Fullerton Leonard Waldo
Grenfell: Knight-Errant of the North
XI
THE KIDNAPPERS
One day, as Grenfell was about to leave northern Labrador in his little steamer the Strathcona, a man came aboard with trouble in his eyes. It was the good-hearted Hudson's Bay agent.
"Doctor," he pleaded, "old Tommy Mitchell's been comin' in every Saturday for two months, tryin' to get somethin' for his family. I've been givin' him twenty pounds of flour a week for himself and wife and six children. That's every shred they've got to live on. He hasn't a salmon or a codfish to give me, and he was in debt when I came here. What'll we do?"
The Strathcona had steam up and was whistling to the Doctor to come aboard. On the Labrador coast you must leave promptly or the sea may punish you for the delay.
"See if you can't stop at the island off Napaktok Point, Doctor. They're livin' out there with nothin' but their own hats to cover 'em—if they've got any."
"I will," the Doctor promised, and was off.
When they came near the island, the dory was lowered, and Grenfell and his mate rowed toward the rocks.
"Can you see anything that looks like a house, Bill? You have better eyes than mine."
"No, Doctor. I been a-lookin'. I sees—nothing."
"I didn't expect you to do as well as that," said the Doctor. "But keep on looking. And call out when you see anything."
They rowed almost round the island, against a stiff head wind.
Each time they passed cove or headland they thought, "Well now, surely it must be just around the next point."
"There's a smoke, sir!" cried the sharp-eyed Bill.
Sure enough—there was a tiny wisp of smoke, trickling up the face of the rocks.
But no hut was to be seen.
They landed, and pulled the boat out on the beach.
Then they went toward the smoke. The fire was built among flat stones out in the open.
A hollow-cheeked woman sat with a poor, scrawny scrap of a baby on her arm. In her other hand she held what looked like an old paint can, and she was stirring some thin sort of gruel in it, in spite of the weight of the baby on her arm. It was not heavy, poor little creature!
"Good-morning. Where's your tent?" Grenfell asked, cheerily.
"There she is."
The woman pointed with the gruel stick to a mass of canvas and matting, plastered in patches with mud against the face of the cliff.
"Why do you cook in the open?"
"'Cos us hasn't got no stove."
"Where's Tom?"
"He's away. He's gone off wid Johnnie, tryin' to shoot a gull. Here, Bill, run an' fetch yer dad, an' tell him Dr. Grenfell wants 'un."
A half-naked little boy about nine years old darted off into the scrub bushes.
"What's the matter with baby?" Dr. Grenfell inquired kindly, as the infant clasped his finger and looked up into his mild face.
"Hungry," was the mother's sufficient answer. "I ain't got nothin' to give him." Her lip trembled, and she turned her head away.
The baby kept up a constant whimpering, like a lamb very badly scared.
"It's half-starved," said the Doctor. "What do you give it?"
"Flour, and berries," was the response. "I chews the loaf first—or else it ain't no good for him."
Then a little girl, of perhaps five, and a boy of—maybe—seven, shyly came from behind the tent, where they had fled wild-eyed and hid when the strangers came. They had nothing on: but they were brown as chestnuts and fat as butter.
It was snowing, and the snow had driven them toward the poor, mean fire where mother sat with the baby.
"Glad to see the other children are fat," said the Doctor.
"They bees eatin' berries all the time," was the mother's answer. Then suddenly the full force of their plight swept all other thoughts out of her mind.
"What's t' good of t' government?" she cried. "Here is we all starvin'. And it's ne'er a crust they gives yer. There bees a sight o' pork an' butter in t' company's store. But it's ne'er a sight of 'im us ever gets. What are them doin'? T' agent he says he can't give Tom no more'n dry flour, an' us can't live on dat."
Then a bent and weary figure shuffled on the scene. It was Tom, the poor husband and father. He had an old and rusty, single-barreled muzzle-loading gun, and he was carrying a dead sea-gull by the tip of one of its wings. Two small boys trudged along after him, their faces old before their time. They stood looking at the Doctor in wonderment.
