Part 4 (1/2)
The real baby is Beulah, just two years, and she exercises her gentle but despotic sway over all, from the least to the greatest. She is continually upsetting the standard of neatness which was once the glory of this Home, by sprawling on the floors, dragging after her a headless doll with sawdust oozing from every pore. A dilapidated bunny and several mangled pictures complete the procession. It is hopeless to protest, for she just looks as if she could not understand how any one could object to such priceless treasures. She awakens us at unconscionable hours in the morning, when all reasonable beings are still sleeping the sleep of the just, and keeps up a perpetual chatter interspersed with highly dangerous gymnastic feats upon her bed.
Can you find any babies throughout the British Isles to match mine?
_October 20_
Since last I wrote you we have had a very strenuous time in the Home; the entire family has been down with measles. Then when that was over and the children well, the sewing maid, whom I had engaged shortly after my arrival, gave notice, shook the dust from her feet, and I was left single-handed. It took the whole of my time to keep these forty-odd infants fed, clothed, and washed, and I had no leisure to write to you even at ”scattered times.” It seemed to me that the appet.i.tes of these _enfants terribles_ grew abnormally, that their clothes rent asunder with lightning-like rapidity, and that they fell into mud heaps with even greater facility than usual. It was sometimes a delicate problem to decide which of many pressing duties had the prior claim. Whether to try and feed the hungry (the kitchen range having sprung a leak), to start to repair two hundred odd garments (the weekly mend), or to resuscitate one of the babies (just rescued from the reservoir). At such times I would wonder if I were somewhere near attaining to that state of experience when I should be able to appreciate your alluring phrase, ”the fun of mothering an orphanage.”
I must begin and tell you now about the children we have received since my last letter. Mike, aged eight, came to us from St. Barbe Hospital, as he had no home to which he could return. Incidentally it takes the entire staff to keep this boy moderately tidy, for he and his garments have an unfortunate inclination to part asunder, and we are kept in constant apprehension for the credit of the Orphanage. But Mike, whether with his clothes or without, always turns up smiling and on excellent terms with himself, entirely regardless of the mental torture we endure as he comes into view. Indeed, the wider apart are his garments, the broader is his smile. He weeps quietly each night as we wash him, for that is a work of supererogation for which he has at present no use.
Deborah and her brother Gabriel were here when I came. Their ages are eleven and five, and they come from the far north. Deborah was in the Mission Hospital at Iron Bound Islands for some time as the result of a burning accident. While trying to lift a pan of dog-food from the stove she upset the scalding contents over her legs. Her elder brother had to drive her eighteen miles on a komatik to the hospital, and the poor child must have suffered greatly. Gabriel is a very naughty, but equally lovable child. He is never out of mischief, but he is always very penitent for his misdeeds--afterwards! His bent is towards theology, and he speaks with the authority of an ancient divine on all matters pertaining thereto, and with an air of finality which brooks no argument. When some one was being given the priority in point of age over me, he was heard to indignantly exclaim that ”Jesus and Teacher are the oldest people in the world.” He is no advocate for the equality of the s.e.xes, and closes all discussion on equal rights by explaining that ”G.o.d made the boys and Jesus the girls.”
Our fast-coming winter is sending its harbingers, seen and unseen, into our harbour. Chief among these one notices the a.s.sertiveness of the dogs. All through the summer they slink pariah-like about the place, eating whatever they can pick up, and seeking to keep their miserable existence as much in the background as possible. Now the winter is approaching, and it is ”their little day.” Mrs. Uncle Life can testify to the fact that they are not wholly suppressed when it is not ”their little day.” Last summer she found no less important a personage than the leader of the team in her bed. Her newly baked ”loaf” was lying on the pantry shelf before the open window. Whiskey (this place is strictly prohibition, but every team boasts its ”Whiskey”) leaped in, made a satisfying banquet off her bread, and then forced open the door into her bedroom adjoining the pantry. He found it a singularly barren field for adventure, but after his unaccustomed hearty meal the bed looked tempting. He was found there two hours later placidly asleep.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. UNCLE LIFE FOUND THE LEADER OF THE TEAM IN HER BED]
The children are looking forward to Christmas and are already writing letters to Santa Claus, which are handed to me with great secrecy to mail to him. I once watched the little ones playing at Christmas with an old stump of a bush to which they attached twigs as gifts and gravely distributed them to one another. When I saw one mite handing a dead twig to a smaller edition of himself, and announcing in a lordly fas.h.i.+on that it was a PIANO, I realized what Father Christmas was expected to be able to produce.
_November 1_
My world is transformed into fairyland. Light snow has fallen during the night, and every ”starigan,” every patch of ”tuckamore” is ”decked in sparkling raiment white.” As I was dressing I looked out of my window, and for the first time in my life saw a dog team and komatik pa.s.sing.
