Laden with gifts for the home folks, and satiated with looking at the shops and great buildings and wonders of St. Johns, they were a very happy party when at last the mail boat steamed northward with them.
Bob Gray was very proud of his little chum when, one beautiful September day, his boat ground its prow upon the sands at Wolf Bight, and with all the strength and vigour of youth she bounded ashore and ran to meet the expectant and happy parents.
As, with full hearts, the reunited family of Richard Gray walked up the path to the cabin, Bob said reverently:
"Th' Lard has ways o' doin' things that seem strange an' wonderful hard sometimes when He's doin' un; but He always does un right, an' a rare lot better'n we could plan."
XXVIII[ToC]
IN AFTER YEARS
During the twenty years that have elapsed since the incidents transpired that are here recorded, the mission doctors and the mission hospitals have come to The Labrador to give back life and health to the unfortunate sick and injured folk of the coast, who in the old days would have been doomed to die or to go through life helpless cripples or invalids for the lack of medical or surgical care, as would have been the case with little Emily but for the efforts of her noble brother. New people, too, have come into Eskimo Bay, though on the whole few changes have taken place and most of the characters met with in the preceding pages still live.