r. Her springs bees too old, I
reckon." He fumbled with the trigger in a way that led Grenfell to ask
him to let him hold the gun instead. Tom passed it over, and Grenfell
held it till their talk was over.

Tom, who was part Eskimo, was a very poor business man. He had been a
slave of the "truck system" by which a man brings his furs or his fish
to a trader, exchanges them for supplies, and is always in debt to the
storekeeper who takes pains to see that it shall be so.

"Tom," the Doctor told him, "I want to help you. Winter is coming on,
and here you are with a handful of flour and a sea-gull, and no proper
shelter from the cold. You have too many children to keep. I think
you'd better pass over to me for a while your two little boys, 'Billy'
and 'Jimmy,' and the little girl. I'll feed them and clothe them and
have them taught till they are big enough to come back and help you.
All the time they are with me I'll do all I can to help you along. If
you have them here--they'll certainly starve. The snow is beginning to
cover up the berries already. And that's about all you've got to feed
them."

Poor Tom couldn't think.

He merely stood there, looking first at the sea, then at the sky, then
at the Doctor, his mouth wide open.

His wife broke the silence. "D'ye hear, man? T' Doctor wants to take
t' children. I says 'tis the gover'ment should feed 'em here. I
wouldn't let no children o' mine go, I wouldn't." Saying which, she
held her sickly infant tighter.

The talk to and fro went on for a long time. It didn't get much of
anywhere. On the part of the fond parents it consisted largely of what
the government ought to do. Grenfell patiently explained that the
government was a long way off, and couldn't answer before Christmas if
it answered at all.

All this time Father Tom stood there, dumb as a stalled ox, trying to
see daylight by which to make up his mind. Evidently his wife was the
real man of the family.

"Why doesn't youse say something?" she broke out at last. "Bees you
a-goin' to let t' Doctor have youse childer?"

Tom looked more distracted than ever, and it didn't help much when he
took off his hat and let cold air blow on his heated brain as he
rummaged with his finger in the dense thatch on his head.

Then Tom said: "I suppose he knows."

"Yes," Dr. Grenfell said. "I think you'd better let me have Billy and
Jimmy for a while."

There was more talk, and finally the wife gave way. "Well, youse can