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Grit A-Plenty
Dillon Wallace
Grit A-Plenty: A Tale of the Labrador Wild
FOREWORD
Tempting boys to be what they should be—giving them in wholesome form what they want—that is the purpose and power of Scouting. To help parents and leaders of youth secure books boys like best that are also best for boys, the Boy Scouts of America organized EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY. The books included, formerly sold at prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.00 but, by special arrangement with the several publishers interested, are now sold in the EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY Edition at $1.00 per volume.
The books of EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY were selected by the Library Commission of the Boy Scouts of America, consisting of George F. Bowerman, Librarian, Public Library of the District of Columbia; Harrison W. Craver, Director, Engineering Societies Library, New York City; Claude G. Leland, Superintendent, Bureau of Libraries, Board of Education, New York City; Edward F. Stevens, Librarian, Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn, N. Y., and Franklin K, Mathiews, Chief Scout Librarian. Only such books were chosen by the Commission as proved to be, by a nation wide canvas, most in demand by the boys themselves. Their popularity is further attested by the fact that in the EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY Edition, more than a million and a quarter copies of these books have already been sold.
We know so well, are reminded so often of the worth of the good book and great, that too often we fail to observe or understand the influence for good of a boy’s recreational reading. Such books may influence him for good or ill as profoundly as his play activities, of which they are a vital part. The needful thing is to find stories in which the heroes have the characteristics boys so much admire—unquenchable courage, immense resourcefulness, absolute fidelity, conspicuous greatness. We believe the books of EVERY BOY’S LIBRARY measurably well meet this challenge.
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA,James E. West [Handwritten Signature]Chief Scout Executive.I
THE CABIN AT THE JUG
THE Jug, as Thomas Angus often remarked, was as snug and handy a place to live as ever a man could wish. Ten miles up the Bay was the trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and at Wolf Bight, twelve miles directly across the Bay from the Jug, the trading post of Trowbridge & Gray, and then only five miles to the eastward, at Break Cove, lived Doctor Joe.
“Neighbors right handy all around,” declared Thomas, “and no chance of ever gettin’ lonesome.”
The Jug was a well sheltered bight on the north side of Eskimo Bay, and here, in the edge of the forest, stood Thomas’ cabin.
Near by the cabin Roaring Brook rushed down through a gorge in a vast hurry to empty its sparkling waters into the bight; and behind the cabin, shrouded in silence and mystery, stretching away into unmeasured distances, lay the great unpeopled wilderness.
“Room enough,” said Thomas, “for a man to stretch himself.”
The Angus home was much like every other trapper’s home in the Eskimo Bay country, though somewhat larger and more commodious, perhaps, than was usual. Thomas believed in “comfort, and plenty o’ room to stretch, indoors as well as out,” and this sentiment led him to make no stint of timber or labor when he builded.
“The timber is here for the takin’, and right handy,” said he, “and a bit more work don’t matter.”
The cabin was built of logs, and faced the south, with its entrance through an enclosed porch on the western gable. This porch served both as a protection from winter storms and as a store room. Here were kept dog harness, fish nets, and innumerable odds and ends incident to the life and occupation of a trapper and fisherman. And in one end of the porch, neatly piled in tiers, was an ever-ready supply of firewood.
A door from the porch led into a living room crudely and primitively furnished, but possessed of an indescribable atmosphere of cozy comfort. The uncarpeted floor, the home-made table, the chests which served both as storage places for clothing and as seats, the three crude but substantial home-made chairs, and the shelves for dishes, were scoured clean and white with sand and soap, for Margaret, through her Scotch ancestry, had inherited a penchant for cleanliness and neatness.
“I likes to keep the house tidy,” she said to Doctor Joe once, when he complimented her. “’Tis a wonderful comfort to have un tidy and clean.”
There were three windows, draped with snow-white muslin—an unusual luxury. Two of these windows looked to the southward to catch the sun with its cheer, and before them lay the wide vista of Eskimo Bay, and beyond the Bay the grim, snow-capped peaks of the Mealy Mountains. The other window was in the rear, but here the view was restricted by the forest, which sheltered the cabin from the frigid northern blasts of the sub-arctic winters.
A big box stove, which would accommodate great billets of wood, and crackled cheerily, and a bunk built against the wall like a ship’s bunk, and which served Thomas as a bed, completed the furnishings.
