Papik and Milak had no regular bedtime. They slept when they were
sleepy. Lamps burned in their house all the time to give heat as well
as light.
An Eskimo lamp worked in the cleverest kind of way. It was made of
soapstone--a soft stone that could be hollowed out into a bowl. This
bowl was filled with oil which came from seal fat, called blubber.
Along one side of the bowl ran a little ridge of moss. This was the
lamp's wick.
[Illustration: ~A cooking pot hung above the lamp. The rack was for
drying clothes.~]
When the wick was lighted, it burned with a hot, white, steady flame.
The children's mother watched it and was careful that it never smoked.
To keep the lamp filled, she put a chunk of blubber near the flame. As
the flame burned it kept melting oil out of the blubber, and the oil
kept oozing down into the bowl where the wick soaked it up. The lamp
never ran over and never ran dry.
[Illustration: ~Eskimos never scolded their children for waking them
up.~]
Sometimes the round dome-shaped room got too hot and the roof began
to melt. Then Papik would go out with his snow-cutting knife and help
his father fix the drip. Instead of patching the roof, they shaved it
down! This made the ceiling colder, and the dripping water froze. When
the house was not warm enough, Papik and his father went out and heaped
more snow on the roof and sides. This kept the cold out.
[Illustration: ~Sometimes new puppies were kept warm in the rack over
the lamp.~]