Part 29 (1/2)

XV

THE KEEPER OF THE LIGHT

Once I asked Dr Grenfell if he was tired His blue eyes lit up as if I had thrown salt into a fire He threw his head back and said: ”Tired? I was never tired in ht he eary that Septes unkinked to the cheerful blaze, in the big living-room of his co around that house all it likes and it never will get in unless it is invited That house was nailed and shi+ngled, doored and ed, to stand up against the stiffest blast that ever cas from the Humboldt Glacier or even the North Pole

Part of the ti for lost chords as of Mrs Grenfell's piano The piano didn't see so ine there is not much for a blind piano-tuner to do in Newfoundland Most of the music is the canned variety of the Victrola

Or, if there is a dance, soly in a corner and hum very loudly what is called by its true name--”chin-music”

Mrs Grenfell, happy to have her husband back fro in the puffy ar-needles, and the boys, Pascoe and Wilfred, were up-stairs with their teacher,the tar out of the French Grammar, with various loud sounds

What the telephone is to busytheraph is to the Doctor in Newfoundland

If it isn't a h, then it is a boy with a e which comes from a point twenty to sixty miles off Most of the tio: and we think it hard, and he thinks so too, if a patient claht But the ht is the heart of Grenfell's office hours Once after conducting a late evening service in the church at Battle Harbor he had to doctor forty patients in the rooet away

So it was no surprise to him, in the midst of a tale of the old days at Oxford on the football-field, to have a rat-tat like Poe's raven at the door, and a respectful ”young visitor” doffing his sou'wester

”Please, sir, a telegram”

Grenfell tore it open

It read: ”Doctor would you please come My throat is full up and I can't eat or sleep”

It was signed ”JN Cote”

”That,” said Grenfell, ”is the lighthouse-keeper at Greenley Island, just west of the line that divides Canadian Labrador fro job on his hands He has two fog-horns, each with a twelve horse-power Fairbanks gasoline engine, so that if one's put out of business he can use the other He's had fog all su Canadian Pacific shi+ps go by his place It's a bad spot The light-keeper at Forteau tried to bring out his wife and five children--and lost all but one child on the rocks

Another keeper at Belle Isle tried to bring out a family of about the same size--and they all were lost A doctor stopped in on Captain Cote on the down trip from Battle Harbor, on his way back to Baltih Looks as if I o and finish the job”

As if to settle the question, even while he spoke there ca another telegraes sent from Cape Norman about the woman, the tone was sharper, more imperative and anxious

”Please come as fast as you can to operate me in the throat and save rave face deepened

”Cote doesn't cry out for nothing,” he said ”He's a real o Would you rather stay here and rest a few days, or will you go with me?” Who would care to toast his toes and dally with a book, while Grenfell was abroad on such a allant run the _Strathcona_ would be called on tothe headwinds and the heavy seas, to save that lighthouse-keeper and keep the big, proud shi+ps fro blind in the dark Not far froround in 1922 and was a total loss, though happily her men were saved I have been in the wireless cabin on the top-bound, were cla to one another and whi to clasp hands and afraid in the dark together

It would be a run of a hundredthroat--and what miles they were! Not until the middle of June had the 's rescue--been able to pierce the ice Where those ice-pansof their battle orse to hear and see than all the polar bears or the tusked walruses that ever rose up and fought together

Dr Grenfell could be perfectly sure that he would have to run a gauntlet all the way--picking and choosing between crags on the one hand and bergs on the other: just such a risky, ”chancy” course as he raain with that flash they shohen I asked him if he was ever tired