The day was full of adventure. For the children the snow meant only rejoicing; but as the highway was as slippery as gla.s.s, and the older folk had not yet got their ”winter legs,” there were many minor casualties. Mrs. Uncle Life, aged seventy and small and spherical, solved the problem of the hills by sitting down and sliding. She commended the method to me, saying that it served very well on week days, but was lamentably detrimental to her Sunday best.
Ananias is developing fast and bids fair to rival Topsy. He has a mania for eating anything and everything, and what he cannot eat, he destroys. Within the past few weeks he has swallowed the arm of his Teddy bear, half a cake of soap, and a tube of tooth-paste. He has also bitten through two new hot-water bottles. During the short time he has been here he has broken more windows than any other child in the Home. If he thinks politeness will save the day, he says in the sweetest way possible, ”Excuse me, Teacher, for doing it”; but if he sees by my face that retribution is swift and sure, he says in the most pathetic of tones, ”Teacher, I have a pain.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”TEACHER, I HAVE A PAIN”]
I must make you acquainted with our ”Yoho.” Every well-regulated fis.h.i.+ng village has one, but we have to thank our neighbour, the Eskimo, for the picturesque name. In our more prosaic parlance it is plain ”ghost.” Many years ago when the Mission was in need of a building in which to accommodate some of its workers, it purchased a house belonging to a local trader by the name of Isaac Spouseworthy.
This made an admirable Guest House; but it has since fallen into disuse for its original purpose, and is being employed as a temporary repository for the clothing sent for the poor, till the fine new storehouse shall have been built. This old Guest House has been selected by our local apparition as a place of visitation. It is affirmed, on the incontrovertible testimony of the Prophet and no inconsiderable following, that the spirit returns of an evening to the old house he built forty years ago, to wander through the familiar rooms. The villagers see lights there nightly; and though all our investigation has failed to reveal any presence (barring the rats), bodily or otherwise, the bravest of them would hesitate many a long minute before he would enter the haunted spot after nightfall. Rumour has it that the Guest House is built on the site of an old French cemetery. Our ”irrepressible Ike” therefore cannot lack for society, though how congenial it is cannot be determined. Judging from the records of the ceaseless rows between the French and English on Le Pet.i.t Nord, there must be some lively nights in ghostland.
The doctor suggested that if a burglar wished to steal the clothing, this spook would be his most effective accomplice, but such tortuous psychology has failed to satisfy the fishermen. To them we seem callous souls, to whom the spirit world is alien. This ghostly encroachment on our erstwhile quiet domain has had more than one inconvenient result. The Mission is very short of houses for its workmen, and was planning to rebuild and put in order a part of this now haunted domicile for one family. The man for whom it was destined now refuses to live there, as his children have vetoed the idea. In this land the word of the rising generation is law, and this refusal is therefore final.
The children of this North Country are given what they wish and when and how. Naturally the results of such a policy are serious. There are many cases of hopeless cripples about here who refused to go to hospital for treatment when their trouble was so slight that it could have been rectified. Now the children must look forward to a life of disability through their parents' short-sightedness. But when I think of what it means to these poor women to have perhaps ten children to care for, and all the rest of the work of the house and garden on their shoulders, I cannot wonder that their motto is ”peace at any price.”
Spirits might be called the outstanding feature of our harbour, for the Piquenais rocks at the very entrance are the abode of another familiar _revenant_. The Prophet a.s.sures me that thirty years ago a vessel and crew were wrecked there, and on every succeeding stormy evening since that day, the captain, with creditable perseverance, waves his light on that wind-and surf-swept rock. In this instance the prophetical authority is in dispute, for there are those who a.s.sert that the light is shown by fairies to toll boats to their doom on the foggy point. The more scientifically minded explain the mysterious light as a defunct animal giving out gas. It must be a persistent gas which can retain its efficacy for thirty long and adventurous years.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE YOHO]
In the course of these researches several interesting points of natural history and science have been elucidated. Doubtless you do not know that all cats are related to the devil, but you can readily see the brimstone in their fur if you have the temerity to rub them on a dusky evening. Neither has it come to your attention that under no consideration must you allow the water in which potatoes have been washed to run over your hands. In the latter event, warts innumerable will result.
Our cook has just come in with the news that supper is not to be forthcoming. 'Senath was left in charge while Tryphena went on an errand for me. Left-over salad was to have formed the basis of the evening meal, but the said basis has now disintegrated, 'Senath having placed the dish in a superheated oven. The nature of the resultant object is indeterminate, but uneatable. I solace myself that sanctified starvation will be beneficial to my ”fine and hearty”
figure.
We have suffered again with the dogs. One of the children's birthdays fell on Sat.u.r.day, and we decided to give the whole ”crew” ice-cream to fittingly celebrate the event. It was made in good time and put out to keep cool in what we took to be a safe spot. The party preceding the _piece de resistance_ was in full swing when an ominous disturbance was detected from the direction of the woodshed. Investigation revealed two angry dogs alternately snarling at each other and devouring the last lick of the treat. The catholicity of canine taste was no solace to the aggrieved a.s.sembly.