The Complete Works of L M Montgomery
Page 781
Another story of this same little girl is told by B. — G. Honnor, to whom a number of years later, she was married.
“At about the time she was born Peter Moose, chief of the tribe, lost his little daughter. The loss confused the elderly chieftain, and he concluded that the missionary’s little daughter had been sent by the Gitchee Manitou to replace his little one.
“One day he appeared suddenly at the mission house, his face gaunt, wild-eyed and with his hair hanging down in plaits. He did not trouble to knock, but strode in and, taking no notice of the anxious mother, went to the cradle, and picking up the tiny white baby sat silently for a long time with her on his knee. Then, placing her again in the cradle, he disappeared as silently as he had come.
“This he did for many weeks, and many times sent presents of ducks, moccasins, and silkwork to the White Swan, as he had named his ‘adopted’ daughter.”
The white baby, with due ceremony, was adopted into the tribe and given the high standing of a daughter of the chief. Not only was she taken into the fellowship of the tribe but the parents also shared in the same vows of friendship. To show their good-will, the chief stationed a guard at the mission house for ten days so the mother and babe would not be disturbed.
Anna Gaudin’s work as missionary nurse among the Bush Crees was strenuous. She worked under primitive conditions with a limited supply of materials, travelling mile after mile to minister to the sick. This was done by canoe in the summer and by dog-sled in the winter, often when the thermometer registered many degrees below zero.
During one year, when hunting and fishing had failed, the Indians were at the point of starvation. Mr and Mrs. Gaudin shared their food with the people and left themselves with so little that potatoes were often all they had to eat. This, naturally, told on the health of the mother and the little son that had come to the mission home during that hard winter. In a few months the baby died.
But the missionary and his wife felt they could not keep food for themselves when others were suffering from hunger.
“If,” said Anna Gaudin, speaking about this experience, “a man stood at your door with his children and said piteously, ‘For myself I am not afraid to die but will you not care for my starving children?’ What could one do but share what one had with them?”
Although Mrs. Gaudin was ready at all times to give freely of her time and strength to relieve sickness and want, she often wished there was a doctor at the post or one within reasonable distance. At one time there was an epidemic of scarlet fever and five out of six Indian children, who were being cared for at the mission, came down with the disease. Her own three small children caught the infection and were seriously ill, almost at death’s door. When they recovered sufficiently for the journey, Mrs. Gaudin decided to take them to Winnipeg and have a consultation with the doctors in that distant city.
The trip to Winnipeg and back was a hard one. Sometimes portages had to be made over places where the muskeg waited to suck down the unwary. These deep sloughs of slimy, oozy earth were treacherous affairs. Mrs. Gaudin and her small children were carried across by their Indian guides. The means of conveyance was a box hung from the back of an Indian by a portage strap, the loop of which passed over the man’s forehead.
At Winnipeg the children contracted whooping cough. Mr. Gaudin went down to meet them and bring them back to Nelson House. The first lap of the journey was by steamer to the Landing at Norway House, at the head of Lake Winnipeg. Here Cree Indians were waiting with canoes and the party embarked the next morning.
Reaching Play Green Lake they encountered rough weather. The wind had whipped the lake into fury and waves broke over the canoes. In one of them lay the Gaudins’ small daughter, Ida, fast asleep. Presently she awoke and called to her mother.
“A wave,” was Mrs. Gaudin’s first thought, “must have shipped aboard and hit her.”
This, however, did not altogether account for the quantity of water there seemed to be in the canoe. The boatmen examined the side and found a crack of considerable size, through which the water had been seeping. Already the canoe was low down and settling rapidly.
The Indians headed for the nearest island. Would they make it in safety? The canoe sank lower and lower. For awhile it looked as though it would go to the bottom before shore could be reached. The paddlers put forth their utmost strength and sent the half-submerged craft along as fast as it would go.
It was an anxious time. In such a sea there was little chance of being saved should the canoe sink. Gradually the distance lessened between them and the tree-fringed island. A few more yards and they would be there!
With thankful heart Mrs. Gaudin gathered her children in her arms as the Indians beached the canoe. What difference did it make that the baggage was wet; their lives had been spared and that was all that really mattered.
After spending eleven years at Nelson House, Mr and Mrs. Gaudin moved to Cross Lake. While here, word came that Mrs. Gaudin was urgently needed at Norway House to attend the missionary’s wife who had recently come to that post. Kindly Indians assisted her and she went by dog-sled, in the depths of winter, in response to the call. Her coming was most opportune for it meant saving the lives of both mother and babe.
As soon as she could be spared, Mrs. Gaudin started out on the return trip, guided by the Crees, who had many times proved their faithfulness.
“We take good care of her,” they had assured Mr. Gaudin when they had left Cross Lake.
They were as good as their word and she reached home safely.
Two or three weeks later, her own baby was born!
