“LET THERE BE PEACE”
Once the next fall Sitka again met the Eskimo, who again pursued him
with his spear. This time the little bear made a great dive into the
sea and swam to safety under water.
But apparently the little brown boy was determined to have his
hide,--as determined as the little white bear was to keep it. For Unga
had boasted in his village that he meant to get that bear. He had vowed
to have Sitka’s great fur coat.
The next year, when Sitka had grown larger still, and Mother White Bear
was too busy with his new little brother to pay him any attention, the
Eskimo nicked his ear with his bone-pointed spear. After that he knew
him by that nicked ear. The year after he grazed Sitka’s side, and
Sitka turned and pursued him angrily, as determined now to get the boy
as the boy was to get the bear.
Year after year went by, while Sitka grew into a huge white monster,
and Unga developed into a lithe little brown-faced man clad in the fur
of his kill. And it came to pass that the Eskimo’s one great desire
was to carry Sitka’s pelt to his igloo and deliver his boast to the
admiring eyes of his village. And Sitka knew that the Eskimo youth
would never leave him in peace while they both should live.
One autumn when Sitka was ten years old and the Eskimo twenty, they had
both gone far inland over the Arctic barrens, and both for the same
reason, in the hope of securing some reindeer meat. As it happened, a
hoard of the great, white Arctic wolves had also followed the deer.
One night Sitka stood gazing at the most wonderful Aurora he had ever
seen. Brilliant bars of light colored like the rainbow marched across
the Northern sky-line,--always from West to East. Suddenly across the
glowing North stalked a row of seven of the great white wolves. Failing
to find the reindeer, and seeing Sitka so far from his native seas,
they began circling toward him; and though the lone bear knew better
than to hope to fight off so many foes, and though he took to his heels
with all swiftness, the wolves were swifter, and soon he was baring
fang and claw to a circle of famished green eyes and slavering jaws.
Sitka reared himself on his great haunches, towering tall above them,
that he might sell his life dearly.
But Unga had also seen the seven wolves, white against the ruddy sky.
And he had seen the great white bear prints, and knew that his old-time
foe was near. Now, he told himself with chagrin, the wolves would get
the bear, not he,--and he could never bring the great white pelt to his
village in the pride of his long-time boast.
Like the flight of a falling star a bright idea shot into his head. He,
armed as he was with the musket the white men had given his father,
would fight the wolves off the bear! Then he would still have a chance,
some day, of getting the bear himself.
With the fire-arm that spoke death from afar, he came running to meet
the wolves. With his musket that out-marvelled the sharpest spear he
brought down the foremost wolf. But the shot only wounded that great
beast, so white against the surrounding whiteness,--it did not stop
him long. The surprise of that gave the little brown man pause. A new
thought appalled him. Should his gun fail too often, might he not find
himself in danger?
On came the ravening wolf pack, and back fell the Eskimo with his
weapon that here broke a leg and there caused the red blood to flow,
but did not stop the wolves. Soon Unga was standing back to back with
the great white bear, within the narrowing circle of their foes, aware
that not the bear’s life alone, but his own, lay largely in Sitka’s
fighting powers.
But though the great bear unaided could not have felled so many foes,
who darted now on this side, now on that, under his guard in intent to
ham-string him, nor could the Eskimo alone have handled so many with
even the best of weapons, between them they put first one, then another
of the attacking hoard to rout. Where the great bear was taken at a
disadvantage, the Eskimo came to the rescue. Where the little brown man
would have been overwhelmed, the mailed white forearm of his furry foe
sent one more of their common foes to writhing in an agony of deep-cut
wounds. Now the leader wolf had turned the brunt of his ferocity on the
weaker animal, which was the man. But Unga’s musket, pointed close,
blew the old wolf’s head off. Then the next in leadership of the wolf
pack approached the bear, keen to dart under his mailed fist, that
guarded his vitals, and out again before punishment descended. But the
lightning swiftness of that mailed fist was aided by the roar of the
man-made weapon close at his head, and he was done for.