"Well, Tom, you've had luck!" was Grenfell's greeting. He explains that he meant Tom was very lucky not to have the gun open at the wrong end and discharge its contents into his face!
"It's only a kitty," the hunter answered, sadly. "An' I been sittin' out yonder on the p'int all day." A kitty is a little gull.
"Your gun isn't heavy enough to kill the big gulls, I suppose."
"No, Doctor. I hain't much powder—and ne'er a bit o' shot. I has to load her up most times with a handful o' they round stones. T' hammer don't always set her off, neither. Her springs bees too old, I reckon." He fumbled with the trigger in a way that led Grenfell to ask him to let him hold the gun instead. Tom passed it over, and Grenfell held it till their talk was over.
Tom, who was part Eskimo, was a very poor business man. He had been a slave of the "truck system" by which a man brings his furs or his fish to a trader, exchanges them for supplies, and is always in debt to the storekeeper who takes pains to see that it shall be so.
"Tom," the Doctor told him, "I want to help you. Winter is coming on, and here you are with a handful of flour and a sea-gull, and no proper shelter from the cold. You have too many children to keep. I think you'd better pass over to me for a while your two little boys, 'Billy' and 'Jimmy,' and the little girl. I'll feed them and clothe them and have them taught till they are big enough to come back and help you. All the time they are with me I'll do all I can to help you along. If you have them here—they'll certainly starve. The snow is beginning to cover up the berries already. And that's about all you've got to feed them."
Poor Tom couldn't think.
He merely stood there, looking first at the sea, then at the sky, then at the Doctor, his mouth wide open.
His wife broke the silence. "D'ye hear, man? T' Doctor wants to take t' children. I says 'tis the gover'ment should feed 'em here. I wouldn't let no children o' mine go, I wouldn't." Saying which, she held her sickly infant tighter.
The talk to and fro went on for a long time. It didn't get much of anywhere. On the part of the fond parents it consisted largely of what the government ought to do. Grenfell patiently explained that the government was a long way off, and couldn't answer before Christmas if it answered at all.
All this time Father Tom stood there, dumb as a stalled ox, trying to see daylight by which to make up his mind. Evidently his wife was the real man of the family.
"Why doesn't youse say something?" she broke out at last. "Bees you a-goin' to let t' Doctor have youse childer?"
Tom looked more distracted than ever, and it didn't help much when he took off his hat and let cold air blow on his heated brain as he rummaged with his finger in the dense thatch on his head.
Then Tom said: "I suppose he knows."
"Yes," Dr. Grenfell said. "I think you'd better let me have Billy and Jimmy for a while."
There was more talk, and finally the wife gave way. "Well, youse can take Billy, I suppose, if you wants un."
All this time the mate had said nothing. Big and burly as he was, there were tears in his eyes; he had a kind heart, for there were many little ones to feed and clothe in his own household. He thought it was time to settle the dispute.
For he heard the Strathcona's whistle blowing impatiently, warning the men ashore that the sea was rising and the rocks in the uncertain weather meant danger. The little steamer, while the palaver went on, had been following alongshore as they went round the island. The snow was getting thicker, and the wind was tipping the waves with whitecaps. They must be off without further parley.
So the mate, not wasting words, suddenly grabbed Billy under one long, strong arm.
Billy kicked and howled and struggled. Billy had no idea of that delightful home for the children at St. Anthony. He would have cried to go there, if he had known what playmates he would have, what diverting games to play.
Billy was captured "for good and all." But Dr. Grenfell knew that it wouldn't do for Billy to be toted off alone.
He was bound he'd get another child,—for he knew he was right, not merely because of the good he could do the children, but because of the hopeless situation of the whole family if they all remained on this miserable shelf of rock in the open Atlantic.
"Now, Mrs. Mitchell," he coaxed, "you're going to let Jimmy come too, to keep Billy company."
She shook her head in defiance. Her mind was made up. Billy could go—but he was the only one. That was flat and final.
Then Tom broke his silence once more: "I says he knows what's for t' best."
