It is to be noted that nearly all the children who died perished of starvation, because their elders could no longer feed them and the “loaf” was too frozen to be eaten.
The Eskimo settlements suffered still more grievously. The bodies were buried at sea. Dogs were eating the bodies, and had to be shot. Sometimes the survivors were too weak to drive the dogs from the dead and the dying.
Hebron was wiped out. At Okkak 200 died of 267, and on August 15 there were four widows and two little girls left, who were waiting to be taken away. Nain was not so hard hit, but it is said that forty perished out of several hundred. Zoar and Ramah had already passed out of existence before the “flu” came. It is estimated that the resident Eskimo population on the coast, numbering 600 to 700, was cut nearly in half.
The people seem to think that Dr. Grenfell can accomplish miracles. One is reminded of the words of the sister of Lazarus, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.”
“Richard Dempster, our mail-carrier,” said good Parson Richards, of Flower’s Cove, “owes his life to the Doctor. Something had infected his knee. The poison spread to his hip. He wouldn’t have lived twelve hours if the Doctor hadn’t made seven incisions in his right leg with his pocket-knife to let out the poisoned blood.
HAPPY DAYS AT THE ORPHANAGE, ST. ANTHONY.
“Once when I was travelling with him, at Pine’s Cove we found a family had left because the woman had seen a ghost. The Doctor prayed with her, and offered to go and live in the house himself to prove that she was the victim of an illusion. At Eddy’s Cove there was hard glitter ice which would have cut the dog’s paws. We thought we couldn’t go on. While we debated what to do there came a snowfall that spread the ice with a glorious soft blanket, ideal for travel. That’s just the way Providence always seems to favour the Doctor when he goes abroad.
“That man never came to the parsonage and went without leaving me with the desire to do better and be better. Every single time it was the same.