"Glory be!" came the answer. "There'll be plenty for you to do ashore, Doctor!"
So instead of rest and comfort after the long sea-voyage Grenfell and those with him had to peel off their coats and plunge right in and help with both hands right and left.
It was with heavy hearts a few days later that they said good-by and started north for Labrador where there were people who needed them even more than the burned-out folk of St. John's.
They ran across the Straits of Belle Isle, through which the River St. Lawrence flows to the Atlantic, and the sun flashed on a hundred icebergs at once, in a glorious procession.
The seabirds were fighting and crying over the fish.
The whales were leaping clean out of the sea, as if they were playing a game and having lots of fun.
Grenfell laughed aloud as he watched them. "I say, boys," he said to the sailors, "don't you wish you could jump out of the water like that?"
"I wish we had all the oil there is in all them whales!" said Bill, who had a very practical mind.
Into the very middle of the fishing-fleet they sailed.
Flags of welcome were run up to the mastheads of the schooners. There were about 30,000 Newfoundlanders in the whole fleet, on more than 100 schooners—and Grenfell's boat was a little bit of a thing compared with most of them.