6 May 1911 | Suffrage Parade

New York Tribune

Students Of Sabbath Schools Should Be Taught Philanthropy

ENQUIRER, CINCINNATI
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY1, 1911

"[Philanthropy] should become a part of the Sunday schools. It would be well to [hire] a director of social activity whose [thinking] should be to relate the Sunday school to social help for others," declared Rev. Samuel Tyler, rector of the Church of the Advent, at yesterday's supper of workers in the Baptist Institute at the Ninth Street Church. Mr. Tyler Is President of the Social Workers' Club of this city.

"The relation of the Sunday school and social service has been barely touched upon," said Mr. Tyler. "Religon is essentially social. The aim of present-day Christianity is to make the world a better place to live in. We must teach the child in the Sunday school the social character of Christianity. The principle of service is vital. We must try to make the children see their responsibility for the welfare of others.

"Especially can we follow this out in the public health and preventable disease. Every year over half a million deaths occur which could be spared. If Christ was the Great Physician his followers ought to be interested in the sorrow and waste of disease that need not be. "Our Sunday-school teachers must try to relate their teachings to life. The children, individually or in classes, should help poor families, visit philanthropic institutions or keep in touch with the movement for the social betterment. The public school children often clean the streets. There is no reason why Sunday-school children should not do so also. The better way to carry this out I would suggest the appointment in each school of a director of social activity to outline the ways of service . . ."

Villa Faulkner Page | Cure For Victims of Unrequited Love

Syracuse Herald, Tuesday, November 28, 1911, Page 4

from "The Quick and the Dead" | 1931

film still of Little Family in Boston | c1926

My boys, after Christmas, had driven back East in an old Chev that they had rebuilt. This is in a barn in the neighborhood, and, though it is midwinter by the calendar, the weather is springlike, and we bring out the car and start sixty miles to the north to make a call. Twenty-five years ago in a northern mission field, I married a doctor and a school teacher. Boston people, they stayed at the mission after we left, but lately came home. Their boys and ours were born there. He died five years ago [Spring 1926]. Two years later the youngest died and I went East to bury him. So, my boy and I drive up to the border of New Hampshire to have supper with the oldest boy of the doctor's household and his mother. (Only a week later this same fine lad of twenty is hit by an automobile and I come again from the West to bury him. There is a text that brings me help at times like that. It is a question asked upon the cross by our Lord, but never answered, "My god, why?").
 --Rev. Jesse Halsey 

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | January 1911

Items from the New England Grenfell Association

Rev. Jesse Halsey, a graduate of Union Seminary—also a practical all-around man, a mechanic, famer, and “a saint in over-alls” as he is known at St. Anthony, is rendering very great help in that station. He is teaching plumbing and all sorts of practical work, and on Sundays is preaching and taking the large Bible Class which Dr. Grenfell formed last winter.

… And again we have been able to send to Mr. Halsey at St. Anthony, gifts in money with which he could pay men for labour and so enable them to get food for their families from the cooperative stores.

E. E. W., Secretary.

December 20^th, 1910.

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | April 1911

Toronto, April, 1911

Dr. Grenfell’s absence in England has meant the cessation of the “log” and there is but little information to hand of the winter doings at the hospitals. The Christmas festivities at St. Anthony seem to have been most successful. A member of the staff writes: “We are now well started on the new year and bright Christmas season when so far away from our own kith and kin. I must tell you about our employees’ dinner which we served in the waiting room on Monday following Christmas to forty-three people. I had the room cleared and picnic tables made in such form that Dr. Little and Mr. Halsey were able to sit at the two ends and carve. It gave more dignity to the occasion and was a great joy to the people. The tables we made as pretty as possible with our simple decoration of paper napkins, mottoes, pickles, cheese, berries, raisins, figs, etc. Then we served soup, venison, potatoes, cabbage, plum pudding, ice cream, etc. At the end of the meal each person received a box of candy and a gift as well. Mr. Forbes managed the phonograph throughout the meal, and before they all departed a flashlight was taken. All went quietly and smoothly and from what I have heard was evidently a great success. Dr. Little I know was pleased. The orphans’ tree followed at 4 p.m. and gave a tremendous deal of pleasure, not only to children, but to the grown people as well, for Santa Claus in the person of Mr. Halsey and his two sons, Mr. Write and Mr. Evans, came flying down the Fox Farm Hill on a komatik drawn by two reindeer. It was so very real and made it so much more impressive.”

