When Meleese saw the frozen man, she knew that there was but
one thing to do, and with all the courage of her splendid heart she
amputated his foot. The torture of that terrible hour no one will ever
know. But when John Cummins returned to his home and, wild with fear,
followed across the lake, he scarcely recognized the Meleese who flung
herself sobbing into his arms when he found her. For two weeks after that
Meleese herself was sick. Thus, through the course of years, it came
about that it was, indeed, a stranger in the land who had not heard her
name. During the summer months Meleese's work, in place of duty, was a
pleasure. With her husband she made canoe journeys for fifty miles about
her home, hearing with her the teachings of cleanliness, of health and of
God. She was the first to hold to her own loving breast many little
children who came into their wild and desolate inheritance of life. She
was the first to teach a hundred childish lips to say "Now I lay me down
to sleep," and more than one woman she made to see the clear and starry
way to brighter life.
Far up on Reindeer Lake, close to the shore, there is a towering
"lob-stick tree"--which is a tall spruce or cedar lopped of all its
branches to the very crest, which is trimmed in the form of a plume. A
tree thus shriven and trimmed is the Cree cenotaph to one held in almost
spiritual reverence, and the tree far up on Reindeer Lake is one of the
half dozen or more "lob-sticks" dedicated to Meleese.
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