Bobby of the Labrador by Dillon Wallace

D >> Dillon Wallace >> Bobby of the Labrador

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Abel Zachariah's nearest neighbor was Edward Norman, commonly known as
Skipper Ed, a sailor-man who had come to the coast many years before in
a fishing vessel, and when his vessel sailed away Skipper Ed had
remained behind to cast his lot with the Eskimos. At the head of Abel's
bay and a mile from Abel's home, he took up the life of hunter and
fisherman, and in due time learned to speak the Eskimo language. Here
Skipper Ed lived with his little partner, as he called him--Jimmy
Sanderson, a husky lad of seven years.

Jimmy was an orphan. His mother died when he was so young that he could
scarcely remember her at all. His father, a Newfoundland sailor and
fisherman, was one of the crew of a fishing schooner that sailed
regularly each summer to this part of the Labrador coast, and because
there was no one at home to care for him after his mother's death, Jimmy
always accompanied his father on these voyages. And thus it came about
that when Seaman Sanderson fell overboard while reefing the jib, one
stormy day, Jimmy was left alone in the world.

It so happened that on the day Jimmy's father was lost, the schooner,
with the forlorn little boy on board, took refuge under the lee of the
island upon which Skipper Ed had his fishing camp. Skipper Ed, after the
manner of the Coast, rowed his boat alongside and climbed aboard, to
hear such scraps of news from the outside world as the sailors might
bring, and to enjoy their company for an hour. Here he met Jimmy,
heartbroken and weeping at the loss of his father. Skipper Ed's
sympathies went out to the wretched little boy, and placing his big hand
on Jimmy's small shoulder, he comforted him.

"There, there, now, lad, don't cry," said he. "You're a wee bit of a lad
to be left alone in the world I know, but by the mercy of God you'll
forget your trouble, for Time's a wonderful healer. And there's better
luck coming, lad, better luck coming."

Thereupon he sought out the Captain of the schooner and inquired into
Jimmy's worldly prospects.

"There's none to care for him," said the Captain, "and the best
prospects he have be the poor house."

"Will you leave him with me, then?" asked Skipper Ed. "I'll give the lad
a good home, and teach him a bit, and he'll be fine company for me."

"O' course I'll leave he with you, Skipper, and wonderful glad I'll be
too that the lad's found a good home," said the Captain.

Then Skipper Ed returned to Jimmy.

"Lad," said he, "I'm looking for a partner, and it strikes me _you'll_
do. How'd you like to be _my_ partner? Look me over now, and see what
you think of _me_. How'd you like _me_ for a partner?"

Jimmy looked him over critically, through tear-stained eyes, but said
nothing.

"Come now," urged Skipper Ed, getting down on his haunches that Jimmy
might look straight into his face, "here we are, you and I, both alone
in the world and both wanting partners. Can't we splice up a
partnership? Share and share alike, you know--you have as much as I, and
I have as much as you, and we'll take the fair winds and the contrary
winds together, and make port together, and sell our cargoes together,
and use the same slop chest. What do you say, lad? Shall we sign on as
partners?"

"Yes, sir," agreed Jimmy.

"Good! Good!" exclaimed Skipper Ed. "Here, shake hands on it, partner.
Now we're friends to each other, whatever falls, good voyages and poor
ones, and there's better luck coming for us both, lad, better luck."

And so Skipper Ed and Jimmy Sanderson formed their partnership, and
Jimmy, with his own and his father's kits, went ashore with Skipper Ed
in Skipper Ed's boat, which he insisted was half Jimmy's, under their
partnership agreement, and the next day the schooner sailed away and
left them. And with the passing weeks, Time, as Skipper Ed had
predicted, and as he always does, healed Jimmy's sorrow, and he came to
look upon Skipper Ed as the finest man and the finest partner in the
world, and they two loved each other very much.

Abel and his wife and Skipper Ed and his partner lived upon terms of
intimacy and good comradeship, as neighbors should. And because they had
no nearer neighbors than Abraham Moses, an Eskimo ten miles to the
southward, and the people of the Moravian Mission and Eskimo settlement
at Nain, twenty miles to the northward, the two families were dependent
upon one another for human companionship, and therefore the bond of
friendship that drew them together was the stronger.

And so it happened that early on the morning following the return of
Abel and Mrs. Abel with Bobby, Skipper Ed and Jimmy walked over to
welcome their neighbors home, and to discuss with them the fishing
season just closed, and the seal hunting and the trapping seasons which
were at hand.

