“What’s that schooner
bound South at this time of year for?” I asked
the skipper of a fishing vessel who had come aboard
for treatment the second summer I was on the coast.
“I guess, Doctor, that that’s
the Yankee what’s been down North for a load
of Huskeymaws. What do they want with them when
they gets them?”
“They’ll put them in a
cage and show them at ten cents a head. They’re
taking them to the World’s Fair in Chicago.”
People of every sort crowded to see
the popular Eskimo Encampment on the Midway.
The most taking attraction among the groups displayed
was a little boy, son of a Northern Chieftain, Kaiachououk
by name; and many a nickel was thrown into the ring
that little Prince Pomiuk might show his dexterity
with the thirty-foot lash of his dog whip.
One man alone of all who came to stare
at the little people from far-off Labrador took a
real interest in the child. It was the Rev. C.C.
Carpenter, who had spent many years of his life as
a clergyman on the Labrador coast. But one day
Mr. Carpenter missed his little friend. Pomiuk
was found on a bed of sickness in his dark hut.
An injury to his thigh had led to the onset of an
insidious hip disease.
The Exhibition closed soon after,
and the Eskimos went north. But Pomiuk was not
forgotten, and Mr. Carpenter sent him letter after
letter, though he never received an answer. The
first year the band of Eskimos reached as far north
as Ramah, but Pomiuk’s increasing sufferings
made it impossible for them to take him farther that
season.
Meanwhile in June, 1895, we again
steamed out through the Narrows of St. John’s
Harbour, determined to push as far north as the farthest
white family. A dark foggy night in August found
us at the entrance of that marvellous gorge called
Nakvak. We pushed our way cautiously in some
twenty miles from the entrance. Suddenly the watch
sang out, “Light on the starboard bow!”
and the sound of our steamer whistle echoed and reechoed
in endless cadences between those mighty cliffs.
Three rifle shots answered us, soon a boat bumped our
side, and a hearty Englishman sprang over the rail.
It was George Ford, factor of the
Hudson Bay Company at that post. During the evening’s
talk he told me of a group of Eskimos still farther
up the fjord having with them a dying boy. Next
day I had my first glimpse of little Prince Pomiuk.
We found him naked and haggard, lying on the rocks
beside the tiny “tubik.”
The Eskimos were only too glad to
be rid of the responsibility of the sick lad, and,
furthermore, he was “no good fishing.”
So the next day saw us steaming south again, carrying
with us the boy and his one treasured possession a
letter from a clergyman at Andover, Massachusetts.
It contained a photograph, and when I showed it to
Pomiuk he said, “Me even love him.”
A letter was sent to the address given,
and some weeks later came back an answer. “Keep
him,” it said. “He must never know
cold and loneliness again. I write for a certain
magazine, and the children in ‘The Corner’
will become his guardians.” Thus the “Corner
Cot” was founded, and occupied by the little
Eskimo Prince for the brief remainder of his life.
On my return the following summer
the child’s joyful laughter greeted me as he
said, “Me Gabriel Pomiuk now.” A good
Moravian Brother had come along during the winter
and christened the child by the name of the angel
of comfort.
In a sheltered corner of a little
graveyard on the Labrador coast rests the tiny body
of this true prince. When he died the doctor in
charge of the hospital wrote me that the building seemed
desolate without his smiling, happy face and unselfish
presence. The night that he was buried the mysterious
aurora lit up the vault of heaven. The Innuits,
children of the Northland, call it “the spirits
of the dead at play.” But it seemed to
us a shining symbol of the joy in the City of the
King that another young soldier had won his way home.
The Roman Catholic Church is undoubtedly
correct in stating that the first seven years of his
life makes the child. Missions have always emphasized
the importance of the children from a purely propaganda
point of view. But our Children’s Home was
not begun for any such reason. Like Topsy, “it
just grow’d.” I had been summoned
to a lonely headland, fifty miles from our hospital
at Indian Harbour, to see a very sick family.
Among the spruce trees in a small hut lived a Scotch
salmon fisher, his wife and five little children.
When we anchored off the promontory we were surprised
to receive no signs of welcome. When we landed
and entered the house we found the mother dead on the
bed and the father lying on the floor dying.
Next morning we improvised two coffins, contributed
from the wardrobes of all hands enough black material
for a “seemly” funeral, and later, steaming
up the bay to a sandy stretch of land, buried the
two parents with all the ceremonies of the Church and
found ourselves left with five little mortals in black
sitting on the grave mound. We thought that we
had done all that could be expected of a doctor, but
we now found the difference. It looked as if
God expected more. An uncle volunteered to assume
one little boy and we sailed away with the remainder
of the children. Having no place to keep them,
we wrote to a friendly newspaper in New England and
advertised for foster parents. One person responded.
