The winter of 1917-18 was extremely severe, not only in our North country, but in the United States and Canada also. I was lecturing during this winter in both these latter countries, though during the months of December and January travelling became very difficult owing to the continuous blizzards. I was held up for three days in Racine, Wisconsin, as neither trains, electric cars, or automobiles could make their way through the heavy drifts. Had I had my trusty dog team, however, I should not have missed three important lecture engagements. Life in the North has its compensations.
At Toronto I was unfortunate enough to contract bronchitis and pleurisy, and I understand from competent observers that I was an "impossible patient." Be that as it may, so much pressure was brought to bear on me that at last I was forced to obey the doctors and leave for a month's rest in a warmer climate.
Owing to ice and war conditions we did not arrive in St. Anthony until the first of July. In arriving late we were all spared a terrible shock. The previous day some of the boys from the Orphanage had gone fishing in the Devil's Pond, about a mile away, and a favourite resort with them. Unfortunately that afternoon they were seized with the brilliant idea of kindling a fire with which to cook their trout. Greatly to the astonishment of the would-be cooks, the fire quickly got beyond the one desired for culinary purposes, and, panic-stricken, they rushed home to give the alarm. Every man ashore and afloat came and worked, and the obliteration of the place was saved by a providential change in the wind and wide fire-breaks cut through few and ill-to-be-spared trees. Everything had been taken from our house—even furniture and linen—and dragged to the wharf head, where terrified children, fleeing patients, and heaps of furnishings from the orphanage and elsewhere were all piled up. Schooners had been hauled in to carry off what was possible, and the patients in the hospital were got ready to be carried away at a moment's notice. Only the most strenuous efforts saved the entire station. Now all our beautiful sky-line is blackened and charred. All day long the gravity of the debt was in our hearts, for if the wooden buildings had once had the clouds of fiery sparks settle upon them, the whole of those dependent upon us would have been homeless. Surely in a country like this, the incident of this fire puts an added emphasis upon our need of brick buildings. Gratitude for our safe return, for all God's mercies to us, and joy over the outcome of the at one time apparently inevitable disaster, made our first day of the season a never-to-be-forgotten event.
THE LABRADOR DOCTOR IN WINTER[ToList]
Mr. W.R. Stirling, our Chicago director, who had personally visited the hospitals, insisted that a water supply must at all costs be secured both for hospital and orphanage. This was not only to avert the reproach of typhoid epidemics, two of which had previously occurred, but also to better our protection for so many helpless lives in old dry wooden buildings, and to economize the great expense of hauling water by dogs every winter, when our little surface reservoir was frozen to the bottom. This water supply has only just been finished; and now we cannot understand how we ever existed without it. But it is an unromantic object to which to give money, and the total cost, even doing the work ourselves, amounted to just upon ten thousand dollars. According to the Government engineer's advice we had a stream to dam and a mile and a quarter of piping to lay six feet underground to prevent the water freezing. It is only in very few places that we boast six feet of soil at all on the rock that forms the frame of Mother Earth here. Hence there was much blasting to do. But the task was accomplished, and by our own boys, and has successfully weathered our bitter winter. The last lap was run by an intensely interesting experiment. The assistant at Emmanuel Church in Boston brought down a number of volunteer Boy Scouts to give their services on the commonplace task of digging the remainder of the trench necessary to complete the water supply. When they first arrived, our Northern outside man, after looking at their clothes of the Boston cut, remarked, "Hm. You'd better give that crowd some softer job than digging." But they did the work, and a whole lot more besides. For their grit and jollity, and above all their readiness to tackle and see through such side tasks as unloading and stowing away some three hundred tons of coal were real "missionary" lessons.
The ever-growing demand for doctors as the war dragged on made it harder and harder to man our far-off stations. The draft in America was the last straw, doctors having already been forbidden to leave England or Canada. Dr. Charles Curtis had taken over Dr. Little's work at St. Anthony, and stood nobly by, getting special permission to do so. Dr. West, who had succeeded our colleague, Dr. Mather Hare, at Harrington, when his wife's breakdown had obliged him to leave us, had already given us a year over his scheduled time, for he had accepted work in India at the hands of those who had specially trained him for that purpose.
We had been having considerable trouble in the accommodation of the heavy batches of patients that came by the mail boat. They were left on the wharf when she steamed away, and only the floors of our treatment and waiting-rooms were available for their reception. For all could not possibly go into the wards, where children, and often very sick patients, were being cared for. The people around always stretched their hospitality to the limit, but this was a very undesirable method of housing sick persons temporarily. Owing to the generosity of a lady in New Bedford and other friends, we were enabled to meet the problem by the erection of a rest house, with first and second class accommodation. This was built in the spring of 1917, and has been a Godsend to many besides patients. It makes people free to come to St. Anthony and stay and benefit by whatever it has to offer, without the feeling that they have no place to which they can go. Moreover, this hostel has been entirely self-supporting from the day that it opened, and every one who goes and comes has a good word for the rest house. It is run by one of our Labrador orphan boys, whose education was finished in America, and "Johnnie," as every one calls him, is already a feature in the life of the place.
Among the advances of the year 1918 must also be noted that more subscribers and subscriptions from local friends have been received than ever before. Our X-ray department has been added to. We have been able also to improve the roads, a thing greatly to be desired.