Long, long ago, on St. Lawrence Island, there lived with his grandmother
a little blind orphan boy. He was so blind that he could not even see a
ray of light.
The grandmother was a wicked old witch, and treated him very badly.
They were frightfully poor, and had to eat muskrats, for they had no one
to go hunting food for them.
One day the old woman came in very much excited because she had seen a
polar bear with two cubs. Now you must understand that the bear cubs are
the baby bears, and are nice and round and plump and juicy and covered
with white fluffy fur. The grandmother smacked her lips at the thought
of those delicious little bears.
After grumbling about for a while, and scolding the boy because he could
not see to go hunting, she handed him a strong bow made from driftwood
and some fine arrows tipped with bone, and told him to go out and kill
those bears.
“But, Grandmother,” said he, “how can I kill the bears when I cannot see
to shoot them?”
“Come out and I will show you.” And she shoved him out of the house.
They sat down outside and waited for Mother Bear to come by with her
babies.
The grandmother told the boy to hold the arrow pointed straight in front
of him, and that she would tell him when to let it fly.
They waited a long time for the bears to come, and just as he was
getting so tired he feared he would drop the heavy bow, who should come
sauntering slowly along but Mother Bear and her two frisky babies. Just
as they passed the very spot at which the blind boy was aiming, his
grandmother whispered, “Shoot!” and he let fly the arrow. One by one he
killed the three bears in this way.
Of course the poor little fellow could not see the bears at all and was
not sure that he had killed them, but when he asked her the old witch
would tell him nothing. She only scolded him and shoved him into the
house.
Saying that she was going to gather sticks for the fire, she took her
big knife, with a green jade blade and walrus ivory handle, and went out
to skin the bears. Having carefully removed the skins, she hung the meat
to dry in the cache, a sort of high drying-frame, where no wild animal
could get at it.
When dinner time came the old grandmother feasted greedily on bear
steak, but she gave only lean muskrats to the hungry little boy.
In the morning the little fellow crawled out on his hands and knees to
search for willow weeds, which the Eskimos like to make tea from. They
chew it too sometimes. He had to feel his way very carefully so as not
to hurt himself, for of course he could see nothing.
While he was crawling along, reaching out with his hands for the
willows, he heard something hopping lightly before him.
A little twittering voice said, “Good-morning, boy.”
“Who are you?” said the boy, and he stopped to listen.
“I am a snipe, and I can make your eyes see if you will let me.”
“Well,” said the boy, “I have always been blind, and I don’t think a
snipe could give me my sight, but I could not be worse off than I am
now, so you might try, if you want to.”
No sooner had he said this than the snipe hopped on his shoulder and
began brushing his eyes very lightly with the tip of her pretty spotted
wing. This she did gently back and forth many times, until at last he
shouted gladly that he could see.
The little snipe did not let him go just then, but made him keep very
quiet until she had polished his eyes so bright that he could see the
tiniest speck of sand in the bottom of the ocean; then she sent him
home.
Thanking his little new-found friend, the boy ran back as fast as his
feet could carry him. When he got near the house, he dropped down on his
hands and knees again, and closing his eyes, came crawling in. As he
entered he detected the odor of bear meat.
“Grandmother, what is that good smell that makes me so hungry?” said he;
but the old woman spoke harshly, and scolded him for not bringing back
any willow weed. He still kept asking for food, hoping she would give
him some of the bear, but she placed the muskrat before him again, while
she ate the bear steaks. When she was too busy eating to notice him, he
peeped at her with one eye, and saw her devouring greedily. When she was
too well filled to eat any more, she went down to the sea to wash the
bear grease off her hands and face, but she was so heavy with food that
when she leaned over she fell into the water head first.
The boy heard a shriek and ran to the shore just in time to see her rise
to the surface, turn into a white whale, and swim away.
Ever since then the Eskimos have believed that all white whales were
once old women. Indeed, to this day, they insist that a bunch of white
hair is found inside the brain of a white whale, which makes them all
the more sure of it.