Chapter 4

I want to tell you something about our babies. They are four in number. David, aged five, considers himself quite a big boy, and a leader of the others. His father was frozen to death in Eskimo Bay some years ago whilst hunting food for his family. Although David is always boasting of his strength and the superior wisdom of his years, yet he is really very tiny for his age. He is a delightful little optimist, who announces cheerfully after each failure to do right that he is "going to be good all the time now," to which we add the mental reservation, "until next time." He is the proud possessor of a Teddy bear. This long-suffering animal was a source of great pleasure until a short time ago when David started making a first-hand investigation to find out where the "squeak" came from--an investigation which ended disastrously for the bear, however it may have furthered the cause of science.

Last month I went to Nameless Cove to fetch to the Home a little boy of three, of whom I have already written you. Nameless Cove is about twelve miles west of St. Antoine. I have never seen such a wretched hovel--a one-roomed log hut, completely destitute of furniture. The door was so low I had to bend almost double to enter. A rough shelf did duty for a bed, upon which lay an old bedridden man, while at the other end lay a sick woman with a child beside her, and crouched below was an idiot daughter. Altogether nine persons lived in this hut, eight adults and this one boy. Ananias is an illegitimate child, and has lived with these grandparents since his mother lost her reason and was removed to the asylum at St. John's. The child was almost destitute of clothing, and covered with vermin. He has the face of a seraph, and a voice that lisps out curses with the fluency of a veteran trooper. Ananias is David's shadow; he follows him everywhere, and echoes all his words as if they were gems of wisdom, far above rubies. Indeed, when David has ceased speaking, one waits involuntarily for Ananias to begin in his shrill treble tones. He is a hopeless child to correct, for when you imagine you are scolding him very severely, and you look for the tears of penitence to flow, he puts up his little face with an angelic smile, and lisps, "Tiss me."

Drusilla, whose slight acquaintance you have already made, is three and comes from Savage Cove. The father has gradually become blind and the mother is crippled. Drusilla keeps us all on the alert, for we never know what she will be doing next. On Sunday mornings she is put to rest with the other little ones while we are at church. On returning last Sunday I found that she had secured a box of white ointment (thought to be quite beyond her reach), and with her toothbrush painted one side of the baby's face white, which with her other rosy cheek gave her the appearance of a clown. Not content with portrait painting, Drusilla then turned her energies to house decoration, the result attained on the wall being entirely to the satisfaction of the artist, as was evidenced by the proud smile with which our outcry was greeted.

The real baby is Beulah, just two years, and she exercises her gentle but despotic sway over all, from the least to the greatest. She is continually upsetting the standard of neatness which was once the glory of this Home, by sprawling on the floors, dragging after her a headless doll with sawdust oozing from every pore. A dilapidated bunny and several mangled pictures complete the procession. It is hopeless to protest, for she just looks as if she could not understand how any one could object to such priceless treasures. She awakens us at unconscionable hours in the morning, when all reasonable beings are still sleeping the sleep of the just, and keeps up a perpetual chatter interspersed with highly dangerous gymnastic feats upon her bed.

Can you find any babies throughout the British Isles to match mine?

_October 20_

Since last I wrote you we have had a very strenuous time in the Home; the entire family has been down with measles. Then when that was over and the children well, the sewing maid, whom I had engaged shortly after my arrival, gave notice, shook the dust from her feet, and I was left single-handed. It took the whole of my time to keep these forty-odd infants fed, clothed, and washed, and I had no leisure to write to you even at "scattered times." It seemed to me that the appetites of these _enfants terribles_ grew abnormally, that their clothes rent asunder with lightning-like rapidity, and that they fell into mud heaps with even greater facility than usual. It was sometimes a delicate problem to decide which of many pressing duties had the prior claim. Whether to try and feed the hungry (the kitchen range having sprung a leak), to start to repair two hundred odd garments (the weekly mend), or to resuscitate one of the babies (just rescued from the reservoir). At such times I would wonder if I were somewhere near attaining to that state of experience when I should be able to appreciate your alluring phrase, "the fun of mothering an orphanage."

I must begin and tell you now about the children we have received since my last letter. Mike, aged eight, came to us from St. Barbe Hospital, as he had no home to which he could return. Incidentally it takes the entire staff to keep this boy moderately tidy, for he and his garments have an unfortunate inclination to part asunder, and we are kept in constant apprehension for the credit of the Orphanage. But Mike, whether with his clothes or without, always turns up smiling and on excellent terms with himself, entirely regardless of the mental torture we endure as he comes into view. Indeed, the wider apart are his garments, the broader is his smile. He weeps quietly each night as we wash him, for that is a work of supererogation for which he has at present no use.

