was evident the man's crew had no mind to fight for him, they knew he
was guilty. The man was praying, perhaps to soften the Doctor's
heart.
[Illustration: "I HAVE A CREW STRONG ENOUGH TO TAKE YOU INTO MY
DISTRICT"]
"Prayer is a good thing in its place," said the Doctor, "but it
doesn't 'go' here. Come with me."
The man, like a whipped dog, went with the Doctor. Entering the
meeting room, he stood before the waiting congregation and made a
complete confession.
"You deserve the punishment of man and God?" asked the Doctor.
"I do," said the man, no longer defiant.
The Doctor told him that God would forgive him if he truly repented,
but that the people, being human, could not, for he had wronged them
sorely. Then he charged the people that for a whole year none of them
should speak or deal with that man; but if he made an honest effort to
mend his way, they could feel free to talk with him and deal with him
again at the end of the year.
"This relentless judge," says Norman Duncan, "on a stormy July day
carried many bundles ashore at Cartwright, in Sandwich Bay of the
Labrador. The wife of the Hudson's Bay Company's agent examined them
with delight. They were Christmas gifts from the children of the
"States" to the lads and little maids of that coast. The Doctor never
forgets the Christmas gifts." The wife of the agent stowed away the
gifts to distribute them at next Christmas time.
"It makes them _very_ happy," said the agent's wife.
"Not long ago," said Duncan, "I saw a little girl with a stick of
wood for a dolly. Are they not afraid to play with these pretty
things?"
"Sometimes," she laughed, "but it makes them happy just to look at
them. But they do play with them. There is a little girl up the bay
who _has kissed the paint off her dolly_!"
And so even the tiniest, most forlorn little lad or lass is not
forgotten by Doctor Grenfell. He is the Santa Claus of the coast. He
never forgets. Nothing, if it will bring joy into the life of any one,
is too big or too small for his attention.
Can we wonder that Grenfell is happy in his work? Can we wonder that
nothing in the world could induce him to leave the Labrador for a life
of ease? Battling, year in and year out, with stormy seas in summer,
and ice and snow and arctic blizzards in winter, the joy of life is in
him. Every day has a thrill for him. Here in this rugged land of
endeavor he has for thirty years been healing the sick and saving
life, easing pain, restoring cripples to strength, feeding and
clothing and housing the poor, and putting upon their feet with useful
work unfortunate men that they might look the world in the face
bravely and independently.
There is no happiness in the world so keen as the happiness that comes
through making others happy. This is what Doctor Grenfell is doing. He
is giving his life to others, and he is getting no end of joy out of
life himself. The life he leads possesses for him no element of
self-denial, after all, and he never looks upon it as a life of
hardship. He loves the adventure of it, and by straight, clean living
he has prepared himself, physically and mentally, to meet the storms
and cold and privations with no great sense of discomfort.
Wilfred Thomason Grenfell is the same sportsman, as, when a lad, he
roamed the Sands o' Dee; the same lover of fun that he was when he
went to Marlborough College; the same athlete that made the football
team and rowed with the winning crew when a student in the
University--sympathetic, courageous, tireless, a doer among men and
above all, a Christian gentleman.
* * * * *
_Printed in the United States of America_
* * * * *
Obvious typos fixed:
"book" for "look", page 132
"alseep" for "asleep", page 195 (twice)
"hundrel" for "hundred", page 214
"seaprated" for "separated", page 216
"Malcom's" for "Malcolm's", page 228 (twice)
"bad" for "bade", page 156
"Trezize" for "Trevize", page 38
* * * * *