A young farmer’s wife wrote: “I am
just married to a farmer in the country, and miss
the chance to teach children in Sunday-School, or
even to get to church, it is so far away. I think
that I can feed two children for the Lord’s
sake. If you will send them along, I will see
that they do not want for anything.” We
shipped two, and began what developed into our Children’s
Home with the balance of the stock.
We had everything to learn in the
rearing of children, having had only the hygienic
side of their development to attend to previously.
One of the two which we kept turned out very well,
becoming a fully trained nurse. The other failed.
Both of those who went to New England did well, the
superior discipline of their foster mother being no
doubt responsible. The following fall I made
a special journey to see the latter. It was a
small farm on which they lived, and a little baby had
just arrived. Only high ideals could have persuaded
the woman to accept the added responsibility.
The children were as bright and jolly as possible.
Among the other functions which have
fallen to my lot to perform is the ungrateful task
of unpaid magistrate, or justice of the peace.
In this capacity a little later I was called on to
try a mother, who in a Labrador village had become
a widow and later married a man with six children
who refused to accept her three-year-old little girl.
When I happened along, the baby was living alone in
the mother’s old shack, a mud-walled hut, and
she or the neighbours went in and tended it as they
could. None of the few neighbours wanted permanently
to assume the added expense of the child, so dared
not accept it temporarily. It was sitting happily
on the floor playing with a broken saucer when I came
in. It showed no fear of a stranger; indeed, it
made most friendly overtures. I had no right
to send the new husband to jail. I could not
fine him, for he had no money. There was no jail
in Labrador, anyhow. My special constable was
a very stout fisherman, a family man, who proposed
to nurse the child till I could get it to some place
where it could be properly looked after. When
we steamed away, we had the baby lashed into a swing
cot. It became very rough, and the baby, of course,
crawled out and was found in the scuppers. It
did everything that it ought not to do, but which we
knew that it would. But we got it to the hospital
at last and the nurse received it right to her heart.
In various ways my family grew at
an alarming rate, once the general principle was established.
On my early summer voyage to the east coast of Labrador
I found at Indian Harbour Hospital a little girl of
four. In the absence of her father, who was hunting,
and while her mother lay sick in bed, she had crawled
out of the house and when found in the snow had both
legs badly frozen. They became gangrenous halfway
to the knee, and her father had been obliged to chop
them both off. An operation gave her good stumps;
but what use was she in Labrador with no legs?
So she joined our family, and we gave her such good
new limbs that when I brought her into Government
House at Halifax, where one of our nurses had taken
her to school temporarily, and she ran into the room
with two other little girls, the Governor could scarcely
tell which was our little cripple Kirkina.
The following fall as we left for
the South our good friend, the chief factor of the
Hudson Bay Company, told me that on an island in the
large inlet known to us as Eskimo Bay a native family,
both hungry and naked, were living literally under
the open sky. We promised to try and find them
and help them with some warm clothing.
Having steamed round the island and
seen no signs of life, we were on the point of leaving
when a tiny smoke column betrayed the presence of
human life and with my family-man mate we
landed as a search party. Against the face of
a sheer rock a single sheet of light cotton duck covered
the abode of a woman with a nursing baby. They
were the only persons at home. The three boys
and a father comprised the remainder of the family.
We soon found the two small boys. They were practically
stark naked, but fat as curlews, being full of wild
berries with which their bodies were stained bright
blues and reds. They were a jolly little couple,
as unconcerned about their environment as Robinson
Crusoe after five years on his island. Soon the
father came home. I can see him still the
vacant brown face of a very feeble-minded half-breed,
ragged and tattered and almost bootless. He was
carrying an aged single-barrelled boy’s gun
in one hand and a belated sea-gull in the other, which
bird was destined for the entire evening meal of the
family. A half-wild-looking hobbledehoy boy of
fifteen years also joined the group.
It was just beginning to snow, a wet
sleet. Eight months of winter lay ahead.
Yet not one of the family seemed to think a whit about
that which was vivid enough to the minds of the mate
and myself. We sat down for a regular pow-wow
beside the fire sputtering in the open room, from
which thick smoke crept up the face of the rock, and
hung over us in a material but symbolic cloud.