All this while the little brown man recognized with amazement that for
himself as well as the bear it had become a matter of life and death.
They two stood back to back, comrades of battle, with Sitka, red-eyed
and furious, turning the tide of battle in his favor. And twin to the
thought, he also recognized that, were it not for his musket, the bear
would soon have been laid low on the snow instead of the mangled wolves.
The bear also was bleeding, as was the little brown man, but both would
heal quickly, as the wounds were not deep. But the wolves lay dead at
their feet.
The bear stood licking his wounds, while the Auroral curtain shot
beauty across the frozen sky, as if nothing but beauty could exist in
all the white Arctic world. Sitka was too blinded with blood to see
his remaining enemy,--his life-long enemy, more feared by far than the
wolves had ever been. Unga could have got him then. But he didn’t!
He had fought side by side with this great furry fellow, with their two
lives in the balance. He had fought to save the bear, and the bear’s
good fight had saved his own life. They were fellow fighters! They had
fought together,--and won!
It came to him then that he no longer wanted the pelt of the plucky
brute. He no longer cared to make it his boast in the village nor wear
it before his igloo. Why, he owed a debt of gratitude to that bear, and
the bear was already his in the sense that he had saved him. Besides,
the great white beast, whom he had watched from the days of his wee,
fat cub-hood,--this dumb brute who would now be so helpless against the
pointing of the man-made musket,--had he not fairly won his life and
freedom?
“Do you go your way, and I will go mine,” he said in his heart, and by
some strange telepathy, Sitka in his heart understood. “Henceforth, let
there be peace between us!”
The little brown man sped away into the Arctic night, to the East where
the reindeer herded, and Sitka shambled off toward the West, where the
fish of the sea never failed him.
FINNY-FOOT
I. THE WATER PUPPY
Finny-Foot first opened his round, wondering eyes on a world of
sun-kissed waves, deep blue beneath a deep blue sky.
The waves slapped in white foam against the rocks, and the sky foamed
with white wind clouds. The rocks were slippery with sea-weed, and
shone as sleek as the wet brown fur of the seals. Finny-Foot’s woolly
white coat, which is what Harbor Seal babies always wear their first
spring, made him look like just another of the fat white balls of foam
that the April wind tossed up and down the yellow sand of the beach.
But the gray gulls flying over-head knew, and called to one another to
see the new water puppy.
His parents, like the aunts and uncles and grandfather of the little
colony, wore gray, like the ocean on a dull day, with spots of darker
gray. But the new young cousins were all white like Finny-Foot.
In the beginning, while Mother Nature was still trying first one kind
of animal, and then another, to see which made the best pattern, these
water puppies had lived on land, and had outside ears like any other
dog, and four short legs on which to carry their fat, furry bodies.
Then their great-great-ever-so-great grand-parents had decided to live
on the rocks of the harbors up and down the sea-shore, where it would
be easier to catch the fish on which they lived. Of course then Mother
Nature changed their legs to “flippers” or fin-feet, so that it would
be easier for them to swim. That is why seals look so much like fish,
with their fore flippers for fins and their hind ones held together
like a tail.
They bark like dogs, though, and those finny-looking fore-feet help
them to crawl about on land, as well as swim. Of course now that they
have become water animals, their ears are all covered with fur, so that
you might think they didn’t have any ears at all. But they can hear a
fish swim by, for all that.
At first Finny-Foot cried when he was hungry, in a voice almost like
that of a human baby, and was nursed like any other puppy. Then he
learned to eat the tender young sea salmon that his mother caught for
him,--and the clams and scallops that she found and shelled for him.
It was a pleasant life. He had nothing to do but tumble about with the
other seal babies, or lie watching the gulls that circled back and
forth with the big, salt-smelling waves, singing in their hoarse voices
that sounded so like rusty hinges, and watching for fish they might
grab.
