The one little mail steamer which served three hundred miles of coast was unusually crowded with passengers and wrecked crews, and it had twice passed Wild Bight without calling on the southern journey, owing to the impossibility of making the Cove in northwest gales. Indeed every inch of space aboard her had been already occupied long before she reached us. Thus for three long weeks we had been waiting for a chance to go South.

Winter had set in in real earnest. Ice was making everywhere, and to offset our anxiety the whole Cove was secretly rejoicing that we might be compensated by Uncle Joe having to spend the winter with us. He was justified a little by the fact that everyone knew his attitude to rough seas, and that if he returned he had promised to take back with him Susie Carless’ derelict baby—a tiny piece of flotsam—with no natural guardian to “fare” for it. And near Christmas is no time for sending babies traveling round our northwest coast. Uncle Joe said nothing—he never did—and the church grew steadily under his hands.

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