Your AH-NI-GHI´-TO.
P. S. We don’t have any real night at all now. It is daylight
almost all night long.
As soon as the fisherman dropped into his boat with the mail the
“Windward” went on her way, but the foggy weather and north winds kept
her back a few days along the Labrador shore. Davis Strait was crossed
in a wind storm which kept up for days, and one day while
AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S mother was reading to her in the cabin there came a gust
of wind wilder than any before. It was followed by a great crash on
deck, a shower of broken glass from the cabin skylight and the shouting
of the Captain to his men and the running of the sailors obeying his
orders. AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S mother was frightened, but hardly had the glass
stopped falling when AH-NI-GHI´-TO cried, “Go on with the story,
mother.” She had been in so many storms at sea that she was not the
least afraid, and took everything that happened on board ship as a
matter of course.
[Illustration:
“_A Great Iceberg_”
]
Captain Sam said afterwards that the ship had been tossed on the waves
like a ball, and in the storm and fog had come so near a great iceberg
that when the man on the lookout saw it she had to be brought round the
shortest and quickest way, to keep her from being dashed to pieces
against its frozen sides.
This caused the bags of coal lashed on deck, to break loose and slide
across the deck, smashing everything in their way.
Four hours later the ship was in a smooth sea with the sun shining
brightly.
The bunch of bananas that were taken for father were now getting so ripe
that they must be eaten, and it was AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S delight to take an
armful on deck and divide them among the sailors. Some of them had never
eaten them before.
[Illustration]