Chapter 7

On that same voyage along the coast when Uncle Willie Wolfrey was found with a broken thigh, Dr. Grenfell, after he had operated upon Uncle Willie, in the course of his voyage, stopping at many harbors to give medical assistance to the needy ones, ran in one day to Kaipokok Bay, at Turnavik Islands.

As the vessel dropped her anchor he observed a man sitting on the rocks eagerly watching the ship. The jolly boat was launched, and as it approached the land the man arose and coming down to the water's edge, shouted:

"Be that you, Doctor?"

"Yes, Uncle Tom, it is I?" the Doctor shouted back, for he had already recognized Uncle Tom, one of the fine old men of the coast.

When Grenfell stepped ashore and took Uncle Tom's hand in a hearty grasp, the old man broke down and cried like a child. Uncle Tom was evidently in keen distress.

"Oh, Doctor, I'm so glad you comes. I were lookin' for you, Doctor," said the old man in a voice broken by emotion. "I were watchin' and watchin' out here on the rocks, not knowin' whether you'd be comin' this way, but hopin', and prayin' the Lard to send you. He sends you, Doctor. 'Twere the Lard sends you when I'm needin' you, sir, sorely needin' you."

Uncle Tom is seventy years of age. He was born and bred on The Labrador, but he has not spent all his life there. In his younger days he shipped as a sailor, and as a seaman saw many parts of the world. But long ago he returned to his home to settle down as a fisherman and a trapper.

When the war came, the brave old soul, stirred by patriotism, paid his own passage and expenses on the mail boat to St. Johns, and offered to volunteer for service. Of course he was too old and was rejected because of his age.

Uncle Tom, his patriotism not in the least dampened, returned to his Labrador home and divided all the fur of his winter's hunt into two equal piles. To one pile he added a ten dollar bill, and that pile, with the ten dollars added, he shipped at once to the "Patriotic Fund" in St. Johns. He had offered himself, and they would not take him, and this was all he could do to help win the war, and he did it freely and wistfully, out of his noble, generous patriotic soul.

"What is the trouble, Uncle Tom?" asked Grenfell, when Uncle Tom had to some extent regained his composure, and the old man told his story.

He was in hard luck. Late the previous fall (1920) or early in the winter he had met with a severe accident that had resulted in several broken ribs. Navigation had closed, and he was cut off from all surgical assistance, and his broken ribs had never had attention and had not healed. He could scarcely draw a breath without pain, or even rest without pain at night, and he could not go to his trapping path.

He depended upon his winter's hunt mainly for support, and with no fur to sell he was, for the first time in his life, compelled to contract a debt. Then, suddenly, the trader with whom he dealt discontinued giving credit. Uncle Tom was stranded high and dry, and when the fishing season came he had no outfit or means of purchasing one, and could not go fishing.

Besides his wife there were six children in Uncle Tom's family, though none of them was his own or related to him. When the "flu" came to the coast in 1918, and one out of every five of the people around Turnavik Islands died, several little ones were left homeless and orphans. The generous hearts of Uncle Tom and his wife opened to them and they took these six children into their home as their own. And so it happened that Uncle Tom had, and still has, a large family depending upon him.

"As we neared the cottage," said Doctor Grenfell, "his good wife, beaming from head to foot as usual, came out to greet us. Optimist to the last ditch, she _knew_ that somehow provision would be made. She, too, had had her troubles, for twice she had been operated on at Indian Harbor for cancer."

Uncle Tom must have suffered severely during all those months that he had lived with his broken ribs uncared for. Now Dr. Grenfell, without loss of time, strapped them up good and tight. Mrs. Grenfell supplied the six youngsters with a fine outfit of good warm clothes, and when Dr. Grenfell sailed out of Kaipokok Bay Uncle Tom and Mrs. Tom had no further cause for worry concerning the source from which provisions would come for themselves and the six orphans they had adopted.

