Part 16

Finally Uncle Willie's eyesight became so poor that it was difficult for him to see sufficiently to get around, and one day last summer (1921) he stepped off his fish stage where he was at work, and the fall broke his thigh. This happened at the very beginning of the fishing season, and put an end to the summer's fishing for Uncle Willie, and, of course, to all hope of hunting and trapping during last winter.

Then Doctor Grenfell happened along with his brave old hospital ship Strathcona. Dr. Grenfell has a way of happening along just when people are desperately in need of him. With Dr. Grenfell was Dr. Morlan, a skillful and well-known eye and throat specialist from Chicago. Dr. Morlan was spending his holiday with Dr. Grenfell, helping heal the sick down on The Labrador, giving free his services and his great skill.

Dr. Grenfell set and dressed Uncle Willie Wolfrey's broken thigh. Dr. Morlan was to remain but a few days. If he were to help Uncle Willie's eyes there could be no time given for a recovery from the operation on the thigh. Uncle Willie was game for it.

They had settled Uncle Willie comfortably at Indian Harbor Hospital, and immediately the thigh was set Dr. Morlan operated upon one of the eyes. The operation was successful, and when the freeze-up came with the beginning of winter, Uncle Willie, hobbling about on crutches and with one good eye was home again in his cabin.

Uncle Willie lives in a lonely place, and for many miles north and south he has but one neighbor. The outlook for the winter was dismal indeed. His flour barrel was empty. He had no money.

But that stout old heart could not be discouraged or subdued. Uncle Willie was as full of grit as ever he was in his life. He was still a fountain of cheery optimism and hope. He could see with one eye now, and out of that eye the world looked like a pretty good place in which to live, and he was decided to make the best of it.

Dr. Grenfell, passing down the coast, called in to see the crippled old fisherman and hunter, and in commenting on that visit he said:

"There are certain men it always does one good to meet. Uncle Willie is a channel of blessing. His sincerity and faith do one good. There is always a merry glint in his eye. Even with one eye out, and his crutches on, and his prospect of hunger, Uncle Willie was just the same."

Dr. Grenfell left some money, donated by the Doctor's friends, and made other provisions for the comfort of Uncle Willie Wolfrey during the winter. If all goes well he will be at his fishing again, when the ice clears away; and the snows of another winter will see him again on his trapping path setting traps for martens and foxes. And with his rifle and one good eye, who knows but he may knock over a silver fox or a bear or two?

Good luck to Uncle Willie Wolfrey and his spirit, which cannot be downed.

As Dr. Grenfell has often said, the Labradorman is a fountain of faith and hope and inspiration. If the fishing season is a failure he turns to his winter's trapping with unwavering faith that it will yield him well. If his trapping fails his hope and faith are none the less when he sets out in the spring to hunt seals. Seals may be scarce and the reward poor, but never mind! The summer fishing is at hand, and this year it will certainly bring a good catch! "The Lard be wonderful good to us, whatever."

XII

A DOZEN FOX TRAPS

On that same voyage along the coast when Uncle Willie Wolfrey was found with a broken thigh, Dr. Grenfell, after he had operated upon Uncle Willie, in the course of his voyage, stopping at many harbors to give medical assistance to the needy ones, ran in one day to Kaipokok Bay, at Turnavik Islands.

As the vessel dropped her anchor he observed a man sitting on the rocks eagerly watching the ship. The jolly boat was launched, and as it approached the land the man arose and coming down to the water's edge, shouted:

"Be that you, Doctor?"

"Yes, Uncle Tom, it is I?" the Doctor shouted back, for he had already recognized Uncle Tom, one of the fine old men of the coast.

When Grenfell stepped ashore and took Uncle Tom's hand in a hearty grasp, the old man broke down and cried like a child. Uncle Tom was evidently in keen distress.

"Oh, Doctor, I'm so glad you comes. I were lookin' for you, Doctor," said the old man in a voice broken by emotion. "I were watchin' and watchin' out here on the rocks, not knowin' whether you'd be comin' this way, but hopin', and prayin' the Lard to send you. He sends you, Doctor. 'Twere the Lard sends you when I'm needin' you, sir, sorely needin' you."

Uncle Tom is seventy years of age. He was born and bred on The Labrador, but he has not spent all his life there. In his younger days he shipped as a sailor, and as a seaman saw many parts of the world. But long ago he returned to his home to settle down as a fisherman and a trapper.

When the war came, the brave old soul, stirred by patriotism, paid his own passage and expenses on the mail boat to St. Johns, and offered to volunteer for service. Of course he was too old and was rejected because of his age.

Uncle Tom, his patriotism not in the least dampened, returned to his Labrador home and divided all the fur of his winter's hunt into two equal piles. To one pile he added a ten dollar bill, and that pile, with the ten dollars added, he shipped at once to the "Patriotic Fund" in St. Johns. He had offered himself, and they would not take him, and this was all he could do to help win the war, and he did it freely and wistfully, out of his noble, generous patriotic soul.

"What is the trouble, Uncle Tom?" asked Grenfell, when Uncle Tom had to some extent regained his composure, and the old man told his story.

He was in hard luck. Late the previous fall (1920) or early in the winter he had met with a severe accident that had resulted in several broken ribs. Navigation had closed, and he was cut off from all surgical assistance, and his broken ribs had never had attention and had not healed. He could scarcely draw a breath without pain, or even rest without pain at night, and he could not go to his trapping path.

He depended upon his winter's hunt mainly for support, and with no fur to sell he was, for the first time in his life, compelled to contract a debt. Then, suddenly, the trader with whom he dealt discontinued giving credit. Uncle Tom was stranded high and dry, and when the fishing season came he had no outfit or means of purchasing one, and could not go fishing.

Besides his wife there were six children in Uncle Tom's family, though none of them was his own or related to him. When the "flu" came to the coast in 1918, and one out of every five of the people around Turnavik Islands died, several little ones were left homeless and orphans. The generous hearts of Uncle Tom and his wife opened to them and they took these six children into their home as their own. And so it happened that Uncle Tom had, and still has, a large family depending upon him.

"As we neared the cottage," said Doctor Grenfell, "his good wife, beaming from head to foot as usual, came out to greet us. Optimist to the last ditch, she knew that somehow provision would be made. She, too, had had her troubles, for twice she had been operated on at Indian Harbor for cancer."

Uncle Tom must have suffered severely during all those months that he had lived with his broken ribs uncared for. Now Dr. Grenfell, without loss of time, strapped them up good and tight. Mrs. Grenfell supplied the six youngsters with a fine outfit of good warm clothes, and when Dr. Grenfell sailed out of Kaipokok Bay Uncle Tom and Mrs. Tom had no further cause for worry concerning the source from which provisions would come for themselves and the six orphans they had adopted.