AND KAYAK 215 



as it may seem, when the July sun had melted 

 the snow and thawed the ground, we used to 

 grow flowers and vegetables. All the little 

 shoots must first be carefully grown in boxes 

 in our living rooms, or under a cover of glass ; 

 and you can imagine how anxiously we 

 watched for the tiny green leaves to peep 

 above the soil, and how proudly we saw them 

 grow large enough and strong enough to be 

 put in the open ground. I suppose that the 

 missionaries of long ago had toilsomely made 

 the gardens, wheeling barrow-loads of earth 

 from here and there ; why, even at that 

 bleak and rocky spot called Killinek, where a 

 Mission station was opened a few years ago, 

 away at the northernmost tip of Labrador, 

 there is the beginning of a garden, and the 

 missionary talked to me of borrowing a couple 

 of barrels of earth from our garden at Okak ! 

 The gardens need a great deal of care and 

 nursing, for we had always three enemies to 

 fight against the dogs, and the mice, and the 

 frosts. 



The dogs were delighted to have a patch of 

 freshly dug soil for their romps and their 

 scrambles, but we managed to keep them out 

 by the help of wooden palings. Sometimes 

 they climbed over, or burrowed underneath, 

 and then it was good-bye to our garden stuff ; 



