Classic Christmas Stories (16 page)

by W. T. Grenfell, C. M. G., M. D

W
HEN I FIRST WENT to the Coast, Christmas day in
Labrador was very little different from any other day in the year. For,
notwithstanding a perfect setting for an old-fashioned Christmas—crackling snow,
gorgeous sunshine and plenty of trees—what is the good of a Christmas tree if
you have nothing to put on it; or of gathering your relatives to eat a Christmas
goose if you haven’t even a seagull to offer for their entertainment?

In North Labrador, where the Moravian missionaries have been working among the
Eskimo for something like 130 years, Easter is the great festival. At that time
of all others in the year the people assemble at the Mission station. All the
congregation is dressed in white, and they have a great feast together.

Here is a country where of necessity little or no attention is paid to child
life, which is, of course, the very nucleus of the Christmas festival. The
people are miserably poor, and even when a trapper or fisherman was so fortunate
as to be able to afford a doll for his little girl, I have often seen it nailed
up on the wall of his cottage, well out of the reach of longing fingers. Not
that the doll was much to boast of, for it was probably a wretched specimen at
best.

Then, too, in the more northerly districts of Labrador the people live at long
distances from each other; often purposely, that one man’s
trapping ground may not encroach on his neighbour’s territory. Thus any
sort of social life is next to impossible. If your nearest neighbour lives at a
distance of sixty miles away, it is unlikely that you will be running over to
pay him a morning call every other day, particularly if you happen to be a
woman, and have the duties of a house and a large family upon you. Moreover,
even if the people do live nearer each other, there is often no school to serve
as a centre, and where one does exist, as likely as not it closes with “the
close of open water.”

It is hard to realise the complete and utter solitude of children born in a
land where, from November to June, they are cut off from all communication with
the outside world, except such as come to some by an occasional and perfunctory
dog mail. Even in summer, the mail boat may only visit certain settlements once
or twice. In the winter months the sea, the people’s main thoroughfare, is
frozen for fifty miles out from the land, and the country itself is covered with
a mantle of snow six to ten feet deep
in places. Here and
there are drifts which may surprise a householder any morning by forcing him to
dig out his front door by beginning at the roof.

To us, born in England and accustomed to consider the winter utterly incomplete
without Christmas, it seemed a deplorable thing that here were children with a
capacity for the enjoyment of toys and games, and an appreciation for the
meagerest of attentions which is unsurpassed in the children at home, with never
a chance to own a doll or a soldier, and who had not so much as a card of Father Christmas. So we started and collected
some boxes of toys, which we send around during the summer to as many
settlements as we can supply.

When Christmas time comes, some local paterfamilias, or perhaps the doctor at
one of the little hospitals, assumes the role of Father Christmas. Then the
children who are by any possibility within walking distance in Labrador . . .
assemble for the great event of the winter.

Sometimes a tiny spruce tree is dragged over the snow and
the presents hung on it.

But there is no tinsel or lighted candles, no fruit or holly or flowers. The
simplest of simple gifts will, however, evoke exclamations of wonder and delight
from the small recipient, and often from his elders as well. I have seen a penny
whistle regarded with as much amazed and grateful venerations as if it were a
real Stradivarius.

One Christmas a half-breed Eskimo, by the name of Shuglo, started out two days
before Christmas for the Hudson Bay Post at Rigolette, to buy some supplies so
that this his family might enjoy a “lassie loaf” on Christmas Day. Early in the
winter he had shot a white partridge (ptarmigan), which his wife carefully
preserved in our inexpensive and almost universal cold storage, so as to have
some fresh fowl for the Christmas dinner.

In the second week in December he found a good lynx in one of his traps. Here
was a Christmas indeed; for the pelt would bring in at least ten dollars at the
Post, and that meant fats and molasses until Easter. There were only four in the
family now, for as it happened, two years before I had found them starving
miserably and almost naked, trying to find shelter at the approach of winter
under the ice of some rocks. At that time I persuaded the father and mother to
give me two of the boys so that I might put them in our children’s Home. Then we
had moved the remaining members of the family to a place where the father could
get work for the winter. Since then their fortunes had bettered materially, till
this year of which I am speaking, they were able to “reach to fats.”

On Christmas Eve, Shuglo started home from the Post bringing with him the
cherished molasses and oleo-margarine, and even six tins of milk. At sunset a
driving blizzard set in, so he was unable to find the trail. Two days later his
wife found him frozen to death, only a mile and a half from his own door.

Soon after I went to the Coast, I remember hearing of a trapper who lived just
north of the Straits of Belle Isle. All communications between Labrador and
Newfoundland is cut off during the winter owing to the running ice in the
Straits. The tide drives in with such force that the channel, though only nine
miles across in places, is never completely frozen over. So a man catching furs
in Labrador cannot cross over and
market them in
Newfoundland, but has to wait till the trader comes in the spring. Or, if there
is a station near enough, he may be able to sell them or exchange them for
supplies at some Hudson Bay Post.

