The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador Part 12

He led me a little way down from his cottage to the store, and pointing up at the big bold sign, which Grenfell had nailed there, he announced proudly:

"'Tis _our_ co-operative store, the first on the whole coast. Doctor Grenfell starts un for us."

Then after a pause:

"Doctor Grenfell be a wonderful man! He be a man of G.o.d."

As expected, there was a furore among the little traders when the news was spread that a co-operative store had been opened in Red Bay. The big Newfoundland traders and merchants were heartily in favor of it, and even stood ready to give the experiment their support.

But the little traders who had dealt with the Red Bay settlement for so long, and had bled the people and grown fat upon their labors, were bitterly hostile. They began a campaign of defamation against Doctor Grenfell and his whole field of work. They questioned his honesty, and criticised the conduct of his hospitals. They even enlisted the support of a Newfoundland paper in their opposition to him. They did everything in their power to drive him from the coast, so that they would have the field again in their own greedy hands. It was a dastardly exhibition of selfishness, but there are people in the world who will sell their own souls for profit.

Grenfell went on about his business of making people happier. He was in the right. If the traders would fight he would give it to them. He was never a quitter. He was the same Grenfell that beat up the big boy at school, years before. He was going to have his way about it, and do what he went to Labrador to do. He was going to do more. He was determined now to improve the trading conditions of the people of Labrador and northern Newfoundland, as well as to heal their sick.

From the day the co-operative store was opened in Red Bay not one fish and not one pelt of fur has ever gone to market from that harbor through a trader. The store has handled everything and it has prospered and the people have prospered beyond all expectation. Every one at Red Bay lives comfortably now. The debt to Doctor Grenfell was long since paid and cancelled. And it is characteristic of him that he would not accept one cent of interest. Shares of stock in the store, originally issued at five dollars a share, are now worth one hundred and four dollars a share, the difference being represented by profits that have not been withdrawn. Every share is owned by the people of the prosperous little settlement.

Up and down the Labrador coast and in northern Newfoundland nine co-operative stores have been established by Doctor Grenfell since that autumn evening when he met the Red Bay folk in conference and they voted to stake their all, even their life, in the venture that proved so successful. Two or three of the stores had to discontinue because the people in the localities where they were placed lived so far apart that there were not enough of them to make a store successful.

Every one of these stores was a great venture to the people who cast their lot with it. True they had little in money, but the stake of their venture was literally in each case their life. The man who never ventures never succeeds. Opportunity often comes to us in the form of a venture. Sometimes, it is a desperate venture too.

Doctor Grenfell had to fight the traders all along the line. They even had the Government of Newfoundland appoint a Commission to inquire into the operation of the Missions as a "menace to honest trade." A menace to honest trade! Think of it!

The result of the investigation proved that Grenfell and his mission was doing a big self-sacrificing work, and the finest kind of work to help the poor folk, and were doing it at a great cost and at no profit to the mission. So down went the traders in defeat.

The fellow that's right is the fellow that wins in the end. The fellow that's wrong is the fellow that is going to get the worst of it at the proper time. Grenfell only tried to help others. He never reaped a penny of personal gain. He always came out on top.

It's a good thing to be a sc.r.a.pper sometimes, but if you're a sc.r.a.pper be a good one. Grenfell is a sc.r.a.pper when it is necessary, and when he has to sc.r.a.p he goes at it with the best that's in him. He never does things half way. He never was a quitter. When he starts out to do anything he does it.

XV

A LAD OF THE NORTH

The needs of the children attracted Dr. Grenfell's attention from the beginning. A great many of them were neglected because the parents were too poor to provide for them properly. Those who were orphaned were thrown upon the care of their neighbors, and though the neighbors were willing they were usually too poor to take upon themselves this added burden.

There were no schools save those conducted by the Brethren of the Moravian missions among the Eskimos to the northward, and these were Eskimo schools where the people were taught to read and write in their own strange language, and to keep their accounts. But for the English speaking folk south of the Eskimo coast no provision for schools had ever been made.

The hospitals were overflowing with the sick or injured, and there was no room for children, unless they were in need of medical or surgical attention. There was great need of a home for the orphans where they would be cared for and receive motherly training and attention and could go to school.

Dr. Grenfell had thought about this a great deal. He had made the best arrangements possible for the actually dest.i.tute little ones by finding more or less comfortable homes for them, and seeking contributions from generous folk in the United States, Canada and Great Britain to pay for their expense.

But it was not, perhaps, until Pomiuk, a little Eskimo boy, came under his care that he finally decided that the establishment of a children's home could no longer be delayed.

Pomiuk's home was in the far north of Labrador, where no trees grow, and where the seasons are quite as frigid as those of northern Greenland. In summer he lived with his father and mother in a skin tent, or tupek, and in winter in a snow igloo, or iglooweuk.

