Part 23 (1/2)
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 shosospirit 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, h, hard lives But for that very reason they welcos
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 so 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 i, hoisted as a signal to stop It was al should atteht it ave the order at once: ”Down sail and heave her to”
Then an old, white-haired er in the s 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 e to make his request
”Please, Doctor,” he said slowly, ”I wanted to ask you if you had any books you could lendto read here”
Dr Grenfell confesses with shame that his first impulse was to return a sharp, vexed answer, and to ask, ”What do youup my mission boat for such a reason?” But then he realized his ood a deed to put a prop under the oldwith a knife
”Haven't you got any books?”
”Yes, Doctor I've got two, but I've read 'eo”
”What were they?”
”One is the Works of Josephus, sir, and the other is Plutarch's Lives”
The old felloas overjoyed when the Doctor put aboard his bobbing skiff a box of fifty books--afrom Henty's stories to serht--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