PROBLEMS ON LAND AND SEA
The year 1912 was a busy season. The New Year found us in Florida with
the donor of the ship George B. Cluett, consulting him concerning its
progress and future. Lecturing then as we went west we reached
Colorado, visited the Grand Canyon, and lectured all along the Pacific
Coast from San Diego to Victoria--finding many old friends and making
many new ones.
At Berkeley I was asked to deliver the Earle Lectures at the
University of California; and I also spoke to an immense audience in
the open Greek theatre--a most novel experience. At Santa Barbara a
special meeting had been arranged by our good friend Dr. Joseph
Andrews, who every year travels all the way from California to St.
Anthony at his own expense to afford the fishermen of our Northern
waters the inestimable benefits of his skill as a consulting eye
specialist. Many blind he has restored to sight who would otherwise be
encumbrances to themselves and others. Only last year I received the
following communication from an eager would-be patient: "Dear Dr.
Grandfield, when is the eye spider coming to St. Anthony? I needs to
see him bad."
While we were at Tacoma a visitor, saying that he was an old
acquaintance of mine, sent up his card to our room. He had driven over
in a fine motor car, and was a great, broad-shouldered man. The grip
which he gave me assured me that he had been brought up hard, but I
utterly failed to place him. With a broad grin he relieved the
situation by saying: "The last time that we met, Doctor, was on the
deck of a fishing vessel in the North Sea. I was second hand aboard,
sailing out from Grimsby." The tough surroundings of that life were
such a contrast to his present apparently ample means that I could
only say, "How on earth did you get out here?"
"A friend," said he, "gave me a little book entitled 'One Hundred Ways
to Rise in the World.' The first ninety-nine were no good to me, but
the hundredth said, 'Go to Western America,' so I just cleared out and
came here." He was exceedingly kind to us, even accompanying us to
Seattle, and his story of pluck and enterprise was a splendid
stimulus.
Six weeks of lecturing nearly every single night in a new town in
Canada gave me a real vision of Canadian Western life, and a sincere
admiration for its people who are making a nation of which the world
is proud.
In April a large meeting was held in New York to reorganize the
management of the Mission. The English Royal National Mission to
Deep-Sea Fishermen was no longer able or willing to finance, much less
to direct, affairs which had gone beyond their control, and was hoping
to arrange an organization of an international character to which all
the affairs of the enterprise could be turned over. This organization
was formed at the house of Mr. Eugene Delano, the head of Brown
Brothers, bankers, whose lifelong help has meant for Labrador more
than he will ever know.
The International Grenfell Association was incorporated to comprise
the Labrador branches of the Royal National Mission to Deep-Sea
Fishermen as its English component, the Grenfell Association of
America and the New England Grenfell Association to represent the
American interests, the Labrador Medical Mission as the Canadian name
for its Society, and the Newfoundland Grenfell Association for the
Newfoundland branch. Each one of these component societies has two
members in the Central Council, and together they make up the Board of
Directors of the International Grenfell Association. These directors
ever since have generously been giving their time and interest in the
wise and efficient administration of this work. To these unselfish men
Labrador and northern Newfoundland, as well as I, owe a greater debt
than can ever be repaid.
On the 1st of May I was due to speak at the annual meeting of the
English Mission in London, and the swift heels of the Mauretania once
more stood us in good stead; for we reached England the evening before
May 1, arrived in London at 2 A.M., and I spoke three times that day.
After a day or so at my old home with my mother we ran about in a Ford
car for a fortnight, lecturing every evening. The little motor saved
endless energy otherwise lost in endeavouring to make connections, and
gave us the opportunity to see numbers of old friends whom we must
otherwise have missed. One day we would be at a meeting of miners at
Redmuth in Cornwall, on another at Harrow or Rugby Schools. At the
latter, an old college friend, who is now head master there, gave us a
royal welcome. During the last fortnight at home a splendid chance was
afforded me to visit daily the clinics of an old friend, Sir Robert
Jones, England's famous orthopedic surgeon. He is one of the most
wonderful and practical of men, and he opened our eyes to the
possibility of medical mission work in the very heart of England--for
if ever there was an apostle of hope for the deformed and paralyzed he
certainly is the man. His Sunday morning free clinics crowded even the
street opposite his office door with waiting patients of the poorest
class. Equally beneficent also is the large and wonderful hospital
built specially for derelict children on the heather-covered hills
just above our home in Cheshire. But most unique of all was his
Basschurch Hospital, constructed mostly of sheet iron, standing in the
middle of a field in the country forty miles away from Liverpool.