The Strathcona's whistle was petulantly crying: "Come on! We really must be starting! If you don't come aboard right away, we may be wrecked. Really, you must think of your crew. It isn't fair to let us run this risk, with the barometer falling, and the wind like this."
Dr. Grenfell made every tempting promise he could think of.
"If you'll let me have Jimmy, I'll give your husband a fine gun."
"No," said Mrs. Mitchell. "Ye can't have un."
"I'll send him plenty of powder and shot."
She shook her head.
"I'll give him a letter to the agent so he can get work."
She made an impatient gesture of rejection with her free hand.
The Doctor played a trump card. "You shall have nice dresses for yourself and clothes for all the children."
Mrs. Mitchell yielded. "Well then, ye can have Jimmy. But that's all. That's the very last one."
"Now, Mrs. Mitchell, be reasonable. Let me have the baby girl, too."
"No."
"Look at your tent. We'll put the little girl in a fine house with a roof on it, and a door that opens and shuts."
"No."
"We'll give her pretty clothes, and teach her from the picture books. She'll come back so you won't know her."
"But I want to know her."
"We'll feed her well, and fill her up till she's as fat as a seal."
"No. That's all. Jimmy and Billy can go. She shall stay here with me."
This time the father kept his face tight closed. There was no help at all from him. He looked the other way, stiff as a seal-gaff.
The mate was already on his way to the beach, with the two naked little boys wriggling under his arms. They were red and blue all over with the stains of the berries—a beautiful sight.
"All right, Mrs. Mitchell. We must go on board now. Come with us, and we'll give you the things."
Then there was joy for that poor, hungry family.
They were all clad in stout clothing that would keep out the wind. A gun was lent to the father, and his shattered fowling-piece was fixed up by the clever engineer, till it was "most as good as new." The eldest boy, John, would be big enough to use it.
The powder and shot were dug out of the lockers: tins of condensed milk were found for the poor little shrimp of a baby. The second axe—a gorgeous prize—went into the growing pile of gifts: soap, needles and thread, shoes and stockings, potatoes, some flour, a package of tea, sugar, and other precious things went into two oilskin bags, and then over the rail into the Mitchells' leaky, tossing boat.
Meanwhile an astonishing change was taking place in the two boys. They were getting a bath on the deck, in the wind and snow, with a bucket and a scrubbing-brush, and after they were dressed they had their hair cut. Their mother stared and stared as the boat rowed away. She could hardly believe they were hers.
"Good-by, Doctor. Thank you."
"Good-by, Mrs. Mitchell. We'll take good care of them."
Father said nothing. He was rowing the boat. But no doubt he was thinking very grateful thoughts.
The boys wept a little, silently as they looked their last on their patched and tattered home. The family they left behind them would make a journey of a hundred miles in that rotten boat to a winter hut on the mainland.
But they looked at each other, washed and dressed, with all that wild hair pruned away—and then they began to laugh at each other as the biggest joke in their short lives.
After they reached St. Anthony and were installed in the Orphanage, they were two of the happiest and most popular lads in the place.
They purred like pleased kittens and lost no chance to show how much they liked the people who were doing so much for them. They studied hard, and put the same driving spirit into play. It could be seen that the little "heathen" of the island were in a fair way to become in time the leaders of men who are needed in all walks of life. Dr. Grenfell felt well rewarded for all the trouble he had taken for Jimmy and Billy and all their family.
The "liveyeres," as those who "live here" are called, may lead rough, hard lives. But for that very reason they welcome books, and music, and all such things.
One day as the Strathcona was scudding southward, her sails swelling with a stiff breeze, and the Doctor in a great hurry to reach a distant coast-line and get to work on some patients who had been waiting a long time for him, a little boat came and planted herself directly in the Strathcona's path.
The Strathcona was a small craft herself, but she seemed a monster compared with this impudent sailboat. The smaller boat had a funny-looking flag, hoisted as a signal to stop. It was almost as if a harbor tug should attempt to hold up the Leviathan.
Dr. Grenfell thought it must be some very serious surgical case.
