The Eskimo Twins Part 15

II.

The very next day they started. The boats were heavily loaded with dried fish, there were great piles of new skins heaped in the woman-boats, and every kyak towed a seal.

For days they traveled along the coast, stopping only for rest and food. The twins and Koko sat in the bottom of the boat with the dogs, and listened to the regular dip of the paddles, to the cries of the sea-birds as they flew away toward the south, and to the chatter of the women. These were almost the only sounds they heard, for the silence of the Great White World was all about them. They talked together in low voices and planned all the things they would do when the long night was really upon them once more.

When at last they came in sight of the Big Rock, they felt as if they had reached home after a very long journey.

Koko stood up in the boat and pointed to it. "See," he cried, "there's the Big Rock where we found the bear!"

"Yes," Monnie said, "and where we slid downhill."

"And I see where I got caught on the ice raft," Menie shouted.

"Sit down," said Koko's mother. "You'll tip the boat and spill us all into the water."

Koko sat down; the boat glided along through the water, nearer and nearer, until at last they came round the Big Rock, and there, just as if they had not been away at all, lay the whole village of five igloos, looking as if it had gone to sleep in the suns.h.i.+ne.

The big boats waited until the men had all paddled to the sh.o.r.e and beached their kyaks, then they were drawn carefully up on to the sand, and every one got out. The beach at once became a very busy place. The men pulled the walruses and seals out of the water and took care of the boats, while the women set up the tents, cut the meat into big pieces for storage, and carried all their belongings to the tents.

Although the village looked just the same, other things looked quite different. Nip and Tup were big dogs by this time. They ran away up the beach with Tooky and the other dogs the moment they were out of the boats. They did not stay with the twins all the time now, as they used to do. The twins were much bigger, too. Koolee looked at them as they helped her carry the tent-skins up from the beach, and said to them, "My goodness, I must make my needles fly! Winter is upon us and your clothes are getting too small for you! You must have new things right away." The twins thought this was a very good idea. They liked new clothes as well as any one in the world.

Koolee set up the tent beside their old igloo, and there they lived while the men of the village went out every day in their kyaks for seal and walrus, or back into the hills after other game to store away for food during the long winter. The women sc.r.a.ped and cured the skins and cut up the meat and packed it away as fast as the men could kill the game and bring it home.

Each day it grew colder, and each night was longer than the last, until one short September day there came a great snow storm! It snowed all day long, and that night the wind blew so hard that Koolee and the twins nearly froze even among the fur covers of their bed, and when morning came they found themselves nearly buried under a great drift.

That very day Koolee put the stones over the roof of the igloo once more, and the twins helped her fill in the c.h.i.n.ks with moss and earth, and cover it with a heavy layer of snow, patted down with the snow shovel, until everything was snug and tight again.

Then they moved in. By the next day all the igloos in the village were in use, and when night came their windows shone with the light of the lamps, just as they had so many months before.

Nip and Tup slept outside with Tooky now, in a snow house which Kesshoo had built for them. Menie and Monnie missed them, but Koolee said, "You are getting so big now you must begin to do something besides play with puppies. Monnie must learn to sew, and Menie must help Father with feeding the dogs and looking after their harnesses, and driving the sledge."

"Maybe Father will teach you both to carve fine things out of ivory this winter! Monnie will soon need her own thimble and needles. They must be made. And she can help me clean the skins and suck out the blubber, and prepare them for being made into clothes!"

"Dear me! what a lot there is to do to keep clothes on our backs and food in our mouths! The Giants are always waiting before the igloo and we must work very hard to keep them outside!"

She did not mean real giants. She meant that Hunger and Want are always waiting to seize the Eskimo who does not work all the time to supply food for himself and his family. She meant that Menie must learn to be a brave strong hunter, afraid of nothing on sea or land, and that Monnie must learn to do a woman's work well, or else the time would come when they would be without food or shelter or clothing, and the fierce cold would soon make an end of them.

It was lucky they got into the warm igloo just when they did, for the winter had come to stay. The bay froze over far out from sh.o.r.e, and the white snow covered the igloos so completely that if it had not been for the windows, and for people moving about out of doors, no one could have told that there was any village there.

The Last Day of all was so short that Menie and Monnie and Koko saw the whole of it from the top of the Big Rock! They had gone up there in the gray twilight that comes before the sunrise to build a snow house to play in. They had been there only a little while when the sky grew all rosy just over the Edge of the World. The color grew stronger and stronger until the little stars were all drowned in it and then up came the great round red face of the sun itself! The children watched it as it peered over the horizon, threw long blue shadows behind them across the snow, and then sank slowly, slowly down again, leaving only the flaming colors in the sky to mark the place where it had been. They waved their hands as it slipped out of sight. "Good bye, old Sun," they shouted, "and good bye, Shadow, too! We shall be glad to see you both when you come back again."

Then, because the wind blew very cold and they could see a snow cloud coming toward them from the Great White World where the Giants lived, the children ran together down the snowy slope toward the bright windows of their homes.

THE END

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS

To arouse the children's interest and thus to make the reading of this story most valuable as a school exercise, it is suggested that at the outset the children be allowed to look at the pictures in the book in order to get acquainted with "Menie" and "Monnie" and with the scenes ill.u.s.trating their home life and surroundings.

During the reading, point out the North Pole, Greenland, etc., on a map of the world or on a globe, and tell the children something about the many years of effort before Peary succeeded in reaching his goal; also about the work of subsequent explorers in this part of the world, and around the South Pole as well. Thus this supplementary reading material may be connected with the work in geography.

The text is so simply written that the second grade child can read it without much or any preparation. It may be well to have the children read it first in a study period in order to work out the p.r.o.nunciation of the more difficult words. But many cla.s.ses will be able to read it at sight, without the preparatory study. The possibilities in the story for dramatization and for language and constructive work will be immediately apparent.

In connection with the reading of the book, teachers should tell to the children stories describing Eskimo life, and the experiences of explorers and pioneers in the North. Grenfell's Adrift on an Ice-Pan is suitable, for example. Holbrook's Northland Heroes and Schultz's Sinopah, the Indian Boy, while not belonging to the land of the Eskimos, contain stories of allied interest. Let the children bring to cla.s.s pictures of scenes in the North, clipped from magazines and newspapers.

The unique ill.u.s.trations in The Eskimo Twins should be much used, both in the reading of the story and in other ways. Children will enjoy sketching some of them; their simple treatment makes them especially useful for this purpose.

The book is printed on paper which will take watercolor well, and where the books are individually owned some of the sketches could be used for coloring in flat washes. They also afford suggestions for action sketching by the children.

An excellent oral language exercise would be for the children, after they have read the story, to take turns telling the story from the ill.u.s.trations; and a good composition exercise would be for each child to select the ill.u.s.tration that he would like to write upon, make a sketch of it, and write the story in his own words.

These are only a few of the many ways that will occur to resourceful teachers for making the book a valuable as well as an enjoyable exercise in reading.