Every second Sunday, Sir Robert Jones used to motor over there and
operate "in the field." No expedition have I ever enjoyed better in my
life than when he was good enough to pick us up on his way, and we saw
him tackle the motley collection of halt and lame, whom the lady of
the hospital, herself a marvellous testimony to his skill, collected
from the neighbouring town slums between his visits. The hospital was
the nearest thing I know to our little "one-horse shows" scattered
along the Labrador coast; and there was a homing feeling in one's
heart all the time at these open-air clinics.
As commander-in-chief of the orthopedic work of the British Army in
the war, I am certain that Colonel Sir Robert Jones has found the
experiences of his improvised clinics among the most valuable assets
he could have had. One day he has promised that he will bring his
magic wand to Labrador; for he is a sportsman in the best sense of the
word as well as a healer of limbs.
The quickest way back to St. John's being _via_ Canada, we returned by
the Allan Line, and lectured in the Maritime Provinces as we passed
North.
It would appear that one must possess an insatiable love of lecturing.
As a matter of fact, nothing is farther from the truth. But the
brevity of life is an insistent fact in our existence, and the
inability to do good work for lack of help that is so gladly given
when the reasonableness of the expenditure is presented, makes one
feel guilty if an evening is spent doing nothing. The lecturing is by
far the most uncongenial task which I have been called upon to do in
life, but in a mission like ours, which is not under any special
church, the funds must be raised to a very great extent by voluntary
donations, and in order to secure these friends must be kept informed
of the progress of the work which their gifts are making possible.
For the first seven years of my work I never spent the winters in the
country--nor was it my intention ever to do so. Besides the general
direction of the whole, my work as superintendent has meant the
raising of the necessary funds, and my special charge on the actual
coast has been the hospital ship Strathcona. Naturally, owing to our
frozen winter sea this is only possible during open water. Since 1902
it has been my custom when possible to spend every other winter as
well as every summer in the North. The actual work and life there is a
tremendous rest after the nervous and physical tax of a lecture tour.
At first I used to wonder at the lack of imagination in those who
would greet me, after some long, wearisome hours on the train or in a
crowded lecture hall, with "What a lovely holiday you are having!" Now
this oft-repeated comment only amuses me.
It was just after the first of June when again we found ourselves
heading North for St. Anthony, only once more to be caught in the jaws
of winter. For the heavy Arctic ice blockaded the whole of the eastern
French shore, and we had to be content to be held up in small
ice-bound harbours as we pushed along through the inner edge of the
floe, till strong westerly winds cleared the way.
Having reached St. Anthony and looked into matters there, we once
again ran south to St. John's to inspect the new venture of the
Institute. To help out expenses we towed for the whole four hundred
miles a schooner which had been wrecked on the Labrador coast, having
run on the rocks, and knocked a hole in her bottom. She had a number
of sacks of "hard bread" on board. These had been thrown into the
breach and planking nailed on over them. The bread had swelled up
between the two casings and become so hard again that the vessel
leaked but little; and though the continual dirge of the pumps was
somewhat dismal as we journeyed, we had no reason to fear that she
would go to the bottom.
Flour resists water in a marvellous way. On one occasion our own
vessel in the North Sea was run into by another. The latter's cutwater
went through her side and deck almost to the combing of the hatch, and
the water began to pour in. By immediately putting the vessel on the
other tack, the rent was largely lifted out of water. A heavy topsail
was hastily thrown over her side, and eventually hauled under the
keel--the inrushing water keeping it there. Then sacks of flour were
rammed into the breach. The ship in this condition, favoured by the
wind which enabled her to continue on that tack, reached home, two
hundred miles distant, with her hand-pumps keeping her comparatively
free, though there was the greatest difficulty to keep her afloat
directly she was towed into the harbour and lay at the wharf.
