Once that summer we were eleven days stuck in the ice, and while there
the huge mail steamer broke her propeller, and a boat was sent up to
us through the ice to ask for our help. The truck on my mastheads was
just up to her deck. The ice was a lot of trouble, but we got her into
safety. On board were the superintendent of the Moravian Missions and
his wife. They were awfully grateful. The great tub rolled about so in
the Atlantic swell that the big ice-pans nearly came on deck. My
dainty little lady took no notice of anything and picked her way among
the pans like Agag "treading delicately." We had five hours' good
push, however, to get into Battle Harbour. It was calm in the
ice-field, only the heavy tide made it run and the little "alive"
steamer with human skill beat the massive mountains of ice into a
cocked hat.
At Indian Tickle there is a nice little church which was built by
subscription and free labour the second year we came on the coast.
There is one especially charming feature about this building. It
stands in such a position that you can see it as you come from the
north miles away from the harbour entrance, and it is so situated that
it leads directly into the safe anchorage. There are no lights to
guide sailors on this coast at all, and yet during September, October,
and November, three of the most dangerous months in the year, hundreds
of schooners and thousands of men, women, and children are coming into
or passing through this harbour on their way to the southward. By a
nice arrangement the little east window points to the north--if that
is not Irish--and two large bracket lamps can be turned on a pivot, so
that the lamps and their reflectors throw a light out to sea. The
good planter, at his own expense, often maintains a light here on
stormy or dark nights, and "steering straight for it" brings one to
safety.
While cruising near Cape Chidley, a schooner signalling with flag at
half-mast attracted our attention. On going aboard we found a young
man with the globe of one eye ruptured by a gun accident, in great
pain, and in danger of losing the other eye sympathetically. Having
excised the globe, we allowed him to go back to his vessel, intensely
grateful, but full of apprehension as to how his girl would regard him
on his return South. It so happened that we had had a gift of false
eyes, and we therefore told him to call in at hospital on his way home
and take his chance on getting a blue one. While walking over the hill
near the hospital that fall I ran into a crowd of young fishermen,
whose schooner was wind-bound in the harbour, and who had been into
the country for an hour's trouting. One asked me to look at his eye,
as something was wrong with it. Being in a hurry, I simply remarked,
"Come to hospital, and I'll examine it for you"; whereupon he burst
out into a merry laugh, "Why, Doctor, I'm the boy whose eye you
removed. This is the glass one you promised. Do you think it will suit
her?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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