One day, too, the whole sky seemed covered with a mammoth flock of
ducks, (Surf Scoters), who were going to Alaska for the summer, where
they would not find it so crowded when their young were hatched. For
hours the V-shaped flocks swept Northward in a gray-black cloud,
while the air rang with their musical whistle. Finny-Foot stared, his
puppy-like eyes round with wonder, but at last they all disappeared
into the blue distance. There must have been hundreds and thousands and
millions of them. How he wished he, too, might travel and see the world
beyond those rocks! He little dreamed how soon his wish was to come
true, nor in what an amazing fashion.
His mother kept his oily fur sleek and shining, so that he could slide
through the water easily, and he had no trouble at all about learning
to swim. Soon he could catch a tiny fish in his jaws, if he swam after
it fast enough, and his fur turned gray in leopard-like spots.
One day, though, these happy, quiet times came to a sudden end. At
first the only thing he noticed was a row of half a dozen long black
fins cutting through the waves, far out at sea. Swiftly the black fins
came nearer, then an up-toss of their heads showed the circling gulls a
row of mammoth jaws, armed with the most murderous-looking teeth. It
was a band of killer whales, and at the sight, every seal on the rocks
started swimming for shore as fast as he could go.
Finny-Foot’s mother towed him with her when his strength gave out, and
so great was her fright that she never stopped till she had him far up
on the sandy beach, where the whales could not follow. Those of their
colony who were not swift enough got caught, and were devoured by the
fish-shaped monsters who were not fish, and whose ugly black sides bore
white patches that glistened in the sun. Each one had a fin on the
middle of his back that stuck straight up, so that you could see it a
long way off. It was that that had given them warning.
All afternoon they waited on the beach. Then at last the row of black
fins headed out to sea, and it was deemed safe by Grandfather Seal to
return to the rocks and fish for supper. And to hear them barking under
the moon that night, watching the white foam blowing down the beach in
the wind, no one would have known the bloody fate that they had so
narrowly escaped.
[Illustration: She never stopped till she had him on the sandy beach.]
But the killer whales came back next day, and this time took them so
nearly by surprise that there was not time to swim to shore, and those
who could not scramble to the highest point of the highest rock were
swallowed whole. How they huddled together upon that high rock, while
the killers swam around and around them watching to see if one of
them would not fall off into the water where they could reach them!
Finny-Foot’s mother tucked him into a crevice and stood over him. No
use for his father, and the other fathers, even to put up a fight
against the killers. They wouldn’t have had a chance in the world.
But once more the whales swam back to sea, and this time they did not
return; for they, too, were on their way to Alaska, where they hoped to
catch the fur seals as they migrated Southward.
One day that summer, when Finny-Foot’s mother and her neighbors felt
quite sure there were no killers about, (Grandfather had been watching
the sea all day with his big, round eyes), they decided to have a
picnic, and explore some rocks further out in Monterey Harbor, where
the painted boats of the fishermen pass.
It proved to be a wonderful fishing-ground. Finny-Foot, forgetting his
mother’s command to stay close by her side, swam out to the dories, his
round eyes bulging with wonder at the way they pulled up their netfuls
of fish. Then he saw a big salmon that he wanted to catch.
The fish made a sudden dive, and Finny-Foot, taking a deep breath, dove
after him. The next thing he knew, he was all tangled up in something.
Then he was lifted straight into the air, in the midst of a netful of
wriggling, flapping fish.
“Father!” cried a black-eyed little boy. “See what I’ve caught!
Oo!--May I have it?”
II. PIETRO’S[2] PET
When Finny-Foot, the seal baby, found himself in the fisherman’s net,
he never once thought how easy it would be to catch one of the fish
wriggling all about him.
[2] Note--Pronounce Pya tro.
His first thought was surprise that he should be rising out of the
water against his will. Then he was afraid. He had never seen a human
being so close before. Sometimes he had barked, with the family group
on seal rocks, as people came to watch them from the beach. Then he
would swim to the other side of the rocks to wait till all was safe
once more.
It was a boy of nine whose black eyes first spied Finny-Foot as the net
was emptied. “Pietro” his father called him. His cheeks were flushed
with the kiss of the California sun, and his black curls blew in the
breeze, as he stood bare-footed in the fishing-boat. This boy spoke
words that Finny-Foot, of course, could not understand. But he read the
kindness in his tones, and he felt the gentleness with which the boy
stroked his furry head, and he was no longer quite so frightened.