Deborah and her brother Gabriel were here when I came. Their ages are eleven and five, and they come from the far north. Deborah was in the Mission Hospital at Iron Bound Islands for some time as the result of a burning accident. While trying to lift a pan of dog-food from the stove she upset the scalding contents over her legs. Her elder brother had to drive her eighteen miles on a komatik to the hospital, and the poor child must have suffered greatly. Gabriel is a very naughty, but equally lovable child. He is never out of mischief, but he is always very penitent for his misdeeds--afterwards! His bent is towards theology, and he speaks with the authority of an ancient divine on all matters pertaining thereto, and with an air of finality which brooks no argument. When some one was being given the priority in point of age over me, he was heard to indignantly exclaim that "Jesus and Teacher are the oldest people in the world." He is no advocate for the equality of the sexes, and closes all discussion on equal rights by explaining that "God made the boys and Jesus the girls."

Our fast-coming winter is sending its harbingers, seen and unseen, into our harbour. Chief among these one notices the assertiveness of the dogs. All through the summer they slink pariah-like about the place, eating whatever they can pick up, and seeking to keep their miserable existence as much in the background as possible. Now the winter is approaching, and it is "their little day." Mrs. Uncle Life can testify to the fact that they are not wholly suppressed when it is not "their little day." Last summer she found no less important a personage than the leader of the team in her bed. Her newly baked "loaf" was lying on the pantry shelf before the open window. Whiskey (this place is strictly prohibition, but every team boasts its "Whiskey") leaped in, made a satisfying banquet off her bread, and then forced open the door into her bedroom adjoining the pantry. He found it a singularly barren field for adventure, but after his unaccustomed hearty meal the bed looked tempting. He was found there two hours later placidly asleep.

The children are looking forward to Christmas and are already writing letters to Santa Claus, which are handed to me with great secrecy to mail to him. I once watched the little ones playing at Christmas with an old stump of a bush to which they attached twigs as gifts and gravely distributed them to one another. When I saw one mite handing a dead twig to a smaller edition of himself, and announcing in a lordly fashion that it was a PIANO, I realized what Father Christmas was expected to be able to produce.

_November 1_

My world is transformed into fairyland. Light snow has fallen during the night, and every "starigan," every patch of "tuckamore" is "decked in sparkling raiment white." As I was dressing I looked out of my window, and for the first time in my life saw a dog team and komatik passing.

The day was full of adventure. For the children the snow meant only rejoicing; but as the highway was as slippery as glass, and the older folk had not yet got their "winter legs," there were many minor casualties. Mrs. Uncle Life, aged seventy and small and spherical, solved the problem of the hills by sitting down and sliding. She commended the method to me, saying that it served very well on week days, but was lamentably detrimental to her Sunday best.

Ananias is developing fast and bids fair to rival Topsy. He has a mania for eating anything and everything, and what he cannot eat, he destroys. Within the past few weeks he has swallowed the arm of his Teddy bear, half a cake of soap, and a tube of tooth-paste. He has also bitten through two new hot-water bottles. During the short time he has been here he has broken more windows than any other child in the Home. If he thinks politeness will save the day, he says in the sweetest way possible, "Excuse me, Teacher, for doing it"; but if he sees by my face that retribution is swift and sure, he says in the most pathetic of tones, "Teacher, I have a pain."

I must make you acquainted with our "Yoho." Every well-regulated fishing village has one, but we have to thank our neighbour, the Eskimo, for the picturesque name. In our more prosaic parlance it is plain "ghost." Many years ago when the Mission was in need of a building in which to accommodate some of its workers, it purchased a house belonging to a local trader by the name of Isaac Spouseworthy. This made an admirable Guest House; but it has since fallen into disuse for its original purpose, and is being employed as a temporary repository for the clothing sent for the poor, till the fine new storehouse shall have been built. This old Guest House has been selected by our local apparition as a place of visitation. It is affirmed, on the incontrovertible testimony of the Prophet and no inconsiderable following, that the spirit returns of an evening to the old house he built forty years ago, to wander through the familiar rooms. The villagers see lights there nightly; and though all our investigation has failed to reveal any presence (barring the rats), bodily or otherwise, the bravest of them would hesitate many a long minute before he would enter the haunted spot after nightfall. Rumour has it that the Guest House is built on the site of an old French cemetery. Our "irrepressible Ike" therefore cannot lack for society, though how congenial it is cannot be determined. Judging from the records of the ceaseless rows between the French and English on Le Petit Nord, there must be some lively nights in ghostland.

