There are no lawyers there, but for the purposes of justice the circuit court visits the place at intervals, coming by boat. A curious case was being tried the day of our arrival, and a crowd of boys were in attendance. A certain boy had been made the subject of ridicule by the others, who jeered at him and nicknamed him the “Sheep.” The more he showed his resentment the more they tormented him, and one boy went so far as to call out “Ba-a-a! Ba-a-a!” when he met him on the road.
The boy who said “Ba-a-a!” was now on trial, his offense was proved, and he was sentenced to jail for thirty days.
The jail is in the constable’s house, and when I was calling there a few days later I was shown the cells, which are simply three neat little bedrooms, and I saw the jail yard, where the culprit was digging his bare toes in the ground, with an embarrassed air.
Public opinion was with him, because he was a poor and honest boy who had just got a place to work, while the “Sheep” was an arrogant boy home on a vacation from a St. John’s school.
The air at Channel is so crystal pure and bracing, that it seems as if one living there need never be ill or tired, but the water supply is poor and the wells are few and shallow. That is a drawback. The merchant has secured a good well, and another man has a cistern full of rain water which he filters, but most of the people depend on shallow wells. There is no depth of soil, and where there is soil without drainage it is boggy. There was a pretty house next the one where we stayed, with a broad, green yard, but the owner told me that all the earth had been brought in boat-loads from a river bank some miles away. Although there are such limitless forests in the interior, at Channel there are no trees except the postmaster’s willows, and that is why the people have to buy coal for fuel.
But the rocks, the air, the harbor, the sea, and the waves dashing in foam over the bar, yield a fine exhilaration and make one unwilling to leave Channel. The people are so friendly that it is easy to become personally acquainted with them. We were called “the Americans,” and everyone was ready to stop and talk with us and to invite us into their homes. My heart warms when I think of them. There was the day when we visited the Methodist school and saw a chalk line drawn on the floor before the toes of the class which came up to recite. After the recitation, the earnest young teacher asked us for speeches, so we paid for our pleasure. At the Church of England school we were much interested in the games which the children played on the rocks in recess.
I am convinced that we burden ourselves with too many luxuries. When we were calling on Jim Savery’s wife, whose house has only one room, with a loft above, where the family sleep, I glanced around and could not see that any actual necessity of life was lacking. There was a table and four home-made chairs, so that I could imagine the family at meals, or the mother sewing and the children studying their lessons. There was a good stove, with kettle and tins, a chest to keep clothes in, a few shelves in a corner, with notched paper and the best dishes on them, and in another corner a closet, which presumably held provisions. There was one lamp and a spinning wheel. A bright little girl of four swung on a chair-back watching us, and a tall boy stood in the doorway.
I wish that you could see Jim Savery’s wife! She might have stepped out from one of Millet’s best pictures. She is a tall, strong woman, with noble features, well browned, and carries herself grandly. She was carding soft, white masses of wool, and after that she began to spin, walking back and forth beside the wheel. She was not born in Channel. She told us she came from Codroy. She said Codroy was beautiful, with trees and gardens-different from Channel. She had been back once or twice to visit her folks there. In her calm, benevolent countenance there was not a trace of discontent, but I found myself wishing that she could go to Codroy once every year when gardens were in bloom.