Originally the cabin had contained no other rooms than the living room and the porch, but when the children came, and grew, Thomas, with his desire for “plenty o’ room to stretch,” erected an addition on the eastern end, which he partitioned into two sleeping compartments, one for Margaret and the other for the boys.
Mighty content were Thomas Angus and his family. A snug cabin, a neighbor “right handy,” the trading posts near enough to visit now and again on business or on pleasure, and enough to eat—what more could be desired?
Thomas Angus was a good hunter, and provided well for his family, which in Labrador means that for the most part his catch of fur was good in winter, his fish nets yielded well in summer, and therefore his flour barrel was seldom empty.
Bread and pork, with no stint of tea, and a bit of molasses for sweetening, together with such game as he might kill, sat a table that to Thomas Angus and his family was bountiful and varied enough, if not luxurious. There were no potatoes or other vegetables, to be sure, for gardens do not thrive in this far northern land; but they did not mind that, for they had never eaten vegetables. We do not miss what we have never had, and the more we have the more we demand. And so it was that Thomas Angus and his family were happy and content enough with what to you and me would have been privation.
“’Tis a wonderful fine livin’ we has here,” said Thomas, “and we’re thankful to th’ Lard for providin’ it.”
Mrs. Angus had been dead these five years. Her grave, marked by a rude wooden slab, was in a little fenced-in clearing behind the house. Her death was the greatest sorrow that had ever visited the Anguses. Thomas dug the grave himself, as a last service to his wife, and when he and the neighbors lowered Mrs. Angus into her deep, cold bed, and covered her with frozen clods of earth, and he and the mourning children returned to the empty cabin, he comforted them with the philosophy of his simple Christian faith.
“’Tis the Lard’s will,” he said. “The work He had for Mother to do on earth was ended, and He called her away. ’Tis a bit hard on us that’s left behind, and we’ll be missin’ her sore, but we’ll bear un without complaint because ’tis the Lard’s will. We mustn’t forget—though we’ll be like to forget sometimes—that Mother’s still livin’. ’Twas only the body that she was through usin’ that we buried out there. Who can know but she may be right with us now, though we can’t see her? And maybe she’s seein’ us all the time, and knowin’ all we does and talks about.”
Margaret, then a little maid of twelve, took her mother’s place as housekeeper, and bravely did her best to mother the boys. In these five years she had grown into a handsome, rosy-cheeked lass of seventeen, and as capable and fine a housekeeper as you could find on the whole Labrador.
David and Andy, too, had developed with the years from energetic small boys into broad-shouldered, bronze-faced, brawny lads. David, nearly sixteen, and Andy, fourteen, lent a hand at anything that was to be done indoors and out. They kept the water barrel filled from Roaring Brook, they helped cut the firewood and haul it with the dogs, and sawed and split it into proper size for the big box stove. In summer they did their part at the salmon and trout fishing and in winter they kept the house supplied with partridges and rabbits and other small game. In Labrador every one must do his part, and lads learn early to bear their share of the responsibilities of life, and so it was with David and Andy. And adventures, too, they had, for in that brave land adventures come often enough.
Jamie, the youngest of the family, was ten, and as cheerful and lusty and fine a little lad as ever lived. But Jamie’s sight was failing.
“They’s a smoke in the house,” said Jamie when he awoke one morning.
“They’s no smoke in the house,” protested Andy.
“But I sees un! I sees un!” insisted Jamie.
“’Tis the sleep in your eyes yet,” suggested David. “’Twill pass away when you wakes.”
And so Jamie said no more, believing it was the sleep in his eyes, and he rubbed them to drive it away, and dressed, and looked out of the window toward the bay.
“They’s a mist on the water,” said Jamie.
“They’s no mist,” denied Andy. “’Tis fine and clear, and the sun shines wonderful bright.”
“I sees the sunshine, but ’tis not bright. They’s a mist,” Jamie insisted.
And the mist had remained, and thickened gradually with the passing weeks. It was in the beginning of July when the mist had first appeared before Jamie’s eyes, and before the month was ended he complained that he could no longer see the Mealy Mountains across the bay, with their glistening white snow-capped peaks. And this was too bad, for Jamie loved the mountains rising so brave and changeless like a row of great rugged giants guarding and holding the world firm beyond the restless waters of the bay. Jamie always felt that he could depend upon the mountains, and he had a fancy, when of evenings the setting sun tipped their white summits with its last glow, that it was a bit of the dazzling light of heaven breaking through the sky when God reached down to kiss the world good night.
