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.
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