Scalawag Run suspected the sentimental entanglement into which Fate had mischievously cast Dickie Blue and pretty Peggie Lacey and there abandoned them; and Scalawag Run was inclined to be more scornful than sympathetic. What Dickie Blue should have done in the circumstances was transparent to every young blade in the harbor–an instant, bold behavior, issuing […]

It was one thing or the other. Yet it might be neither. There was a disquieting alternative. No doubt the message disposed of the delicate affair for good and all in ten terse words. The maid had made up her mind; she had disclosed it in haste: that was all. It might be, however, that […]

My name’s Race. I’ve traded these here Newfoundland north-coast outports for salt-fish for half a lifetime. Boy and youth afore that I served Pinch-a-Penny Peter in his shop at Gingerbread Cove. I was born in the Cove. I knowed all the tricks of Pinch-a-Penny’s trade. And I tells you it was Pinch-a-Penny Peter’s conscience that […]

It was March weather. There was sunshine and thaw. Anxious Bight was caught over with rotten ice from Ragged Run Harbor to the heads of Afternoon Arm. A rumor of seals on the Arctic drift ice off shore had come in from the Spotted Horses. It inspired instant haste in all the cottages of Ragged […]

No fish at Whispering Islands: never a quintal–never so much as a fin–at Come-by-Chance; and no more than a catch of tom-cod in the hopeful places past Skeleton Point of Three Lost Souls. The schooner Quick as Wink, trading the Newfoundland outports in summer weather, fluttered from cove to bight and tickle of the coast […]

When the Stand By went down in a northeasterly gale off Dusty Reef of the False Frenchman, the last example of the art of Terry Lute of Out-of-the-Way Tickle perished with her. It was a great picture. This is an amazing thing to say. It doubtless challenges a superior incredulity. Yet the last example of […]

We were lying snug from the wind and sea in Right-an’-Tight Cove–the Straits shore of the Labrador–when Tumm, the clerk of the Quick as Wink, trading the northern outports for salt cod in fall weather, told the engaging tale of Small Sam Small, of Whooping Harbor. It was raining. This was a sweeping downpour, sleety […]

We nosed into Hide-an’-Seek Harbor jus’ by chance. What come o’ the venture has sauce enough t’ tell about in any company that ever sot down in a forecastle of a windy night t’ listen to a sentimental ol’ codger like me spin his yarns. In the early dusk o’ that night, a spurt o’ […]

It was at Soap-an’-Water Harbor, with the trader Quick as Wink in from the sudsy seas of those parts, that Tumm, the old clerk, told the singular tale of the Madonna of Tinkle Tickle. “I’m no hand for sixpenny novels,” says he, with a wry glance at the skipper’s dog-eared romance. “Nursemaids an’ noblemen? I’m […]

Well, well! there was only one baby at Swamp’s End; and that baby Pattie Batch had adopted. In her mind, of course: quite on the sly. Nobody could adopt Pale Peter’s bartender’s baby in any other way. And here was Christmas come again! Day gone beyond the last waving pines in a cold flush of […]

Soon after dark, John Fairmeadow, with a pack on his broad back, swung from the Jumping Jimmy trail into the clearing of Swamp’s End, ceasing only then his high, vibrant song, and came striding down the huddled street, a big man in rare humour with life, labour and the night. A shadow–not John Fairmeadow’s shadow–was […]

As for poor little Pattie Batch, all this while, she sat alone, a doleful heart, in the shack at the edge of the big, black woods, quite unaware of the momentous advent of a Christmas baby at Swamp’s End. The Christmas wind was still high, still shaking the cabin, still rattling the door, still howling […]

It was long after noon in the far, big, white Northwest. Day was on the wing. Christmas Eve splendidly impended–thank God for unspoiled childish faith and joys of children everywhere! Christmas Eve was fairly within view and welcoming hail, at last, in the thickening eastern shadows. Long Day at its close. Day in a perturbation […]