He gave the order at once: "Down sail and heave her to."
Then an old, white-haired man, the only passenger in the small boat, climbed stiffly over the rail, fairly creaking in his joints.
"Good-day," said Grenfell. "What can we do for you? We're in a hurry."
The old man took off his cap, and held it in his hand as he looked down at the deck. Then he mustered up courage to make his request.
"Please, Doctor," he said slowly, "I wanted to ask you if you had any books you could lend me. We haven't anything to read here."
Dr. Grenfell confesses with shame that his first impulse was to return a sharp, vexed answer, and to ask, "What do you mean by holding up my mission boat for such a reason?" But then he realized his mistake. In a way, it would be as good a deed to put a prop under the old man's spirit with a good book as to take off his leg with a knife.
"Haven't you got any books?"
"Yes, Doctor. I've got two, but I've read 'em through, over and over again, long ago."
"What were they?"
"One is the Works of Josephus, sir, and the other is Plutarch's Lives."
The old fellow was overjoyed when the Doctor put aboard his bobbing skiff a box of fifty books—a mixture of everything from Henty's stories to sermons.
Dr. Grenfell never could tell what a day—or a night—would bring forth. If variety is the spice of life, his life in the north has been one long diet of paprika.
Once late in the fall he was creeping along the Straits of Belle Isle in a motor-boat—the only one in those waters at that time.
It broke down, as the best of motor-boats sometimes will, and the tidal current, with that brutal habit which tidal currents have, began to pull the boat on the rocks as with an unseen hand.
They tied all the lines they had together, attached the anchor, and put it overboard.
The water was so deep they could not reach the bottom.
Darkness was shutting down—and it was an awful place to pass the night.
Then a schooner's lights flashed out. "Hurrah!" cried Grenfell's men. "We're all right now!"
They lashed the hurricane light on their boat-hook and waved it to and fro like mad. They MUST make those fellows on the schooner take notice and stop for them. The sea would probably get them if they failed.
The water was so rough, the night so dark, that even their precious motor-boat was nothing, if only they could clamber aboard that schooner. At almost any time, those Straits offer stretches of the most perilous sailing-water in the world. Sailors who have rounded Cape Horn would say yes to that.
But just then—to their horror, the schooner which had been close to them put about and hurried off like a startled caribou. Soon the powerless motor-boat was left far, far behind, wallowing in the trough of waves much too big for her size.
They shouted with all their might, but the whistling wind threw away their outcry instead of carrying it across the tossing waves, which threatened to swamp the boat at any instant.
They shot off their guns.
They yelled again.
They lit flares such as are used in the navy for signal lights.
But it was all in vain.
They almost began to believe they had dreamed of rescue—that a phantom ship had come to them in a nightmare.
They waved their hurricane light again and again, as high as they could hold it.
The engineer, a willing amateur, all this while had been toiling away till his hands bled, at his motor, drenched with the spray. He had torn the machinery limb from limb, and patiently refitted the parts. Suddenly one cylinder gave a weak kick, and then came a spasmodic succession of sputters, with long waits between. But with the aid of the oars the boat was now able to make slow and tedious progress in the schooner's wake.
At last—at last—along toward midnight they crept into the harbor where the schooner had also taken refuge.
Tired as they were, they wouldn't turn in at a fisherman's cottage without boarding the ship to rebuke the sailors for their unhandsome behavior.
How could they leave men in a tiny boat in distress, perhaps to be swamped and to drown in those cruel waters out yonder in the blind dark?
The skipper made solemn reply. "Them cliffs is haunted," he announced. "More'n one light's been seen there than ever any man lit. When us saw youse light flashing round right in on the cliffs, us knowed it was no place for Christian men that time o' night. Us guessed it was just fairies or devils tryin' to toll us in."
Many of the little boats on the Labrador are not fit to spend a night at sea, and often it is an anxious business to get into a safe harbor before sundown. Dr. Grenfell has a reputation as a daredevil skipper, because so often, on an errand of mercy, he has steamed right out in the teeth of the storm when hardened, ancient mariners shook their heads and hugged the land. But the Doctor does not take chances for the sake of the risk itself—his daring always has behind it the good reason that he wants to go somewhere in a great hurry in time of need.
