Chapter 3 SKIPPER ED AND HIS PARTNER

On that part of the Labrador coast where Abel Zachariah lived the cabins, with small variation, are fashioned upon one general model. The model is well adapted to the needs of the people and the exigencies of the climate. At one end of the cabin is an enclosed porch which serves as a woodshed and general storage room. Here the dog harness, traps, and other tools and equipment necessary to the hunter's life are kept.

A door opens from the enclosed porch into the cabin proper, which usually consists of a single room which serves as living room, dining room, kitchen and bedroom. This room commonly has two windows, one on either side.

The floor of the cabin is of uncovered planks. In the center stands a stove shaped like a large box. In the lower half of this stove is the fire space, adapted to receive huge blocks of wood. The upper half is an oven.

Against the wall, and not far from the stove, the table stands, and built against the wall at one side of the door, the kitchen closet. In the farther end of the room are the family beds, usually built into the cabin after the fashion of ships' bunks. In Abel's cabin there was but one bed, and this of ample breadth to accommodate two. Now there was to be another for Bobby.

Home-made chests, which answer the double purpose of storage places for clothing and whatnot and seats, take the place of chairs, though sometimes there are rude home-made chairs and Abel's cabin contained two. Guns always loaded and within reach for instant use, rest upon low overhead beams, or upon pegs against the wall. On a shelf, at some convenient place, and specially built for their accommodation, the Bible and hymnal are kept. Abel's Bible and hymnal, as in all Christianized Eskimo houses, were printed in the Eskimo language.

This, then, was the kind of home that Bobby entered, and which, as the years passed, he was to love, for it was a haven of affection.

The cabin was cold and damp and stuffy now, and filled with unpleasant odors, for it had been unoccupied since early in July. But soon Abel had a roaring fire in the stove, and the things in from the boat, and Mrs. Abel had the room aired, and before the candle was lighted the room had taken on the cozy comfort of occupancy.

Then there was supper of stewed duck and hot dough-bread and tea. When Bobby had eaten heartily and his eyes grew heavy with sleep he was undressed and tucked away into bed, with Mrs. Abel lying by his side for a little, crooning an Eskimo lullaby before she washed her dishes. And at length, when the dishes were washed, and all was made snug for the night, Abel took down, as was his custom, the Bible, and read by the flickering light, and he and Mrs. Abel sang a hymn, and knelt in family devotion, before they joined the sleeping Bobby in their bed.

Abel Zachariah's nearest neighbor was Edward Norman, commonly known as Skipper Ed, a sailor-man who had come to the coast many years before in a fishing vessel, and when his vessel sailed away Skipper Ed had remained behind to cast his lot with the Eskimos. At the head of Abel's bay and a mile from Abel's home, he took up the life of hunter and fisherman, and in due time learned to speak the Eskimo language. Here Skipper Ed lived with his little partner, as he called him-Jimmy Sanderson, a husky lad of seven years.

Jimmy was an orphan. His mother died when he was so young that he could scarcely remember her at all. His father, a Newfoundland sailor and fisherman, was one of the crew of a fishing schooner that sailed regularly each summer to this part of the Labrador coast, and because there was no one at home to care for him after his mother's death, Jimmy always accompanied his father on these voyages. And thus it came about that when Seaman Sanderson fell overboard while reefing the jib, one stormy day, Jimmy was left alone in the world.

It so happened that on the day Jimmy's father was lost, the schooner, with the forlorn little boy on board, took refuge under the lee of the island upon which Skipper Ed had his fishing camp. Skipper Ed, after the manner of the Coast, rowed his boat alongside and climbed aboard, to hear such scraps of news from the outside world as the sailors might bring, and to enjoy their company for an hour. Here he met Jimmy, heartbroken and weeping at the loss of his father. Skipper Ed's sympathies went out to the wretched little boy, and placing his big hand on Jimmy's small shoulder, he comforted him.