On another occasion when a Canadian steamer, loaded with provisions,
ran into a cliff two hundred feet high in a fog on the northeast end
of Belle Isle, and became a total wreck, her flour floated all up and
down the Straits. I remember picking up a sack that had certainly been
in the water some weeks; and yet only about a quarter of an inch of
outside layer was even wet.
The opening of the Institute was a great day. Dr. Henry van Dyke had
come all the way from New York to give an address. Sir William
Archibald, chairman of the Royal National Mission to Deep-Sea
Fishermen, had travelled from England to bring a blessing from the
old home country; and the merchants and friends in St. John's did
their best to make it a red-letter day. Sir Edward Morris, the Prime
Minister, and other politicians, the Mayor and civic functionaries
were all good enough to come and add their quota to the launching of
the new ship. There were still pessimistic and croaking individuals,
however, as well as joyful hearts, when a few days later we again ran
North.
We started almost immediately for our Straits trip after reaching St.
Anthony. On our way east from Harrington, our most westerly hospital,
commenced in 1907, a telegram summoning me immediately to St. John's
dropped upon me like a bolt from the blue. Without a moment's delay we
headed yet again South, full of anxiety as to what could be the cause
of this message.
On arrival there we found that trouble had arisen concerning the funds
of the Institute and a prosecution was to follow. It was the worst
time of my life. Things were readjusted; the money was refunded,
punishment meted out--but such damage is not made right by
reconstruction. It left permanent scars and made the end of an
otherwise splendid year anxious and sorrowful.
The work on East Labrador was also extended this year. While walking
down the street in New York with a young doctor friend who had once
wintered with me, we met a colleague of his at the College of
Physicians and Surgeons. In the conversation it was suggested that he
should spend a summer in Labrador, and we would place him in a virgin
field. As a result Dr. Wiltsie, now in China, came North, started in
work with a little school, club, and dispensary, at a place called
Spotted Islands, in a very barren group of islands about a hundred
miles north of the Straits of Belle Isle. His work became permanent as
the summer mission of the Y.M.C.A. of the College, which organization
now carries all its expenses. It has a dwelling-house, school,
dispensary, small operating room, and accommodation for a couple of
patients, all under one roof, and owns a fast motor boat called the P.
and S., which has made itself known as an angel of mercy, every summer
since, over a hundred miles of coast and islands. It is only a summer
work, and is mainly among a schooner population; but as a testimonial
to the value of pluck and unselfishness I know of no better example.
Among other ways to help Labrador we had always tried to induce
tourists and yachtsmen to come and visit us. Mr. Rainey's Surf, Mr.
McCready's Enchantress, Dr. Stimson's Fleur de Lys, Mr. Arthur James's
Aloha, and a few other yachts had come part of the way, but no one had
yet explored north of Hopedale--the latitude at which the fine
Northern scenery may be said only to begin. The large power vessels or
even the best type of yacht are by no means necessary for a visit to
Labrador. For the innumerable fjords and islands make it much more
interesting to be in a smaller boat, which allows one to go freely in
and out of new by-ways, even when the survey is only that of your own
making. The most sporting visits of that kind have been the honeymoon
of a Philadelphia friend, who, with his wife, one man, and a canoe,
went by river to James's Bay, then _via_ Hudson Bay to Richmond Gulf,
then by portage and river to Ungava Bay, and thence home by way of the
Hudson Bay Company's steamer; the canoe trips of Mr. Kennedy all along
the outside eastern coast, and those of Mr. William Cabot on the
section of the northeastern coast between Hopedale and Nain. In this
year of 1912 a new little yacht appeared, the Sybil, brought down from
Boston by her owner, Mr. George Williams. I had promised that if ever
he would sail down to see us in his own boat, we would escort him up
a salmon river for a fishing expedition--a luxury which we certainly
never anticipated would materialize. But on arriving North, there was
the beautiful little boat; and in it we sailed up into the fine salmon
stream in the bay close to the hospital. Subsequently Mr. Williams
came year after year, pushing farther North each time. The Sybil he
eventually gave to the Mission, and built a large boat, the Jeanette,
in which I had the pleasure later of exploring with him and roughly
charting three hitherto unrecorded bays.
