an at whose house I
was a guest told me that when quite a youth he had fought in the Civil
War, been invalided home, and advised to take a sea voyage for his
health. He therefore took passage with some Gloucester fishermen and
set sail for the Labrador. The crew proved to be Southern
sympathizers, and one day, while my friend was ashore taking a walk,
the skipper slipped out and left him marooned. He had with him neither
money, spare clothing, nor anything else; and as British sympathies
were also with the South, he had many doubts as to how the settlers
would receive a penniless stranger and Northerner. So seeing his
schooner bound in an easterly direction, he started literally to run
along the shore, hoping that he might find where she went and catch
her again. Mile after mile he went, tearing through the "tuckamore" or
dense undergrowth of gnarled trees, climbing over high cliffs,
swimming or wading the innumerable rivers, skirting bays, and now and
again finding a short beach along which he could hurry. At night, wet,
dirty, tired, hungry, penniless, he came to a fisherman's cottage and
asked shelter and food. He explained that he was an American gentleman
taking a holiday, but hadn't a penny of money. It spoke well for the
people that they accepted his story. He told me that they both fed and
clothed him, and one kind-hearted man actually the next day gave him
some oilskin clothing and a sou'wester hat--costly articles "on
Labrador" in those days. So on and on and on he went, till at last
arriving at Red Bay he found his schooner at anchor calmly fishing. He
went aboard at once as if nothing had happened, and stayed there
(having enjoyed enough pedestrian exercise for the time being) and no
one ever referred to his having been left behind. He was now, however,
forty years later, anxious to do something for the people of that
section of the shore, and he gave me a thousand dollars toward
building a small cottage for a district nurse. Forteau was the village
chosen, and Dennison Cottage erected as a nursing station and
dispensary. The people at first each gave a week toward its upkeep;
and even now every man gives three days annually. The house has a good
garden, little wards for in-patients, and is the centre of much useful
industrial work, especially the making of artificial flowers. For
twelve years now, Miss Florence Bailey, a nurse from the Mildmay
Institute in London, has presided over its destinies, endeared he