In our harbour lives a blind Frenchman, François Détier by name. He came here in his youth to escape conscription. The fisher people have travelled a long road since the old feuds which scarred the early history of Le Petit Nord, and François is a much-loved member of the community. Since the oncoming of the inoperable tumour, which little by little has deprived him of his sight, the neighbours vie with each other by helping him. One day a load of wood will find its way to his door. The next a few fresh "turr," a very "fishy" sea auk, are left ever so quietly inside his woodshed—and so it goes. It is a constant marvel to me that these people, who live so perilously near the margin of want, are always so eager to share up. François is sitting in our cellar as I write pulling nails from old boxes with my new patent nail-drawer. A moment ago I could not resist the temptation of putting the Marseillaise on the gramophone, and I went down to find him with tears rolling down his cheeks as he hummed,
"Allons, enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé."
We've invented a new job for him; he is to "serve" our pipes with bandages. This means swathing them round and round, and finally adding an outer covering of newspaper, which has a much-vaunted reputation for keeping cold out.
Let me tell you the latest epic of the hospital pipes. Those to the bathroom run through the office. In the last blizzard they burst. The fire in the fireplace was a conflagration; the steam radiator was singing a credible song; and as the water trickled down the pipe from the little fissure, it froze solid before it was three inches on its way!
A friend sent me for Christmas a charming little poem. One verse runs:
"May nothing evil cross this door,
And may ill fortune never pry
About these Windows; may the roar
And rains go by.
"Strengthened by faith, these rafters will
Withstand the battering of the storm;
This hearth, though all the world grow chill,
Will keep us warm."
I am thinking of hanging the card opposite our pipes as a reminder of the "way they should go."
January 15
The journey to Nameless Cove Fair was all that I had hoped for and a little more thrown in to make weight. Clear and shining, with glittering white snow below and sparkling blue sky above, the day promised fair in spite of a mercury standing at ten below zero, and a number of komatiks from the Mission started merrily forth. All went well, and we reached Nameless Cove without adventure, but at sundown the wind rose. When we left the sale at ten o'clock to return to the house where I was to spend the night, we had to face the full fury of a living winter gale. I "caught" both my cheeks on the way, or in common parlance I froze them. All through that long tug we were cheered by the thought of a large jug of cream which we had placed on the stove to thaw when we left the house. Do you fancy that cream had thawed? Not a bit of it. The fire was doing its best, but old Boreas was holding our feast prisoner. It had not even begun to disintegrate around the edges. We cut lumps from the icy mass, dropped them into our cocoa (which we made by cooking it inside the stove and directly on top of the coals), hastily popped the mixture into our mouths before it should have a chance to freeze en route, and went promptly to bed. I draw a veil over that night. I drew everything else I could find over me in the course of it. A sadder and a wiser and a chillier woman I rose the morrow morn. Another member of the staff, who had slept in an adjoining house, froze his toe in bed.
When we reached home, and I left the komatik at the hospital door, I made out 'Senath dancing in an agitatedly aimless fashion on our platform. She was also waving her arms about. For a moment it crossed my mind that she had lost her modicum of wits, but as she was immediately joined by Tryphena, I gave up the theory as untenable, and continued to hasten up the hill to the Home. Our boiler had sprung, not one but many leaks, and the precious hot water destined for the cleansing of forty was flooding the already spotless kitchen floor. As it is the middle of the week I had not suspected this calamity, Sunday being the invariable day selected for all burst pipes, special rat banquets, broken noses, toothaches, skinned shins, and such misadventures. The problem now presenting itself for prompt solution is: 20° below zero, a gale blowing from the northwest, twoscore small, unwashed orphans, and a burst boiler!