XV[ToC]
A LAD OF THE NORTH
The needs of the children attracted Dr. Grenfell's attention from the beginning. A great many of them were neglected because the parents were too poor to provide for them properly. Those who were orphaned were thrown upon the care of their neighbors, and though the neighbors were willing they were usually too poor to take upon themselves this added burden.
There were no schools save those conducted by the Brethren of the Moravian missions among the Eskimos to the northward, and these were Eskimo schools where the people were taught to read and write in their own strange language, and to keep their accounts. But for the English speaking folk south of the Eskimo coast no provision for schools had ever been made.
The hospitals were overflowing with the sick or injured, and there was no room for children, unless they were in need of medical or surgical attention. There was great need of a home for the orphans where they would be cared for and receive motherly training and attention and could go to school.
Dr. Grenfell had thought about this a great deal. He had made the best arrangements possible for the actually destitute little ones by finding more or less comfortable homes for them, and seeking contributions from generous folk in the United States, Canada and Great Britain to pay for their expense.
But it was not, perhaps, until Pomiuk, a little Eskimo boy, came under his care that he finally decided that the establishment of a children's home could no longer be delayed.
Pomiuk's home was in the far north of Labrador, where no trees grow, and where the seasons are quite as frigid as those of northern Greenland. In summer he lived with his father and mother in a skin tent, or tupek, and in winter in a snow igloo, or iglooweuk.