It was naturally cold. The man began with a plea
for some “clodin.” We began with a
plea for some children. How many would he swap
for a start in clothing and “tings for his winter”?
He picked out and gave us Jimmie. The soft-hearted
mate, on whose cheeks the tears were literally standing,
grabbed Jimmie as the latter did his share
of the gull. But we were not satisfied.
We had to have Willie. It was only when a breaking
of diplomatic relations altogether was threatened
that Willie was sacrificed on the altar of “tings.”
I forget the price, but I think that we threw in an
axe, which was one of the trifles which the father
lacked and in this of all countries!
The word was no sooner spoken than our shellback again
excelled himself. He pounced on Willie like a
hawk on its prey, and before the treaty was really
concluded he was off to our dory with a naked boy
kicking violently in the vice of each of his powerful
arms. The grasping strength of our men, reared
from childhood to haul heavy strains and ponderous
anchors, is phenomenal.
Whatever sins Labrador has been guilty
of, Malthusianism is not in the category. Nowhere
are there larger families. Those of Quebec Labrador,
which is better known, are of almost world-wide fame.
God is, to Labrador thinking, the Giver of all children.
Man’s responsibility is merely to do the best
he can to find food and clothing for them. A man
can accomplish only so much. If these “gifts
of God” suffer and are a burden to others that
is kismet. It is the animal philosophy and makes
women’s lives on this coast terribly hard.
The opportunity for service along child-welfare lines
is therefore not surprising from this angle also.
One day, passing a group of islands,
we anchored in a bight known as Rogues’ Roost.
It so happened that a man who many years before had
shot off his right arm, and had followed up his incapacity
with a large family of dependants, had just died.
Life cannot be expected to last long in Labrador under
those conditions. There were four children, one
being a big boy who could help out. The rest were
offered as a contribution to the Mission. A splendid
Newfoundland fisherman and his wife had a summer fishing
station here, and with that generous open-heartedness
which is characteristic of our seafarers, they were
only too anxious to help. “Of course, she
would make clothing while I was North” out
of such odd garments as a general collection produced.
“She wouldn’t think of letting them wear
it till I came along South, not she.” She
would “put them in the tub as soon as she heard
our whistle.” When after the long summer’s
work we landed and went up to her little house, three
shining, red, naked children were drying before a
large stove, in which the last vestige of connection
with their past was contributing its quota of calories
toward the send-off. A few minutes later we were
off to the ship with as sweet a batch of jolly, black-haired,
dark-eyed kiddies as one could wish for. Our
good friend could not keep back the tears as she kissed
them good-bye on deck. The boy has already put
in three years on the Western Front. The girls
have both been educated, the elder having had two
years finishing at the Pratt Institute in New York.
A grimy note saying, “Please
call in to Bird Island as you pass and see the sick,”
brought me our next donation. “There be
something wrong with Mrs. B’s twins, Doctor,”
greeted me on landing. “Seems as if they
was like kittens, and couldn’t see yet a wink.”
It was only too true. The little twin girls were
born blind in both eyes. What could they do in
Labrador? Two more for our family without any
question. After leaving our Orphanage, these
two went through the beautiful school for the blind
at Halifax, and are now able to make their own living
in the world.
So the roll swelled. Some came
because they were orphans; some because they were
not. Thus, poor Sammy. The home from which
he came was past description. From the outside
it looked like a tumble-down shed. Inside there
appeared to be but one room, which measured six by
twelve feet, and a small lean-to. The family
consisted of father and mother and three children.
The eldest boy was about twelve, then came Sam, and
lastly a wee girl of five, with pretty curly fair hair,
but very thin and delicate-looking. She seemed
to be half-starved and thoroughly neglected.
The father was a ne’er-do-well and the mother
an imbecile who has since died of tuberculosis.
The filth inside was awful. The house was built
of logs, and the spaces in between them were partly
filled in with old rags and moss. The roof leaked.
The room seemed to be alive with vermin, as were also
the whole family. The two boys were simply clothed
in a pair of men’s trousers apiece and a dilapidated
pair of boots between them. The trousers they
found very hard to keep on and had to give them frequent
hoists up. They were both practically destitute
of underclothing. To hide all deficiencies, they
each wore a woman’s long jacket of the oldest
style possible and green with age, which reached down
to their heels. Round their waists they each
wore a skin strap. They were stripped of their
rags, and made to scrub themselves in the stream and
then indoors before putting on their new clean clothes.
Sammy and the little sister joined the family.
