Whatever sins Labrador has been guilty of, Malthusianism is not in the
category. Nowhere are there larger families. Those of Quebec Labrador,
which is better known, are of almost world-wide fame. God is, to
Labrador thinking, the Giver of all children. Man's responsibility is
merely to do the best he can to find food and clothing for them. A man
can accomplish only so much. If these "gifts of God" suffer and are a
burden to others that is kismet. It is the animal philosophy and
makes women's lives on this coast terribly hard. The opportunity for
service along child-welfare lines is therefore not surprising from
this angle also.
One day, passing a group of islands, we anchored in a bight known as
Rogues' Roost. It so happened that a man who many years before had
shot off his right arm, and had followed up his incapacity with a
large family of dependants, had just died. Life cannot be expected to
last long in Labrador under those conditions. There were four
children, one being a big boy who could help out. The rest were
offered as a contribution to the Mission. A splendid Newfoundland
fisherman and his wife had a summer fishing station here, and with
that generous open-heartedness which is characteristic of our
seafarers, they were only too anxious to help. "Of course, she would
make clothing while I was North"--out of such odd garments as a
general collection produced. "She wouldn't think of letting them wear
it till I came along South, not she." She would "put them in the tub
as soon as she heard our whistle." When after the long summer's work
we landed and went up to her little house, three shining, red, naked
children were drying before a large stove, in which the last vestige
of connection with their past was contributing its quota of calories
toward the send-off. A few minutes later we were off to the ship with
as sweet a batch of jolly, black-haired, dark-eyed kiddies as one
could wish for. Our good friend could not keep back the tears as she
kissed them good-bye on deck. The boy has already put in three years
on the Western Front. The girls have both been educated, the elder
having had two years finishing at the Pratt Institute in New York.
A grimy note saying, "Please call in to Bird Island as you pass and
see the sick," brought me our next donation. "There be something wrong
with Mrs. B's twins, Doctor," greeted me on landing. "Seems as if they
was like kittens, and couldn't see yet a wink." It was only too true.
The little twin girls were born blind in both eyes. What could they do
in Labrador? Two more for our family without any question. After
leaving our Orphanage, these two went through the beautiful school for
the blind at Halifax, and are now able to make their own living in the
world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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