"There, there, now, lad, don't cry," said he. "You're a wee bit of a lad to be left alone in the world I know, but by the mercy of God you'll forget your trouble, for Time's a wonderful healer. And there's better luck coming, lad, better luck coming."

Thereupon he sought out the Captain of the schooner and inquired into Jimmy's worldly prospects.

"There's none to care for him," said the Captain, "and the best prospects he have be the poor house."

"Will you leave him with me, then?" asked Skipper Ed. "I'll give the lad a good home, and teach him a bit, and he'll be fine company for me."

"O' course I'll leave he with you, Skipper, and wonderful glad I'll be too that the lad's found a good home," said the Captain.

Then Skipper Ed returned to Jimmy.

"Lad," said he, "I'm looking for a partner, and it strikes me you'll do. How'd you like to be my partner? Look me over now, and see what you think of me. How'd you like me for a partner?"

Jimmy looked him over critically, through tear-stained eyes, but said nothing.

"Come now," urged Skipper Ed, getting down on his haunches that Jimmy might look straight into his face, "here we are, you and I, both alone in the world and both wanting partners. Can't we splice up a partnership? Share and share alike, you know-you have as much as I, and I have as much as you, and we'll take the fair winds and the contrary winds together, and make port together, and sell our cargoes together, and use the same slop chest. What do you say, lad? Shall we sign on as partners?"

"Yes, sir," agreed Jimmy.

"Good! Good!" exclaimed Skipper Ed. "Here, shake hands on it, partner. Now we're friends to each other, whatever falls, good voyages and poor ones, and there's better luck coming for us both, lad, better luck."

And so Skipper Ed and Jimmy Sanderson formed their partnership, and Jimmy, with his own and his father's kits, went ashore with Skipper Ed in Skipper Ed's boat, which he insisted was half Jimmy's, under their partnership agreement, and the next day the schooner sailed away and left them. And with the passing weeks, Time, as Skipper Ed had predicted, and as he always does, healed Jimmy's sorrow, and he came to look upon Skipper Ed as the finest man and the finest partner in the world, and they two loved each other very much.

Abel and his wife and Skipper Ed and his partner lived upon terms of intimacy and good comradeship, as neighbors should. And because they had no nearer neighbors than Abraham Moses, an Eskimo ten miles to the southward, and the people of the Moravian Mission and Eskimo settlement at Nain, twenty miles to the northward, the two families were dependent upon one another for human companionship, and therefore the bond of friendship that drew them together was the stronger.

And so it happened that early on the morning following the return of Abel and Mrs. Abel with Bobby, Skipper Ed and Jimmy walked over to welcome their neighbors home, and to discuss with them the fishing season just closed, and the seal hunting and the trapping seasons which were at hand.

Abel was engaged in cutting and shaping the sticks from which he was to build Bobby's little bunk, when he heard Skipper Ed's cheery:

"Oksunae!"[A]

"Oksutingal!"[A] exclaimed Abel, delightedly, grasping Skipper Ed's hand and then Jimmy's hand and laughing with pleasure. "Oksutingai! I am glad to see you, and how have you been?"

Abel spoke his native language, for his tongue was awkward with the few English words he had learned. He and Skipper Ed, indeed, always conversed in Eskimo, and Jimmy, though he usually spoke his native English at home when he and Skipper Ed were alone, also understood the Eskimo tongue perfectly.

"We're very well," said Skipper Ed, "and glad to know you are back. We were lonely without you. How is Mrs. Abel?"

"Well. Very well. And we have something to surprise you," and Abel, laughing heartily, could hardly contain himself.

"I know what it is!" broke in Jimmy. "You've got a new boat. I saw it as we came up! It's a fine big boat, too!"

"It's a greater surprise than that," laughed Abel. "It's in the house. Come in and see him."

"A baby!" guessed the delighted Jimmy. "It's a baby!"