Abel was engaged in cutting and shaping the sticks from which he was to
build Bobby's little bunk, when he heard Skipper Ed's cheery:

"_Oksunae!_"[A]

"_Oksutingal!_"[A] exclaimed Abel, delightedly, grasping Skipper Ed's
hand and then Jimmy's hand and laughing with pleasure. "_Oksutingai_! I
am glad to see you, and how have you been?"

[Footnote A: "_Oksunae_" is the Eskimo greeting when one is addressed, and,
literally translated, means "You be strong." "_Oksutingai"_ is addressed
to two--"You two be strong." "_Okiusee"_ to more than two--"You all be
strong."]

Abel spoke his native language, for his tongue was awkward with the few
English words he had learned. He and Skipper Ed, indeed, always
conversed in Eskimo, and Jimmy, though he usually spoke his native
English at home when he and Skipper Ed were alone, also understood the
Eskimo tongue perfectly.

"We're very well," said Skipper Ed, "and glad to know you are back. We
were lonely without you. How is Mrs. Abel?"

"Well. Very well. And we have something to surprise you," and Abel,
laughing heartily, could hardly contain himself.

"I know what it is!" broke in Jimmy. "You've got a new boat. I saw it as
we came up! It's a fine big boat, too!"

"It's a greater surprise than that," laughed Abel. "It's in the house.
Come in and see him."

"A baby!" guessed the delighted Jimmy. "It's a baby!"

"Come in and see for yourselves," Abel invited, and pushing the door
open he led them into the cabin, where Mrs. Abel overwhelmed them with
greeting, and brought Bobby forth for introduction.

"A boy, and a white one!" exclaimed Skipper Ed in English. "Now
wherever did they get him?" He took Bobby by the hand, and asked: "Can
you talk, little lad?"

"Yeth, thir," Bobby admitted, respectfully, "I like to talk."

"I'll wager you do, now! Where did you live before you came here?"

"With Papa and Mamma."

"What, now, may your name be?"

"Bobby, thir."

"What is your papa's name?"

"What is my papa's name?"

"Yes, what is your papa's name?"

"Why, 'Papa,'" in great surprise that all the world did not know that.

Further solicitation brought from the child the statement that "Uncle
Robert took me for a nice ride in a boat, but Uncle Robert got hurted,
and I came here."

And this was the sum total of the information concerning Bobby's past
that Skipper Ed succeeded in drawing from the child, though he
questioned and cross-questioned him at length, after Abel and Mrs. Abel
had told how they found him that August morning. But Abel and Mrs. Abel,
considering these things of small importance, did not mention to or
show Skipper Ed the packet containing the notebook found in the dead
man's pocket, and which they had carefully put away.

Skipper Ed did not altogether accept the theory of Abel and Mrs. Abel
that God had in a miraculous manner sent Bobby to them from heaven,
directing his course from the Far Beyond, through the place where mists
and storms were born. Skipper Ed in his own mind could not dismiss the
subject in this casual manner. He scented some dark mystery, though he
doubted if the mystery would ever be cleared.

Abel must needs exhibit to Skipper Ed and Jimmy the boat, and when
Skipper Ed saw it his practiced eye told him that the finish and
workmanship were far too fine and expensive for any ordinary ship's
boat, and that it was the long boat of a luxuriously appointed private
yacht. Of this he was well assured when he read, in gold letters on
either side of its prow, the name _Wanderer_.

And then they must each try their hand with the beautifully engraved
shotgun. Such a gun, Abel declared, had never before been seen on the
coast, and was in itself a fortune. And Skipper Ed examined it
critically, and agreed with Abel that it was a gun of marvelous
workmanship, and had cost much money.

"None but God could have fashioned it," said Abel, reverently. "It is
His gift to the boy, and it will always be the boy's. He sent it with
the boy from the Great Beyond, from the place where mists and storms are
born. Do you think He would mind if I used it sometimes?"

"No," answered Skipper Ed, "I think He meant you to use it to hunt food
for the boy, so that the boy should never be in want. God never forgets.
He always provides. Destiny is the Almighty's will, and He provides."

"The lad has come from rich people," said Skipper Ed, as he and Jimmy
walked home that evening. "He's not been used to this sort of life. But
Time's a great healer. He's young enough to forget the fine things he's
been used to, and he'll grow up a hunter and a fisherman like the rest
of us. There's better luck coming for him. Better luck. He'll be happy
and contented, for people are always happy with simple living, so long
as they don't know about any other kind of living."

"I thinks Abel lives fine now, and we lives fine," ventured Jimmy.
"Abel's house is fine and warm, and so is ours."

