“I do.”
There was much more, and at the end of it all the doctor told the man that the good God would forgive him if he should ask in true faith and repentance, but that the people, being human, could not. For a whole year, he charged the people, they must not speak to that man; but if at the end of that time he had shown an honest disposition to mend his ways, they might take him to their hearts.
The end of the story is that the man paid the money and left the place.
This relentless judge, on a stormy day of last July, carried many bundles ashore at Cartwright, in Sandwich Bay of the Labrador. The wife of the Hudson Bay Company’s agent exclaimed with delight when she opened them. They were Christmas gifts from the children of the “States” to the lads and little maids of that coast. With almost all there came a little letter addressed to the unknown child who was to receive the toy; they were filled with loving words—with good wishes, coming in childish sincerity from the warm little hearts. The doctor never forgets the Christmas gifts. He is the St. Nicholas of that coast. If he ever weeps at all, I should think it would be when he hears that despite his care some child has been neglected. The wife of the agent stowed away the gifts against the time to come.
“It makes them very happy,” said the agent’s wife.
“Not long ago,” I chanced to say, “I saw a little girl with a stick of wood for a dolly. Are they not afraid to play with these pretty things?”
“They are,” she laughed. “They use them for ornaments. But that doesn’t matter. It makes them happy just to look at them.”
We all laughed.
“And yet,” she continued, “they do play with them, sometimes, after all. There is a little girl up the bay who has kissed the paint off her dolly!”