One unusual feature of our magisterial work in 1912 was the settlement
of a fisherman's strike "down North." It would at first seem difficult
to understand how fishermen could engineer a strike, they are so
good-natured and so long-suffering. But this time it was over the
price of fish, naturally a matter of immense importance to the
catcher. The planters, or men who give advances to come and fish
around the mouth of Hamilton Inlet, were to ship their fish on a
steamer coming direct from England and returning direct--thus saving
delay and very great expense. But the price did not please the men,
and they knew if they once put the fish on board at $3.50 per quintal,
the amount offered, they would never recover the $5, which was the
price for which fish was selling in St. John's that year. The more
masterful men decided that not only would they not put the fish on
board till they had cash orders or Revillon agreements for their
price, but they would not allow any of the weaker brethren to do so
either. There were but few hard words and no violent deeds, but when
one blackleg was seen to go alongside the waiting steamer, which was
costing a hundred dollars a day to the fish-carrying merchant, a crowd
of boats dashed out from creeks and corners and pounced like a vulture
on the big boat, fat with a fine load of fish, and not only towed her
away and tied her up, but hauled her out of the water with the cargo
and all in her, and dragged her so far up the side of a steep hill
that the owner was utterly unable without assistance to get her down
again.
Each day we had a conference with one side or the other, the
Government having asked us to remain and see things settled. While
each side was fencing for an advantage, a good-sized schooner sailed
into the harbour, brought up alongside the steamer, and was seen to
begin unloading dry fish. A dash was made for her by the boats as
before; only this time it was the attack of Lilliputians on Gulliver.
We on the shore could not help laughing heartily when shortly we saw a
string of over a dozen fishing boats harnessed tandem in one long line
towing the interloper--as they had the blackleg--away up the inlet
where they moored and guarded her. It appeared that the buyer had sent
her to a far-off anchorage, and unknown to the strikers had had fish
put into her there. The steamer might have followed and got away with
the ruse. But the skipper underestimated the enemy, always a fatal
mistake, and lost out.
The agreement made a day or so later was perfectly peaceful, and
perfectly satisfactory to both sides, for the fish turned out a good
price, and the buyer did not lose anything on the transaction but the
demurrage on his steamer and a little kudos, which I must confess he
took in very good spirit. Even if he did have a grasping side to his
character, he was fortunate in possessing a sense of humour also.
The fall brought yet another call to go South to St. John's, and once
more in the little Strathcona we ploughed our way through the long
miles to the southward. This time it was for the reorganization of the
Institute government, to form a council and to install the new
manager from England. This was Mr. Walter Jones, a man whose wide
experience among naval "Jackies" had been gained in a large institute
of much the same kind. This gave him the credentials which we needed,
for he had made it not only a social but an economic success. He has
been much sought by the various churches in St. John's as a speaker to
men, and his Sunday evening lantern services and lectures at the
Institute are a real source of uplift and help to men of every
religious denomination.
The fall of the year was very busy. Dr. Seymour Armstrong, formerly
surgical registrar at the Charing Cross Hospital in London, an able
surgeon, and a man of independent means, joined me for that winter at
St. Anthony. He had already wintered twice at our Labrador hospitals,
and was fully expecting to give us much further help, but two years
later the great war found him at the front, where he gladly laid down
his life for his country.