"Aye," said Skipper Ed, "'tis that. 'Tis that; and enough's a-plenty.
Enough's a-plenty."

They walked along in silence for a little while.

"We must always talk to the little chap in English," said Skipper Ed,
presently. "We must not let him forget to speak the tongue his mother
taught him."

"Yes, sir," agreed Jimmy.

"And we must teach him to read and write in English, the way I teach
you," continued Skipper Ed. "Somewhere in the world his mother and
father are grieving their life out for the loss of him. It's very like
they'll never see him again, but we must teach him as much as we know
how of what they would have taught him."

"Yes, sir."

"Destiny is just the working out of the Almighty's will. And it was a
part of the lad's destiny to be cast upon this bleak coast and to find a
home with the Eskimos."

And so, walking home along the rocky shore, they talked to the
accompaniment of lapping waves upon the shore and soughing spruce trees
in the forest.

Skipper Ed, giving voice to thoughts with which he was deeply engrossed,
told of the kindlier, sunnier land from which Bobby had been sent
adrift--from a home of luxury, perhaps--to live upon bounty, and in the
crude, primitive cabin of an Eskimo. And he thrilled his little partner
with vivid descriptions of great cities where people were so numerous
they jostled one another, and did not know each other's names; of
rushing, shrieking locomotives; of beautiful houses which seemed to
Jimmy no less than fairy palaces; of great green fields; and yellow
fields of waving grain from which the flour was made which they ate; of
glorious flowers; and forests of strange trees.

They reached their cabin at last, which stood in the shelter of the
trees at the edge of the great wilderness, and looked out over the bay;
and at the porch door Skipper Ed paused, and, gazing for a moment at the
stretch of heaving water, stretched his arms before him and said:

"It's out there, Partner--the land I've told you about--out there beyond
the sea--the land I came from and the land Bobby came from--and the land
you came from, too, for that matter. Some time you may sail away to see
it."

In outward appearance Skipper Ed's cabin was almost the counterpart of
Abel's, but within it was fitted much more completely and tastefully. On
the well-scrubbed floor were rugs of dog and wolf skins, and there were
three big armchairs--one for Skipper Ed, one for his partner, and one
for Abel when he came to see them--and a rocker for Mrs. Abel when she
called; all home-made and upholstered in buckskin. And there were four
straight-backed dining chairs, and against the wall some shelves well
filled with books, as well as many other conveniences and comforts and
refinements not usual in the cabins of the coast. There was lacking,
also, the heavy, fishy odor of seal oil, never absent from the Eskimo
home, for Skipper Ed had provided a log outhouse, a little apart from
his cabin, as a storehouse for seal oil and fish and pelts.

Dusk was settling. Skipper Ed lighted candles and kindled a fire in the
stove, and he and Jimmy together set about preparing supper. The wind
was rising and soon snow began to beat against the window pane, and when
supper was eaten and the table cleared, and the two drew their armchairs
up before the fire, it was very cozy sitting there and listening to the
howling storm outside and the roaring fire in the stove. Jimmy, snugly
curled in his chair, was so still that Skipper Ed, silently smoking his
pipe, believed his little partner asleep, when he was startled out of
his musings by the request:

"Partner, tell me a story."

"A story, Partner? What kind of a story? One about the sea?"

"A story about people that live out there in the country Bobby came
from, and you came from."

"Oh, out there! Yes, to be sure!" Skipper Ed sat silent for a few
moments, gazing at the flickering light through a crack in the stove
door, while Jimmy sat expectant, gazing into Skipper Ed's face. At last
he began:

"Once there were two boys who lived in a fine big house, for their
father was rich. The house was in a town, and it had a great many rooms.
In front of it was a beautiful green lawn, over which were scattered
trees and bushes that bore flowers, and behind the house was a large
garden where delicious fruits and vegetables grew, and where there were
beautiful beds of bright flowers. Under the shady trees of this garden
was a favorite playground of the boys."

"What were the names of the boys?" interrupted Jimmy.

"We'll call them Tom and Bill, though these may not have been their real
names," explained Skipper Ed. "Tom and Bill are easy names to remember,
though, don't you think so?"

"Yes, Partner, they're fine names, and easy to remember."

"Tom was two years older than Bill, and they were great chums. They not
only played together but they got into mischief together, and went to
school together, until Tom went to college. When they got into mischief
together Tom, somehow, usually managed to escape punishment, for he was
a much keener lad than Bill, and Bill, on his part, seldom failed to
receive his full share of punishment."

