n 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,