always in the
evening. It was feeding time for the dogs, and a servant down at the
feed house, where the dog rations were kept, called them. With a rush
they responded. Just when some of them were passing the post house the
little boy in his play stumbled and fell. In an instant the dogs were
upon him. The mother, with rare presence of mind, sprang forward,
seized the boy, sprang back into the house and slammed the door upon
the dogs.
The boy was on the ground but a moment, but in that moment he was
horribly torn by the sharp fangs. At one place his entrails were laid
bare. There were over sixty wounds on his little body. The dogs lapped
up the blood that fell upon the ground and doorstep. That night the
pack, like a pack of hungry wolves, congregated outside the window
where they heard the child crying and moaning with pain and all night
howled as wolves howl when they have cornered prey.
The following morning it happened providentially that Doctor
Grenfell's hospital ship steamed into Cartwright Harbor and dropped
anchor. The Doctor himself was aboard. He took the boy under his
charge and the little one's life was saved through his skill.
After the attack the dogs became extremely aggressive and surly. They
were like a pack of fierce wolves. No one about the place was safe,
and the agent was compelled to shoot every animal in defense of human
life. Usually in Labrador when dogs are guilty of attacking people
they are hung by the neck to a gibbet until dead, and left hanging for
several days. I have seen dogs thus hanging after execution.
When I left Davis Inlet Post of the Hudson's Bay Company with my dog
team one cold winter morning, a native trapper told me that he would
follow later in the day and probably overtake me at the Moravian
Mission Station at Hopedale. We made half the journey to Hopedale that
night and spent the night in a native cabin. A storm was threatening
the next morning, but, nevertheless, we set forward. Shortly after
midday the storm broke with a gale of wind and driving, smothering
snow, and a temperature 30 degrees below zero. Every moment it
increased in fury, but fortunately we reached the mission station
before it had reached its worst, and here remained stormbound for two
days, during which time the trapper did not appear.