“They have had no minister since the war and in the winter the bottom falls out of everything. The people on the rivers have no doctor for a year and a half and two years at a time. At Williams Harbour they swarmed to Dr. Twiss and Dr. MacDonald. One woman in desperation had been treating pneumonia with salt-water, snow and white moss. “Dr. Grenfell and his people have more than they can do. We all of us realize today as we never understood before the meaning to the people of the North of the presence of Grenfell and his people among them. We caught the spirit of the work inevitably, and tried to do what good we could while we were there. “The folk of the Alexis and the St. Louis River districts, as a rule, can’t afford the price of gas to go to Battle Harbour. It’s a day’s run, and there’s nobody to mind their cod-traps when they’re away. So one can imagine how completely they’d be shut out of the world but for the contacts which the mission provides even at such long intervals. “William Russell is the grand old man of Williams Harbour. He is the most-travelled and the best-educated man of those parts, and he represents the finest type of patriarch. He never saw a horse or a cow or an automobile; he has never been south of Battle Harbour, though he has visited that diminutive settlement four times. He was dumfounded at our aeroplane. “In his family the father’s word was law to the twelve children. They never thought of questioning his authority. They were the best behaved and most dutiful children I have ever seen. Their obedience was absolute, and their manner to strangers was deferential. They always said ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir,’ most politely. “At his house thirty-one gathered to hear the gramophone—for the first time. They were packed in as tight as could be, choking the room with their tobacco-smoke. The first night they were silent. The next night they were excited, and on the third they became hilarious. “As I said, following the Grenfell example, we did what doctoring we could on the side. The constant diet of bread and tea, tea and bread is hard on the teeth. There is much pyorrhea due to this diet, to limestone in the water, and to failure to clean the teeth. At Blanc Sablon we treated a little boy who had suffered for three weeks with the toothache. It was a simple case of congested pulp. The relief was immediate. It is a joy and a reward to behold the gratitude of those who are helped. “I tell you if these people who question the value of Grenfell’s work, or wonder why he chooses to spend his life in bleak and barren places, could just see his ‘parishioners’ and know their gratitude toward their benefactors, they would understand.