THE CHRISTMAS REINDEER
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Whitefoot goes astray]
THE CHRISTMAS
REINDEER
BY
THORNTON W. BURGESS
ILLUSTRATED BY
RHODA CHASE
NEW YORK
THE BOOK LEAGUE OF AMERICA
1929
COPYRIGHT, 1926,
BY THORNTON W. BURGESS
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form.
Set up and electrotyped.
Published October, 1926.
Reprinted August, 1928.
_Special edition published by arrangement with
The Macmillan Company._
_Printed in the United States of America_
DEDICATION
To the beautiful faith of childhood, the perpetuation of a charming
fable, and to a world made better by the Christmas spirit, this little
volume is dedicated.
THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. TUKTU AND AKLAK 3
II. KRINGLE VALLEY 9
III. TUKTU’S SOFT HEART 16
IV. WHITEFOOT GOES ASTRAY 22
V. LOST IN THE FOG 29
VI. THE AWAKENING OF TUKTU 34
VII. THE GREAT MILL 39
VIII. THE GOOD SPIRIT 45
IX. THE CHOSEN DEER 52
X. TUKTU’S HAPPY THOUGHT 57
XI. TUKTU TELLS HER STORY 62
XII. THE DEER PEOPLE 67
XIII. THE WILFUL YOUNG DEER 73
XIV. WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG 81
XV. THE FIRST REINDEER 87
XVI. LITTLE SPOT AND TUKTU DREAM 93
XVII. TUKTU AND AKLAK HAVE A SECRET 100
XVIII. THE ROUND-UP 107
XIX. THE CHRISTMAS STORY 113
XX. THE GREAT TEMPTATION 118
XXI. ATTACKED BY WOLVES 123
XXII. THE CHRISTMAS INVITATION 128
XXIII. THE CHRISTMAS VISION 134
ILLUSTRATIONS
Whitefoot goes astray _Frontispiece_
Page
Kutok watching the herd 11
Aklak goes hunting 23
Tuktu and Santa Claus 47
“They are wolves” 79
Tuktu making boots with her mother 95
Tuktu watching Aklak train a young deer 103
THE CHRISTMAS REINDEER
CHAPTER I
TUKTU AND AKLAK
Tuktu was a little Eskimo girl. Tuktu means caribou. She had been given
this name, because only a few days before her birth, a relative named
Tuktu had died; and as is the custom, this name had been given to the
baby. She was well named, for caribou were to have much to do with her
life. On the very day that she was born, Kutok, her father, had killed a
caribou when food was greatly needed. That year, for some unknown
reason, caribou had moved from their usual feeding grounds, and Kutok
and his family had had to depend almost wholly on seal and polar bear,
and these had been none too plentiful. So this caribou had brought great
joy to the home of Kutok. In the days following, he found the caribou
back in their old feeding grounds. Later, Kutok was to become a herder
of reindeer, and the reindeer, you know, are first cousins of the
caribou. So it was that Tuktu was well named.
Aklak, her brother, bore the name of the great Brown Bear. Aklak was two
years older than Tuktu and gave promise of being like his father--a
mighty hunter. Already he had killed his seal and none knew better than
he how to snare the ptarmigan. In the summer he and Tuktu gathered eggs
when the waterfowl came north in untold thousands for the nesting.
Whatever Aklak did, Tuktu tried to do.
While the children were still small, their father had become a herder of
reindeer, and the little folk spent much of their time with the deer.
They helped herd them. They did their part at the annual round-up. In
the spring they hunted for stray calves that had lost their mothers.
Both learned to drive deer to a sled.
During the long winter nights, the herders often gathered in Kutok’s
house, and there they told stories while the children listened. There
were stories of hunting, stories of adventure, stories of many strange
things. But the story that Tuktu and Aklak liked the best of all was
that of the chosen deer of the Valley of the Good Spirit. This was
especially true of Tuktu. She used to dream of that wonderful valley.
And whenever she saw the Northern Lights, the Aurora, shooting up high
overhead, she would wonder what would happen to any one who might stray
into that valley, for it was said that it was from this valley that
those lights came.
At last there came a time when she and Aklak actually were to live for a
week or two almost on the border of that valley. Do you wonder that she
tingled clear to the tips of her fingers and toes with little thrills of
anticipation, excitement, and perhaps just a wee bit of fear? It was the
fulfilment of a promise that their father had made them, that, when the
deer moved over from their summer feeding grounds to the Valley of the
Good Spirit, they should go with him to keep watch from a distance.
Even Aklak was excited, though he did his utmost not to appear so, and
trudged along behind his father as if visiting the Valley of the Good
Spirit were an everyday affair. All day they traveled. That is, they
traveled what would have been all day where you and I live. It wasn’t
all day there, for you know way up in the North there is no real night
in summer.
At last they reached the hut in which they were to live while the deer
grazed on the hills of the Valley of the Good Spirit. This hut was a
very rude affair, built partly in the ground and partly on the ground.
It was of wood and stone with a skin roof and a long entrance passage.
While not as big and comfortable as the house at home, it was the sort
of thing these children were used to and it was quite good enough.
That night after the evening meal, Tuktu begged her father to once more
tell the story of the Valley of the Good Spirit and of the chosen
reindeer. “Why is it called the Valley of the Good Spirit?” she asked.
“Because,” replied Kutok, “a wonderful and good spirit lives and moves
there.”
“Has any one ever seen him?” Aklak asked.
“No,” replied Kutok, “none but the deer people, and of these only the
chosen ones ever go down into that valley. But we know that a good
spirit lives there, for always the deer that graze on the hills about
the valley are safe from the wolf, the bear, and all other enemies. They
do not need to be watched. There need be no herder here, were it not
that it is well to know when the herd moves out, for then the summer
grazing is over. It is a good spirit, for is it not true that every year
eight deer are chosen and the next year returned to us the finest
sled-deer in all the North? The Good Spirit dwells there and with him
live many lesser spirits, who do his bidding.”
Thus it was that Kutok told the children of what you and I know as
fairies, and elves, and gnomes, and trolls. Eskimo children know nothing
about these little unseen people. To them, all are spirits.
“Have you ever looked down into the valley?” asked Aklak.
“No,” replied Kutok. “It is not well to be curious. I am content to stay
here and wait for the deer to move. So must you be.”
“What would happen if one should venture down into the valley?” asked
Aklak.
“That no man knows, for no man has ever been so bold as even to think of
doing such a thing,” replied his father. “My son, be wise with the
wisdom of your elders, and be satisfied. None but the deer folk ever
enter that valley and these, only the chosen ones. We will stay here and
from a distance watch the herd.”
“If it is such a good spirit,” thought Tuktu, although she didn’t
venture to express her thought aloud, “why should any one fear to go
down into the valley?”
And she was still wondering as she fell asleep.