One of our boys is from Cape Chidley
itself; others come from as far south and west as
Bay of Islands in South Newfoundland. So many
erroneous opinions seem to persist regarding the difference
between Newfoundland and Labrador that I am constantly
asked: “But why do you have a Children’s
Home in Newfoundland? Can’t the Newfoundlanders
look out for themselves and their dependent children?”
As I have tried to make clear in a previous chapter
North and South Newfoundland should be sharply differentiated
as to wealth, education, climate, and opportunity.
Though for purposes of efficiency and economy the actual
building of the Home is situated in the north end of
the northern peninsula of Newfoundland, the children
who make up the family are drawn almost entirely from
the Labrador side of the Straits; unless, as is often
the case, the poverty and destitution of a so-called
Newfoundland family on the south side of Belle Isle
makes it impossible to leave children under such conditions.
It is obvious that something had to
be built to accommodate the galaxy; and some one secured
who understood the problem of running the Home.
She how often it is “she” was
found in England, a volunteer by the name of Miss
Eleanor Storr. She was a true Christian lady and
a trained worker as well. The building during
the years grew with the family, so that it is really
a wonder of odds and patches. The generosity
of one of our volunteers, Mr. Francis Sayre, the son-in-law
of President Wilson, doubled its capacity. But
buildings that are made of green wood, and grow like
Topsy, are apt to end like Topsy turvy.
Now we are straining every nerve to obtain a suitable
accommodation for the children. We sorely need
a brick building, economically laid out and easily
kept warm, with separate wings for girls and boys
and a creche for babies. Miss Storr was obliged
to leave us, and now for over six years a splendid
and unselfish English lady, Miss Katie Spalding, has
been helping to solve this most important of all problems the
preparation of the next generation to make their land
and the world a more fit place in which to live.
Miss Spalding’s contribution to this country
has lain not only in her influence on the children
and her unceasing care of them, but she has given
her counsel and assistance in other problems of the
Mission, where also her judgment, experience, and
wisdom have proven invaluable.
There is yet another side of the orphanage
problem. We have been obliged, due to the lack
of any boarding-school, to accept bright children
from isolated homes so as to give them a chance in
life. It has been the truest of love messages
to several. The children always repay, whether
the parents pay anything or not; and as so much of
the care of them is volunteer, and friends have assumed
the expenses of a number of the children, the budget
has never been unduly heavy. They do all their
own work, and thanks to the inestimably valuable help
of the Needlework Guild of America through its Labrador
branch, the clothing item has been made possible.
In summer we use neither boots nor stockings for the
children unless absolutely necessary. Our harbour
people still look on that practice askance; but ours
are the healthiest lot of children on the coast, and
their brown bare legs and tough, well-shaped feet
are a great asset to their resistance to tuberculosis,
their arch-enemy, and no small addition to the attraction
of their merry faces and hatless heads.
Even though Gabriel, Prince Pomiuk,
never lived within its walls, the real beginning of
the idea of our Children’s Home was due to him;
and one feels sure that his spirit loves to visit
the other little ones who claim this lonely coast
as their homeland also.
The one test for surgery which we
allow in these days is its “end results.”
Patients must not be advertised as cured till they
have survived the treatment many years. Surely
that is man’s as well as God’s test.
Certainly it is the gauge of the outlay in child life.
What is the good of it all? Does it pay?
In the gift of increasing joy to us, in its obvious
humanity and in its continuous inspiration, it certainly
does make the work of life here in every branch the
better.
The solution of the problem of inducing
the peace of God and the Kingdom of God into our “parish”
is most likely to be solved by wise and persevering
work among the children. For in them lies the
hope of the future of this country, and their true
education and upbringing to fit them for wise citizenship
have been cruelly neglected in this “outpost
of Empire.”
Another menace to the future welfare
of the coast has been the lack of careful instruction
and suitable opportunities for the development, physical,
mental, and spiritual, of its girls. Without an
educated and enlightened womanhood, no country, no
matter how favored by material prosperity, can hope
to take its place as a factor in the progress of the
world. In our orphanage and educational work we
have tried to keep these two ideas constantly before
us, and to offer incentives to and opportunities for
useful life-work in whatever branch, from the humblest
to the highest, a child showed aptitude.
Through the vision, ability, and devotion
of Miss Storr, Miss Spalding, and their helpers, in
training the characters as well as the bodies of the
children at the Home, and by the generous support of
friends of children elsewhere, we have been able to
turn out each year from its walls young men and women
better fitted to cope with the difficult problems
of this environment, and to offer to its service that
best of all gifts useful and consecrated
personalities.