THE CUSTOM OF THE PEOPLE 



life unspoilt. It was in a halfpenny paper that I 

 read about him, for there was a little paragraph at 

 the bottom of the column, informing the world that 

 the Labrador coast had been visited by a terrible 

 storm, and that two Eskimos had been rescued from 

 a capsized boat in an exhausted condition. 



It was little John who rescued them, but the 

 printer did not know that. I remember that storm 

 very well. 



It was one of those calm, dull mornings that 



sometimes come, even in Labrador, when the still 



and heavy air seems to bring a feeling of gloom and 



apprehension with it. Some of the shrewder heads 



among the Eskimos prophesied bad weather, and 



when, towards noon, queer warm gusts of air came 



sweeping past, even the most ordinary man could 



tell that a storm was brewing. But the codfish were 



biting well, and it is easy to understand that with 



the end of the season so near for it was September 



already the fishers wanted to make the very most 



(of every opportunity. The bay was dotted with 



' boats, from the line of rocks a hundred yards from 



| the solid little jetty right away to the open sea that 



stretches to the foot of Cape Mugford, and in every 



I boat sat one or two men, jigging for codfish. They 



were wearing gloves of black sealskin boot-leather 



to keep the line from chafing their hands, and they 



iwere pulling the fish out of the water as fast as 



/hands could work. The jigger is a bright piece of 



lead shaped like a little fish, and armed with two 



; barbed hooks, and there was no need to do the 



I patient jerk-jerk-jerk of the arm that the Eskimos 



will do, if need be, for hours at a stretch; no, as 



they told me afterwards, " Plenty, plenty fish, oggak 



73 