And it had been many days now since Jamie had seen his loved mountains. Even the point, at the entrance to the bight, had become veiled in haze and seemed to have moved far out into the bay, as it used to do when the fog hung low on murky days, and Jamie’s sight was as keen as David’s and Andy’s.
In the beginning Thomas gave little heed to Jamie’s complaints of the mist, for he was busy then at his fishing.
“’Tis a bit of a strain,” said he, “and ’twill soon pass away. A bit of the burn and glare of the spring sun upon the snow, left in the eyes to shade un. ’Twill soon pass away.”
One day in late August, when Doctor Joe was over at The Jug, as he often was, he heard Jamie complain of the mist, and Doctor Joe asked Jamie many questions, and looked long and hard into Jamie’s eyes, and when he was going, and Thomas walked down to the beach to help him launch his boat, he told Thomas that the mist would not clear up of itself.
“And is it a sickness, then, and a bad un?” asked Thomas, aroused to great concern, for he had vast faith in Doctor Joe’s opinion.
“I can’t say yet for a certainty how bad it is, but ’tis a sickness, and may grow worse, if it’s the kind of sickness I take it to be,” said Doctor Joe. “Don’t worry about it yet, Thomas. I’ll be up again soon and look into the eyes again, and see how they’re doing.”
“Can’t you mend un?” asked Thomas anxiously.
“We’ll see. We’ll see what we can do,” and Doctor Joe’s voice was hearty and reassuring, as he launched his boat and pulled away down the bight.
Thomas Angus and Doctor Joe were great friends. Margaret and the boys called Doctor Joe “Uncle,” and they were as fond of him as they could have been had he really been their uncle; and he, on his part, was mightily fond of them. He had come to the Bay three years before Mrs. Angus died, and had now lived at Break Cove and on the coast for eight years.
It was on a blustery July evening that they had first seen him, driving up the bay in an old open boat with a ragged leg-o-mutton sail. Thomas hailed him and he turned in at The Jug in response to Thomas’s invitation to spend the night, for a Labradorman will never permit a stranger to pass his home without a hail and an invitation, and a cheering welcome, warmed with a cup of tea and a snack.
Doctor Joe was a nervous man, with the appearance of one who had been ill. His hand was unsteady, with a tremor—unlike the steady, strong hand of the Labradorman. Thomas saw at once that he was no Labradorman. Any one could have seen that with half an eye. His speech and manner, too, were not of the coast, his skin had not the deep bronze tan of the people, and his dress was not the dress of the native.
But Thomas liked the stranger, and urged him to “’bide for a time at The Jug,” and for several days he remained as Thomas’s guest, asking many questions about the country and manner of life of the folk who lived there, and of the methods of trapping and hunting, and bartering fur and fish.
He introduced himself to Thomas as Joseph Carver, and explained that he had come from the South as a passenger on the mail boat, which he had left at Fort Pelican, eighty miles down the bay, and her nearest port of call. And at length he announced that he had decided to settle here and build a cabin, and turn hunter and trapper, and make The Labrador his home.
“’Twill be a strange life for you,” said Thomas.
“Yes,” said Doctor Joe, “a strange life.”
Then Doctor Joe turned his attention to the selection of a suitable place to build his cabin, and cruising along the shore one day fell upon Break Cove, which he liked immensely, and here he declared his home should be. Thomas, after the manner of the country, and because he was glad to have so near a neighbor, turned to and helped Doctor Joe, and presently they had as snug a little cabin built and furnished as a man could wish for, and here Doctor Joe began his new life in a new land.
He was a mystery to the Bay folk at first, coming as he had, and a mystery to Thomas, too. Sometimes he seemed as gay and happy as ever a man could be, but there were days when he was silent and grave and troubled, like a man with a great load of sorrow upon his soul.
There was one autumn evening, a fortnight after Doctor Joe had established himself in the new cabin, when Thomas, who had been down the bay hunting geese, ran his boat into Break Cove to pay his neighbor a call, and to leave with him one of the fine fat geese he had shot. The candle was lighted and the cabin door stood open. As Thomas approached with the goose he saw Doctor Joe, a wild, hunted look upon his face, pacing up and down the room, and Thomas heard him exclaim:
“I can’t endure it! I cannot, cannot endure it! Another month and I’d be safe! But I can’t hold out! I must give up! Oh, God, have mercy on me!”
