The village sale was held last week. This has become an annual occurrence, and the proceeds are devoted to varying good objects. This time the hospital was the beneficiary. For months the countryside, men and women, have been making articles, and I can assure you it is a relief to have it over and such a success to boot, and life's quiet tone restored. We made large numbers of purchases, and consumed unbelievable quantities of more than solid nourishment. The people have shown the greatest ingenuity and diligence, and the display was a credit to their talent. I was particularly struck with the really clever carving representing local scenes which the fishermen had done with no other tools than their jack-knives. The auction was the keynote of the evening, due largely to the signal ability of the auctioneer. His methods are effective, but strictly his own. Cakes, made generally in graded layers and liberally coated with different coloured sugar, were the favourites. As he held up the last teetering mountain he "bawled": "What am I bid for this wonderful cake? 'Tis a bargain at any price. Why, she's so heavy I can't hold her with one hand." It fetched seven dollars!
The yearly meet for sports was held in the afternoon before the sale, and was voted by all to be a great success. It is a far cry from the days when games were introduced here by the Mission. Then the people's lives were so drab, and they had little idea of the sporting qualities which every Englishman values so highly. In those early days if in a game of football one side kicked a goal, they had to wait till the other had done the same before the game could proceed, or the play would have been turned into a battle. Now everything in trousers in the place can be seen of an evening out on the harbour ice kicking a ball about. The harbour is our very roomy athletic field.
Twenty-two teams had entered for the dog race, and the start, when the whole number were ranged up in the line, was pandemonium unloosed. The dogs were barking out threatenings and slaughter to the teams next them, their masters were shouting unheeded words of command, the crowd were cheering their favourites, and altogether you would never have guessed from the racket and confusion that you were north of the Roaring Forties.
The last event on the sports programme was a scramble for coloured candies by all the children of the village. Our flock from the Home participated. The proceeding was as unhygienic as it was alluring, and our surprise was great when a universally healthy household greeted the morrow morn.
When I heard the amount the poor folk had raised for charity out of their meagre pittance, I felt reproached. It is a consistent fact here that the people give and do more than their means justify, and it must involve a hard pinch for them in some other quarter.
Coming from the sale at ten at night I looked for our "Yoho" in passing the churchyard, but was unrewarded, though some of the harbour people assured me in the morning that they had seen it plainly. Can there be anything in the current belief that the men of the sea are more psychic than we case-hardened products of civilization, or is it merely superstition? There is a story here of a man called Gaulton, which is vouched for by all the older men who can recall the incident. It seems that in Savage Cove this old George Gaulton lived till he was ninety. He died on December 4, 1883. On the 16th he appeared in the flesh to a former acquaintance at Port au Choix, fifty miles from the spot at which he had died. This man Shenicks gives the following account of the curious visitation:
"I was in the woods cutting timber for a day and a half. During the whole of that time I was sure I heard footsteps near me in the snow, although I could see nothing. On the evening of the second day, in consequence of heavy rain, I returned home early. I knew my cattle had plenty of food, but something forced me to go to the hay-pook. While there, in a few moments I stood face to face with old George Gaulton. I was not frightened. We stood in the rain and talked for some time. In the course of the conversation the old man gave me a message for his eldest son, and begged me to deliver it to him myself before the end of March. Immediately afterwards he disappeared, and then I was terribly afraid."
A few weeks later Shenicks went all the way to Savage Cove and delivered the message given to him in so strange a fashion.
A word of apology and I close. In an early letter to you I recall judging harshly a concoction called "brewis." Experience here has taught me that our own delicacies meet with a similar fate at the hands of my present fellow countrymen. I offered Carmen on her arrival a cup of cocoa for Sunday supper. After one sniff, biddable and polite child though she was, I saw her surreptitiously pour the "hemlock cup" out of the open window behind her.
May 23