"Come in and see for yourselves," Abel invited, and pushing the door open he led them into the cabin, where Mrs. Abel overwhelmed them with greeting, and brought Bobby forth for introduction.

"A boy, and a white one!" exclaimed Skipper Ed in English. "Now wherever did they get him?" He took Bobby by the hand, and asked: "Can you talk, little lad?"

"Yeth, thir," Bobby admitted, respectfully, "I like to talk."

"I'll wager you do, now! Where did you live before you came here?"

"With Papa and Mamma."

"What, now, may your name be?"

"Bobby, thir."

"What is your papa's name?"

"What is my papa's name?"

"Yes, what is your papa's name?"

"Why, 'Papa,'" in great surprise that all the world did not know that.

Further solicitation brought from the child the statement that "Uncle Robert took me for a nice ride in a boat, but Uncle Robert got hurted, and I came here."

And this was the sum total of the information concerning Bobby's past that Skipper Ed succeeded in drawing from the child, though he questioned and cross-questioned him at length, after Abel and Mrs. Abel had told how they found him that August morning. But Abel and Mrs. Abel, considering these things of small importance, did not mention to or show Skipper Ed the packet containing the notebook found in the dead man's pocket, and which they had carefully put away.

Skipper Ed did not altogether accept the theory of Abel and Mrs. Abel that God had in a miraculous manner sent Bobby to them from heaven, directing his course from the Far Beyond, through the place where mists and storms were born. Skipper Ed in his own mind could not dismiss the subject in this casual manner. He scented some dark mystery, though he doubted if the mystery would ever be cleared.

Abel must needs exhibit to Skipper Ed and Jimmy the boat, and when Skipper Ed saw it his practiced eye told him that the finish and workmanship were far too fine and expensive for any ordinary ship's boat, and that it was the long boat of a luxuriously appointed private yacht. Of this he was well assured when he read, in gold letters on either side of its prow, the name Wanderer.

And then they must each try their hand with the beautifully engraved shotgun. Such a gun, Abel declared, had never before been seen on the coast, and was in itself a fortune. And Skipper Ed examined it critically, and agreed with Abel that it was a gun of marvelous workmanship, and had cost much money.

"None but God could have fashioned it," said Abel, reverently. "It is His gift to the boy, and it will always be the boy's. He sent it with the boy from the Great Beyond, from the place where mists and storms are born. Do you think He would mind if I used it sometimes?"

"No," answered Skipper Ed, "I think He meant you to use it to hunt food for the boy, so that the boy should never be in want. God never forgets. He always provides. Destiny is the Almighty's will, and He provides."

"The lad has come from rich people," said Skipper Ed, as he and Jimmy walked home that evening. "He's not been used to this sort of life. But Time's a great healer. He's young enough to forget the fine things he's been used to, and he'll grow up a hunter and a fisherman like the rest of us. There's better luck coming for him. Better luck. He'll be happy and contented, for people are always happy with simple living, so long as they don't know about any other kind of living."

"I thinks Abel lives fine now, and we lives fine," ventured Jimmy. "Abel's house is fine and warm, and so is ours."

"Aye," said Skipper Ed, "'tis that. 'Tis that; and enough's a-plenty. Enough's a-plenty."

They walked along in silence for a little while.

"We must always talk to the little chap in English," said Skipper Ed, presently. "We must not let him forget to speak the tongue his mother taught him."

"Yes, sir," agreed Jimmy.

"And we must teach him to read and write in English, the way I teach you," continued Skipper Ed. "Somewhere in the world his mother and father are grieving their life out for the loss of him. It's very like they'll never see him again, but we must teach him as much as we know how of what they would have taught him."

"Yes, sir."

"Destiny is just the working out of the Almighty's will. And it was a part of the lad's destiny to be cast upon this bleak coast and to find a home with the Eskimos."

And so, walking home along the rocky shore, they talked to the accompaniment of lapping waves upon the shore and soughing spruce trees in the forest.

