It is very hard to tell what day it is, or what hour in the day, in a
place where the days and nights are all mixed up, and where there are
no clocks.
Menie and Monnie had never seen a clock in their whole lives. If they
had they would have thought it was alive, and perhaps would have been
afraid of it.
But people everywhere in the world get sleepy, so the Eskimos sometimes
count their time by "sleeps." Instead of saying five days ago, they say
"five sleeps" ago.
The night after the bear was killed it began to snow. The wind howled
around the igloo and piled the snow over it in huge drifts.
The dogs were buried under it and had to be dug out, all but Nip and
Tup. They stayed inside with the twins and slept in their bed.
The twins and their father and mother were glad to stay in the warm hut.
At last the snow stopped, the air cleared, and the twins and Kesshoo
went out. Koolee stayed in the igloo.
She sat on her sleeping bench upon a pile of soft furs. A bear's skin
was stretched up on the wall behind her. She had a cozy nest to work in.
The lamp stood on the bench beside her. She was making a beautiful new
suit for Menie. It was made of fawn-skin as soft as velvet, and the
hood and sleeves were trimmed with white rabbit's fur.
Her thimble was made of ivory, and her needle too. Her thread was a
fine strip of hide. There was a bunch of such thread beside her.
Soon Kesshoo came in, bringing with him a dried fish and a piece of
bear's meat, from the storehouse.
Koolee looked up from her sewing. "Isn't it five sleeps since you
killed the bear?" she said.