The boy must have asked his father if he might have the seal for a pet,
because in another moment he was hugging him joyously, both arms tight
around him, while the fish squirmed at their feet, and the man and his
partner set sail for home.
But though Finny-Foot was no longer so afraid of being killed and
eaten, as the killer whales would have eaten him, swallowing the little
fellow whole, he suddenly realized that he was a long way from home and
mother. Putting his fore flippers on Pietro’s shoulder, he began to
cry, and you would never believe how much it sounded like a human baby
crying for its mother.
Pietro stroked his wet, oily, fishy-smelling fur, which was as soft as
a kitten’s, and tried to comfort him, but still the seal baby wailed
his loneliness.
His mother heard him, too, and came swimming after the boat, her great
eyes questioning his round, frightened eyes, as he peered over Pietro’s
shoulder. But when he struggled to get free, the boy only held him the
tighter, and Pietro and the men had their eyes on the course ahead, for
the stiffening wind was carrying them along at a great rate. But she
followed as far as she could, then sadly gave it up and went back to
tell the colony what had happened.
By and by it occurred to Pietro that his pet might be hungry, and he
offered him a little fish. Finny-Foot ate it eagerly, and the boy
laughed at his round, puppy-like head, and kitten-like whiskers, and
the clever fore fins that he had instead of arms. He looked like a
fish, in one way, too, with his hind flippers held back close together
like a tail.
When they had landed at Fisherman’s Wharf and Pietro had carried the
pale, spotty-coated little fellow to the shack where the nets hung
drying, young Finny-Foot surprised the boy by walking across the
porch. It was a funny walk, but we will have to call it that, because
it certainly was not swimming. First the seal would raise himself on
his fore nippers, then draw himself forward, with a hump of his back.
Sometimes he used his hind flippers, and sometimes he kicked them
together straight up in the air. The other fishermen’s children greeted
this performance with shrieks of laughter; and they offered him fish
till Pietro had to put a stop to it, for fear Finny-Foot would over-eat.
He got his mother’s wash-tub and filled it with sea water for his
strange visitor; then, with the help of some of his young neighbors, he
rolled a great rock up on the porch beside it, in the sunshine. There,
he felt, the little seal might feel at home. Then he hooked the screen
door on the inside, so that no one could get in to tease him.
Finny-Foot was a tiny fellow. His mother had been only five feet long,
for she was a harbor or leopard seal, not a fur seal. Her tribe, an
old sailorman told Pietro, are found everywhere, from the Arctic Ocean
to South Carolina on the Atlantic side and Southern California on the
Pacific. All up and down the coast, this old sailor had seen harbor
seals, barking on the rocks and fishing on the sandy bars. He had heard
they even swam away up some of the big rivers and into the Great Lakes.
They have been seen off the coast of the British Isles, and as far away
as Japan.
Finny-Foot soon learned to know the boy as his friend, and inside of
a week was genuinely fond of him. He loved to have Pietro stroke his
silky fur. He would come humping himself along to where the boy sat in
the sunshine, mending his father’s nets, and lay his round, white head
against his arm, and make a funny puppy-like sound that the boy came to
understand meant: “Please come and play with me!”
Then Pietro would teach him to fetch and carry a stick, or some other
simple trick. He longed to try throwing the stick in the water for
Finny-Foot to retrieve, but he never felt quite sure that his odd pet
would swim back to him.
An old seaman used to watch the seal at his antics. One day he offered
the boy a dollar for his pet. He said he wanted to take Finny-Foot on
board the whaling vessel for a mascot, to bring them luck. But the boy
would not part with him.
The next day the old sailor offered him five dollars, but still Pietro
would not listen. His ship was to sail the next day at dawn, and the
boy heaved a sigh of relief when, with a final offer of seven dollars,
the old man said goodbye. The money would have meant needed clothes to
the fisherman’s boy, but he would not part with his pet.