Pomiuk's mother cooked the food over the usual stone lamp, which also served to heat their igloo in winter. This lamp, which was referred to in an earlier chapter, and described as a hollowed stone in the form of a half moon, was an exceedingly crude affair, measuring eighteen inches long on its straight side and nine inches broad at its widest part. When it was filled with oil squeezed from a piece of seal blubber, the blubber was suspended over it at the back that the heat, when the wick of moss was lighted, would cause the blubber oil to continue to drip and keep the lamp supplied with oil. The lamp gave forth a smoky, yellow flame. This was the only fireside that little Pomiuk knew. You and I would not think it a very cheerful one, perhaps, but Pomiuk was accustomed to cold and he looked upon it as quite comfortable and cheerful enough.

Ka-i-a-chou-ouk, Pomiuk's father, was a hunter and fisherman, as are all the Eskimos. He moved his tupek in summer, or built his igloo of blocks of snow in winter, wherever hunting and fis.h.i.+ng were the best, but always close to the sea.

Here, under the shadow of mighty cliffs and towering, rugged mountains, by the side of the great water, Pomiuk was born and grew into young boyhood, and played and climbed among the mountain crags or along the ocean sh.o.r.e with other boys. He loved the rugged, naked mountains, they stood so firm and solid! No storm or gale could ever make them afraid, or weaken them. Always they were the same, towering high into the heavens, untrod and unchanged by man, just as they had stood facing the arctic storms through untold ages.

From the high places he could look out over the sea, where icebergs glistened in the suns.h.i.+ne, and sometimes he could see the sail of a fis.h.i.+ng schooner that had come out of the mysterious places beyond the horizon. He loved the sea. Day and night in summer the sound of surf pounding ceaselessly upon the cliffs was in his ears. It was music to him, and his lullaby by night.

But he loved the sea no less in winter when it lay frozen and silent and white. As far as his vision reached toward the rising sun, the endless plain of ice stretched away to the misty place where the ice and sky met. Pomiuk thought it would be a fine adventure, some night, when he was grown to be a man and a great hunter, to take the dogs and komatik and drive out over the ice to the place from which the sun rose, and be there in the morning to meet him. He had no doubt the sun rose out of a hole in the ice, and it did not seem so far away.

Pomiuk's world was filled with beautiful and wonderful things. He loved the bright flowers that bloomed under the cliffs when the winter snows were gone, and the brilliant colors that lighted the sky and mountains and sea, when the sun set of evenings. He loved the mists, and the mighty storms that sent the sea rolling in upon the cliffs in summer. He never ceased to marvel at the aurora borealis, which by night flashed over the heavens in wondrous streams of fire and lighted the darkened world. His father told him the aurora borealis was the spirits of their departed people dancing in the sky. He learned the ways of the wild things in sea and on land and never tired of following the tracks of beasts in the snow, or of watching the seals sunning themselves on rocks or playing about in the water.

The big wolf dogs were his special delight. His father kept nine of them, and many an exciting ride Pomiuk had behind them when his father took him on the komatik to hunt seals or to look at fox traps, or to visit the Trading Post.

When he was a wee lad his father made for him a small dog whip of braided walrus hide. This was Pomiuk's favorite possession. He practiced wielding it, until he became so expert he could flip a pebble no larger than a marble with the tip end of the long lash; and he could snap and crack the lash with a report like a pistol shot.

As he grew older and stronger he practiced with his father's whip, until he became quite as expert with that as with his own smaller one.

This big whip had a wooden handle ten inches in length, and a supple lash of braided walrus hide thirty-five feet long. The lash was about an inch in diameter where it joined the handle, tapering to a thin tip at the end.

One summer day, when Pomiuk was ten years of age, a strange s.h.i.+p dropped anchor off the rocky sh.o.r.e where Pomiuk's father and several other Eskimo families had pitched their tupeks, while they fished in the sea near by for cod or hunted seals. A boat was launched from the s.h.i.+p, and as it came toward the sh.o.r.e all of the excited Eskimos from the tupeks, men, women and children, and among them Pomiuk, ran down to the landing place to greet the visitors, and as they ran every one shouted, "Kablunak! Kablunak!" which meant, "Stranger! Stranger!"

Some white men and an Eskimo stepped out of the boat, and in the hospitable, kindly manner of the Eskimo Pomiuk's father and Pomiuk and their friends greeted the strangers with handshakes and cheerful laughter, and said "Oksunae" to each as he shook his hand, which is the Eskimo greeting, and means "Be strong."

The Eskimo that came with the s.h.i.+p was from an Eskimo settlement called Karwalla, in Hamilton Inlet, on the east of Labrador, but a long way to the south of Nachvak Bay where Pomiuk's people lived. He could speak English as well as Eskimo, and acted as interpreter for the strangers.

