Part 7 (1/2)
Next to operating, the children love music; and they love it with a repertoire varied to meet every mood, from ”Keep the Home Fires Burning” to ”In the Courts of Belshazzar and a Hundred of his Lords.”
One three-year-old sc.r.a.p comes from a Salvation Army household, and listens to all such melodies with marked disapproval. But when the others finish, she ”pipes up,” shutting her eyes, clapping her hands and swaying back and forth--
”Baby's left the cradle for the Golden Sh.o.r.e: Now he floats, now he floats, Happy as before.”
Three of the kiddies are Roman Catholics and have taught their companions to say their prayers properly of an evening. They all cross themselves devoutly at the close; but this instruction has fallen on fallow ground in the wee three-year-old. She sits with eyes tightly screwed together lest she be forced even to witness such heresy and schism.
Yesterday I was walking with Gabriel when we came upon a tiny bird essaying his first spring song on a tree-top nearby. Gabriel looked at the newcomer silently for several minutes, and finally, turning his luminous brown eyes up to my face, asked, ”Do he sing hymns, Teacher?”
_April 19_
The village sale was held last week. This has become an annual occurrence, and the proceeds are devoted to varying good objects. This time the hospital was the beneficiary. For months the countryside, men and women, have been making articles, and I can a.s.sure you it is a relief to have it over and such a success to boot, and life's quiet tone restored. We made large numbers of purchases, and consumed unbelievable quant.i.ties of more than solid nourishment. The people have shown the greatest ingenuity and diligence, and the display was a credit to their talent. I was particularly struck with the really clever carving representing local scenes which the fishermen had done with no other tools than their jack-knives. The auction was the keynote of the evening, due largely to the signal ability of the auctioneer. His methods are effective, but strictly his own. Cakes, made generally in graded layers and liberally coated with different coloured sugar, were the favourites. As he held up the last teetering mountain he ”bawled”: ”What am I bid for this wonderful cake? 'Tis a bargain at any price. Why, she's so heavy I can't hold her with one hand.” It fetched seven dollars!
The yearly meet for sports was held in the afternoon before the sale, and was voted by all to be a great success. It is a far cry from the days when games were introduced here by the Mission. Then the people's lives were so drab, and they had little idea of the sporting qualities which every Englishman values so highly. In those early days if in a game of football one side kicked a goal, they had to wait till the other had done the same before the game could proceed, or the play would have been turned into a battle. Now everything in trousers in the place can be seen of an evening out on the harbour ice kicking a ball about. The harbour is our very roomy athletic field.
Twenty-two teams had entered for the dog race, and the start, when the whole number were ranged up in the line, was pandemonium unloosed. The dogs were barking out threatenings and slaughter to the teams next them, their masters were shouting unheeded words of command, the crowd were cheering their favourites, and altogether you would never have guessed from the racket and confusion that you were north of the Roaring Forties.
The last event on the sports programme was a scramble for coloured candies by all the children of the village. Our flock from the Home partic.i.p.ated. The proceeding was as unhygienic as it was alluring, and our surprise was great when a universally healthy household greeted the morrow morn.
When I heard the amount the poor folk had raised for charity out of their meagre pittance, I felt reproached. It is a consistent fact here that the people give and do more than their means justify, and it must involve a hard pinch for them in some other quarter.
Coming from the sale at ten at night I looked for our ”Yoho” in pa.s.sing the churchyard, but was unrewarded, though some of the harbour people a.s.sured me in the morning that they had seen it plainly. Can there be anything in the current belief that the men of the sea are more psychic than we case-hardened products of civilization, or is it merely superst.i.tion? There is a story here of a man called Gaulton, which is vouched for by all the older men who can recall the incident.
It seems that in Savage Cove this old George Gaulton lived till he was ninety. He died on December 4, 1883. On the 16th he appeared in the flesh to a former acquaintance at Port au Choix, fifty miles from the spot at which he had died. This man Shenicks gives the following account of the curious visitation:
”I was in the woods cutting timber for a day and a half. During the whole of that time I was sure I heard footsteps near me in the snow, although I could see nothing. On the evening of the second day, in consequence of heavy rain, I returned home early. I knew my cattle had plenty of food, but something forced me to go to the hay-pook. While there, in a few moments I stood face to face with old George Gaulton.
I was not frightened. We stood in the rain and talked for some time.
In the course of the conversation the old man gave me a message for his eldest son, and begged me to deliver it to him myself before the end of March. Immediately afterwards he disappeared, and then I was terribly afraid.”
A few weeks later Shenicks went all the way to Savage Cove and delivered the message given to him in so strange a fas.h.i.+on.
A word of apology and I close. In an early letter to you I recall judging harshly a concoction called ”brewis.” Experience here has taught me that our own delicacies meet with a similar fate at the hands of my present fellow countrymen. I offered Carmen on her arrival a cup of cocoa for Sunday supper. After one sniff, biddable and polite child though she was, I saw her surrept.i.tiously pour the ”hemlock cup”
out of the open window behind her.
_May 23_
Many miles over the hills from St. Antoine lies one of the wildest and most beautiful harbours on this coast. Nestling within magnificently high rocks, the picturesque colouring of which is reflected in the quiet water beneath, lies the little village of Cremailliere. It is only a small settlement of tiny cottages beside the edge of the sea, but it has the unenviable reputation of being the worst village on the coast. In winter only three families live there, but in the summer-time a number of men come for the fis.h.i.+ng, and they with their wives and children exist in almost indescribable hovels. Some of these huts are just rough board affairs, about six feet by ten, and resemble cow sheds more than houses. If there is a window at all, it is merely a small square of gla.s.s (not made to open) high up on one side of the wall. In some there is not even the pretence of a window, but in cases of severe sickness a hole is knocked through for ventilation on hearing of the near approach of the Mission doctor. The walls have only one thickness of board with no lining and the roofs are thatched with sods. There is no flooring whatever. Not one person in Cremailliere can either read or write.
Yesterday there was a funeral held in one of the little villages, and the mingling of pathos and humour made one realize more vividly than ever how ”all the world's akin.” A young mother had died who could have been saved if her folk had realized the danger in time and sent for the doctor. She was lying in a rude board coffin in the bare kitchen. As s.p.a.ce was at a premium the casket had been placed on the top of the long box which serves as a residence for the family rooster and chickens. They kept popping their heads, with their round, quick eyes out through the slats, and emitting startled crows and clucks at the visitors. The young woman was dressed in all her outdoor clothing; a cherished lace curtain sought to hide the rough, unplaned boards of the coffin--for it had been hewn from the forest the day before. The depth of her husband's grief was evidenced by the fact that he had spent his last and only two dollars in the purchase, at the Nameless Cove general store, of the highly flowered hat which surmounted his wife's young careworn but peaceful face as she lay at rest.
I saw for the first time an old custom preserved on the coast. Before the coffin was closed all the family pa.s.sed by the head of the deceased and kissed the face of their loved one for the last time, while all the visitors followed and laid their hands reverently on the forehead. Only when the master of ceremonies, who is always specially appointed, had cried out in a sonorous voice, ”Any more?” and met with no response, was the ceremony of closing the lid permitted.