This particular trapper, Mackenzie, had caught three white foxes before
Christmas. He was very anxious to spend the day with his family. So he toiled
for two days and two nights through the drifts of snow and thick drogues of
forest, carrying his foxes with him. On the way he shot a rabbit, and added it
to the collection in his “nonny bag.”

When he arrived home he found his wife and children with nothing to eat in the
house, no neighbours within twenty miles, and no chance of selling his three
skins till the spring came, and with it open water. So the whole family had
taken to the “Komatik track, ” and spent Christmas Day trying to reach a
neighbour’s house, where they could, at least, get some dry flour to eat. There
they stayed till his larder was empty, whereupon both families took to the road
again, in search of the next neighbour. So they kept on till the winter
ended.

One of my nurses asked a little girl this year if she had enjoyed her
Christmas. “My, yes, ” was the delighted reply, “I had half an apple all to
myself!”

One Christmas I was called to see a sick man living at a distance of some
twenty miles from hospital. I was eager to get back in time to assume the role
of Father Christmas in the festivities next evening. Christmas morning I was
summoned to the village of St. Karl’s to see a little boy who had been out on
the ice the evening before trying to shoot a gull for the family’s Christmas
dinner. His foot slipped, the gun had exploded, and the shot had shattered his
knee joint.

The short December day was already closing and the sun had sunk back of the
line of hills which loomed up dark against a dull red sky, when we finally
pulled up at the door of the shack. When I entered the house, the child was
lying stretched out on the floor, his knee swathed in a mass of blood-stained
rags, and his broken-hearted mother was kneeling beside him weeping.

It took only a moment’s examination to see that if we would hope to save the
lad’s limb and possibly his life, we must get him to hospital at once. We laid
the injured leg on to a board and strapped it fast, so as to run as little risk
as possible of further damage to it on the journey. I then
started off on the first komatik, and the little patient, accompanied by
his father and an elder brother, were to follow me on a second.

But what of the children and the long delayed Christmas tree? Could we get back
in time? It seemed as if the dogs themselves knew how eager we were, for as they
rolled away behind us, and the moon rose over the hill at our left and appeared
to watch us with friendly interest.

Then the lights of St. Anthony began to twinkle in the distance, and five
minutes later we brought up at the hospital door. At first the children took me
for Father Christmas, but I explained to them I had brought him from the North
Pole, and he would be along directly. Sure enough, at that moment up came the
two men. They were dressed in furs, their beards covered in frost, and on their
sleigh they had the unmistakable box. The children fell back rather awe-struck
as the men carried their burden in through the hospital door. Surely that box
must be full of toys for them!

Fifteen minutes later they were ushered into the room where the gaily decorated
tree was standing. They had their Christmas toys, but we were given an even
better present—the chance to save a little boy’s life.

by Wilfred T. Grenfell

A
UNIVERSAL ROBE OF white had long covered our country-side, hiding every vestige of our rocky soil, and every trace
of the great summer fishery. The mail steamer had paid its last
visit, for six months, and thus the link with civilization was broken. Even
the loitering sea-ducks and lesser auks had left us. The iron grip of winter
lay on sea and shore.

At its best, the land here scarcely suggests the word “country” to a
southerner—scarcely even the word “moors.” For the rock is everywhere
close to the surface, and mosses and lichens are its chief products. The
larger part of the country we call “barrens.” Few of the houses deserve
even to be called cottages, for all are of light, rough wood. Most are of only
one story, and contain but two rooms. The word “huts” would convey a
more accurate idea of these humble abodes. The settlements themselves
are small and scattered, and at this time the empty tilts of the summer
fishermen give a still more desolate aspect to these lonely habitations.

Early in December we had been dumped from the little mail steamer
on the harbour ice about half a mile from shore, and hauled up to the
little Mission hospital, where we were to make our headquarters for the
winter. The name of our harbour was St. Anthony. Christmas was close
upon us. The prospect of enjoying the conventional pleasures of the
season was not bright. Not unnaturally our thoughts went over the sea to
the family gathering at home, at which our places would be vacant. We
should miss the holly and mistletoe, the roast beef and plum-pudding,
the inevitable crackers, and the giving and receiving of presents, which
had always seemed essential to a full enjoyment of the Christmas holiday.

We soon found that few of the children here had ever possessed a
toy; and that there was scarcely a single girl that owned a doll. Now and
again one would see, nailed high up on the wall, well out of reach of the
children, a flimsy, cheaply painted doll; and the mother would explain
that her “Pa had got un from a trader, sir, for thirty cents. No, we don’t
allow Nellie to have it. ’feared lest she might spoil un”—a fear I found to
be only too well grounded, when I came to examine its anatomy more
closely.