Dr. Little writes under date of the 15^th of January: “All goes well at St. Anthony. Dr. Wakefield started yesterday for the Straits with ten fine dogs and Aleck Simms as driver. . . We have all been struggling through a grippe epidemic but it is over and all are well. There is no special news. Things are pretty well started. Night school with two classes, men and boys; club for the men; Legion of Frontiersmen; Bible class for the girls; choir, etc. etc. All are awfully good about doing anything.”

While in England the Kin honoured him [Grenfell] by giving him a long and special audience, and though he was ostensibly taking a holiday he did not by any means neglect the opportunity of arousing interest in his work. The following report of one magnificent meeting in Queen’s Hall, London, shows that his simple earnest tale of the needs of his people and his aims for their betterment has lost none of its power:

“An expectant crowd that filled Queen’s Hall from area to top gallery welcomed ‘Grenfell of Labrador’ with British enthusiasm on Monday evening. Norman Duncan has made Dr. Grenfell’s work known far and wide in this country, and although one of the journalists who interviewed the Doctor last week confessed to an absolute ignorance of the geographical situation of Labrador, probably every one in the audience could have come through an examination with better results than that. From the first row Field Marshal Lord Grenfell followed his relative’s story with keen interest, and there were many well known people in the audience.

Sir Ernest Shackleton presided with that peculiar sea-dog air of his. He told us that there were five members of his Antarctic expedition present, and not a few of us who have read his book would have dearly liked to see those men paraded on the platform. Standing in the centre of the platform, his broad shoulders on the slant and his hands clasped for all the world as if he were hauling in the slack of the mainsheet, the hero of the South Polar expedition declared, in his bluff way, that the mass of the civilized world had come to appreciate the great work done by a man who was trying to do his best for the bodies and the souls of ‘nameless men who nameless rivers travel, and in strange valleys meet strange deaths alone.’ A happy, poetical description of Dr. Grenfell’s life work!

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | April 1911

Items From the New England Grenfell Association

The latest news from St. Anthony comes from Dr. Little, whose letter is dated January 31, and has therefore been about five weeks on the way; being brought by first dog team mail, south. He reports very cold weather and doubly appreciates the heating apparatus installed this year at the hospital. In this comfort for the north New England friends of the mission may take great pleasure. The entire heating and plumbing for St. Anthony was furnished by them and their gifts made it possible for Mr. Halsey to ship together all the materials necessary last summer by Doctor Grenfell’s schooner, from Boston, when Mr. Halsey himself offered his own services to install the plant needed for the long winter. Does it not make us sleep the better and feel a deep gratitude to ourselves that we have been privileged to provide this comfort for the Doctor’s needy sick in the north? “When winds are cold let charity be warm.”

E. E. W., Secretary

10^th March 1911

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | July 1911

Toronto, July, 1911

Doctor Grenfell’s very special appeal for aid and in particular for money to send two young men to the Pratt Institute is emphasized in more detail in the following memorandum from the Reverend Mr. Halsey: “Since January first we have been having a night school. About twenty of the younger boys, ranging in age from ten to eighteen, have been under Mr. Wright’s tutelage for three nights a week. During a part of January, Mrs. Halsey had them at “Tuckamore Croft” but since then they have been meeting in one of the hospital wards that is not in use now. The older, or more advance, boys have been meeting with me and have made good progress with geometry. On Friday nights, Dr. Coker has been having a chemistry class for these same boys. ‘Boys,’ I call them, I ought to say ‘men,’ for they are our standbys here. Three have been to Pratt Institute and of these it is that I wish to write. We have been doing the geometry and chemistry (and expect to do some algebra) as these were the things that would be most needed if the boys were to return to Pratt Institute as we hope they may.

Indeed to come to the point at once, I am writing this in hopes that some friend of the mission may be willing to make it possible for two of them to return next fall. Both of these fellows have made good records, one of them standing second in his class. When we remember that neither of them had attended school for over six weeks before leaving here for Brooklyn that record can be appreciated the more. Boys from American high schools “flunked out” at the mid-year exams. In the summer of 1900, when I first helped one of these fellows he had not had decimals, in ten days’ time, with two hours in the evening he had gone through the arithmetic and could do cube root, and before Christmas he was doing logarithms in connection with his work in New York and would tell me of problems in mechanics that were away beyond my mathematical comprehension.