A hundred miles north of Indian Tickle, where there was no light, Grenfell was caught one night when he was coming south with the fishing fleet.
All of a sudden the fog fell on the whole group of ships like a thick wet blanket, before they could make the harbor. There were many reefs between their position and the open sea: the only thing to do was to anchor then and there. When a rift came in the fog, Dr. Grenfell saw the riding-lights of eleven vessels round about him. A northeaster grew in violence as night came swiftly on, and a heavy sea arose. The ships tugged at their anchors. The great waves swept the decks from end to end.
In the hold of the Strathcona were patients lying in the cots, on their way to Battle Harbor Hospital. As the Doctor would say, there was less than an inch of iron between them and eternity.
They were dressed, and the boats were prepared to take them ashore.
One after another in the mad waters the neighbor lights went out. All night the Strathcona fought the sea. When day came, only one of the other boats was left—a ship much bigger than the Strathcona, named the Yosemite.
The Yosemite was drifting down upon the smaller vessel, and it seemed as if in a moment more there must be a collision.
But just then the Yosemite struck a reef. She turned over on her side. In that position the sea drove the vessel ashore, through the breakers, with the crew clinging to the bridge.
The fact that the Strathcona kept steam up and was "steaming to her anchors" all night long had saved her, the only survivor of the entire fleet. Every vessel that went ashore was smashed to kindling.
As they were about to weigh anchor, the main steam pipe began to leak. It was necessary to "blow down" the boilers.
For the whole of that short day the engineers tinkered at the damage, knowing that the lives of all on board might depend on their success ere nightfall.
Suddenly, to the inexpressible relief of everyone, the engineer shouted:
"Right for'ard!"
Then came the sweet music of the engine-room bell, and presently they were under way again, so nightfall found them safe at last in the harbor, with those eleven wrecks pounding on the rocks outside.
Sometimes the fishermen expected miracles of healing. One day a big "husk" of a fisherman clambered aboard, saying that his teeth hurt him.
"Sit down on that wood-pile," said the Doctor.
The man obeyed. The Doctor pried his mouth open, and saw the tooth that was making the trouble. Then he fetched the forceps.
Up started the patient in wide-eyed alarm.
"Bees you a-goin' to haul it, Doctor?"
"Of course I'm going to pull it out. What did you want me to do?"
"I wouldn't have you touch it! Not for all the fish in the sea!"
"Well then, why did you come to me? You're just wasting my time."
"I wanted you to charm her, Doctor."
"But my dear fellow, I'm not an Eskimo medicine-man. I don't know how, and I don't believe in it anyway."
Mr. Fisherman looked very much put out. "I knows why youse won't charm un. It's because I'm a Roman Catholic."
"Nonsense. That wouldn't make the slightest difference. But if you really think it would do any good,—come on, I'll try. Only—you'll have to pay twenty-five cents, just as though I had 'hauled' it."
"That I will, Doctor, and glad to do it. Go ahead!"
He perched on the rail like a great sea-bird. The Doctor to carry out the farce put his finger in the gaping mouth and touched the tooth. While he kept his finger in place he uttered the solemn words:
"Abracadabra Tiddlywinkum Umslopoga."
That last word must have come from a hazy memory of the name of the wonderful big black man in H. Rider Haggard's "Alan Quatermain," who after a long, hard run beside a horse that carries his master, defends a stairway against their enemies and splits a magic stone with an axe and so brings the foe to grief.
At any rate, the combination worked. Grenfell pulled out his finger quickly so that his patient wouldn't bite him.
The fisherman got up in silence. Then he slowly made the circuit of the deck. In the course of the brief journey, he thrust his hand deep into his jeans and pulled out a quarter.
"Thank you, Doctor. Many thanks." He solemnly handed the coin to his benefactor. "All the pain has gone."
