Hilltop and Driftwood lived in a house made of logs covered with sod.
The sod was grass, dug up with the earth around the roots when the
ground wasn't frozen. It helped to keep the houses warm.
Look at the picture and you will see how different this log cabin was
from the ones you know about. The walls sloped inward, instead of going
straight up. This was important for two reasons. First, piling chunks
of sod was easier against sloping walls than against straight ones.
Second, the slanting walls made less space at the top. That meant less
air to heat than in a squared-off house.
[Illustration: Eskimos played string games like cat's cradle. This one
is a deer.]
A log house was very warm. In fact, Hilltop and Driftwood felt
uncomfortably hot when dinner was being cooked on old-time lamps or
over a new-fangled iron stove.
The grownups took off most of their clothes indoors, and the children
didn't wear anything. Everybody sweat a great deal. This is how they
wiped themselves dry: When the men sat around the house at night,
they often spent their time whittling pieces of wood into toys or
ornaments or tools. The shavings they made were very small and fine,
like excelsior. Piles of the shavings were always heaped up at the side
of the room. When anyone got sweaty, he wiped himself dry with the
excelsior and threw it away. He used his towel only once, so it never
got dirty.