TO BE OR NOT TO BE
In the meantime life did not lack for excitement back in the Matamuska
valley. Strange tales had come to Mary both by mail and by air. Brought
by air-mail, two letters from Florence had reached her. They told of the
lost mine, of the dog race that was to be run and of the all too exciting
life the big girl was living in the far North.
“Miss Santa Claus,” Mary whispered when she had read those letters twice.
“Speed Samson said I should be little Miss Santa Claus.” She was thinking
of those delayed Christmas presents to the Eskimo children still lying
there in the postoffice in Anchorage. As she closed her eyes she tried to
picture the miles and miles of timber, tundra, and endless snow she must
fly over to reach that strange land.
“Speed Samson will take Mr. Il-ay-ok up there,” she whispered. “I could
go too and take all those presents. I wonder—”
Yes, it did seem probable that when the hunting season was over, Speed
would, taking a chance of being paid in fox skins, fly the little Eskimo
to his home. Truth is, he was growing very fond of the little man. Having
taken him along on a hunting trip he discovered that he was a capital
cook and that he could prepare meat in a manner that delighted his
guest-hunters. After that he took him often.
It was on one of these occasions that something happened which made
Mary’s dreams of becoming “little Miss Santa Claus” lighter and brighter.
Speed carried a short-wave radio in his plane. It was on this evening,
after he had landed on the little lake at Rainbow Farm, planning to stay
all night, that the thing happened. Mary, Mark, and Mr. Il-ay-ok were in
the cabin of the plane taking turns at listening to the radio. Speed
himself had the head-set clamped over his head when suddenly he
exclaimed:
“It’s some cute kids way up at Cape Prince of Wales. School teacher’s
children or something. Big brother’s rigged up a short-wave outfit. They
think they’re talking only to some people on a small island seventy miles
away, but it’s going out over the air. Something about a Christmas tree
made of willow branches and a driftwood log. Seems there was to have been
quite a Christmas up there, dolls, toys, candy, everything. The
presents—”
“Yes! Yes! I know!” Mary broke in. “The presents didn’t come. Too late
for the boat. They’re in Anchorage now.”
“Is that a fact?” Speed stared at her in surprise.
“Say-ee!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Guess they got on to my listening in on
the air. They’re talking in some new lingo. Guess it’s Eskimo. Here, Mr.
Il-ay-ok, give me your ears.” He clamped the head-set over the Eskimo’s
head.
“Oh! Ah-ne-ca!” the little man smiled broadly. “Yes. Talking Eskimo.”
“What do they say?” Mary exclaimed.
“Can’t tell now. Bye-and-bye.” The Eskimo waved her away.
“Let him alone,” Mark scolded. “It may be important, a shipwreck, or—or
something.”
It was important, very important to at least three young people quite far
away. It was not a shipwreck. An Eskimo girl was talking. Eskimo people
are born story tellers, and Kud-lucy was telling a story to No-wad-luk,
her little friend at Shishmaref Island. The story was long, but in her
excitement she forgot all else.
As Mr. Il-ay-ok listened to the tiny Eskimo’s story, Mary waited in
breathless silence. What will this story mean to me, she was asking
herself. Perhaps much. Perhaps nothing at all.
Of a sudden Mr. Il-ay-ok dragged the head-set from his ears. “Gone!” he
smiled broadly. “All over now.”
“Tell us!” Mary’s eyes shone. “What did they say?”
“Long story. Must tell all,” Mr. Il-ay-ok spoke slowly.
He did tell all and a most interesting narrative it proved to be. The
little Eskimo girl’s story as he told it was this:
There was to have been a Christmas tree at the Cape. What was a Christmas
tree? Oh, something quite wonderful! So bright it was that it shone like
the sun. And on this bright tree there grew all manner of strange things.
Little people? Yes, little people, no longer than a man’s foot, but all
dressed in bright clothes. Could they talk? To be sure. Yes, and cry and
close their eyes, and go for a walk. Someone apparently had done her best
to give Kud-lucy a real notion of what a Christmas tree was like. Had she
succeeded? You be the judge.
Yes, and there were to have been more things, Kud-lucy hurried on. Small
seals that were not truly seals, and walrus and polar bears. Yes, and
many things no Eskimo had ever seen before.
“But now—” little Kud-lucy’s voice had faltered, “now there is to be no
Christmas tree, not any at all!” Why? Because the big boat had come too
soon. All the wonderful things apparently were left behind.
At this instant apparently little Kud-lucy suddenly realized that she was
talking in some strange, mysterious manner to her friend far away. The
discovery frightened her and she had gone off the air.
