Reverance dr.  Grandfell.  Dear sir we are expecting you hup and we would like for you to come so quick as you can for my dater is very sick with a very large sore under her left harm we emenangin that the old is two enchis deep and two enches wide plase com as quick as you can to save life I remains yours truely.

Docker—­Please wel you send me somting for the pain in my feet and what you proismed to send my little boy.  Docker I am almost cripple, it is up my hips, I can hardly walk.  This is my housban is gaining you this note.

     doctor—­i have a compleant i ham weak with wind on the
     chest, weakness all over me up in my harm.

Dear Dr. Grenfell.  I would like for you to Have time to come Down to my House Before you leaves to go to St. Anthony.  My little Girl is very Bad. it seems all in Her neck.  Cant Ply her Neck forward if do she nearly goes in the fits. i dont know what it is the matter with Her myself.  But if you would see Her you would know what the matter with Her.  Please send a word by the Bearer what gives you this note and let me know where you will have time to come down to my House, i lives down the Bay a Place called Berry Head.

These people are made of the same clay as you and I. They are moved by the same human emotions.  They love those who are near and dear to them no less than we love those who are near and dear to us.  The same heights or depths of joy and sorrow, hopes and disappointments enter into their lives.  In the following chapters let us meet some of them, and travel with Doctor Grenfell as he goes about his work among them.

XI

UNCLE WILLIE WOLFREY

One bitterly cold day in winter our dog team halted before a cabin.  We had been hailed as we were passing by the man of the house.  He gave us a hearty hand shake and invitation to have “a drop o’ tea and a bit to eat,” adding, “you’d never ha’ been passin’ without stoppin’ for a cup o’ tea to warm you up, whatever.”  It was early, and we had intended to stop farther on to boil our kettle in the edge of the woods with as little loss of time as possible, but there was no getting away from the hospitality of the liveyere.

There were three of us, and we were as hungry as bears, for there is nothing like snowshoe traveling in thirty and forty degrees below zero weather to give one an appetite.  As we entered we sniffed a delicious odor of roasting meat, and that one sniff made us glad we had stopped, and made us equally certain we had never before in our lives been so hungry for a good meal.  For days we had been subsisting on hardtack and jerked venison, two articles of food that will not freeze for they contain no moisture, and tea; or, when we stopped at a cabin, on bread and tea.  The man’s wife was already placing plates, cups and saucers on the bare table for us, and two little boys were helping with hungry eagerness.