ogs. If Kesshoo hadn't
been slashing at them with his whip, and if Menie and Koko hadn't been
screaming at them with all their might, so the dogs were nearly
distracted, Koolee might have been badly bitten.
Just then Monnie came up with some dried fish. She threw one of the
fish over in front of the snow house.
The dogs saw it and leaped for it. Then she threw another into the snow
hut itself. They went after that. She fed them all with dried fish
until they were so full they curled up in the snow house and went to
sleep.
V. THE FEAST
THE FEAST
I
The moment the sun had gone out of sight all the people in the village
came pouring out of their tunnels on their way to the feast at
Kesshoo's house.
Kesshoo's house was so small that it seemed as if all the people could
not possibly get into it.
But the Eskimos are used to crowding into very small spaces, indeed.
Sometimes a man and his wife and all his children will live in a space
about the size of a big double bed.
First the Angakok came out of his igloo, looking fatter than ever. The
Angakok always found plenty to eat somehow. Both his wives were thin.
Their faces looked like baked apples all brown and wrinkled.
When they reached Kesshoo's house, the Angakok went into the tunnel
first.
Now I can't tell you whether he had grown fatter during the five days,
or whether the entrance had grown smaller, but this much I know: the
Angakok got stuck! He couldn't get himself into the room no matter how
much he tried! He squirmed and wriggled and twisted, until his face was
very red and he looked as if he would burst, but there he stayed.
Other people had crawled into the tunnel after him. His two wives were
just behind. Everybody got stuck, of course, because no one could move
until the Angakok did. He was just like a cork in the neck of a bottle.
Kesshoo and Koolee and the twins and Nip and Tup were all in the igloo.
When they saw the Angakok's face come through the hole they thought, of
course, the rest of him would come too. But it didn't, and the Angakok
was mad about it.
"Why don't they build igloos the way they used to?" he growled. "Every
year the tunnels get smaller and smaller! Am I to remain here forever?"
he went on. "Why doesn't somebody help me?"
Kesshoo and Koolee seized him under his arms. They pulled and pulled.
The two wives pushed him from behind.
"I-yi! I-yi!" screamed the Angakok. "You will scrape my skin off!"
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