Skipper Ed, giving voice to thoughts with which he was deeply engrossed, told of the kindlier, sunnier land from which Bobby had been sent adrift-from a home of luxury, perhaps-to live upon bounty, and in the crude, primitive cabin of an Eskimo. And he thrilled his little partner with vivid descriptions of great cities where people were so numerous they jostled one another, and did not know each other's names; of rushing, shrieking locomotives; of beautiful houses which seemed to Jimmy no less than fairy palaces; of great green fields; and yellow fields of waving grain from which the flour was made which they ate; of glorious flowers; and forests of strange trees.

They reached their cabin at last, which stood in the shelter of the trees at the edge of the great wilderness, and looked out over the bay; and at the porch door Skipper Ed paused, and, gazing for a moment at the stretch of heaving water, stretched his arms before him and said:

"It's out there, Partner-the land I've told you about-out there beyond the sea-the land I came from and the land Bobby came from-and the land you came from, too, for that matter. Some time you may sail away to see it."

In outward appearance Skipper Ed's cabin was almost the counterpart of Abel's, but within it was fitted much more completely and tastefully. On the well-scrubbed floor were rugs of dog and wolf skins, and there were three big armchairs-one for Skipper Ed, one for his partner, and one for Abel when he came to see them-and a rocker for Mrs. Abel when she called; all home-made and upholstered in buckskin. And there were four straight-backed dining chairs, and against the wall some shelves well filled with books, as well as many other conveniences and comforts and refinements not usual in the cabins of the coast. There was lacking, also, the heavy, fishy odor of seal oil, never absent from the Eskimo home, for Skipper Ed had provided a log outhouse, a little apart from his cabin, as a storehouse for seal oil and fish and pelts.

Dusk was settling. Skipper Ed lighted candles and kindled a fire in the stove, and he and Jimmy together set about preparing supper. The wind was rising and soon snow began to beat against the window pane, and when supper was eaten and the table cleared, and the two drew their armchairs up before the fire, it was very cozy sitting there and listening to the howling storm outside and the roaring fire in the stove. Jimmy, snugly curled in his chair, was so still that Skipper Ed, silently smoking his pipe, believed his little partner asleep, when he was startled out of his musings by the request:

"Partner, tell me a story."

"A story, Partner? What kind of a story? One about the sea?"

"A story about people that live out there in the country Bobby came from, and you came from."

"Oh, out there! Yes, to be sure!" Skipper Ed sat silent for a few moments, gazing at the flickering light through a crack in the stove door, while Jimmy sat expectant, gazing into Skipper Ed's face. At last he began:

"Once there were two boys who lived in a fine big house, for their father was rich. The house was in a town, and it had a great many rooms. In front of it was a beautiful green lawn, over which were scattered trees and bushes that bore flowers, and behind the house was a large garden where delicious fruits and vegetables grew, and where there were beautiful beds of bright flowers. Under the shady trees of this garden was a favorite playground of the boys."

"What were the names of the boys?" interrupted Jimmy.

"We'll call them Tom and Bill, though these may not have been their real names," explained Skipper Ed. "Tom and Bill are easy names to remember, though, don't you think so?"

"Yes, Partner, they're fine names, and easy to remember."

"Tom was two years older than Bill, and they were great chums. They not only played together but they got into mischief together, and went to school together, until Tom went to college. When they got into mischief together Tom, somehow, usually managed to escape punishment, for he was a much keener lad than Bill, and Bill, on his part, seldom failed to receive his full share of punishment."

"That weren't fair!" broke in Jimmy. "'Tweren't honest for Tom to let Bill get all the punishment!"

"He didn't mean to be dishonest, I'm sure," said Skipper Ed.

"But 'tweren't honest," insisted Jimmy.

"As I was saying," continued Skipper Ed, "Tom went to college and made new friends, and when Bill followed him to college two years later the lads saw little of each other. Tom was a brilliant fellow, and everyone liked him. He had a host of friends among the students. Bill, on the other hand, was not in the least brilliant, and he had to work hard to get his lessons, and they went with different crowds of fellows.