Edgar McNeill has been in charge as foreman for two seasons, and it is owing to his hard work that the doctor’s home, the children’s home, the hospital extensions, and the new school house are such creditable buildings.

Wilson Jacque has been my invaluable assistant in all the plumbing work; both here and at Battle Harbour, and has used to the utmost all the knowledge he acquired in New York. I wish that he might take a plumber’s course with his other work another year.”

It is indeed to be hoped that this appeal will be successful. Neither Dr. Grenfell nor Mr. Halsey states what amount is required but if an endowment fund of $10,000 will suffice to keep a boy at school, it may be presumed that about $500 is the annual outlay, and that $1,00 will answer the present special need. But for the industrial work in general, with all its promise of personal uplift and possibilities of economic betterment, a much more substantial sum may well be forthcoming.

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | July 1911

St. Anthony Items

Evening classes have been held for older persons, and for the more advanced of the boys and girls by Mr. Halsey, and Mr. Wright. Miss Brown has also held dressmaking classes for the maids, with the object of enabling them to save expense by manufacturing their own clothing.

The Methodist Church choir has been taken in hand by Mrs. Wakefield, aided by Miss Keese and Mr. Evans, and has now become self-supporting and independent of the fluctuating musical talent of the constantly changing mission staff.

…On April 6^th a new member of the mission staff appeared in the person of Master Charles Henry Halsey! Congratulations all round to the parents, to the mission, and to the new member!

Mr. Halsey has spent a useful winter in superintending our missionary plumbing, finishing up the cement floors, etc., of the new hospital, mending burst pipes, and doing innumerable little things, which, if perhaps not much noticed at the time, would, however, be very much noticed if left undone! He has also held a regular weekly Bible class, and has been very good in reading, etc., to the patients.

A. W. Wakefield

Jesse Halsey & Charles Henry

Some additional information is given by Dr. Little in a letter to Dr. Grenfell of the 19^th of February, 1911, the following extracts from which we have been permitted to print:

Halsey has an advanced class in night school, geometry, physics, chemistry, etc. Dr. Coker has been illustrating lectures with experiments—very interesting. Wright has from twelve to eighteen in the lower classes of night school. He is a great help in every way. Evans has full charge of the camps., keeping records, etc. Miss Storr and Mrs. Wakefield have the Bible class for women, Halsey for the men.

…We have just had a very good service in the wards, Halsey preaching. I am wondering what sort of a crowd there will be here next summer and what your plans will be. I expect you will find your hands full when you resume the reins.

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | July 1911

Dr. Grenfell’s Letter

Boston, Mass.

May 19^th, 1911

…It has been delightful to hear from Mr. Halsey, the Princetonian in charge of our mechanical work, of the splendid results accomplished by the aid of the boys who were sent to New York for one year’s mechanical training,--heating apparatus installed, water supplies laid on, machinery ably handled. To two of these young men he most earnestly desires that we should give another winter’s opportunity, and he has promised to remain during the coming year that he may do their work, if some friends are willing to defray the expense of sending them once more to the Pratt Institute next winter.

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | July 1911

Items from the New England Grenfell Association

…A letter from Mr. Halsey of St. Anthony gives the following items: “The pipe cutting machine that the New England Grenfell Association provided has been invaluable and without it we could not have done the hospital with its heavy three inch and four inch pipe. This also will be used in installing the orphanage heater given by Mrs. Proctor which we could not finish last fall. It was getting late and cold to work under the building and as the grates for the boiler didn’t come I gave it up until spring. In the summer we can do a better job, putting more of the pipes under the floor by digging, which was impossible after the frost came last fall. In the cellar of the old pat of the hospital I put a water tank (for air pressure) and as the old well only furnished two barrels, or less, a day, I ran a pipe below frost to the little brook west of the hospital and that has supplied the twenty barrels that they use daily, most of the time, though sometimes no water was running and it all had to be carted from Mr. Ashe’s brook, which is no fun in bad weather! Next winter we must have a proper water system. It means a lot of blasting and the building of a reservoir but it would save much work and more worry.” Another opportunity offered to help in this work. Mr. Halsey will make good use of the college volunteers this summer we are sure in giving them a chance to serve in this line.

