Canada, Eastern -- Description and travel -- Fiction; Outdoor life -- Canada, Eastern -- Fiction
“Oh, no, sir. They both dies when I were a bit of a lad, sir--seven
year old or thereabouts. ’Twere in winter, an’ my father is out to his
traps. My mother expects him home in th’ evenin’, an’ when it gets
dark an’ he never comes she’s much worried, for he’s always before
comin’ when he’s promisin’, sir. He were a wonderful true man t’ keep
his word, sir, even t’ wallopin’ me when I does things he’s denied me
to do, an’ is deservin’ th’ wallopin’.
“Well, as th’ evenin’ gets on an’ he’s not comin’, my mother cries a
bit an’ says somethin’s been befallin’ he, sir, out in the bush, an’
when she rouses me from sleep before the break of day th’ next
mornin’, she’s in a wonderful bad state worryin’. She tells me she’s
goin’ t’ look for he, an’ I’m t’ watch th’ baby.
“She goes, sir, an’ she don’t come back that day or that night or th’
next day. Snow comes fallin’ thick an’ th’ weather grows dreadful
nasty. Th’ baby cries most o’ th’ time, an’ I carries un some. I knows
th’ baby’s hungry, but I has no way t’ feed un. After awhile it stops
cryin’ when I lays un on th’ bed.
“That were a wonderful cold night, sir. When mornin’ comes th’ baby’s
still quiet, an’ I says to myself, ‘I’ll let un sleep.’
“Th’ bread’s all gone, an’ I only has a bit of salt fish t’ eat, an’
th’ fire I puts on in th’ stove burns slow. But th’ snow’s stopped in
th’ night.
“Th’ baby don’t cry no more, but I does, for I don’t know why my
father an’ mother don’t come, an’ I’m cryin’ when I hears dogs
outside. I wipes away th’ tears quick, for I’m wantin’ no one t’ catch
me cryin’.
“Then in comes th’ Moravian missionary from Nain, a wonderful kind
man. He asks where my mother is. I tells he how my mother goes away to
look for my father an’ never comes back, an’ th’ hard time I has. That
th’ baby were hungry, but she’s sleepin’ now.
“He goes an’ looks at un, an’ then very quiet he covers un over with
th’ blanket, an’ puttin’ his hand on my head an’ lookin’ in my eyes,
he says: ‘Is you brave, lad? We all has troubles, lad, an’ you must
be brave to meet yours.’
“Then he calls old Muklutuk, his driver, to bring in some grub. They
puts on a good fire, an’ gives me a plenty t’ eat, an’ goes away
sayin’ they’ll be back by night.
“When they comes back the missionary holds me up to him, and he says,
very kind: ‘Lad, I’m goin’ to take you to a new home, for your father
and mother has been called away to heaven by th’ Lord. He’ll be
needin’ ’em there, an’ they can’t come back t’ you, but th’ Lord wants
me t’ take you with me.’
“I were wonderful lonesome when he says that, at not seein’ mother an’
father again, but I holds back th’ tears, for mother has often been
tellin’ me that some day th’ Lord might be callin’ she or father away
t’ live in heaven, an’ not t’ cry or feel bad about un, for ’t would
be right, as everything th’ Lord done were right.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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