As a young lawyer Wallace met Hubbard, an editor of Outing magazine, in 1900 and in 1903 they departed New York to explore the wilder and hitherto unexplored parts of Labrador. It was a difficult journey in which Hubbard died of starvation and Wallace managed to survive and go on to further explorations and successful books. Hubbard’s wife Mina felt that Wallace had disparaged her husband by implying that Leonidas caused the failure—she went on to her own career as successful competitor of Wallace as a Labrador explorer in the “great race of 1905.” All the reading that I could find was Scriptural and from The Book of Common Prayer.
p. 42, re Steve, one of the locals with whom they travelled: A thick mangle of mist obscured the shore, and Hubbard offered Steve a chart and compass. “Ain’t got no learnin’, sir; I can’t read, sir,” said the young livyere.
p. 155, Sunday, September 13th: The morning we spent in reading from the Bible. Hubbard read Philemon aloud and told us the story. I read aloud from the Psalms. George, who received his religious training in a mission of the Anglican Church on James Bay, listened to our reading with reverend attention.
p. 216: Before we started forward I read aloud John xvii.
p. 219: After he had had his tea, he read to his the first Psalm. These readings from the Bible brought with them a feeling of indescribable comfort, and I fancy we all went to our blankets that night content to know that whatever was, was for the best.
p. 241: p. 241, with Hubbard speaking to Wallace on his death bed and both starving: “B’y, I’m rather chilly; won’t you make the fire a little bigger.”
I threw on more wood, and when I sat down I told him I should keep the fire going all night; for the air was damp and chill.
“Oh, thank you, b’y,” he murmured, “thank you. You’re so good. After another silence, the words came faintly: “B’y, won’t you read to me those two chapters we’ve had before?—the fourteenth of John and the thirteenth of First Corinthians…I’d like to hear them again, b’y…I’m very….sleepy…but I want to hear you read before…I go…to sleep.”
Leaning over so that the light of the fire might shine on the Book, I turned to the fourteenth of John and began: “ ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ ” I paused to glance at Hubbard. He was asleep. [Hubbard died that night.]
p. 243-44, with Hubbard and Wallace: “Mornin’, Wallace,” he said, when he had collected his senses, “that blamed rain will make the travellin’ hard, won’t it?”
He tied the pieces of blanket to his feet, and started for the river to get a kettle of water with which to reboil the bones. The movement aroused Hubbard, and he, too, sat up.
“How’s the weather, b’y?” he asked. “It makes me think of Longfellow’s ‘Rainy Day,’ ” I replied. ‘ “The day is cold, and dark, and dreary.’ ”
“Yes,” he quickly returned; “but
“ ‘Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.’ ”
I looked at him with admiration. “Hubbard,” I exclaimed, “you’re a wonder! You’ve a way of making our worst troubles seem light. I’ve been sitting here imaging all sorts of things.”
p. 241, with Hubbard speaking to Wallace on his death bed and both starving: “B’y, I’m rather chilly; won’t you make the fire a little bigger.”
I threw on more wood, and when I sat down I told him I should keep the fire going all night; for the air was damp and chill.
“Oh, thank you, b’y,” he murmured, “thank you. You’re so good. After another silence, the words came faintly: “B’y, won’t you read to me those two chapters we’ve had before?—the fourteenth of John and the thirteenth of First Corinthians…I’d like to hear them again, b’y…I’m very….sleepy…but I want to hear you read before…I go…to sleep.”
Leaning over so that the light of the fire might shine on the Book, I turned to the fourteenth of John and began: “ ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ ” I paused to glance at Hubbard. He was asleep. [Hubbard died that night.]
p. 290-91: When Donald and Allen turned over to me the papers they had found in the tent, I took up Hubbard’s diary wondering if he had left a last message. In the back part of the book was a letter to his mother, a note to his wife, the evident attempt again to write to his wife, and the letter to the agent at Missanabie written on George’s behalf. From these
p. 298, concerning family worship after Wallace rescue: It may be thought strange that he [his host] should observe the forms of the Anglican Church in his family worship and subscribe to the Methodist Mission. The explanation is, that denominations cut absolutely no figure in Labrador; to those simple-hearted people, whose blood, for the most part, is such a queer mixture of Scotch, Eskimo, and Indian, there is only one church,—the Church of Jesus Christ,—and whenever a Christian missionary comes along they will flock from miles with the same readiness to hear him whatever division of the Church may claim his allegiance.