…The land about the school house needs to be laid out. One of the Yale volunteers for this summer has been commissioned by Dr. Grenfell to organize under Mr. Halsey the old boys of St. Anthony into a “Self and Social Improvement Society.” The land needs paths, drainage, etc., and in the fall trees (such as are native to that soil) planted; also could have the red kalmias, the fireweeds, etc., planted in rows and bunches and the plot laid our artistically with local natural plants. This would give an admirable evening work and would be a real lesson and uplift. The boys could have their own society with officers of their own choice, all in miniature. For this purpose we sent via the “Lorna Doone” a couple of light wheelbarrows for carrying earth and soil, etc., and a half dozen of boys’ garden spades, and also two picks and spades for men. It may be possible soon for the children of St. Anthony to keep a few hens and for this the “agricultural fund” given by interested people yearly may be drawn upon. Possibly other friends would like to make gifts for this definite purpose….

E. E. W., Secretary

June 10^th, 1911.

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | October 1911

Judging from the news given in the New England items the Superintendent’s matrimonial venture is tending to encourage the others. If these alliances between members of the staff are to continue, service under Dr. Grenfell will become even more popular than at present.

Just as this number was in press the following item from the Boston Herald of the 30^th of September came to hand.

“The marriage is announced of Dr. John Mason Little, Jr., of this city and Miss Ruth Esther Keese at St. Anthony, N.F., last Sunday. Miss Keese, who has many friend here is the daughter of the late Rev. William A. Keese of Lunenburg and Mrs. Elizabeth Keese, the latter now living at Ashburnham, where her son is at school.

Miss Keese for the past four years has been helping in Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell’s work at St. Anthony as a teacher in the school in the winter and in the summer in the hospital. She is greatly beloved by the people. Dr. Little, who is a graduate of Harvard ’97, is in charge of the hospital and is surgeon-in-chief.

The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Jesse Halsey, formerly of Southampton, L.I., another of Mr. Grenfell’s assistants. Dr. and Mrs. Little will continue their work at St. Anthony.”

All the reads of the magazine will wish these two most valued members of the Mission staff very great happiness and prosperity.

E. W.W., Secretary

16^th September, 1911

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | October 1911

Items from the Grenfell Association of America

The results from some of the articles in the July number of the Magazine have been very satisfactory. We have received a cheque for $35 to pay the vacation expenses of the one of the twins at the School for the Blind in Halifax; I wonder if any other office has had a gift for the same purpose? The article asking for supplies for the industrial work has brought responses to the amount of about $30; Mr. Halsey’s appeal for the students at Pratt Institute has brought another $30. These funds are being held for the express purposes for which they were given.

J. L. G., Secretary.

20^th September, 1911

Items from the New England Grenfell Association

We rejoice that the piping for the new reservoir was sent, and we learn from Mr. Halsey that he has been able to build the new reservoir by the great help of the splendid volunteer work given by the college men who went to St. Anthony this summer, all of whom have given labour of the kind that resulted in furnishing this most needed water supply for the buildings the coming year. Think what it will mean to the hospital where heretofore the supply has never been equal to the demand, and twenty to thirty barrels a day have had to be brought in in pails and buckets. The New England Grenfell Association has furnished the money for this piping ($137), and the balance of the thousand dollars for the fittings of the buildings. Every two dollar membership helps in these necessary equipments. We hope the coming year may add many new names to our membership list here in New England. The supplies for the hospitals annually and for the various machinery call for our annual renewals of contributions.

E. E. White, Secretary 

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | January 1912

Items from the New England Grenfell Association

Since the last issue of this magazine the new schooner, the George B. Cluett, arrived in Boston on October 15^th, upon return from her summer cruise on the Labrador. The George B. Cluett is a beautiful three-masted schooner but had not been thoroughly completed before she went north early in August, when she was chartered by Mr. W. R. Stirling of Chicago; hence the schooner was needing repairs, especially to her engine bearings, which necessitated her spending a short time here in dry dock. Meanwhile, the Revered Mr. Halsey and Mrs. Halsey had come down from St. Anthony for a brief furlough and to look after the cargo which they were to take back on the George B. Cluett as soon as possible. Mr. Halsey brought a complete list of the needs and beside these we had in storage many cases of clothing, etc., which the Lorna Doone was unable to take north in June. . .

There were also wedding gifts for Doctor and Mrs. Little, and a consignment of goods for Dr. Greeley at Pilley’s Island, where a small cottage hospital had been opened. . .