These are but a few incidents in the life of the people to whom Dr. Grenfell is devoting his skill and his sympathy year in and year out. I could relate enough of them to fill a dozen volumes like this, but space is limited.

There is always hardship and always will be in a frontier land like Labrador, and Labrador north of Cape Charles is the most primitive of frontier lands. Dr. Grenfell and his helpers find plenty to do in addition to giving out medicines and dressing wounds. A little boost sometimes puts a family on its feet, raising it from abject poverty to independence and self-respect. Just a little momentum to push them over the line. Grenfell knows how to do this.

Several years ago Dr. Grenfell anchored his vessel in Big Bight, and went ashore to visit David Long. David had had a hard winter, and among other kindnesses to the family, Dr. Grenfell presented David's two oldest boys, lads of fifteen or sixteen or thereabouts, with a dozen steel fox traps. Lack of traps had prevented the boys taking part in trapping during the previous winter.

The next year after giving the boys the traps, Grenfell again cast anchor in Big Bight, and, as usual, rowed ashore to visit the Longs. There was great excitement in their joyous greeting. Something important had happened. There was no doubt of that! David and Mrs. Long and the two lads and all the little Longs were exuding mystery, but particularly the two lads. Whatever this mysterious secret was they could scarce keep it until they had led Dr. Grenfell into the cabin, and he was comfortably seated.

Then, with vast importance and some show of deliberate dignity, David opened a chest. From its depths he drew forth a pelt. Dr. Grenfell watched with interest while David shook it to make the fur stand out to best advantage, and then held up to his admiring gaze the skin of a beautiful silver fox! The lads had caught it in one of the dozen traps he had given them.

"We keeps un for you," announced David exultantly.

"It's a prime one, too!" exclaimed the Doctor, duly impressed, as he examined it.

"She _be_ that," emphasized David proudly. "No finer were caught on the coast the winter."

"It was a good winter's work," said the Doctor.

"'Twere _that_ now! 'Twere a _wonder_ful good winter's work--just t'cotch that un!" enthused Mrs. Long.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Doctor Grenfell.

"We keeps un for you," said David. "The time was th' winter when we has ne'er a bit o' grub but what we hunts, all of our flour and molasses gone. But we don't take _he_ to the trade, _what_ever. We keeps _he_ for you."

Out on a coast island Captain William Bartlett, of Brigus, Newfoundland, kept a fishing station and a supply store. Captain Will is a famous Arctic navigator. He is one of the best known and most successful masters of the great sealing fleet. He is also a cod fisherman of renown and he is the father of Captain "Bob" Bartlett, master of explorer Peary's _Roosevelt_, and it was under Captain Will Bartlett's instruction that Captain "Bob" learned seamanship and navigation. Captain William Bartlett is as fine a man as ever trod a deck. He is just and honest to a degree, and he has a big generous heart.

Doctor Grenfell accepted the silver fox pelt, and as he steamed down the coast he ran his vessel in at Captain Bartlett's station. He had confidence in Captain Bartlett.

"Here's a silver fox skin that belongs to David Long's lads," said he, depositing the pelt on the counter. "I wish you'd take it, and do the best you can for David, Captain Will. I'll leave it with you."

Captain Bartlett shook the pelt out, and admired its lustrous beauty.

"It's a good one! David's lads were in luck when they caught _that_ fellow. I'll do the best I can with it," he promised.

"They'll take the pay in provisions and other necessaries," suggested Grenfell.

"All right," agreed Captain Will. "I'll send the goods over to them."

On his way to the southward a month later Doctor Grenfell again cast anchor at Big Bight. David Long and Mrs. Long, the two big lads, and all the little Longs, were as beaming and happy as any family could be in the whole wide world. Captain Bartlett's vessel had run in at Big Bight one day, and paid for the silver fox pelt in merchandise.

The cabin was literally packed with provisions. The family were well clothed. There was enough and to spare to keep them in affluence, as affluence goes down on The Labrador, for a whole year and longer. Need and poverty were vanished. Captain Will had, indeed, done well with the silver fox pelt.

