Le Petit Nord

Le Petit Nord, by Anna Elizabeth
Caldwell

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Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding, Illustrated by
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Title: Le Petit Nord or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour
Author: Anna Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie
Spalding

Release Date: October 3, 2006 [eBook #19452]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's
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LE PETIT NORD
Or
Annals of a Labrador Harbour
by
ANNE GRENFELL and KATIE SPALDING

[Illustration: AN AWFUL NIGHT FOR A SINNER]
[Illustration]

Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press
Cambridge 1920 Copyright, 1920, by Houghton Mifflin Company All
Rights Reserved

FOREWORD
A friend from the Hub of the Universe, in a somewhat supercilious
manner, not long ago informed one of our local friends that his own
home was hundreds of miles to the southward. "'Deed, sir, how does
you manage to live so far off?" with a scarcely perceptible twinkle of
one eye, was the answer.
If home is the spot on earth where one spends the larger part of one's
prime, and where one's family comes into being, then for over a quarter
of a century "Le Petit Nord" of this book has been my home. With the
authors I share for it and its people the love which alone keeps us here.
Necessity has compelled me to perform, however imperfectly,
functions usually distributed amongst many and varied professions, and
the resultant intimacy has become unusual. As, therefore, I read the
amusing experiences herein narrated, I feel that the "other half," who
know us not, will love us better even if we are not exactly as they. That
is not our fault. They should not live "so far off."
The incidents told are all actual, but the name of every single person
and place has been changed to afford any hypersensitive among the
actors the protection which pseudonymity confers. We here who have
been permitted a glimpse of these pages feel that we really owe the
authors another debt beyond the love for the people to which they have
testified by the more substantial offering of long and voluntary personal
service.
WILFRED T. GRENFELL, M.D.
Labrador, 1919

ILLUSTRATIONS
AN AWFUL NIGHT FOR A SINNER Frontispiece
SAD SEASICK SOULS STREWN AROUND 20

THE HERRING OF HIGH ESTATE 29
"HAVE YOU A PLUG OF BACCY, SKIPPER?" 40
RHODA'S RANDY 42
TOPSY'S AMBITION IS TO BECOME LIKE A FAT PIG 53
TOPSY WAS CREEPING FROM BED TO BED WITH THE
CARVING-KNIFE 54
THE PROPHET OF DOOM 59
ANANIAS HAS BROKEN YET ANOTHER WINDOW 61
NOT FAT, BUT FINE AND HEARTY 68
DELILAH BAWLING 70
MRS. UNCLE LIFE FOUND THE LEADER OF THE TEAM IN HER
BED 92
"TEACHER, I HAVE A PAIN" 95
THE YOHO 100
THEY ATE THE ENTIRE BOOT 108
HE HAD TAKEN THE STRANGER IN 117
HE FROZE HIS TOE IN BED 127
A LONG WAY ON THE HEAVENWARD ROAD 131
THE SEVENTH SON 140
ITS ACTION WAS PROMPT AND POWERFUL 141
IT WAS HIS LAST BULLET 153

A PUFFIN GHETTO 180
THE BEAR BIT HIS LEG OFF 189
P.S. 199
From drawings by Dr. Grenfell

LE PETIT NORD
OR
ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR
Off the Narrows, St. John's
June 10
DEAR JOAN
The Far North calls and I am on my way:-- There lies the port; the
vessel puffs her sail. There gloom the dark broad seas. * * * * * The
lights begin to twinkle from the rocks.
Why write as if I had taken a lifelong vow of separation from the
British Isles and all things civilized, when after all it is only one short
year out of my allotted span of life that I