Thomas withdrew silently. He had never seen Doctor Joe, or any one else for that matter, act so strangely. His kindly heart was troubled. Then light broke. His neighbor was ill and in pain, or was troubled, and he must help him. He turned back to the cabin door, and called out cheerily:
“Evenin’, Sir!”
Doctor Joe ceased his pacing, as he beheld Thomas in the open doorway.
“Good evening,” he greeted, sitting limply down, and wiping perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief. And within himself Thomas marveled that Doctor Joe should be so warm, for the air was chill enough, and the fire in the box stove had been neglected and was none too good. “Come in, Thomas.”
“I was passin’,” said Thomas, coming within, “and I thought I’d stop for a bit t’ smoke a pipe with you. But you’re ailin’, sir?”
“No—yes—just a little out of sorts,” admitted Doctor Joe. “But I’m glad to see you, neighbor! I’m glad you came! I thank God you came!” he added fervently. “Perhaps I was lonely. I know that I need your company, Thomas.”
“There’s a goose I brought you, sir,” and Thomas laid the game upon the table, “but ’twill not be right for you to ’bide here alone, ailin’ as you are. Come along to The Jug and ’bide a day or two with us, till you feels mended, whatever.”
“Thank you, Thomas, you’re a good friend and neighbor,” assented Doctor Joe, with evident relief. “I’ll go with you. The pull over in your boat will do me good, and I need your company.”
“And bring your cures so you’ll have un to take, an’ you needs un,” suggested Thomas solicitously, as Doctor Joe arose and took his adiky from a peg.
“Your company will be the best remedy, Thomas,” remarked Doctor Joe, drawing the adiky over his head. “There are some disorders medicine will not cure—only change and good comradeship, and sweet, sympathetic friendship, such as you are giving me.”
“You’re always welcome at The Jug, whatever!” Thomas assured heartily, though he did not in the least understand the import of what Doctor Joe had said.
But as the weeks passed, and the cold of the long winter settled upon the land, Doctor Joe adapted himself to the life of the Bay, and entered heartily into his business of trapper, and soon it was discovered that he was a jolly neighbor, and the Bay folk as well as Thomas accepted him as one of them, and forgot the mystery, and were ever ready to lend him a hand, and give him hints that helped him vastly in learning his new trade, for he was clumsy enough at setting traps at first.
In return Doctor Joe was always on hand with a well-filled medicine case when he heard that any one was sick, and he displayed wonderful skill. He had supplied himself with medicines, he explained, because they were always handy, where there was no doctor to call. And when Bill Campbell’s boy laid the calf of his leg open with an ax, and Doctor Joe sewed it up, and bound it, as the folk had never seen a wound bound before, it was agreed he was the cleverest man in that line on the whole coast.
Then it was that they had begun to call him “Doctor Joe,” and he had accepted the new name as a compliment, and with rare good nature, and soon he was “Doctor Joe” to every one, and a welcome visitor wherever he went.
II
THE THICKENING MIST
A FORTNIGHT passed, after the evening when Doctor Joe had spoken to Thomas of the mist in Jamie’s eyes, before he appeared again at The Jug. It was early morning, and the family were at breakfast when he breezed in, without knocking—for in that country folk do not knock as they enter, and every one is welcome at all times.
“Well! Well!” he exclaimed. “Just in time, and I’m as hungry as an old grampus. What is it? Fried whitefish! Margaret, you must have expected me and read my mind, for I’d rather have fried whitefish for breakfast, the way you cook them, than anything else I can think of!”
“Then I’m glad I cooked un,” laughed Margaret. “But you likes most anything we ever has.”
“That’s true, because you cook everything so well,” complimented Doctor Joe, seating himself by Jamie. “I’m not much of a cook myself, you know.”
“You’re a rare fine cook, now, I thinks,” broke in David. “I always likes your cookin’ when I eats un.”
“Anybody’s cooking is good to a husky, healthy lad like you,” laughed Doctor Joe.
“We’re wonderful glad t’ see you, Doctor Joe,” said Thomas. “I’ve been wonderin’, now, why you didn’t come over this fortnight. The boys pulled over to Break Cove yesterday lookin’ for you, fearin’ you might be ailin’.”
