[Illustration]
“_September 12, 1900_, and my birthday. I never expected to spend it
in this country when I left home. Grossy promised me a party, but
mother gave it to me here instead, and I have had a beautiful day.
When I came into the cabin I found such a nice chocolate cake, with
seven candles burning around it, and a doll, oh a beauty, all
dressed in dotted swiss over pink silk with a pink sash and white
stockings and white kid shoes. She is one of my prettiest children,
and I have named her Lois, after a little girl I met in Sydney, and
who was very kind to me. I also found a pair of doll’s real
seal-skin slippers, a purse, a box of chocolates, and a
two-and-a-half gold-piece. The sailors asked Captain Sam to allow
them to hoist the flag in my honour and he did so. The men gave me
three cheers when they hoisted it. Mother had the steward make a
pitcher of hot grog and cut up a big cake, and then he and I took it
around to all the men and gave them their share. At tea time I
invited Captain Sam and the Chief Engineer to take tea with me. The
supper-table looked very pretty, with the candles burning about my
cake, and we had a jolly time playing games afterward, but oh dear,
I could not help thinking every little while if only father were
here how much nicer everything would be. I had nothing to give the
Eskimos except some coffee and biscuit, which they like, and some
candy which they don’t care much about, but they seemed pleased,
especially with my doll. They thought it was alive because it had
real hair and could open and shut its eyes.”
[Illustration:
“_ACHATING´WAH and AHWEAHGOOD´LOO_”
]
Achatinǵwah was AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S daily companion, and the two little
girls had a merry time together. This little Eskimo girl’s father was
dead. A walrus had pulled him into the water and drowned him. But her
mother, Aweah, had another husband, who took care of Achatinǵwah. She
had two real brothers and a stepbrother.
One of her own brothers was Ahnǵoodloo, who, besides being the “Captain”
of all the Eskimos who worked for AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father, was the
husband of “Billy Bah,” the Eskimo girl who was AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S first
nurse. She came to AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S home in Washington and spent a year
with her and then returned to the Snowland.
Ahnǵoodloo was one of the only two left-handed men in the tribe, and he
was the best hunter of all. He was very fond of AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father
and always stayed with him.
Achatinǵwah also had another brother, Wee-shá-kup-sie, who spent a year
in New York City and returned to his country when AH-NI-GHI´-TO´S father
went there the last time. So Achatinǵwah knew more about the ways of the
“Kab´loonahs” (white people) than most of her tribe.
[Illustration:
“_BILLY BAH_”
_Mrs. Ahnǵoodloo_]
]
Her hair was always smooth and her face and hands clean when she came to
play with AH-NI-GHI´-TO.
She wore yellow kamiks (boots) made of the tanned seal-skin, and these
she rubbed with snow to clean them before coming on the ship. Her
trousers, made of the skins of the blue fox and the white fox, she also
rubbed with snow and beat with an ivory knife made for this purpose out
of a walrus tusk, until they looked like new. Her kapetah (coat with
hood), made of the fox-skins, too, she took off in the cabin, and her
bird-skin shirt looked white and clean.
The days grew shorter and shorter, and soon the day came when the sun
did not shine in the little harbour at all, and, looking to the south,
the big, round, yellow ball could not be seen on the horizon. This meant
that he was on his way south and would keep travelling away from the
Snowland until the 21st of December. Then he would start back again, but
not until the middle of February would he shine upon AH-NI-GHI´-TO and
the ship again.
It was now settled that the “Windward” must stay in her icy bed during
the coming winter and spring and part of the summer, and every one was
busy making things as comfortable as possible; for it grows very cold
after the sun leaves, and the north wind blows through every crack and
cranny.
During these long months it was dark all of the time, except for the
moonlight and starlight, which made deep black shadows on the snowdrifts
and ice hummocks. These caused AH-NI-GHI´-TO to have many a tumble,
because the ice seemed level where it was full of hollows and holes.
But Achatinǵwah and the two Eskimo boys came every day for AH-NI-GHI´-TO
to go sliding and coasting with them, in spite of the cold and darkness.
Many curious things she learned these days, as this extract from her
diary will show:
“Clear day. No wind. Achatinǵwah and I were out coasting from eleven
to nearly one. The stars were very bright.
“Achatinǵwah told me all about the Eskimo stars. I know only one,
the great Dipper. Achatinǵwah says the stars in this are a herd of
reindeer in the sky. The Eskimos call it TOOK-TOK´-SUE. Then there
are three other bright stars which are the stones supporting the
lamp of an Eskimo woman up in the sky; and a hunter and his dogs
after a bear, and lots more.
“I wish Father were here to tell me what we call them. When we came
on board, Captain Sam said the thermometer on deck had been at
seventy-two degrees below freezing all day.”
[Illustration]
They never went far from the ship, so that they could run on board, into
the warm galley (kitchen), where the steward, kind old Charley, was ever
ready to give them a hot drink, and allow them to warm their fingers and
toes, even if he did threaten to make mince meat out of them if they
bothered him too much.
One day he said to AH-NI-GHI´-TO: “Why don’t you have a party on the
ice? Get the youngsters to help you fix up a house, and I will help you
with the supper.”
This was a great idea for the children, and at first they intended to
build a real native snow igloo; but, as the grown Eskimos were too busy
to help them, they soon found this was too much for them to do alone.
Then AH-NI-GHI´-TO went to the Captain and asked him to lend her one of
her father’s tents, and have the men put it up for her out on the ice.
When this was done, the children shovelled the soft snow up on the sides
of the tent as high as they could reach. This kept the wind from blowing
under the canvas into the tent.
It took them several days to do this and to furnish and decorate their
reception room. Large boxes were brought from the ship and covered as
tables; small ones were used as chairs. The walls were draped with
flags, and a lantern was hung at each end.
While AH-NI-GHI´-TO wrote the invitations to an “At Home,” her playmates
shovelled a path through the deep snow from the tent to the ship.