es, rarely butter, and of course never any vegetables.
We soon discovered that we could not pay the head of the family for
our entertainment, but where there were children we left money with
the mother with which to buy something for the little ones, which
doubtless would be clothing or provisions for the family. If there
were no children we left the money on the table or somewhere where it
surely would be discovered after our departure.
I remember one of this fine breed of men well. I met him on this
journey, and he once drove dog team for me--Uncle Willie Wolfrey.
Doctor Grenfell says of him:
"Uncle Willie isn't a scholar, a social light, or a capitalist
magnate, but all the same ten minutes' visit to Uncle Willie Wolfrey
is worth five dollars of any man's investment."
It requires a lot of physical energy for any man to tramp the trails
day after day through a frigid, snow-covered wilderness, and months
of it at a stretch. It is a big job for a young and hearty man, and a
tremendous one for a man of Uncle Willie's years. And it is a man's
job, too, to handle a boat in all weather, in calm and in gale, in
clear and in fog, sixteen to twenty hours a day, and the fisherman's
day is seldom shorter than that. The fish must be caught when they are
there to be caught, and they must be split and salted the day they are
caught, and then there's the work of spreading them on the "flakes,"
and turning them, and piling and covering them when rain threatens.
A cataract began to form on Uncle Willie's eyes, and every day he
could see just a little less plainly than the day before. The
prospects were that he would soon be blind, and without his eyesight
he could neither hunt nor fish.
But with his growing age and misfortune Uncle Willie was never a whit
less cheerful. He had to earn his living and he kept at his work.
"'Tis the way of the Lard," said he. "He's blessed me with fine health
all my life, and kept the house warm, and we've always had a bit to
eat, whatever. The Lard has been wonderful good to us, and I'll never
be complainin'."
It was never Uncle Willie's way to complain about hard luck. He always
did his best, and somehow, no matter how hard a pinch in which he
found himself, it always came out right in the end.
Finally Uncle Willie's eyesight became so poor that it was difficult
for him to see sufficiently to get around, and one day last summer
(1921) he stepped off his fish stage where he was at wor
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