“And didn’t find me!” exclaimed Doctor Joe, helping himself liberally to fish. “Well, the day after I was here I left for Fort Pelican to meet the mail boat and get some medicines that I thought I might need in the winter from the mail boat doctor, and to mail an important letter. How have you all been?”
“Not so bad—except Jamie,” said Thomas. “His eyes are growin’ mistier.”
“Eh!” ejaculated Doctor Joe, looking down at Jamie. “Mistier, are they? That’s what I’m here about—mostly—to see what we can do about that mist. We’ll have a look at the eyes pretty soon, Jamie.”
“I’m thinkin’ ’tis truly a mist fallin’ thick, and holdin’ thick all the time,” declared Jamie.
“We’ll see about that! We’ll see!” said Doctor Joe.
And after breakfast he again looked carefully into Jamie’s eyes, and again asked Jamie many, many questions, and then walked out with Thomas where they could talk alone.
“And what you think’n now of Jamie’s eyes?” asked Thomas anxiously.
“’Tis a strange disease, and a serious one,” said Doctor Joe. “Inside everybody’s eyes there’s a fluid forms. When the eyes are healthy the fluid keeps working away naturally through small outlets. If the outlets for the fluid get stopped, there’s no way for it to escape, and it fills up inside until it presses on the eyes, and the sight begins to fail, and after a time if the fluid is not let out the eyes go blind. There’s only one way to cure the complaint, and that is by a difficult and delicate operation for the purposes of opening the passages and drawing the fluid out and relieving the pressure.”
“Do you mean—cuttin’ the eyes open?” asked Thomas in dismay.
“Yes,” said Doctor Joe, “and the cutting has to be done just right, or it fails. I once knew a surgeon who sometimes succeeded in performing the operation successfully, but he was in New York—a long, long way from here. The letter I posted the other day in Fort Pelican was for this doctor. I wrote to ask if he is still in New York, and if he is there if he will operate on Jamie’s eye if we take the lad to him.”
“Suppose, now, he’ll do the cuttin’, how can we ever get Jamie to he?” asked Thomas.
“I’ll take him on the mail boat. We can’t get away this fall, though, for it isn’t likely I’ll get an answer before the Christmas mail, after the boat has made her last fall trip. But,” continued Doctor Joe, “I hope Jamie’s eyes will not be too misty by spring. If he loses his sight before spring there’ll be no use operating, for then the sight can’t be brought back.”
“And if—if the doctor cuts un—and he fails—what’ll happen to Jamie then?” asked Thomas fearfully.
“He’ll be blind,” said Doctor Joe. “But if the doctor doesn’t do the cutting Jamie will surely go blind. This is the only chance to save his sight.”
“An’ supposin’,” asked Thomas, “you gets no answer from the great doctor, will Jamie have to go blind all his life?”
“Let us hope he’s there—let us pray he is,” said Doctor Joe.
“But suppose—suppose he’ll not be there. Be there no one else?” Thomas insisted.
“I—don’t know,” admitted Doctor Joe. “I don’t know. Once I knew another surgeon—a young man—who performed such operations, but he went wrong and lost his skill and had to stop operating. I’d not like to trust Jamie with him. But we’ll hope the great doctor is in New York.”
They stood in silence for a little.
“Poor little lad! Poor little lad!” sighed Thomas, finally.
“’Tis hard,” sympathized Doctor Joe, who was fond of Jamie. “And there’s another thing, Thomas,” he continued. “You and I must catch more fur this year than we ever caught before, for there’s the mail boat and another steamer to pay the passage on, and they charge a good deal. Trowbridge & Gray pay good prices for fur, and pay cash. Let us hope one of us will catch a silver fox. We’ll need it. I’ll put in all I earn to help save Jamie’s sight.”
“Aye,” said Thomas, “We’ll do our best, and—Doctor Joe—I’m wonderful thankful to you.”
“Thomas, I owe it to you to do everything I can for Jamie, even if I didn’t want to do it so much for Jamie’s own sake,” and Doctor Joe’s voice was strangely husky. “You’ve helped cure me of a dreadful disease—I hope I’m cured—I pray God that I am—but I still need your help and friendship to make me strong.”
“Me—cure you of something?” asked Thomas, mystified. “I was never givin’ you medicine, or curin’ you of any ailment!”
“Yes—the best kind of medicine—your friendship—when I came here, and ever since. Some day I’ll tell you about it, but not now—not yet, Thomas Angus. Now we must think of Jamie, and do our best.”