One sick call that winter lives in my memory. It was a case where a
nurse was really more needed than a doctor. The way was long, the wind
was cold, and the snow happened to be particularly deep. One of the
nurses, however, volunteered for the journey, and I arranged to carry
her on a second komatik, while my driver broke the path with our
impedimenta. Things did not go altogether well. Since I have enjoyed
the luxury of a driver, or a "carter" as we call them, my cunning in
wriggling a komatik at full speed down steep mountain-sides through
trees has somewhat waned. Comparatively early in the day we looped the
loop--and we were both heavy weights. It was nearly dark when we
reached the last lap--an enormous bay with a direct run of seven miles
over sea ice. We should probably have made it all right, but suddenly
fog drifted in from the Straits of Belle Isle, and steering with a
small compass and no binnacle, while attending to hauling a heavy
nurse over hummocky sea ice in the dark, satisfied all my ambition for
problems. At length the nature of the ice indicated that we were
approaching either land or the sea edge. We stopped the komatiks, and
it fell to my lot to go ahead and explore. Finding nothing I called to
the driver, and his voice returned out of the fog right ahead of me,
and almost in my ear. I had told them not to move or we might miss our
way, and I reminded him of that fact. "Haven't budged an inch" came
the reply from the darkness. I had been describing a large circle. I
can still hear that nurse laughing.
At last we struck the huge blocks of ice, raised on the boulder rocks
by the rise and fall of tide in shallow water, and we knew that we
should make the land. The perversity of nature made us turn the wrong
way for the village toward which we were aiming, and we found
ourselves "tangled up" in the Boiling Brooks, a place where some
underground springs keep holes open through the ice all winter.
Suddenly, while marching ahead with the compass, seeking to avoid
these springs, the ground being level enough for the nurse to act as
her own helmsman, a tremendous "whurr! whurr!" under my feet restored
sufficient leaping power to my weary legs to leave me head down and
only my racquets out of the snow--all for a covey of white partridges
on which I had nearly trodden. At length we made a tiny winter
cottage. The nurse slept on the bench, the doctor on the floor, the
driver on a shelf. Our generous host had almost to hang himself on a
hook. The dogs went hungry. But as we boiled our kettle, all agreed
that we would not have exchanged the experience for ten rides in a
Pullman Car.
Largely through the zeal of my colleague, Dr. Arthur Wakefield, of
Kendal, England, and that of my cousin, Mr. Martyn Spencer, of New
Zealand, a band of the Legion of Frontiersmen had been brought into
being all along this section of coast, in spite of the scattered
nature of the population. The idea was that having to depend so
largely on the use of their guns, and being excellent shots with a
bullet, the men would make good snipers and scouts if ever there were
war. True, most of our people called it "playing soldiers," and no one
took seriously that we were ever likely to be called upon to fight;
but all Dr. Wakefield's hopes and fears were realized and our lads
made both brave soldiers and excellent marksmen.
[Illustration: On the Way Home
DOG TRAVEL]
[Illustration: Carrying a Sick Dog
DOG TRAVEL]
Dr. and Mrs. Wakefield have given several years of both medical and
industrial work for the people of this coast, both in St. Anthony,
Forteau, Mud Lake, and Battle Harbour.
Alas, the functions of superintendent involved executive duties, and I
had once again to run to St. John's, during the following summer, for
a meeting of the Board of Directors. With true Christian unselfishness
these men come all the way from Ottawa, New York, and Boston, to help
with their counsel so relatively unimportant a work as ours. Sir
Walter Davidson again lent his heartiest cooperation. The people owe
him, Sir Herbert Murray, Sir Henry MacCallum, Sir William MacGregor,
Sir Ralph Williams, Sir Alexander Harris, and all the long line of
their Governors, more than most of them realize. They bring all the
inspiration of the best type of educated, widely experienced, and
travelled Englishmen to this Colony. They are specially trained and
specially selected men, and can give their counsel and leadership
absolutely untrammelled by any local prejudices.
One excellent outcome of this particular meeting was the
reorganization on a larger scale of the Girls' Committee for the
Institute. The success of it has been phenomenal. Together with its
protective work it has aimed at that most difficult task of creating
in them sufficient ambition to make the girls receiving very small
wages want to pay for a better environment. The committee has always
been strictly interdenominational, with Mrs. W.C. Job and Mrs. W.E.