Then as Pietro was looking at a newspaper that someone had left on the
wharf, his eyes caught the picture of a troupe of trained seals rolling
barrels. They were to be in next week’s vaudeville show, and Pietro
resolved to find a way to see it.
III. THE TRAINED SEALS
“I’ve got a trained seal,” Pietro told the man at the ticket window, as
he stood on tip-toe to buy his seat. He had earned the quarter mending
a net for a neighbor on Fisherman’s Wharf.
“What’s that?” demanded a sharp-eyed man behind him, who happened to be
the owner of the show.
Pietro told him about Finny-Foot.
“Where do you live?” the man asked, with a peculiar gleam in his eye.
But the boy was too over-awed by the mirrored magnificence of the
theatre to wonder at the question.
The whole program, the usual vaudeville, entranced him. But when the
trained seals appeared, his heart thrilled with delight. The curtain
rose on a row of the clumsy fellows seated in a circle on up-turned
barrels, barking in chorus.
First came a barrel-rolling contest, at which the audience applauded
mightily, as it is rare to see trained seals. Pietro assured himself
Finny-Foot did as well as the best of them. There was a trick seal who
was always hiding from the showman. There was a mother seal in trailing
skirts and plumed hat, holding her baby in her flappers. (The little
seal looked too cunning in his white bonnet and long dress). There
were other tricks, and every move the animals made, with their awkward
flappers, sent the audience into gales of laughter. There was even a
seal orchestra, which set Pietro wondering how they could hold their
violins. He could not see that both instrument and bow were tied in
place. The showman rewarded each performer with a fish, just as Pietro
did Finny-Foot. The big bull seal at the kettle drums would hammer away
with all his might till he saw the man approach, then he would open his
jaws for his fish and eat it, before again taking part in the symphony.
But the thing everyone enjoyed the most was when a large glass tank
was drawn on the stage. On an up-standing rock in the middle lay three
seals, barking just as they might have off the shore of Monterey. The
showman threw in a fish, and all three dove for it. He threw them
another, and another, then a whole handful of small, silver-shining
fingerlings, and the seals dove again and again for them, bringing them
up in their jaws and holding them down with one flapper while they ate,
if they were too large to swallow whole.
Pietro went home as proud as a peacock to think that his seal could do
tricks as good as those people paid to see.
That evening, just as he had seated himself on the porch in the sunset
glow, with Finny-Foot scrambling awkwardly for his supper, the showman
appeared.
“Now where is that seal?” he asked briskly.
Finny-Foot was put through his paces, the boy proud and flattered by
the showman’s interest.
“What will you take for him?” the man asked at last. “I need another
seal for my pyramid act.”
“What’s that?” Pietro’s father called through the window.
“I’ll give you five dollars for that seal,” said the showman, holding
out a green-back.
“But I don’t want to sell him,” said Pietro promptly.
“Better take it,” advised his father. “It will buy a new coat for
school.”
“Do I have to, Father?”
“As you please. It is your seal.”
The showman added a dollar to the five in his hand. Pietro looked at
the money, then at his ragged jacket. Six dollars would mean a lot to
him. Then he looked down at Finny-Foot, whose round, puppy-like eyes
were fastened on his trustingly. He wondered if the showman was kind to
his seals. Then he remembered the whip he had snapped at them when they
were slow to obey a command. Besides, how could a seal be happy so far
from the ocean he loved? He remembered the old seal who lay all day on
the side-walk of the Cliff House beach.
“No!” decided the fisherman’s boy. Nor did the offer of more money
change his mind. He only hugged his pet to his ragged coat and shook
his curly head. Nor could the showman persuade Pietro’s father to
interfere.
After that the boy fell to thinking. Soon school would begin, and he
must have shoes. One bright morning he took Finny-Foot in his arms,
and made his way to the Ferry Building, where he sometimes earned a
dime carrying someone’s suitcase. He was followed by a troupe of small
boys and a dozen older people, who closed in about him in a circle
when he set the seal on the ground. Borrowing an empty barrel from
a man he knew at a fruit-stand, he began putting the seal through
his barrel-rolling trick. Then he passed his hat. Nickels, dimes and
pennies came pouring in,--mostly from the grown-up portion of his
audience. When the next ferry-boat landed, pouring a new audience into
the facade, he repeated his show. A third time he put Finny-Foot
through his paces, and then passed the hat.