Christmas-trees in plenty grew near the hospital; and we could easily
arrange for a “Father Christmas.” The only question was, whether our
stock of toys would justify us in inviting so many children as would
want to come. It is easy to satisfy children like these, however, and so
we announced that we expected Santa Claus on a certain day. There was
great talk about the affair. Whispers reached us that Aunt Mary thought
her Joe weren’t too big to come; sure, he’d be only sixteen. May White
was only going to be eighteen, and she would so like to come. Old Daddy
Gilliam would like to sit in a corner. He’d never seen a Christmas-tree,
and he was nigh on eighty. We were obliged to yield, and with guilty
consciences expected twice as many as the room would hold. All through
the day before the event the Sister was busy making buns; and it was even
whispered that a barrel of apples had been carried over to the “Room.”

In the evening a sick call carried me north to a tiny place on the
Straits of Belle Isle, where a woman lay in great pain, and by all accounts
dying. The dogs were in great form, and travelling was fair enough till we
came to a great arm of the sea, which lay right in our path, and was only
recently caught over with young ice. To reach the other shore we had to
make a wide detour, bumping our way along the rough edge of the old
standing ice. Even here the salt water came up through the snow, and
the dogs sank to their shoulders in cold mush that made each mile half a
dozen. We began to think that our chance of getting back in time on the
morrow was small indeed. We were also wondering that it seemed to be a
real disappointment to ourselves that we should miss the humble attempt
at Christmas keeping.

One thing went a long way toward reconciling us to the
disappointment. The case we had come to see proved to be one in which
skilled help was of real service. So were contented company round the log
fire in the little hut, as we sat listening to stories from one and another
of the neighbours who, according to custom, had dropped in to see the
stranger. Before long my sleeping bag was loudly calling to me after the
exercise of the day. “We must be off by dawn, Uncle Phil, for there’s no
counting on these short days, and we have promised to see that Santa
Claus is in time for the Christmas-tree to-morrow night at St. Anthony.”
Soon, stretched out on the floor, we slept as soundly as in a feather bed.

Only a few minutes seemed to have passed when, “’T will be dawning
shortly, Doctor, ” in the familiar tones of my driver’s voice came filtering
into my bag. “Right you are, Rube; put the kettle on and call the dogs; I
will be ready in a couple of shakes.”

Oh, what a glorious morning! An absolute stillness and the air as
sweet as sugar. Everywhere a mantle of perfect white below, a fathomless
depth of cloudless blue overhead, —and the first radiance of the coming
day blending one into the other with a rich transparent red. The bracing
cold made one feel twenty years younger. We found it a hard job to tackle
up the dogs, they were so mad to be off. As we topped the first hill the
great bay they had caused us so much trouble lay below us, and my driver
gave a joyous shout, “Hurrah, Doctor! There’s a lead for us.” Far out on the
ice he spied a black speck moving towards the opposite shore. A
komatik
had ventured over the young ice, and to follow it would mean a saving of
five miles to us.

We had made a good landing and scaled the opposite hill, and were
galloping over the high barrens, when the dogs began to give tongue,
loudly announcing that a team was coming from the opposite direction.
As we drew near, a muffled figure jumped off, and hauling his dogs to one
side, shouted the customary “What cheer?”

Then a surprised, “The Doctor, as I live! You’re the very man I’m after.
Why, there’s
komatiks
gone all over the country after you. A lad has shot
hisself down at St. Ronald’s and he’s bleeding shocking.”

“All right, Jake old friend. The turn for the path is off the big pond, is
it not?”

“That’s it, Doctor, but I’m coming along anyhow, ’feared I
might
be
wanted.”

My little leader must have overheard this conversation, for she simply
flew over the hills. Yet it was already dusk when at length we shot down the
semi-precipice on the side of which the little house clings like a barnacle.
The anxious crowd, gathered to await our arrival, disappeared before the
avalanche like a morning mist when the sun rises. Following directions, I
found myself in a tiny naked room
already filled with well-meaning
visitors able to do nothing but
look on and defile what little air
made its way in through the fixed
windows. Fortunately, for want
of putty, air leaked in around the
glasses.

Stretched on the floor behind
the stove lay a pale-faced boy
of about ten years. His clothes
had been taken off, and an old
patchwork quilt covered his body.
His right thigh was covered with
a heterogeneous mass of bloody
rags. Sitting by him was his
mother, her forehead resting in
her hands as if she were wrestling
with some inscrutable problem.
She rose as I entered, and without
waiting for questions, broke out
with: “’T is Clem, Doctor. He got
Dick here to give him the gun to try and shoot a gull, and there were a
high ballicater of ice in the way, and he were trying to climb up over it,
and he pushed the gun before him with the bar’l turned t’wards hisself,
and she went off an shot him, and us doesn’t know what to do next.”