Dr. Grenfell stood holding the coin in his hand, wondering how he came to make such a fool of himself, while the fisherman's broad back bent to the oars of the little boat that took him ashore.
A month later, in the same harbor, the same man swung his leg over the rail with a hearty greeting.
"Had any more trouble?" asked the Doctor.
"No—sir! Not an ache out of her since!" came the jovial answer.
The Doctor had much trouble with patients who wanted to drink at one draught all the medicine he gave them. They thought that if a teaspoonful of the remedy was good for you, the whole bottle must be ever so much better.
A haddock's fin-bone was a "liveyere's" charm against rheumatism—but you must get hold of the haddock and cut off the fin before he touches the boat. So you don't often get a fin that is good for anything.
If you want to avoid a hemorrhage, the best plan is to tie a bit of green worsted round your wrist.
Both Protestants and Catholics write prayers on pieces of paper and wear them in little bags about their necks to drive off evil things.
The constant battle against wind and wave develops heroes and heroines, and the tales told of golden deeds such as might earn a Carnegie medal or pension are beyond number.
One man started south for the winter in his fishing-boat, with his fishing partner, his wife, four children and a servant girl. A gale of wind came up. On the Labrador a gale is a gale: they do not use the word lightly. Grenfell tells of a new church that was blown into the sea with its pulpit, pews and communion-table. In a storm like that, the mainsail, jib and mast of this luckless smack went over the side. The boat was driven helplessly before the wind, for three days and nights. Then the wind changed, and they could put up a small foresail, which in two more awful days brought them to the land. But they were running ashore with such violence that they would have been lost beyond a doubt, if six brave "liveyeres" had not put out to rescue them. Their boat was smashed to flinders.
Then they found that all this time they had been going due north, for a hundred and fifty miles. They had to stay till the next summer. Their friends, when they got back to Newfoundland, had given them up for dead.
A fisherman said to Grenfell, in explaining why he couldn't swim: "You see, we has enough o' the water without goin' to bother wi' it when we are ashore." This man had barely escaped drowning on no less than four occasions. Once he saved himself by clinging to a rope with his teeth, after his hands were too numb to serve him, till they hauled him aboard.
The shore of one of the Labrador bays had a total adult population of just one man. As the ice was breaking up in the spring, he had sent his two young sons out on the ice-pans in pursuit of seals.
But the treacherous flooring gave way, and the father from the shore saw his boys struggling in the water.
He tied a long fishing-line round his body, and gave the other end to his daughter. While she held it he crawled out over the pans. Then he jumped into the bitter water, like a deep-sea diver going down to examine a wreck, and stayed between and below the pans till he had recovered both bodies—but the last spark of life was extinct.
Almost under the windows of Dr. Grenfell's hospital at Battle Harbor two men started with sled and dogs to get fire-wood. They were rounding a headland, when the sled went into the water, taking not merely the dogs but the drivers with it. One man got under the ice, and was seen no more. The other clung to the edge of the ice, too weak to crawl out.
His sister saw what happened, and came running over the ice. Men further away who were bringing a boat shouted to her: "For God's sake, don't go near the hole." She did not heed their warning. Instead, she threw herself flat, so as to distribute her weight, and dragged herself along till she was close enough to reach her brother's hand.
She could not quite pull him out. He was so benumbed that he could not help in the rescue. She lifted his body part way over the edge of the ice-sheet and held on.
Nearer and nearer the boat came with the rescuers shouting encouragement. "We're a-comin', girl.' Don't let go!" Her strength was almost gone. But she was bound to be faithful unto death—if the sea claimed her brother it must take her too.
She did not cry out. She wasted no energy in words upon the frosty air. The boat seemed ages in coming, though the rowers plied the oars with might and main.
One of her legs had broken through the ice. At any instant she might find herself struggling in the sea, and her agony of effort would have been in vain.
At what seemed the last second of the last moment for the pair, the brawny arms of the fishermen hauled them over the gunwale.
She told the story simply, and as though it were all in the day's work.
"What made you go on?" Grenfell asked her.
"I couldn't see him drown, could I?" was all her reply.