E. E. W. Secretary

12 December 1911

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | January 1912

The First Cruise of the George B. Cluett

… However, she got away on the following Saturday morning, and arrived in St. Anthony the next week, Friday, having made the trip in just seven days. Mr. Halsey wrote of the latter part of the trip: “I would not have given ten cents for our $500 deck cargo, but the captain and men worked like Trojans and not a thing was lost!” . . .

“We had a very rough trip down to St. Anthony. The Rev. Jesse Halsey and wife and child went with us. Mrs. Halsey made a good sailor, but Mr. Halsey could not get over seasickness so he did not enjoy the trip very much. The weather was very rough at St. Anthony while we were discharging cargo, but notwithstanding the stormy passage we had coming down, the cargo came out in good condition.”

–H.C. Pickels, Schr. Geo. B. Cluett

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | January 1912

Dr. Grenfell’s Log

September 12, 1911

Mr. Jesse Halsey has joined the permanent staff, and every one is perfectly delighted. Our “Saint in overalls” is as acceptable as a blaster of rocks as he is when he presides over a wedding ceremony at which he has satisfied us all in marrying Doctor John Mason Little, Jr., who is our doyen of surgery, to Miss Ruth Keese, whom we all know as embodied sunshine.

If there is one event of the season over which we rejoice more than another it is this event, which we trust will give us a further probability of being able to keep them both with us for many more years to come. To the Miss Littles also who by presiding over the Children’s Home, have enabled the good Miss Storr to a furlough to England we offer many thanks.

George B. Cluett Expenses | 1911

Submitted by Jesse Halsey to New England Grenfell Association | November 1, 1911

Expense Report | Grenfell Association 1911

Recipt for Bananas | George B. Cluett | 1911

"The Candy Lady"

By Reverend Jesse Halsey

(published in Among the Deep Sea Fishers,Volume 12, Issue4, January 1915, winner of a $25 Satterlee Prize)

 

One rainy day in mid-October, when the rush of early month accounting was over, when the office had been put to rights, and sundry postponed correspondence dispatched, Miss Greatheart set herself to such a task as all liberal spirited, but small pursed, people are occasionally, when some appeal is pressed home to their hearts.

The Children’s Home at Dr. Greyship’s northern Mission must be supplied at Christmas. Heavy demands on the never overfull treasury, for necessities of provisions, medicine and hospital equipment, had left it so depleted that the coming of Dr. Greyship in the winter seemed the only solution of the bookkeeper’s problem. The policy of making further demands on the small borrowed balance at the treasurer’s demand, seemed highly unwise. Flour must be sent—but toys could be dispensed with. Paregoric and diverse other members of the family Pharmacopeia they must have; but candy, well candy was not an item that appeared in the budget. It was impossible.

By careful scheming enough toys had gone on the, as usual, belated schooner and every child would be supplied—every child in the orphanage with a slender surplus for the near-by hamlets. But the candy had been omitted that year in the schooner shipment, and now the time had come for the last shipment of the winter to go North by the Black Cross boat of Saturday. Was there no one who would do it?, she asked herself. Old Mr. Barnabas had sent a thousand dollar’s worth of flour in face of the starvation winter after a poor fishing season, and she had no heart to ask him for candy--bread was so much more important.

There was something in the air that day with its chill dampness and its early presagement of winter that made the little restaurant ‘round the corner seem almost homelike, for it was at least warm, and the office building with this sudden demand of the early “cold snap” on it summer corroded heating plant, gave scare comfort to its inmates.

It was Friday, the day when during the fall the restaurant featured pumpkin pies. Possibly they were better than usual, possibly the happy presence of the lady manager of the “Looking Glass” candy store on the Avenue, who had been displaying the first samples of Christmas candy, made Miss Greatheart’s mind turn to the missing box in that consignment of Northern freight. At any rate on her way back she was tempted to turn in with her table friend and see the pre-holiday display of sample lots. So many varieties! So many packages in varying shapes, designs, and sizes but nothing better than “American Mixed” and nothing more “Christmassy” than a big red brick from Santa’s chimney. “The price?” “Sixteen cents in pail lots, brick boxes, a dollar a hundred.” “Sixteen cents!” and “Looking Glass” brand had stood first in the recent pure food show! In rapid calculation she figured the cost “only six or seven dollars” and placed an order of three pails for immediate delivery at the Black Cross docks. She would pay for it herself!