These are stories of life on The Labrador as Doctor Grenfell found it. From the day he reached the coast and every day since his heart has ached with the troubles and poverty existing among the liveyeres. He has been thrilled again and again by incidents of heroic struggle and sacrifice among them. He has done a vast deal to make them more comfortable and happy, as in the case of David Long. Still, in spite of it all, there are cases of desperate poverty and suffering there, and doubtless will always be.

In every city and town and village of our great and prosperous country people throw away clothing and many things that would help to make the lives of the Longs and the hundreds of other liveyeres of the coast who are toiling for bare existence easier to endure. Enough is wasted every year, indeed, in any one of our cities to make the whole population of Labrador happy and comfortable. And there's the pity. If Grenfell could _only_ be given _some_ of this waste to take to them!

From the beginning this thought troubled Doctor Grenfell. And in winter when the ice shuts the whole coast off from the rest of the world, he turned his attention to efforts to secure the help of good people the world over in his work. Making others happy is the greatest happiness that any one can experience, and Grenfell wished others to share his happiness with him. Nearly every winter for many years he has lectured in the United States and Canada and Great Britain with this in view. The Grenfell Association was organized with headquarters in New York, where money and donations of clothing and other necessaries might be sent.[B]

As we shall see, many great things have been accomplished by Doctor Grenfell and this Association, organized by his friends several years ago. Every year a great many boxes and barrels of clothing go to him down on The Labrador, filled with good things for the needy ones. Boys and girls, as well as men and women, send warm things for winter. Not only clothing, but now and again toys for the Wee Tots find their way into the boxes. Just like other children the world over, the Wee Tots of The Labrador like toys to play with and they are made joyous with toys discarded by the over-supplied youngsters of our land.

Of course there are foolish people who send useless things too. Scattered through the boxes are now and again found evening clothes for men and women, silk top hats, flimsy little women's bonnets, dancing pumps, and even crepe-de-chene nighties. These serve as playthings for the grown-ups, many of whom, especially the Indians and Eskimos, are quite childlike with gimcracks. I recall once seeing an Eskimo parading around on a warm day in the glory of a full dress coat and silk hat, the coat drawn on over his ordinary clothing. He was the envy of his friends.

While Grenfell dispensed medical and surgical treatment, and at the same time did what he could for the needy, he also turned his attention to an attack upon the truck system. This system of barter was responsible for the depths of poverty in which he found the liveyeres. He was mightily wrought up against it, as well he might have been, and still is, and he laid plans at once to relieve the liveyeres and northern Newfoundlanders from its grip.

This was a great undertaking. It was a stroke for freedom, for the truck system, as we have seen, is simply a species of slavery. He realized that in attacking it he was to create powerful enemies who would do their utmost to injure him and interfere with his work. Some of these men he knew would go to any length to drive him off The Labrador. It required courage, but Grenfell was never lacking in courage. He rolled up his sleeves and went at it. He always did things openly and fearlessly, first satisfying himself he was right.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] The address of the Grenfell Association is 156 Fifth Avenue, New York.

XIII

SKIPPER TOM'S COD TRAP

Skipper Tom lived, and for aught I know still lives, at Red Bay, a little settlement on the Straits of Belle Isle, some sixty miles to the westward of Battle Harbor.

Along the southern coast of Labrador the cabins are much closer together than on the east coast, and there are some small settlements in the bays and harbors, with snug little painted cottages.

Red Bay, where Skipper Tom lived, is one of these settlements. It boasts a neat little Methodist chapel, built by the fishermen and trappers from lumber cut in the near-by forest, and laboriously sawn into boards with the pit saw.

Skipper Tom lived in one of the snuggest and coziest of the cottages. I remember the cottage and I remember Skipper Tom well. I happened into the settlement one evening directly ahead of a winter blizzard, and Skipper Tom and his good family opened their little home to me and sheltered me with a hospitable cordial welcome for three days, until the weather cleared and the dogs could travel again and I pushed forward on my journey.