"That weren't fair!" broke in Jimmy. "'Tweren't honest for Tom to let
Bill get all the punishment!"

"He didn't mean to be dishonest, I'm sure," said Skipper Ed.

"But 'tweren't honest," insisted Jimmy.

"As I was saying," continued Skipper Ed, "Tom went to college and made
new friends, and when Bill followed him to college two years later the
lads saw little of each other. Tom was a brilliant fellow, and everyone
liked him. He had a host of friends among the students. Bill, on the
other hand, was not in the least brilliant, and he had to work hard to
get his lessons, and they went with different crowds of fellows.

"Their father, as I told you, was rich, and he was also indulgent. He
gave the boys a larger allowance of spending money than was good for
them. There was never a month, however, that Tom did not go to Bill and
borrow some of his, and even then Tom was always in debt. Bill knew it
was the gay company Tom kept, and warned him against it, but Tom would
laugh it off and say that a fellow in the upper classes had to keep up
his end, as Bill would learn later.

"What Bill did learn later was that Tom had become an inveterate
gambler, and had lost his money at cards, and went away from college
leaving many debts unpaid.

"The father of the boys was a manufacturer, and was also president of
the bank in the little city where they lived. A bank is a place where
other people's money is kept for them, and whenever the people who keep
money there need any, they come and get what they need. When Tom left
college he was taken into the bank, and before Bill's graduation had
been advanced to the position of cashier, and had married a very fine
young woman. The cashier is the man that has charge of the money in the
bank.

"It was thought best also for Bill to enter the bank, which he did a few
months after his return from college, as assistant to his brother.

"Things went on very well until, one day, a man came to examine the bank
and to see if all the money was safely there, and the examiner, as the
man was called, discovered a shortage. That is, there was not as much
money in the bank as there should have been. The shortage lay between
the two brothers. Tom, in terrible distress, admitted to Bill that he
had 'just borrowed' the money to invest in stocks--which is a way
people speak of one kind of gambling--but that the investment had
failed, and he had lost it.

"You do not know, Partner, what stocks are, but I'll tell you some other
time.

"When this happened Tom had a little baby boy at home, about two months
old. Bill loved his brother, and he loved his brother's baby very much.

"'Tom,' said Bill, 'I've always stood by you since we were little boys
and played in the garden together, and I'm going to stand by you now. If
the loss is laid to you it will ruin not only your life but the lives of
your wife and your baby. I'll say that I took the money and you must not
say I did not.'

"'No,' said Tom, 'I can't let you do that! It's too much! It's too big a
sacrifice!'

"'Yes, you will,' said Bill. 'It will likely ruin my life, I know, but
I'm only one. If it's laid on you, three lives will be ruined. Just
promise me you'll live straight after this, and never gamble again.'

"Tom promised, and Bill was sure he meant it, and when their father, who
had been sent for by the examiner, arrived at the bank, Bill, as agreed,
told his father he had taken the money.

"Of course there was a terrible scene. Bill was not arrested for his
father did not wish the family disgraced, but he was driven from home,
with very little money in his pocket, and told never to return again.
His mother and little sister--I forgot to tell you the boys had a little
sister, who was ten years old at that time--nearly broke their hearts at
his going. But his father was very harsh, and told him if he ever came
back he would have him arrested and put into prison. It was not the loss
of the money which angered him. That was a comparatively small amount,
which he paid back to the bank and did not miss very much. It was the
thought that one of his boys had taken it."

"What was the little sister's name?" asked Jimmy.

"Well, let me see," said Skipper Ed. "We'll call her Mary."

"Did Bill ever go back?"

"No, he never went back."

"Where did he go?"

"Why, he went to a seaport town and shipped as a sailor, and after
knocking about the seas for a time he settled in a country much like
this where we live. He liked the wild country, where he could hunt and
fish, and where the people he met were true and honest, and helped each
other, instead of always trying to take advantage of one another."

"I'm glad he did that," declared Jimmy. "I wish he lived near us. I
don't think I'd like to live in a place like he came from, and I'm glad
Bobby came away from it."

"And the fishing and hunting are better here than where he came from,
too, Partner."

"I don't want to live where the fishin' and huntin' isn't fine, and it's
fine here."

"Aye, 'tis fine here, and many things are fine here. Destiny is the
Lord's will, and our destiny, Partner, is to live here and be as happy
as we can; and now Bobby has come, it seems to be his destiny too."

And so Jimmy had his story, and bedtime had arrived, and the two
partners went to bed to be lulled to sleep by the storm raging about
their cabin.