Lighting the gas to help out the radiators on her return to the office, she sat down with a sense of satisfaction to answer the new mail. The orphanage children would have their candy. A self made telephone directory of the directors and special friends of the Mission lay before her and as she turned to it for an address the thought flashed through her mind—“Why not give them a chance on the candy, too—there is still time.”

Letter from Emma E. White, November 1911

Thirty calls—most of them in the downtown office district, were made. Line busy. “Party out” and all the rest fell to her share that afternoon but with gentle persistence she kept at it. Only one refusal, and four were out of town, so that by five  o’clock twenty-five had pledged their help in varying amounts from five to twenty dollars.

The “Looking Glass” shop closed at five thirty. By ‘phone they informed her that it would be impossible to fill such an order that night. “But it must be done.” The Black Cross boat sailed the following morning at ten. At length the interest of the city sales manager was solicited and he pledged his best efforts to bring in from the Jersey factory the unusual amount of seven hundred pounds of American Mixed. Six girls in the Avenue shop, when they heard the project of “candy for every child along the shore” enthusiastically volunteered to stay and help the manager and Miss Greatheart get the boxes ready, and to tie the numerous other packages that with her surplus Miss Greatheart was able to buy.

Late that night by special drayman (who reached home from the over-river docks at four next morning and who sent no bill when he found the nature of his freight) the huge packing cases, extra strong and heavily ironed, were deposited on the wharf of the Black Cross Line.

Freight for Saturdays sailing is supposed to be “cleared” through the Custom House on Friday, but at the opening hour Saturday morning Miss Greatheart confronted the shipping clerk, and explaining her errand, readily got the clearance papers and at nine thirty saw the cases swing down into the hold of the big steamer.

Late in November, the mail boat, which has familiarized the natives with the name of one of Shakespeare’s minor characters, was due with us, in the North Country. It was the last trip when she would be able to break the ice up through the harbor to our little log wharf, and everyone in the district who had anything to send for (or anything to send with) had ordered his last provision shipment for the winter, forwarded on that boat. We had been having several days of “dirty weather,” with cold unusually severe for that time of year. Our first snow flurries always come in September but it is unusual for ate November to find us completely snowed in. The harbor had been frozen over for ten days, and some of the old salts feared that the steamer could never force her way up to the wharf, which meant much extra work for our men as everything would be landed on the ice a mile down toward the harbor’s mouth.

About midnight on the first of December, our steamer sounded her deep whistle and long before the echoes of that twice repeated long blast had died away through the hills, lights were blinking out through the windows all ‘round the harbor. Long before her slow ice-breaking journey was completed the whole harbor had congregated to welcome her. Men and women and boys, girls even—everyone save the aged and ailing—were there, for was not this the last boat before Christmas, the last one at any rate that we could be sure of, and possibly the last one of the season, so the old men said, for winter had “set in wonderful arly.” The moon just past the full threw a ghastly light over our whited landscape, for even the red roofs of the trim mission buildings were no longer lent their relief to the winter monotony. Even olf Fishin’ Head whose black rock stands out through many winters untouched had been coated with an early “glitter” and reflected back the colorless sameness of the snow covered harbor.

But everyone was happy for everyone expected some package, large or small, to be disgorged from the cavernous hold of the steamer. All night the oft-repeated order of the mate, “Lower away,” and the chug of the steam which sounded through the crisp air. Men with lanterns here and there were jostling through the ever-increasing accumulation of boxes and bales on the wharf’s end, peering at address marking, to laboriously spell out a name. Many an old skipper worked with a boy at his side who had “larnin” enough to read. Mission had were loading komatiks and drawing them away to the store with the crunch of the runners on the snow, all working with a rough boisterousness characteristic of the people—even in times of depression and especially snow for was it not nearly Christmas!

At last, with the wharf groaning with boxes, barrels, bales and puncheons the steamer sounded her warning note of departure. The sling is thrown down into the hold for the last time and out at length swing two great cases, iron bound and sturdy, bearing the mark of the “Looking Glass.”

By noon, dogs and komatiks with oft-repeated trips had nearly cleared away the wharf and Uncle Jim declared there was room for nothing more.