Skipper Tom stood an inch or two above six feet in his moccasins. He was a broad-shouldered, strong-limbed man of the wilderness and the sea. His face was kindly and gentle, but at the same time reflected firmness, strength and thoughtfulness. When he spoke you were sure to listen, for there was always the conviction that he was about to utter some word of wisdom, or tell you something of importance. The moment you looked at him and heard his voice you said to yourself: "Here is a man upon whom I can rely and in whom I can place absolute confidence."

If Skipper Tom promised to do anything, he did it, unless Providence intervened. If he said he would not do a thing, he would not do it, and you could depend on it. He was a man of his word. That was Skipper Tom--big, straight spoken, and as square as any man that ever lived. That is what his neighbors said of him, and that is the way Doctor Grenfell found him.

Now and again the Methodist missionary visited Red Bay in his circuit of the settlements, and when he came he made his headquarters in the home of Skipper Tom. On the occasion of these visits he conducted services in the chapel on Sunday, and on week days visited every home in Red Bay. Skipper Tom was class leader, and looked after the religious welfare of the little community, presiding over his class in the chapel, on the great majority of Sundays, when the missionary was engaged elsewhere.

The people looked up to Skipper Tom. The folk of Red Bay, like most people who live much in the open and close to nature, have a deep religious reverence and a wholesome fear of God. As their class leader Skipper Tom guided them in their worship, and they looked upon him as an example of upright living. So it was that he had a great burden of responsibility, with the morals of the community thrust upon him.

In one respect Skipper Tom was fortunate. He did not inherit a debt, and all his life he had kept free from the truck system under which his neighbors toiled hopelessly, year in and year out.

He had, in one way or another, picked up enough education to read and write and figure. He could read and interpret his Bible and he could calculate his accounts. He knew that two times two make four. If he sold two hundred quintals[C] of fish at $2.25 a quintal, he knew that $450.00 were due him. No trader had a mortgage upon the product of _his_ labor, as they had upon that of his neighbors, and he was free to sell his fur and fish to whoever would pay him the highest price.

To be sure there were seasons when Skipper Tom was hard put to it to make ends meet, and a scant diet and a good many hardships fell to his lot and to the lot of his family. And when he had enough and his neighbors were in need, he denied himself to see others through, and even pinched himself to do it.

But he saved bit by bit until, at the age of forty-five, he was able to purchase a cod trap, which was valued at about $400.00. The purchase of this cod trap had been the ambition of his life and we can imagine his joy when finally the day came that brought it to him. It made more certain his catch of cod, and therefore lessened the possibility of winters of privation.

It is interesting to know how the fishermen of The Labrador catch cod. It may be worth while also to explain that when the Labradorman or Newfoundlander speaks of "fish" he means cod in his vocabulary. A trout is a trout, a salmon is a salmon and a caplin is a caplin, but a cod is a fish. He never thinks of anything as fish but cod.

Early in the season, directly the ice breaks up, a little fish called the caplin, which is about the size of a smelt, runs inshore in great schools of countless millions, to spawn. I have seen them lying in windrows along the shore where the receding tide had left them high and dry upon the land. This is a great time for the dogs, which feast upon them and grow fat. It is a great time also for the cod, which feed on the caplin, and for the fishermen who catch the cod. Cod follow the caplin schools, and this is the season when the fisherman, if he is so fortunate as to own a trap, reaps his greatest harvest.

The trap is a net with four sides and a bottom, but no top. It is like a great room without a ceiling. On one side is a door or opening. The trap is submerged a hundred yards or so from shore, at a point where the caplin, with the cod at their heels, are likely to run in. A net attached to the trap at the center of the door is stretched to the nearest shore.

Like a flock of geese that follows the old gander cod follow their leaders. When the leaders pilot the school in close to shore in pursuit of the caplin, they encounter the obstructing net, then follow along its side with the purpose of going around it. This leads them into the trap. Once into the trap they remain there until the fishermen haul their catch.

