It is almost noon one day when Agoonack's mother wraps the little girl
in her shaggy clothes and climbs with her a high hill, promising a
pleasant sight when they shall have reached the top.
It is the sun, the beautiful, bright, round sun, which shines and
smiles at them for a minute, and then slips away again below the far,
frozen water.
They haven't seen him for many months, and now they rejoice, for the
next day he comes again and stays longer, and the next, and the next,
and every day longer and longer, until at last he moves above them in
one great, bright circle, and does not even go away at all at night.
His warm rays melt the snow and awaken the few little hardy flowers
that can grow in this short summer. The icy coat breaks away from the
clear running water, and great flocks of birds with soft white plumage
come, like a snowstorm of great feathery flakes, and settle among the
black rocks along the seashore. Here they lay their eggs in the many
safe little corners and shelves of the rock; and here they circle
about in the sunshine, while the Esquimau boys make ready their
long-handled nets and creep and climb out upon the ledges of rock,
and, holding up the net as the birds fly by, catch a netful to carry
home for supper.
The sun shines all day long, and all night long, too; and yet he
can't melt all the highest snowdrifts, where the boys are playing
bat-and-ball,--long bones for sticks, and an odd little round one for
a ball.
It is a merry life they all live while the sunshine stays, for they
know the long, dark winter is coming, when they can no longer climb
among the birds, nor play ball among the drifts.
The seals swim by in the clear water, and the walrus and her young one
are at play; and, best of all, the good reindeer has come, for the sun
has uncovered the crisp moss upon which he feeds, and he is roaming
through the valleys where it grows among the rocks.
The old men sit on the rocks in the sunshine, and laugh and sing, and
tell long stories of the whale and the seal, and the great white
whale that, many years ago, when Agoonack's father was a child, came
swimming down from the far north, where they look for the northern
lights, swimming and diving through the broken ice; and they watched
her in wonder, and no one would throw a harpoon at this white lady of
the Greenland seas, for her visit was a good omen, promising a mild
winter.
Little Agoonack comes from her play to crouch among the rocky ledges
and listen to the stories. She has no books; and, if she had, she
couldn't read them. Neither could her father or mother read to her:
their stories are told and sung, but never written. But she is
a cheerful and contented little girl, and tries to help her dear
friends; and sometimes she wonders a great while by herself about what
the pale stranger told them.
And now, day by day, the sun is slipping away from them; gone for a
few minutes to-day, to-morrow it will stay away a few more, until
at last there are many hours of rosy twilight, and few, very few, of
clear sunshine.
But the children are happy: they do not dread the winter, but they
hope the tired travellers have reached their homes; and Agoonack
wants, oh, so much! to see them and help them once more. The father
will hunt again, and the mother will tend the lamp and keep the house
warm; and, although they will have no sun, the moon and stars are
bright, and they will see again the streamers of the great northern
light.
Would you like to live in the cold countries, with their long darkness
and long sunshine?
It is very cold, to be sure, but there are happy children there, and
kind fathers and mothers, and the merriest sliding on the very best of
ice and snow.