THE LITTLE CARPENTER 35 



shouted for joy. " Our friend Is come," they said. 

 " Aksunai." 



They thronged about Jens, feeling him, stroking 

 him, peering in his face ; and all the while he spoke 

 to them in words they understood. The ice was 

 broken ; the mission to the Eskimos of Labrador was 

 begun. 



Would the greeting have been like this if Jens had 

 never been to Greenland ? We cannot know, but we 

 may doubt it. The hand of God was in this. Jens 

 had learnt the language, he knew the Eskimos and 

 their ways, his very dress and appearance made for 

 confidence ; the people loved him from the first. 



Our village was not the first that Jens and his 

 companions built . They began their labours at Nain , 

 ninety miles south of the place where I had seen the 

 mounds upon the slope ; but I have seen that first 

 mission station which Jens Haven helped to build ; 

 I have trodden the paths on which Jens walked a 

 hundred and fifty years ago ; nay, I believe I have 

 eaten of vegetables from the garden that Jens helped 

 to make. His is the great name in the Labrador 

 Mission. Jensingoak, " Our little Jens," the people 

 called him. 



And is he forgotten ? 



Not many years ago there came a man to our 

 village, a heathen man from a tribe in the north. 

 Like many another Eskimo, he had wandered south- 

 wards in the hope of meeting lost relatives who had 

 moved towards the south long years before. He 

 stayed in our village through the winter ; he went to 

 the meetings in the church ; he said that he, too. 