"Their father, as I told you, was rich, and he was also indulgent. He gave the boys a larger allowance of spending money than was good for them. There was never a month, however, that Tom did not go to Bill and borrow some of his, and even then Tom was always in debt. Bill knew it was the gay company Tom kept, and warned him against it, but Tom would laugh it off and say that a fellow in the upper classes had to keep up his end, as Bill would learn later.

"What Bill did learn later was that Tom had become an inveterate gambler, and had lost his money at cards, and went away from college leaving many debts unpaid.

"The father of the boys was a manufacturer, and was also president of the bank in the little city where they lived. A bank is a place where other people's money is kept for them, and whenever the people who keep money there need any, they come and get what they need. When Tom left college he was taken into the bank, and before Bill's graduation had been advanced to the position of cashier, and had married a very fine young woman. The cashier is the man that has charge of the money in the bank.

"It was thought best also for Bill to enter the bank, which he did a few months after his return from college, as assistant to his brother.

"Things went on very well until, one day, a man came to examine the bank and to see if all the money was safely there, and the examiner, as the man was called, discovered a shortage. That is, there was not as much money in the bank as there should have been. The shortage lay between the two brothers. Tom, in terrible distress, admitted to Bill that he had 'just borrowed' the money to invest in stocks-which is a way people speak of one kind of gambling-but that the investment had failed, and he had lost it.

"You do not know, Partner, what stocks are, but I'll tell you some other time.

"When this happened Tom had a little baby boy at home, about two months old. Bill loved his brother, and he loved his brother's baby very much.

"'Tom,' said Bill, 'I've always stood by you since we were little boys and played in the garden together, and I'm going to stand by you now. If the loss is laid to you it will ruin not only your life but the lives of your wife and your baby. I'll say that I took the money and you must not say I did not.'

"'No,' said Tom, 'I can't let you do that! It's too much! It's too big a sacrifice!'

"'Yes, you will,' said Bill. 'It will likely ruin my life, I know, but I'm only one. If it's laid on you, three lives will be ruined. Just promise me you'll live straight after this, and never gamble again.'

"Tom promised, and Bill was sure he meant it, and when their father, who had been sent for by the examiner, arrived at the bank, Bill, as agreed, told his father he had taken the money.

"Of course there was a terrible scene. Bill was not arrested for his father did not wish the family disgraced, but he was driven from home, with very little money in his pocket, and told never to return again. His mother and little sister-I forgot to tell you the boys had a little sister, who was ten years old at that time-nearly broke their hearts at his going. But his father was very harsh, and told him if he ever came back he would have him arrested and put into prison. It was not the loss of the money which angered him. That was a comparatively small amount, which he paid back to the bank and did not miss very much. It was the thought that one of his boys had taken it."

"What was the little sister's name?" asked Jimmy.

"Well, let me see," said Skipper Ed. "We'll call her Mary."

"Did Bill ever go back?"

"No, he never went back."

"Where did he go?"

"Why, he went to a seaport town and shipped as a sailor, and after knocking about the seas for a time he settled in a country much like this where we live. He liked the wild country, where he could hunt and fish, and where the people he met were true and honest, and helped each other, instead of always trying to take advantage of one another."

"I'm glad he did that," declared Jimmy. "I wish he lived near us. I don't think I'd like to live in a place like he came from, and I'm glad Bobby came away from it."

"And the fishing and hunting are better here than where he came from, too, Partner."

"I don't want to live where the fishin' and huntin' isn't fine, and it's fine here."

"Aye, 'tis fine here, and many things are fine here. Destiny is the Lord's will, and our destiny, Partner, is to live here and be as happy as we can; and now Bobby has come, it seems to be his destiny too."

And so Jimmy had his story, and bedtime had arrived, and the two partners went to bed to be lulled to sleep by the storm raging about their cabin.

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