A policeman stopped him. It seemed that there were several reasons why
he could not give another show. But he had already earned enough money
to buy the new shoes.
After that Pietro had to leave Finny-Foot shut up all day while he went
to school, and the young seal did not thrive. No longer would he caper
joyously after the fish that were thrown him. No longer did his fur
gleam velvety and his brown eyes shine. Pietro realized that a seal
does not belong on dry land. He needs to live on the rocks off-shore,
where he can dive for his dinner. Finny-Foot might even be homesick for
the other seals. The boy’s heart ached with pity.
Then he had an idea! When Saturday came, he went with his father in the
fishing dory, and with them went Finny-Foot.
They were not heading toward where Pietro had found his pet, but he
waited till he had scanned the water in every direction to make sure
there were no sharks, then he gave Finny-Foot one last pat on his
puppy-like head, and hugged him, and let him slip into the water.
The young seal, joyous with the feel of the salt tide, and never once
thinking that he was leaving his friend, struck out for a point of
rock he could just see above the wave tops. His muscles were soft from
disuse,--but just let him reach those rocks, and rest awhile, and he
would see if he could not find his way home!
IV. FLAPPER THE FUR SEAL
It was “sink or swim” for Finny-Foot,--and it was a long swim to the
point of rock he had seen.
He had almost given up, when the tide turned and carried him right
toward it. But where was his mother, and the others he had left? Here
was no sound of barking seals, though over on the yellow ribbon of
beach sand the wee sandpipers ran up and down with the waves, just as
they had at Monterey, and the gulls creaked and curveted overhead.
“I want to go home!” wept Finny-Foot, in his voice like a human baby’s
wail. But the only answer he received was the slap of the waves against
his rock and the creak of gulls overhead.
He caught a fish and ate it before he hid himself in a cranny of
the rocks to take a nap. He awoke to an ocean deep blue under the
California sun, and a cloudless sky that seemed to bend down to meet it
everywhere except where the beach met the never-ending waves with its
yellow sand dunes. He caught another fish, and took another nap, and
when he awoke this time he felt much better.
He was just wondering if he could find Seal Rocks if he were to swim
along close to shore, when he spied the up-standing fins of a band of
killer whales. They were far out at sea, but he remembered what had
happened to the seal colony when the killers had pursued them, and for
days afterward he dared not make the venture.
Then one morning, when the sea was calm, he sighted a big rock shining
black and wet, further down the coast, and swam for it. This rock was
even better for basking in the sunshine and diving for passing fish.
But it was not home, and Finny-Foot was even lonelier now than he had
been with Pietro. Again and again he started swimming further South,
where he seemed to feel that home ought to be. But always he saw
sharks, and had to hide himself behind the nearest rock. Sometimes,
too, after a long, tiring swim, he failed to find a good fishing ground
and had to go hungry to sleep. Then he came to another town, where he
was afraid to go too close to shore, and waited long days on a point of
rock that looked far out to sea. There were always plenty of fish, but
would he have to live all his life alone?
One day he saw a sleek dark form swimming just off shore. Now
Finny-Foot’s own family, like all harbor seals the world over, were
gray spotted when full grown. But the newcomer was a rich dark brown
and ever so much larger. Still, Finny knew he was a seal by the way he
swam, and himself swam out to greet him.
The visitor proved to be an Alaska fur seal, a young fellow who had
migrated South with the other fur seals, but who had been wounded
by a shark and had to go ashore till his wound was healed. He told
Finny-Foot of that land of ice and snow where his own colony made its
home. Finny-Foot decided that it must be the need of keeping warm so
near the North Pole that gave him such wonderful fur, for he would need
it there to keep him from freezing.