CHAPTER IV

OVER A CLIFF

The storm that lulled Skipper Ed and his little partner to sleep also
lulled Abel Zachariah and Mrs. Abel and Bobby to sleep. Bobby's new bed
was finished. It was half the width of Abel's and Mrs. Abel's bed, but
it was quite as long, for Bobby was to grow tall, and to become a big
and brave hunter. And, too, for present needs it must be of ample length
to permit Mrs. Abel to lie down by Bobby's side of nights while she
crooned him to sleep with her quaint Eskimo lullabies.

Abel had expended great care in his handicraft, and derived a vast deal
of satisfaction from the result. And when Mrs. Abel fitted the bunk with
a fine feather bed which she made from the duck and goose feathers
which she had saved, and spread it with warm blankets and tucked Bobby
away in it, he, too, seemed to find it entirely to his liking, for he
went to sleep at once, and slept as soundly as he could have slept in a
bed of carved mahogany, spread with counterpanes of silk and down.

Indeed, Bobby was in a fair way of being spoiled. His indulgent foster
parents could deny him nothing. They gratified his every wish and whim,
even to the extent of tearing from its mother a little puppy dog, to the
great distress of the dumb mother, and taking it into the house for him
to play with.

Since Bobby's arrival Abel, devoting his spare moments to the task, had
carved from walrus tusks six little ivory dogs, an ivory sledge, and a
little ivory Eskimo man, to represent the driver of the miniature team,
for no dog team could be complete without a driver. Now, during the two
days' enforced leisure from out-of-door activities afforded him by the
blizzard, he put the finishing touches upon his work. With infinite
patience he fashioned miniature harness for the ivory dogs, and,
harnessing them to the ivory sledge, with due ceremony presented them to
Bobby. And Bobby, who was already learning to prattle Eskimo words,
received the gift with unfeigned delight. Then he must learn the name
of each, which Abel patiently taught him to pronounce with proper accent
and intonation: _inuit_--man; _tingmik_--dog; _komatik_--sledge.

This was the first of many toys that Abel made for Bobby in the weeks
that followed: a small dog whip, a fathom long, an exact counterpart of
Abel's own long whip, which was a full five fathoms long; a small
sledge, on which he could coast, and on which pups could haul him about
over the ice; bow and arrow--nearly everything, indeed, that Abel
believed his childish desires could crave.

When the storm had passed Skipper Ed and Jimmy came over on snowshoes,
and Jimmy stopped for a week in Abel's cabin, with Mrs. Abel and Bobby,
while Abel and Skipper Ed went away to hunt for seals. This was a
glorious week for both lads, and with it began a comradeship and
friendship that was to last throughout their life and carry them in
later years side by side through many adventures.

The seal hunt was a success, and Abel and Skipper Ed returned with the
big boat loaded with seals. Then followed a season of activity. The
seals were skinned and dressed, the blubber placed in barrels in the
porch, and the meat elevated to a stage outside where it was well out of
reach of the dogs, and was at hand to be used as dog food--and human
food also during the winter.

The seal skins were turned over to Mrs. Abel, to soak and scrape and
prepare for boots and other garments, which Abel and Skipper Ed and
Jimmy, as well as she herself, and Bobby, would require.

Bobby developed a vast liking for the choice morsels of the seal
flippers and meat, which were always reserved for him, and it was not
long before he demanded his due share of the fresh blubber, too.

He loved, when Mrs. Abel was at work sewing the boots with sinew, to
help her by chewing the edges of the oily leather, to soften and render
it pliable for the needle. Indeed, Bobby quickly developed into an
Eskimo child in all save the color of his skin, and texture and color of
his hair, which persisted in remaining silky and yellow.

And thus the weeks passed. With the rapidly shortening days of November,
cold increased with grim earnestness. Already the snow was gathering
depth in the forest, and on the open spaces it lay frozen and hard, and
the sun now had no strength to soften it. A coating of ice crusted the
beach where the tide rose and fell, and this crackled and snapped as the
waves broke upon it. A strange, smoky vapor lay over the sea, shifting
in the east wind. The sea was "smoking," and was only waiting now, Abel
said, for a calm, to freeze.

Then suddenly one night a great uncanny silence fell upon the world, and
in the morning a gray level plain reached away, where the day before had
been the heaving billows of the bay. The sea was frozen at last, and for
many long months there would be no breaking of waves upon the rocks or
lapping of tides upon the sandy beach. The Frost King, grim and
inexorable, had ascended his throne, and the world, subdued into utter
silence, lay prostrate and submissive at his feet.

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