The fisherman who owns no trap must rely upon the hook and line. Though sometimes hook and line fishermen meet with good fortune, the results are much less certain than with the traps and the work much slower and vastly more difficult.

When the water is not too deep jigging with unbaited hooks proves successful when fish are plentiful. Two large hooks fastened back to back, with lead to act as a sinker, serve the purpose. This double hook at the end of the line is dropped over the side of the boat and lowered until it touches bottom. Then it is raised about three feet, and from this point "jigged," or raised and lowered continuously until taken by a cod.

In deep water, however, bait is necessary and the squid is a favorite bait. A squid is a baby octopus, or "devil fish." The squid is caught by jigging up and down a lead weight filled with wire spikes and painted bright red. It seizes the weight with its tentacles. When raised into the boat it releases its hold and squirts a small stream of black inky fluid. In the water, when attacked, this inky fluid discolors the water and screens it from its enemy.

The octopus grows to immense size, with many long arms. Two Newfoundlanders were once fishing in an open boat, when an octopus attacked the boat, reaching for it with two enormous arms, with the purpose of dragging it down. One of the fishermen seized an ax that lay handy in the boat and chopped the arms off. The octopus sank and all the sea about was made black with its screen of ink. The sections of arms cut off were nineteen feet in length. They are still on exhibition in the St. Johns Museum, where I have seen them many times. Shortly afterward a dead octopus was found, measuring, with tentacles spread, forty feet over all. It was not, however, the same octopus which attacked the fishermen, for that must have been much larger.

We can understand, then, how much Skipper Tom's cod trap meant to him. We can visualize his pleasure, and share his joy. The trap was, to a large extent, insurance against privation and hardship. It was his reward for the self-denial of himself and his family for years, and represented his life's savings.

When at last the ice cleared from his fishing place and the trap was set, there was no prouder or happier man on The Labrador than Skipper Tom. The trap was in the water when the _Princess May_, one Saturday afternoon, steamed into Red Bay and Doctor Grenfell accepted the hospitable invitation of Skipper Tom to spend the night at his home.

It was still early in the season and icebergs were plentiful enough, as, indeed, they are the whole summer long. They are always a menace to cod traps, for should a berg drift against a trap, that will be the end of the trap forever. Fishermen watch their traps closely, and if an iceberg comes so near as to threaten it the trap must be removed to save it. A little lack of watchfulness leads to ruin.

"The trap's well set," said Skipper Tom, when Doctor Grenfell inquired concerning it. "The ice is keepin' clear, but I watches close."

"What are the signs of fish?" asked the Doctor.

"Fine!" said Skipper Tom. "The signs be _wonderful_ fine."

"I hope you'll have a big year."

"There's a promise of un," Skipper Tom grinned happily. "The trap's sure to do fine for us."

But nobody knows from one day to another what will happen on The Labrador.

According to habit Skipper Tom was up bright and early on Sunday morning and went for a look at the trap. When presently he returned to join Doctor Grenfell at breakfast he was plainly worried.

"There's a berg driftin' down on the trap. We'll have to take her in," he announced.

"But 'tis Sunday," exclaimed his wife. "You'll never be workin' on Sunday."

"Aye, 'tis Sunday and 'tis against my principles to fish on the Sabbath day. I never did before, but 'tis to save our cod trap now. The lads and I'll not fish. We'll just haul the trap."

"The Lard'll forgive _that, what_ever," agreed his wife.

Skipper Tom went out when he had eaten, but it was not long until he returned.

"I'm not goin' to haul the trap today," he said quietly and decisively. "There are those in this harbor," he added, turning to Doctor Grenfell, "who would say, if I hauled that trap, that 'twould be no worse for them to fish on Sunday than for me to haul my trap. Then they'd go fishin' Sundays the same as other days, and none of un would keep Sunday any more as a day of rest, as the Lard intends us to keep un, and has told us in His own words we must keep un. I'll not haul the trap this day, though 'tis sore hard to lose un."