Grenfell: Knight-Errant of the North. Fullerton Leonard Waldo
seal big enough to give a slice of the fat to every man, woman and child in the place.
Tom had a large family, and for nine days they had tasted nothing but a little roasted seal meat.
Finally Tom took his gun down from the nails over the door. It was a single-barrel muzzle-loader, meant for a boy, but he was a good shot, and had often wandered out alone over the frozen sea and come back with a nice fat bird or even a seal to show for it.
"Where be you goin', Tom?" asked his anxious wife.
"Out yonder." He jerked his thumb toward the wide white space of the ice-locked ocean.
She ran to get his warm cap and mittens. "When'll you be back?"
"I dunno. Not till I get a seal. Us has got to have somethin' to eat, an' have it soon."
She found an old flour-bag, and tied up in it a few crusts of bread.
"You'd ought to keep this here," said Tom.
"No, Tom. You can't hunt without nothin' to eat. We'll manage somehow. We'll borrow."
"Ain't nobody to borrow from," answered Tom. "Ain't nobody round here got nothin'. We uns is all starvin'. Hope Sandy Maule's letter gits to that there Dr. Grenfell."
"Who's Dr. Grenfell?"
"He's a doctor comin' out here from England. He's goin' to help us."
"Will he have anythin' to eat?"
"Yes—he'll have suthin'. But he's got lots o' friends in England an' America—an' he can get 'em to send things."
"What'd Sandy Maule write?"
Tom was poking a bit of greasy cloth through the gun with a ramrod. Everything depended on the way that gun worked. He mustn't miss a shot—there was no fun in that long, hard hunt on the ice that lay ahead of him.
"Sandy Maule wrote, 'Please, Doctor, come and start a station here for us if you can. My family and I are starvin'. All the folks around us are starvin' too. The fish hain't struck in and bit like they should. We're cuttin' pieces outa the sides o' our rubber boots an' tyin' 'em on for shoes.' Things like that, Sandy writ to the Doctor."
Mrs. Bradley drew the sleeve of her thin, worn calico dress across her eyes. She was a brave woman, but her strength was nearly gone. She did not want her husband to see her cry.
"It's all of it true," she said. "If I could only get a little fresh milk to give the baby! Might as well ask for the moon."
She did not speak bitterly. She would stay by her man and live for her children to the end.
"Well," said Tom, trying to sound matter-of-fact, "we'll go out with the ole gun an' see what we get." Not one of the little boys was old enough to go, but the dogs Jim and Jack leaped up, wagging their tails and fawning upon their master.
Tom had only part of a dog-team: when he or his neighbors made a long trip they borrowed from one another. What one had, they all had.
As Tom stood looking at the dogs, he couldn't help thinking: "One of those dogs would keep the family alive for a while. But I sure would hate to kill one of the poor brutes. They've been the best friends we ever had." His wife knew what he was thinking, though the dogs did not.
Then he spoke. "Gimme a kiss, wifey." He smiled at her brightly. "Cheer up. This little ole gun and me'll bring ye enough to eat for a long time."
She kissed him, and off he trudged, the dogs leaping beside him and trying to lick his mittened hands.
Away out yonder on the ice was a little black speck. He strained his eyes to see.
"There's one!" he muttered. "Now, how to get up near enough. If the dogs comes with me they'll sure scare it away—it'll go poppin' into its old blow-hole afore I kin git it."
Jim and Jack were sitting on the bushy plumage of their tails, their bright eyes fixed on their master, waiting for orders. They would have loved it had he told them to chase that black speck far out at sea. They would have gone on till they dropped, at his lightest word.
"No, boys, you wait here," he said. "You're goin' to help me haul it back—when I get it. But gettin' it is somethin' I gotta do all by my lonely. Now, you stay right here an' wait for me. Don't you dast to come no nearer!" He shook his finger at them solemnly.
They seemed to understand. They curled up and lay down in the thin powdery snow-blanket.
"Now then," muttered Tom, "I gotta creep an' creep an' crawl an' crawl till I get near, an' then I gotta lie down an' scrape along on my tummy same as if I was a seal myself. That's what I gotta do."
Suiting the action to the word, he started on, watching all the time that little dark spot on which all depended.
He could imagine the children waiting at home and asking their mother every little while: "When's Papa comin' back? Is he goin' to bring us somepin' to eat?"
"I wonder if that there Grenfell man is ever goin' to git this far north?" Tom asked himself as he crept toward the seal. "If us could only git a chance to sell our fish for better'n two cents a pound, after us gets 'em salted an' dried! Them traders, they bleeds the life outa us. They say Grenfell when he comes is a-goin' to fight them traders an' put 'em outa business!"
The swift wind was throwing stinging bits of ice, sharp as needles, in his face. He drew his cap about his ears more closely and plodded on. The further he walked the further away the seal seemed to be. He was half crouching as he walked: he wished he might cover himself with a skin and crawl on all fours. But if he started to crawl now—he felt as though it would be a year before he could get near enough to shoot.
"Please, God"—he spoke to God as naturally as to his family—"bless this ole gun an' make her shoot straight and he'p me knock that seal over, the first shot. For it don't look like there's goin' to be more'n one shot, an' if I don't kill her there's my whole family's goin' to starve and mebbe a whole lot o' other people that's a-lookin' for what they think I'm a-goin' to bring back."
Now it was time to flatten himself down on the ice and scrape along, like another seal. It was hard work—try it yourself, if you don't think so!—and it took lots of patience.
Now he could see the seal raise its head and look about. He mustn't give it a chance to ask questions of the wind, because the wind might say: "Look out, Mr. or Mrs. Seal! There's a man creeping and creeping toward you with a gun, and in a minute that man is going to shoot, and you'll be sorry you hung around here and didn't dive through the ice the very first second your nose told you you'd better!"
He raised his gun, and prayed again—this time a very short prayer: "O Lord, bless this gun!" And he fired.
The black spot had not vanished. It was motionless. "Did I hit him?" Tom asked himself. "Better try another shot an' make sure."
He was a long time sighting—and he imagined the spot moved a little as he did so.
Then he fired again.
There it was still. Now he dared to believe he had hit the seal. Dragging the gun he crawled nearer and nearer. Still the seal did not move.
Now he could see the whole animal clearly.
The sight was joyful.
"Glory be!" he shouted. Then he jumped up and capered about madly on the ice. It was a nice, fat, luscious, flipper seal and dead as a door-nail. Enough for a banquet for all of the tiny village of St. Anthony. And if Dr. Grenfell should be there when he and the dogs got back with it, the Doctor should have the largest, tenderest, juiciest steak of all.
The wind was setting toward the dogs. He could barely see them there, far, far behind him—making a black spot where they slept, exactly as though they were another seal.
So he put two fingers to his lips and blew a long, shrill blast.
It was the signal for which they had been waiting. On they came like two wild young race-horses, each eager to be first to greet their master.
They must have known well enough that he had killed the seal. They had hunted with him so often that if they had been human the man and the dogs could hardly have spoken to each other