This Eskimo explained that the white men had come from America to invite some of the Labrador Eskimos to go to America to see their country. People from all the nations of the world, he said, were to gather there to meet each other and to get acquainted. They were to bring strange and wonderful things with them, that the people of each nation might see how the people of other nations made and used their things, and how they lived. They wished the Labrador Eskimos to come and show how they dressed their skins and made their skin clothing and skin boats, and to bring with them dogs and sledges, and harpoons and other implements of the hunt.

The white men promised it would be a most wonderful experience for those that went. They agreed to take them and all their things on the s.h.i.+p and after the big affair in America was over bring them back to their homes, and give them enough to make them all rich for the rest of their lives.

The Eskimos were naturally quite excited with the glowing descriptions, the opportunity to travel far into new lands, and the prospect of wealth and happiness offered them when they again returned to their Labrador homes. Pomiuk and his mother were eager for the journey, but his father did not care to leave the land and the life he knew. He decided that he had best remain in Labrador and hunt; but he agreed that Pomiuk's mother might go to make skin boots and clothing, and Pomiuk might go with her and take the long dog whip to show how well he could use it.

And so one day Pomiuk and his mother said goodbye to his father, and with several other Eskimos sailed away to the United States, destined to take their place as exhibits at the great World's Fair in Chicago.

The suffering of the Eskimos in the strange land to which they were taken was terrible. In Labrador they lived in the open, breathing G.o.d's fresh air. In Chicago they were housed in close and often poorly ventilated quarters. The heat was unbearable, and through all the long hours of day and night when they were on exhibition they were compelled to wear their heavy winter skin or fur clothing. They were unaccustomed to the food. Some of them died, and the white men buried them with little more thought or ceremony than was given those of their dogs that died.

Pomiuk, in spite of his suffering, kept his spirits. He loved to wield his long dog whip. It was his pride. Visitors at the fair pitched nickles and dimes into the enclosure where the Eskimos and their exhibits were kept. Pomiuk with the tip of his thirty-five foot lash would clip the coins, and laugh with delight, for every coin he clipped was to be his. He was the life of the Eskimo exhibit. Visitors could always distinguish his ringing laugh. He was always smiling.

The white men who had induced the Eskimos to leave their homes failed to keep their promise when the fair closed. The poor Eskimos were abandoned in a practically penniless condition and no means was provided to return them to their homes. To add to the distress of Pomiuk's mother, Pomiuk fell and injured his hip. Proper surgical treatment was not supplied, the injury, because of this neglect, did not heal, and Pomiuk could no longer run about or walk or even stand upon his feet.

Those of the Eskimos who survived the heat and unaccustomed climate, in some manner, G.o.d alone knows how, found their way to Newfoundland.

Pomiuk, in his mother's care, was among them. The hospitality of big hearted fishermen of Newfoundland, who sheltered and fed the Eskimos in their cabins, kept them through the winter. It was a period of intense suffering for poor little Pomiuk, whose hip constantly grew worse.

When summer came again, Doctor Frederick Cook, the explorer, bound to the Arctic on an exploring expedition, heard of the stranded Eskimos, and carried some of them to their Labrador homes on his s.h.i.+p; and when the schooners of the great fis.h.i.+ng fleets sailed north, kindly skippers made room aboard their little craft for others of the dest.i.tute Eskimos. Thus Pomiuk, once so active and happy, now a helpless cripple, found his way back on a fis.h.i.+ng schooner to Labrador.

We can understand, perhaps, the joy and hope with which Pomiuk looked again upon the rock-bound coast that he loved so well. On _these_ sh.o.r.es he had lived care-free and happy and full of bounding health until the deceitful white men had lured him away. He had no doubt that once again in his own native land and among his own people in old familiar surroundings, he would soon get well and be as strong as ever he had been to run over the rocks and to help his father with the dogs and traps and at the fis.h.i.+ng.

Pomiuk could scarcely wait to meet his father. He laughed and chattered eagerly of the good times he and his father would have together. He was deeply attached to his father who had always been kind and good to him, and who loved him better, even, than his mother loved him.

Pomiuk's heart beat high, when at last, one day, the vessel drew into the narrow channel that leads between high cliffs into Nachvak Bay. He looked up at the rocky walls towering two thousand feet above him on either side. They were as firm and unchanging as always. He loved them, and his eyes filled with happy tears. Just beyond, at the other end of the channel, lay the broad bay and the white buildings of the Hudson's Bay Company's trading post, where his father used to bring him sometimes with the dogs in winter or in the boat in summer. What fine times he and his father had on those excursions! And somewhere, back there, camped in his tupek, was his father. What a surprise his coming would be to his father!

Pomiuk was carried ash.o.r.e at the Post. Eskimos camped near-by crowded down to greet him and his mother and the other wanderers who had returned with them. It would be a short journey now in the boat to his father's fis.h.i.+ng place and his own dear home in their snug tupek. What a lot of things he had to tell his father! And at home, with his father's help he would soon be well and strong again.