The doctor suggested that if a burglar wished to steal the clothing, this spook would be his most effective accomplice, but such tortuous psychology has failed to satisfy the fishermen. To them we seem callous souls, to whom the spirit world is alien. This ghostly encroachment on our erstwhile quiet domain has had more than one inconvenient result. The Mission is very short of houses for its workmen, and was planning to rebuild and put in order a part of this now haunted domicile for one family. The man for whom it was destined now refuses to live there, as his children have vetoed the idea. In this land the word of the rising generation is law, and this refusal is therefore final.

The children of this North Country are given what they wish and when and how. Naturally the results of such a policy are serious. There are many cases of hopeless cripples about here who refused to go to hospital for treatment when their trouble was so slight that it could have been rectified. Now the children must look forward to a life of disability through their parents' short-sightedness. But when I think of what it means to these poor women to have perhaps ten children to care for, and all the rest of the work of the house and garden on their shoulders, I cannot wonder that their motto is "peace at any price."

Spirits might be called the outstanding feature of our harbour, for the Piquenais rocks at the very entrance are the abode of another familiar _revenant_. The Prophet assures me that thirty years ago a vessel and crew were wrecked there, and on every succeeding stormy evening since that day, the captain, with creditable perseverance, waves his light on that wind-and surf-swept rock. In this instance the prophetical authority is in dispute, for there are those who assert that the light is shown by fairies to toll boats to their doom on the foggy point. The more scientifically minded explain the mysterious light as a defunct animal giving out gas. It must be a persistent gas which can retain its efficacy for thirty long and adventurous years.

In the course of these researches several interesting points of natural history and science have been elucidated. Doubtless you do not know that all cats are related to the devil, but you can readily see the brimstone in their fur if you have the temerity to rub them on a dusky evening. Neither has it come to your attention that under no consideration must you allow the water in which potatoes have been washed to run over your hands. In the latter event, warts innumerable will result.

Our cook has just come in with the news that supper is not to be forthcoming. 'Senath was left in charge while Tryphena went on an errand for me. Left-over salad was to have formed the basis of the evening meal, but the said basis has now disintegrated, 'Senath having placed the dish in a superheated oven. The nature of the resultant object is indeterminate, but uneatable. I solace myself that sanctified starvation will be beneficial to my "fine and hearty" figure.

We have suffered again with the dogs. One of the children's birthdays fell on Saturday, and we decided to give the whole "crew" ice-cream to fittingly celebrate the event. It was made in good time and put out to keep cool in what we took to be a safe spot. The party preceding the _pièce de résistance_ was in full swing when an ominous disturbance was detected from the direction of the woodshed. Investigation revealed two angry dogs alternately snarling at each other and devouring the last lick of the treat. The catholicity of canine taste was no solace to the aggrieved assembly.

The children have lately been making excursions into the theological field. The latest problem brought to me for settlement was, "Does God live in the Methodist Church?" Truly a two-horned dilemma. If I said "yes" the anthropomorphic teaching was undoubted; while if the answer were in the negative I should be guilty of fostering the abominable denominational spirit which ruins this land. My reply must have been unconvincing, for I overheard the children later deciding, the Methodist Church having been barred as a place of residence, that the attic was the only remaining possibility. It is the one spot in the Home unvisited by them, and therefore "unseen."

Unseemly altercations have summoned me to the kitchen, and I return to close this over-long chronicle. I was met there by Tryphena, a large sheet in her hands, and an accusing expression on her face which stamped her as a family connection of the Prophet's.

"It's not my fault, miss," she began.

"No, Tryphena? Well, whose is it, and what is it?"

"Look at that sheet, miss, a new one. 'Senath was ironing, and had folded it just ready to put away. Then she suddenly wants a drink, so she goes off leaving the iron in the middle of the sheet. Half an hour later she remembers. When she got back, of course the iron had burnt its way straight through all the layers."

Aside from destruction, in what direction would you say that 'Senath's forte did lie?

_November 17_

I have received your letter with its pointed remarks about the long delays of the mail-carrier. I consider them both unnecessary and unkind. But as David would say, "I am going to be good all the time now."

We have this moment returned from church, to which the children love to go; it is the great excitement of the week. They sit very quietly, except Topsy, but how much they understand I cannot say. The people sing with deliberation, each syllable being made to do duty for three, to prolong the enjoyment--or the agony--according as your musical talent decides. Frequently there is no one to play the instrument, and the hymns are started several times, until something resembling the right pitch is struck. Sometimes a six-line hymn will be started to a common metre tune, and all goes swimmingly until the inevitable crash at the end of the fourth line. But nothing daunted, we try and try again. I have supplied our smiling-faced cherubs with hymn books in order that

"Their voices may in tune be found Like David's harp of solemn sound"

--excuse the adaptation. This morning the service was particularly dreary. Hymn after hymn started to end in conspicuous failure, followed by an interminable discourse on the sufferings of the damned. But we ended cheerfully by warbling forth the joys of heaven--

"Where congregations ne'er break up And Sabbaths never end!"