There were millions of them where Flapper the Fur Seal came from. Every
spring, he said, they started North, after a winter along the coast
of Canada and as far South as Northern California. Often for days and
weeks at a time they had to swim through a sea that was beaten into
giant waves by the storm winds. Often rain and snow and sleet pommeled
the sea all about them, and the sky hung low and gray with clouds,
and they could hardly see for the gray fog that hung over everything.
Sometimes they had to dodge between drifting ice-bergs that roared and
cracked in the most terrific manner. Sometimes a storm would raise the
waves so high that they were nearly drowned.
But at last, just in time for the short Alaskan summer, they would
reach the small, fog-hidden Pribilof Islands, where the mother seals,
hundreds of them together, would raise their babies. The fish are so
plentiful that the season is one long feast.
The fur seal babies are a woolly black. And here the seal youngsters
would play like puppies, racing and tumbling about together with their
funny, awkward flappers, diving and swimming and leaping from the
water, all in the merriest way imaginable.
But even there the killer whales pursued them. Then, too, there were
men who killed them for their fur, (Flapper said). There were great
white polar bears who tried to catch them, and Eskimos and Indians,
who kill them both for food and fur, so that a fur seal has to be
continually on the alert.
But all this danger and hardship had made Flapper unusually well able
to take care of himself, and he thought that if Finny-Foot wanted to
come along, they ought to be able to keep out of harm’s way until they
found the little colony off Monterey. He himself, thought Flapper,
ought now to wait until he saw some band of migrants returning to
Alaska, and join them for the two thousand mile journey home.
Finny-Foot invited him to join the colony at Monterey, but Flapper said
the warm climate was beginning to make him feel itchy in his heavy
furs, and if he did not find his people within a few days more, he was
going to swim back North by himself, at least as far as Canada.
One curious thing he told Finny-Foot. Instead of each family having
just one mother, as harbor seals did, there in Alaska a family might
have a hundred mothers all bringing up their children on the same rocky
islet. But that was because of several reasons. First, so many things
happened to the more adventurous father seals, who had to fight off
intruders, that often there weren’t enough to go around. Then the bull
seal is so large, (four or five times as large as his mates), that he
can easily protect a whole colony of mothers and babies.
Finny-Foot thought he would much prefer to have the kind of families
his own colony believed in. But then, of course, everything is so
different in Alaska, where it means a struggle just to keep alive, that
he supposed it must be necessary.
One day he and Flapper had been playing together, Flapper leaping high
above the water in great, glistening curves that Finny-Foot could not
begin to imitate, when Flapper gave a bark of amazement. There, on a
cluster of rocks in a curving harbor, above which the gulls creaked
and curveted as they watched for fish, he could see a number of gray
objects moving awkwardly about or diving into the tide.
“Look!” he urged Finny-Foot. “I’ll bet that’s your colony!” But the
little seal could not see. “Come on, let’s find out!” Flapper urged,
almost as glad as if it had been his own people that he had found. And
sure enough, there on the very rock on which Finny-Foot had spent his
babyhood, a snow white pup, he saw his gray spotted mother, all alone.
Just at first she did not recognize him, for he had grown so large and
had turned gray spotted like herself. When she did realize that it was
her son, whom she had given up for gone, she barked so joyously that
every member of the colony came crowding around them, barking their
welcome to him.
(THE END.)
GLOSSARY
Aurora Borealis--Northern Lights.
Bidarka--Eskimo canoe.
Cache--A hiding-place for food supplies.
Fiord--A narrow inlet of the sea between steep cliffs.
Glacier--A river of slow-flowing ice.
“Husky”--Alaskan wolf-dog.
Ice Berg--A huge chunk of ice that has broken off a glacier and floats
in the sea.
Ice Floe--A smaller chunk of ice.
Ice Pan--The ice where the sea has frozen over.
Igloo--Eskimo house.
Lava--Molten rock from a volcano.
Samlet--A young salmon.
Tundra--Alaskan bog.
Volcano--A mountain that spouts fire and lava.
Zenith--The region of the North pole.
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.