The barn loft was filled, every available space was taken save one corner of the workshop where our two boxes were finally deposited, her to remain until there is time to “clear away.” Some days later when things had been made “ship shape,” by Joe and his helpers the cases were brought into the store and opened. “SWEETS!” is the general cry when the broken cover discloses the contents, and such a quantity—“A wonderful sight on it.” No wonder the boxes were heavy---“seven hunder’ pounds of it!” At last the mystery of the big boxes is solved.

News is soon carried to Dr. Littlejohn at the hospital and the order is to have it brought “right up,” and when all had been unpacked and stacked up in one end of the dispensary, it had the appearance of country grocer’s storeroom.

By nightfall everyone on the staff, and everyone in the in the harbor had heard the news and there was much speculation among the harbor folk as to how the mission people could eat with such a quantity of sweets.

As soon as hospital duties permitted all the members of the little mission colony were called in to help fill the boxes for distribution, for Miss Greatheart had not forgotten those read bricks, white edged to simulate mortar, to act as containers for the goodies.

In fact, we never knew until Christmas Day how much those cases did contain, for there were several boxes of varying sizes marked “Doctor In Charge—Private” which when opened on Christmas Day proved to be boxes of the best “Looking Glass” chocolates for each member of the staff, and to one house where there were little children there came a five pound box of little colored candies that furnished decorated cakes and cookies for every party for a year or more.

Two evenings were spent in filling and tying these boxes and when they were piled tier on tier in a corner of the room, old George Jouley, my helper in chimney building, said, “it looked like the skipper war goin’ to bi’l’ a fire hearth in the ‘ospital!”

The ready memory of the Doctor furnished lists of the number of children in every family down along shore—and up shore, too, so that bundles were sized according to the number of children in each hamlet. Toys had been boxes by Uncle Duke for the youngsters of each community and these with the candy made up a pack that no Santa need be ashamed to carry. “No Santa”—is there more than one? Most assuredly, at least in this country of the North, for every doctor who travels during the winter, when his professional day’s work is done, delights to impersonate “Father Christmas” and distribute the gifts that have been sent on ahead by the last mail boat or which he has brought with him. The parson does the same on his journeys, other members of the staff go purposely to the nearer villages so that before March every little place far and near has had its Christmas tree.

But such a Christmas as that was. Dolls had been seen before—occasionally at least but—candy! When had Jim Saxon, or little ‘Lish Bumper, or Effie Gray had a whole box of candy all their own? And candy gone the brick box is preserved in some homes to this day, as a reminder of its sweet contents and—oh yes! the favors—little cats and dogs and elephants and what not, cast in lead and gilded—(the sort of thing you have so often contemptuously refused when you took your change from a purchase at the Looking Glass store)—these tucked away under the last layer in the box and found only after the candy had disappeared, these are still prized “down along” the shore in dozens of homes and worn as watch charms (where watches exist) or are hoarded with the few treasures that the kiddies possess, as memorials of the “Candy Christmas.”

All winterlong, we wondered who our generous benefactor was. Dr. Brumell had gone home to England via New York and it was “just like him to do it.” Some friends had visited us the previous summer and “Very likely they did it”—but no one guessed the right one.

Little Billy Bunker who had been staying at [our house] during the Christmas season, and who had had a liberal share of the candy consignment, asked who sent the candy and not being satisfied with that “true and inclusive answer ‘Father Christmas,’” said that ‘it must have been the Candy Lady,’ and this was the only solution of the mystery that any of us had until the next summer, so that all the winter through we spoke of the “Candy Lady’s” gift and even now the children in some of those little homes are whispering their pre-Christmas wishes and hoping that hey may have another Christmas like that one which Candy Lady sent.

On my trip the next year “to the States” and only in a circumstantial way, when clearing a shipment at the custom house with the same clerk who had put through the heavy boxes of the previous winter, did I learn who the true donor was, and this story is here set down in my poor way, at this Christmastide, in appreciation of the characteristic thoughtfulness of our late secretary Miss Greatheart.

*Emma E. White was described by Jessie Luther as "secretary and devoted friend of the mission"; Luther's biographer, Ronald Rompkey, notes: "Emma E. White (d. 1944), assistant librarian at the Congregational Library from 1888 until her retirement in 1934, had formed a committee with the Rev. C.C. Carpenter to support Grenfell and urged him to come to Boston and raise money. Miss White, as "secretary," conducted Grenfell's business there after hours. It remained his "office" until 1915 when Grenfell opened a separate one at 20 Beacon Street.