As the story ended, Mary jumped to her feet exclaiming:
“Just think! To be Miss Santa Claus to a hundred Eskimo children! But
then—” She sat down quite suddenly to stare out into the dark, cold
night.
“Why not?” said Speed.
“It’s a long, long way.”
“No way is long any more, with an airplane,” he replied quietly.
“Well, perhaps. Who knows?” Mary looked at Mark. He said never a word.
There was no need. She could read his thoughts. He was thinking, “I love
those Eskimo children, but I love Mary more. I want her always to be
safe. And yet—I wonder.”
That night beside the huge, barrel stove in the Hughes’ cabin, Mr.
Il-ay-ok talked long of his people who lived on the rim of a frozen sea.
He spoke of the children, of their play and their simple toys, of their
cheerful natures and happy smiles. With every word Mary’s interest grew.
Her cheeks burned as she dreamed on of that suggested flight into the
North.
“Christmas in Eskimo-land, dog-teams, reindeer and everything,” she
whispered to herself. “Then perhaps Florence will be ready to return and
we shall fly home together.” How she missed Florence! Then and there
something like a resolve was formed in her mind. Would she go? There
would be solemn family conferences, but in the end, would she go? To this
question, for the moment, there came no answer.
Now Mr. Il-ay-ok was talking of other things, he was telling why that man
Loome hated him. Somehow government officials had been persuaded that the
Eskimo should drive their reindeer into the hills where feed was more
plentiful. This they would never do; first they would sell their deer for
very little. Loome and his companions were planning to profit by their
misfortune.
“Now,” the little man’s eyes shone, “now, I have the papers. Here,” he
patted his pocket. “Reindeer may stay as they are. The so wonderful
government has said that. My people, they will be happy. But first I must
show them the paper. First day of next year it will be too late. So-o, I
must go. I must fly.”
“And you shall fly,” said Speed Samson. “Here. Shake on it.” They shook
hands in silence. Mary’s heart burned with hope.
“Miss Santa Claus in Eskimo land,” she whispered.
Next day Madam Chicaski, who had of late been acting rather strangely,
did the oddest thing of all. When in the summer Bill had returned from
his fruitless search for gold, he had left his pick and shovel in the
Hughes woodshed. They were still there. On this morning Mary saw the
large Russian woman take the pick from the shed and march resolutely
toward the giant stump that stood in the back yard. It was an innocent
appearing thing, that stump. All weather-beaten and festooned with
rustling morning-glory vines, it seemed a thing destined to stand there
for years. And yet, as Mary watched, she felt sure that this woman meant
to attack its roots, if possible to tear it from the earth.
“I wonder why?” she asked herself. At that moment her mind was filled
with mingled emotion, surprise, consternation and something of alarm.
This last she could not even have explained to herself.
There was, it seemed, no immediate cause for anxiety. The big woman did
not swing the pick, at least, not that day. Instead as she came near to
the stump, using the pick for a cane, she stood there leaning on it
looking for all the world like a picture called “The Man with the Hoe.”
On her face at that moment was a look Mary had seen there before, it was
the gaze of one who worships at a shrine.
In the far away valley, work on the lost mine progressed famously. Since
the greater part of the digging had been done long ago by Tom Kennedy and
his partner, there remained little to be done save to pick away at the
gold-laden gravel, to hoist it through the floor, then to wash it out in
water brought up from the lake. Even with so much of the work done, it
was a slow process. Days passed. Each day saw Tom Kennedy’s moose-hide
sack a little heavier, but each day brought their small supply of flour,
sugar, bacon and beans dwindling lower and lower.
“We’ll kill a fat reindeer and pay Bowman for it when we get back,” said
Tom Kennedy.
“Grandfather, if we are to drive those reindeer all the way back it will
take days and days,” Florence was worried. “There will be nothing left to
eat but reindeer meat. Can we live on that?”
“We can try. Eskimo do.”
“We’re not Eskimo.”
“No-o. But something will turn up. We’ll manage.” The old man was too
absorbed in his golden quest to think overmuch of things to eat.
Then came the great day. “The mother-lode.” Tom Kennedy spoke to
Florence. She was at his side in the mine. “See!” The light of his torch
was cast back by a yellow gleam. “See! Nuggets big as bird’s eggs.”
“And—and will this be the end?” she asked.
“The end, yes,” his tone was impressive. “But enough. Who could ask for
more? Only look there’ll be—” He broke short off to listen intently.
“An airplane!” the girl’s voice was low and tense.
“They’ve found us,” the old man muttered.
“Who?”
“Who knows?” was his strange answer. “No good ever comes from spying.”