During the great influenza epidemic of 1918, Anna Gaudin worked day and night. “On the trail at all hours without sleep, and often without food, she saved many lives, and gave last comfort to many she was unable to snatch from death. Trips of forty-five miles were considered nothing, but they had a devastating effect, and as the ‘flu’ died away, Mrs. Gaudin fell ill herself from sheer fatigue, and it was some months before she was able to again return to take up her beloved work.”
When they were living at Cross Lake Mrs. Gaudin’s young son, Nelson, took seriously ill and she did not wish to rely entirely on her own skill, so sent to Norway House for help. By this time a Government doctor had been established at that post. One of the Indians volunteered to go for him, willing to do anything in his power to show his gratitude for all the kindnesses his tribe had received at the hands of the missionary and his wife.
He travelled by dog train and so untiring was he that the sixty miles was covered in ten hours. He reached Norway House in the middle of the night and by four o’clock in the morning fresh dogs were ready and the doctor started on his way. Halfway a change of men and dogs was procured and they arrived at Cross Lake at nine o’clock in the evening, in time to give the required assistance to the little boy.
For many years the Gaudin home was open to the sick and no charge was made for the care bestowed upon them. Of necessity, only a limited number of Indians could be admitted, and, to look after these, in such straitened quarters, was a great strain on Mrs. Gaudin. In addition, she was Government matron of the entire Reserve and this entailed a vast amount of work. One winter she travelled by dog-train nearly five hundred and fifty miles.
Many times she travelled long distances to help the sick. It was nothing unusual to answer a summons from distant hunting camps where many of the Indians and their families were living; one such trip covered two hundred and fifty miles and took her eleven days. One night she camped on the trail and the remaining nights were spent in attendance on the sick men, women and children. She snatched what sleep she could whenever she could spare a moment from the care of her patients.
Anna Gaudin was born, in 1865, on a little farm bordering the Restigouche River at Oak Point, Bonaventure County, Quebec. She was educated at the rural public school, from which she went to the Ontario Ladies’ College, Whitby, Ontario. Her father died when she was but sixteen and, as there was a large family
of brothers and sisters to support, Anna helped by clerking in the country store.
Later on she took a course of training at the Protestant Episcopal Hospital in Philadelphia, Pa., graduating in 1891. Four years later she married Rev. S. D. Gaudin and went with him to the isolated mission field of Nelson House.
CHAPTER XIII. A WAR HEROINE: EDITH CAVELL
“MY work is there. It is my duty to go,” said Edith Cavell.
When war was declared in the summer of 1914 Edith Cavell was enjoying a well-earned holiday at her home in England. Her work in the hospital at Brussels was arduous and exacting and she had looked forward with eagerness to this needed period of rest and to the pleasure of a visit with her mother. Into the peaceful atmosphere of the quiet English household the news of the German march through Belgium and the violation of the neutrality of that country came like a bomb.
Edith Cavell was shocked and horrified at what she heard. Her first thought was for the unfortunate Belgians who, through the heartless cruelty of Germany, had been forced into a war for which they had made no preparation. She decided at once that she would return to her post at Brussels. Friends and relatives attempted to dissuade her from her purpose but to no avail. Remonstrances were useless for, having settled in her own mind the question of where she should be, her determination was unalterable. She set off immediately and reached the capital of Belgium shortly before the Germans entered the city.
Edith Cavell, eight years before, had been invited to be the first directress of the Belgian School for Certificated Nurses, a school that was being founded at that time in Brussels. Ever since Florence Nightingale had brought about a reform in methods of nursing the sick, and the course of study for that calling had been made efficient, the status of English trained nurses had ranked high. On the continent, old ways were being discarded and there followed a demand for teachers of ability to instruct the probationers. Hence it was that, owing to their superior qualifications, many English nurses had obtained positions abroad, and Edith Cavell, one of the best in her class, had been singled out to be head of the Training Institute at Brussels.
Although she had been born in England, the daughter of an Anglican clergyman in the village of Swardeston, Norfolk, she had spent several years at school in Belgium and so was not a stranger to the language and customs of that country. Her appointment to this important post was not by accident. For ten years after she had qualified at the London hospital, where she had begun training at the age of twenty-one, she had been working in England. These years were spent in various ways. She was staff nurse at the London Hospital; she served in the Highgate and Shoreditch infirmaries; helped with poor law nursing and took charge of an emergency hospital for typhoid patients at Maidstone.
She was well fitted to be the first directress of the Belgian Training Institute and the next year, 1907, she became, in addition, the first matron of the clinic Dr. Depage held in the Berkendael medical institute. The hospital of St. Gilles was also organized and run under her capable management.
Thus it was that, before the war, Edith Cavell was engaged in many activities in the Belgian capital, all with the end in view of relieving suffering humanity. Her interest always lay in anything pertaining to nursing needs. Owing to some money she inherited in 1888 she was able to travel through other lands and visited a free hospital in Bavaria which appealed to her. On leaving, she presented it with an endowment which was to provide funds for the purchase of surgical instruments.
