216 BY ESKIMO DOG-SLED 



but mostly we made things secure enough to 

 baffle them. The mice were a more serious 

 nuisance : they were wide-awake and very 

 hungry, and found our nice young shoots of 

 lettuce and cabbage very tempting, far better 

 than buried twigs and frozen roots. It was 

 rather a laborious thing to have to do, but in 

 years when mice were plentiful we went round 

 every evening and covered each shoot with an 

 empty meat tin, and made a second pilgrimage 

 in the morning to uncover them all again. 

 The frost we fought by covering each row with 

 a wooden framework ; and the old widows 

 who worked in the blubber yard made it their 

 annual care to go round at night and spread 

 sacks over the frame, and to take the sacks 

 off and put them away every morning. For 

 this they got a present of a couple of dollars 

 and an armful of green vegetables at the end 

 of the season, and shrill were their cries of 

 " Nakomek," and broad were their grins of 

 happiness, when the time came for them to 

 get their perquisite. 



There are many pleasant things to remember 

 in a missionary's life in Labrador. We forget 

 the cold and the hardships when we think of 

 the smiling, friendly faces of the Eskimos ; 

 we forget the loneliness of the long, long 

 winter when we think of the many little things 