Gosling as its presidents. It has made a "show place" of the Girls'
Department of the Institute, and that department has become
self-supporting--a most desirable goal for every philanthropy.
The lumber mill and schooner building work were in slings. Our men,
made far better off by the winter work thus provided, had acquired
gear so much better for fishing than their former equipment that they
could not resist engaging in the more remunerative work of the fishery
in the summer months. For two years previous they had left before the
drive was complete and the logs out of the woods. Now the local
manager had also decided to fish during the three summer months--which
is really the only time available for mill operations also. I was
fortunate enough on my way North to persuade an expert lumber operator
from Canada, and an entirely kindred spirit, Mr. Harry Crowe, to come
down and help me out with the problem. We spent a few delightful days
together, in which he taught me as many things that every mill man
should know as he would have had to learn had he been dabbling in
pills. Like myself, Mr. Crowe is an ardent believer in Confederation
with Canada for this little country. Before Mr. Crowe's efforts on our
behalf had materialized, a new friend, Mr. Walter Booth, of New York,
well known in American football circles as one of the best of
all-American forwards, came North and carried the mill for a year. The
one and only fault of his regime was that it was too short. The field
of work was one for which he was admirably equipped, but home reasons
made him return after his time expired. He has often told me since,
however, that he has fits of wishing that he could have put in a life
with us in the North, rather than spending it in the more civilized
circles of the New York Bar.
Many invitations to speak, especially at universities in America, and
through a lecture agency in England to numerous societies and clubs,
led me to devote the winter of 1913-14 to a lecture tour. My wife
induced me also to renew my youth by a holiday of a month on the
Continent.
A lecture tour includes some of the most delightful experiences of
life, bringing one into direct personal contact with so many people
whom it is a privilege to know. But it also has its anxieties and
worries, and eternal vigilance is the price of avoiding a breakdown at
this the most difficult of all my work. One's memory is taxed far
beyond its capacity. To forget some things, and some people and some
kindnesses, are unforgivable sins. A new host every night, a new home,
a new city, a new audience, alone lead one into lamentable lapses. In
a car full of people a man asked me one day how I liked Toledo. I
replied that I had never been there. "Strange," he murmured, "because
you spent the night at my house!" On another occasion at a crowded
reception I was talking to a lady on one side and a gentleman on the
other. I had been introduced to them, but caught neither name. They
did not address each other, but only spoke to me. I felt that I must
remedy matters by making them acquainted with each other, and
therefore mumbled, "Pray let me present to you Mrs. M-m-m." "Oh! no
need, Doctor," he replied. "We've been married for thirty years."
Shortly after I noticed at a reception that every one wore his name
pinned onto his breast, and I wondered if there were any connection.
It is my invariable custom in the North to carry a water-tight box
with matches and a compass chained to my belt. One night, being tired,
I had turned into bed in a very large, strange room without noting the
bearings of the doors or electric switches. My faithful belt had been
abandoned for pyjama strings. It so happened that to catch a train I
had to rise before daylight, and all my possessions were in a
dressing-room. I soon gave up hunting for the electric light. It was
somewhere in the air, I knew, but beating the air in the dark with the
windows wide open in winter is no better fun in your nightclothes in
New York than in Labrador. A tour of inspection discovered no less
than five doors, none of which I felt entitled to enter in the dark in
_deshabille_. The humour of the situation is, of course, apparent now,
but even one's dog hates to be laughed at.
An independent life has somehow left me with an instinctive dislike
for asking casual acquaintances the way to any place that I am
seeking. The aversion is more or less justified by the fact that
outside the police force very exceptional persons can direct you,
especially if they know the way themselves. On my first visit to New
York I could see how easy a city it was to navigate, and returned to
my host's house near Eighth Street in good time to dress for dinner
after a long side trip near Columbia University and thence to the
Bellevue Hospital. "How did you find your way?" my friend asked. "Why,
there was sufficient sky visible to let me see the North Star," I
answered. I felt almost hurt when he laughed. It is natural for a
polar bear not to have to inquire the way home.