Last week we had a thrilling event; one of the girls formerly in this Home was married, and we all went to the wedding, even the little tots who are too young for regular services. They afterwards told me they would like to go on Sundays, so I imagine they think the marriage ceremony a regular item of Divine worship. Alas! I almost disgraced myself when the clergyman solemnly announced to the intending bride and bridegroom that the holy estate of matrimony had been "ordained of God for the persecution of children"!

* * * * *

How you would have laughed to see me the other night. The steamer arrived at midnight, and as we were expecting some children I went down to meet them. There were three little boys, Esau, Joseph, and Nathan, eight, six, and four years of age. I bore them in triumph to the bathroom, feeling that even at that late hour cleanliness should be compulsory. But I soon desisted from my purpose and as quickly as possible bundled the dirty children into my neat, snowy beds! They kicked, they fought, they bit, they yelled and they swore! All my sleeping innocents awoke at the noise and added their voices to the confusion. I momentarily expected an in-rush of neighbours, and a summons the following day for cruelty to children.

Uriah has come to inform me that he cannot "cleave the splits," as his "stomach has capsized." I felt it incumbent to administer a dose of castor oil, thinking that might be sufficient punishment for what I had reason to believe was only a dodge to escape work. It was hard for me to give the oil, but harder still to have the boy look up after it with a quite cherubic smile, and ask if it were the same oil as Elisha gave the widow woman!

Whatever can survive in this land of difficulties survives with a zeal and vitality which only proves the strength of the obstacles overcome. The flies, the mosquitoes, and the rats are proofs. We have none of your meek little wharf rats here. Ours are brazen imps, sleek and shameless, undaunted by cats or men. Their footmarks are as big as those of young puppies (withal not too well-fed puppies), and their raids on man and beast alike ally them with the horde Pandora loosed. Each day the toll mounts. One morning Miss Perrin, the head nurse, awakened to find one of her prize North Labrador boots gnawed to the rim. All that remained to tell the tale was the bright tape by which it was hung up, and the skin groove through which the tape threads.

On the next occasion of their public appearance the night nurse was summoned by agonized shrieks to the children's ward. A large rodent had climbed upon Ishimay's bed and bitten her. There were the marks of his teeth in her hand, and the blood was dripping. Nor do they limit their depredations to the hospital. The barn man turned over a bale of hay last week and disclosed no less than twenty-seven rats young and old, fat and lean, though chiefly fat. I rejoice to record that this galaxy at least has departed Purgatory-wards. The dentist left a whole bag of clean linen on the floor of his bedroom. The morning following he found that the raiders had eaten their way through the sack, cutting a series of neat round holes in each folded garment as they progressed. The scuffling and the squealing and the scraping and the gnawing and the scratching of rats in the walls and cupboards are worse than any phalanx of "Yohos" ever summoned from spookland! Oh! Pied Piper of Hamelin, why tarry so long!

_December 14_

The last boat of the season has come and gone and now we settle down to the real life of the winter. Plans innumerable are under way for winter activities, and the children are on tiptoe over the prospect of approaching Christmastide. Their jubilations fill the house, and writing is even more difficult than usual.

For days before the last steamer finally reached us there were speculations as to her coming. Rumour, a healthy customer in these parts, three times had it that she had gone back, having given up the unequal contest with the ice. As all our Christmas mail was aboard her, the atmosphere was tense. Then came the news from Croque that she was there, busily unloading freight. Six hours later her smoke was sighted, and from the yells my bairns set up, you would have thought that the mythical sea serpent was entering port. She butted her way into the standing harbour ice as far as she could get, and promptly began discharging cargo. Teams of dogs sprang up seemingly out of the snow-covered earth, and in a mere twinkling our frozen and silent harbour was an arena of activity. The freight is dumped on the ice over the ship's side with the big winch, and each man must hunt for his own as it descends. Some of the goods are dropped with such a thud that the packages "burst abroad." This is all very well if the contents are of a solid and resisting nature; but if butter, or beans, or such like receive the shock, most regrettable results ensue.

During the hours of waiting here she froze solidly into the ice, and had to be blasted out before she could commence her journey to the southward. She has taken the mails with her, and this letter must come to you by dog team--your first by that method.