In various ways my family grew at an alarming rate, once the general
principle was established. On my early summer voyage to the east coast
of Labrador I found at Indian Harbour Hospital a little girl of four.
In the absence of her father, who was hunting, and while her mother
lay sick in bed, she had crawled out of the house and when found in
the snow had both legs badly frozen. They became gangrenous halfway to
the knee, and her father had been obliged to chop them both off. An
operation gave her good stumps; but what use was she in Labrador with
no legs? So she joined our family, and we gave her such good new limbs
that when I brought her into Government House at Halifax, where one
of our nurses had taken her to school temporarily, and she ran into
the room with two other little girls, the Governor could scarcely tell
which was our little cripple Kirkina.

The following fall as we left for the South our good friend, the chief
factor of the Hudson Bay Company, told me that on an island in the
large inlet known to us as Eskimo Bay a native family, both hungry and
naked, were living literally under the open sky. We promised to try
and find them and help them with some warm clothing.

Having steamed round the island and seen no signs of life, we were on
the point of leaving when a tiny smoke column betrayed the presence of
human life--and with my family-man mate we landed as a search party.
Against the face of a sheer rock a single sheet of light cotton duck
covered the abode of a woman with a nursing baby. They were the only
persons at home. The three boys and a father comprised the remainder
of the family. We soon found the two small boys. They were practically
stark naked, but fat as curlews, being full of wild berries with which
their bodies were stained bright blues and reds. They were a jolly
little couple, as unconcerned about their environment as Robinson
Crusoe after five years on his island. Soon the father came home. I
can see him still--the vacant brown face of a very feeble-minded
half-breed, ragged and tattered and almost bootless. He was carrying
an aged single-barrelled boy's gun in one hand and a belated sea-gull
in the other, which bird was destined for the entire evening meal of
the family. A half-wild-looking hobbledehoy boy of fifteen years also
joined the group.

It was just beginning to snow, a wet sleet. Eight months of winter
lay ahead. Yet not one of the family seemed to think a whit about th