The aphorism attributed to Dr. John Watson, of "Beside the Bonnie
Briar Bush," suggests itself. "My fee is one hundred dollars if I go
to a hotel, two hundred if I am entertained, because in the latter
event one can only live half so long." I conclude that he made the
choice of Achilles, for he died on a lecture tour. So far fate has
been kinder to me.
The greatest danger is the reporter, especially the emotional
reporter, who has not attended your meeting. I owe such debts to the
press that this statement seems the blackest of ingratitude. On the
contrary, I must plead that doctors are privileged. My controversy
with this class of reporters is their generosity, which puts into
one's mouth statements that on final analysis may be cold facts, but
which, remembering that one is lecturing on work among people whom one
loves and respects, it would never occur to me to slur at a public
meeting. No one who tries to alter conditions which exist can expect
to escape making enemies. I have seen reports of what I have said at
advertised meetings, that were subsequently cancelled. I have followed
up rumours, and editors have expressed sorrow that they accepted them
from men who had been too busy to be present. But "qui s'excuse,
s'accuse"; and my conclusion is that the lecturer is practically
defenceless.
Since our marriage my wife has generously acted as my secretary,
having specially learned shorthand and typewriting in order to free me
from carrying such a burden, and has helped me enormously ever since
on this line. But lecture tours used to make me despair of keeping
abreast of correspondence. I sometimes was forced to treat letters as
Henry Drummond did--who allowed them to answer themselves--if I wished
free mornings in which to visit the hospitals, just at the time that
all their professional work was in progress. These clinics are
invaluable and almost unique experiences. They persuaded me more than
ever how much depends in surgery as well as in medicine on "the man
behind the gun"; and that mere mileage is not the real handicap on
members of our profession whose fields of work lie away from the
centres of learning. They also imbued me with the profoundest spirit
of respect for the leaders of the healing art.
* * * * *
To no one but myself did it seem odd that a plain Englishman should be
invited to perform the function of best man at the wedding of the
daughter of the President of the United States of America at the White
House. The matter was never even noticed either in the press or in
conversation. The only citizen to whom I suggested the anomaly merely
said, "Well, why not?"
My long-time fellow worker and one of my best of friends, Francis B.
Sayre, was to be married on November 25, 1913, to Miss Jessie Wilson.
Her father, who, when first I had had the honour of his acquaintance,
happened to be the President of Princeton University, was now the
President of the United States. So we had all the fun of a White House
wedding. Not less than fifty of our fishermen friends from Labrador
and North Newfoundland were invited, and some members of our staff
were present.
We started the wedding procession upstairs, and came down to the
fanfare of uniformed trumpeters. Our awkwardness in keeping step,
though we had rehearsed the whole business several times, only
relieved the tension that must exist at so important an event in life.
Trying to dodge the reporters added heaps of fun, which I am sure that
they shared, for they generally got the better of us; though the
thrill of escape from the White House and Washington, so that the
honeymoon rendezvous should not be known, was practically a victory
for the wedding party. As it would never be safe to use the tactics
again, I am permitted after the lapse of many years to give them away.
As soon as dark fell, and while the guests were still revelling, the
bride and groom were hustled into a secret elevator in the thickness
of the wall, whisked up to the robing chambers, and completely
disguised. Meanwhile a suitable camouflage of automobiles had arrived
ostentatiously at the main entrance, to carry and escort the
illustrious couple in fitting pomp to the great station. From the
landing the couple were dropped direct to the basement to a
prearranged oubliette. The password was the sound of the wheels of an
ordinary cab at the kitchen entrance. The moments of suspense were not
long. At the sound of the crush on the gravel a silent door was
opened, two completely muffled figures crept out, and the conspirators
drove slowly along round a few corners where a swift automobile lay
panting to add _liberte_ to _egalite_ and _fraternite_.