While she ran on with her story I cleared the room of visitors, and
kneeling down by the boy removed the dirty mass of rags that had been
used to staunch the blood. The charge had entered the thigh at close
quarters about the knee, and passed downwards blowing the kneecap
to pieces. Most of it had passed out again. The loose fragments of bone
still adhering to the ragged flesh, the fragments of clothing blown into it,
and the foul smell and discoloration added by the gun-powder made the
outlook a very ugly one.

The mother had by this time quieted down, and was simply repeating
“What shall us do?”

“There’s only one thing to be done. We must pack Clem up and carry
him to the hospital right away.”

“Iss, Doctor, that’s the only way, I’m thinking, ” she replied. “An’ I
suppose you’ll cut off his leg, and he’ll never walk no more, and O dear!
what—”

“Come, tear up this calico into strips, and bring me some boiling
water, —mind it must be well boiled; and get me that board over there, —’t
will serve to make a splint; and then go tell Dick to get the dogs ready at
once; for we’ve a Christmas-tree at St. Anthony tonight, and I must be
back at all costs.”

In this way we kept her too busy to worry or hesitate about letting the
child go; for we well knew it was his only chance, and she had never seen
a hospital, and the idea of one was as terrifying as a morgue.

“Home, home, home!” to the dogs—and once again our steel runners
are humming over the crisp snow. Now in the darkness we are clinging
tightly to our hand ropes as we shoot over the hills. Now the hospital
lights in the windows of the “Room.” As we get near, they look so
numerous and cheerful that we seem to be approaching a town. Now
we can hear the merry ring of the children’s voices, and can make out a
crowd of figures gathered around the doorway. They are waiting for the
tardy arrival of “Sandy Claws.” Of course, we are at once recognized, and
there is a general hush of disappointment as if they had thought at last
“Sandy” himself was come.

Only a little while later, and the barking of dogs announces the
approach of another
komatik
. But we alone are in the secret of its mission.
Someone is calling from the darkness and a long sleigh with a double-banked team of dogs has drawn up opposite the doorway. Two fur-clad
figures standing by it steady a huge box which is lashed upon it. The light
shining on the near one reveals of his muffled face only two sparkling
eyes and large icicles bristling over the muffler from heavy moustache
and whiskers, like the ivory tusks of some old bull walrus. Both figures
are panting with exertion, and blowing out great clouds of steam like
galloping horses on a frosty morning. There could be no doubt about it,
this time. Here was the real Sandy Claws at last, come mysteriously over
the snows with his dogs and
komatik
and big box and all!

The excitement of the crowd already intense from anxiety over our
own delay, now knew no bounds. Where had they come from? What
could be in that big box? How large it looked in the darkness! Could it
have been dragged all the way from the North Pole? Luckily, no one had
the courage left to go near enough to discover the truth. The hospital
door was swung open, and a loud voice cried out; “Welcome welcome,
Sandy Claws! We’re all so glad you’ve come; we thought you’d forgotten
us. Come right in, come right in! O, no! Don’t think of undoing the box
outside; why, you’ll freeze all those toys out there! Just unlash it and bring
it right in as it is. Come in; there’s a cup of tea waiting for you, before you
go over to start your tree growing fruit.”

There had been rumours all the week that Sandy Claws would bring
his wife this year. There had been whispers even of a baby. So we could
explain the second man; for the Eskimo men and women all dress alike in
Labrador, which would account for Mrs. Claws’s strange taste in clothes.
A discreet silence was observed about her frozen whiskers.

A few minutes later another large box was carried over to the “Room.”
It was full of emptiness, for the toys were on the tree long ago. But two
strange masked and bewigged figures stumbled over the snow with it,
to carry the little drama to its close. So complete was the faith in the
unearthly origin of these our guests, that when the curtain went up, more
than one voice was heard to be calling out for “Ma” and “Dad.” While a
lad of several summers was found hidden under the seat, when it came
his turn to go up and get his “prize.”

And so Santa Claus came to St. Anthony, and brought a gift for us
as well as presents for the children. Indeed, the best was the one he had
kept for us who had so unworthily thought that the outlook for a happy
Christmas was but a poor one. Sleeping overhead, in a clean white cot,
free of pain, and with a good fighting chance for his life, lay our bright-faced lad—Clem. The gift to us this Christmas day was the chance to save
his life, and we would not have changed our gift for anyone else’s. At the
old home, where doctors are plentiful, such a gift were impossible.