At the outbreak of the war the Training Institute in Brussels was quickly turned into a Red Cross Hospital and the Germans granted permission to care for the wounded, their own nationals being tended as well as the soldiers of the Allies. Dr. Depage, whose wife was one of the unfortunate victims of the Lusitania disaster, left to organize military hospitals and Edith Cavell remained in charge at Brussels.
For a year she gave unsparingly of her time and strength, nursing friend and foe alike with kindly impartiality. A friend of hers, Miss Mary Boyle O’Reilly, who was forced to leave Belgium, begged Edith Cavell to accompany her. The latter shook her head gently but decidedly as she replied:
“It is impossible, my friend. My duty is here.” The sights she saw and the tales she heard of German atrocities made her heartsick. When the French and British forces had been compelled to withdraw from Belgium, many soldiers, separated from the main army, had been left behind. These, whenever possible, found places of hiding among the Belgian people. Any that were caught by the Germans were executed.
These were also Belgian civilians of military age whom the rapid advance of the invaders had prevented joining their army and who were kept in durance by the Germans.
By degrees a system evolved among the Belgians for helping these men to get into Holland. They were passed from hand to hand, the farmers and labourers in the field rendering valuable aid. Edith Cavell’s tender heart could not bear to see a fellow being in distress and the pitiable plight of her countrymen and the other Allies appealed to her. She did not refuse, when called upon for assistance, but gave freely of her means to provide clothing and similar necessities for the fugitives, doing her full share in assisting them to escape.
In some way or other the Germans found out that stragglers from the Allied army, as well as Belgian civilians, were crossing the border into Holland and learned that the English nurse was, in some measure, involved in the scheme of deliverance.
On the evening of the fifth of October, nineteen hundred and fifteen, as Edith Cavell was busily engaged in the hospital, ministering to the needs of wounded German and Allied soldiers, she was arrested by order of the German commander and taken to the prison of St. Gilles.
The arrest was kept secret as far as possible but word of it was brought to Miss Cavell’s relatives in England, some three weeks later, by a traveller from Belgium. Mrs. Cavell immediately informed the Foreign Office and Sir Edward Grey sent a note of inquiry to Mr. Page, the United States ambassador in London, asking him to find out from the American minister in Brussels, who was looking after British interests in Belgium, whether there was any truth in the report and, if so, to discover why the German authorities had ordered the arrest.
Baron von der Lancken, the chief of the German Political Department, paid no heed to the first letter Mr. Whitlock, the Minister, sent him, so a second was despatched. An answer was received to this and the information given that the English nurse had been committed to the military prison where she was in solitary confinement. The communication further stated that the Belgian lawyer, whom the American minister wished to consult with Miss Cavell, would not be allowed to see her.
Her German gaolers did not permit any of her friends to visit her, not even the English chaplain, except for a few minutes the last night. They intended that solitary confinement should break the spirit of the brave English woman but in this they failed. She turned the intended punishment into a blessing.
“I thank God,” she wrote, “for this ten weeks’ quiet before the end. Life has always been hurried and full of difficulty. This time of rest has been a great mercy.”
The trial, if such a travesty of justice could be so termed, was held on October the eleventh and sentence of death passed. Before daybreak, the following morning, Edith Cavell was executed.
Her brave, courageous spirit kept her up to the last. Only once did her physical strength give way. As she faced the line of executioners she fainted and fell to the earth. Then the German leader stepped forward, held his pistol to her head, and fired.
She was not afraid to die. Her last letter, written on the eve of her death, was to a young girl whom she had been trying to help.
“How shall I write you this last day?” she says. “Standing where I stand now the world looks already far away.... Nothing matters when one comes to this last hour but a clear conscience before God. Life looks so wasted and full of wrong-doing and things left undone.... I want you to know I was neither afraid nor unhappy but quite ready to give my life for England.”
The utmost punishment that the Germans hitherto had inflicted for a deed of this sort had been imprisonment. But now they were insistent that the Englishwoman, along with eight other prisoners from the thirty-five who had been arrested, should receive the death sentence. When the American and Spanish Ministers interviewed Baron von der Lancken and two of his staff the night before the execution they begged for a delay in carrying out the sentence, pointing out how the whole civilized world would recoil in horror and disgust if their nefarious intention was accomplished.
The German officers were adamant. They would not be moved by their pleadings.
It was with a sad heart that Mr. Whitlock finally went back to the American Legation where friends of Miss Cavell were waiting to hear the result of his mission. One glance at his face was sufficient to tell them that all his protests and petitions had been in vain. Edith Cavell, because she was English, was doomed to die, to satisfy Prussian hatred of England.
How different from her enemies’ was the soul of the devoted nurse. She was forgiving and did not wish her death to be avenged.
“I realize,” she said in her last moments, “that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone.”
Sir Edward Grey knew that the American Minister had done everything in his power to prevent the tragedy and, after the execution, he sent this note to the American Ambassador: