he
top, one to admit air and the other to let the cream out. Nothing had
tasted so good to us since we had come home, as hungry children, from
school. As then, we were care-free, if only for a little while, and we
were a jolly, happy crowd.

In the evening, when the children were once in bed, we all gathered in
the sitting-room for music, stories and plans for the future, including
the placing of a few new strings on the musical instruments and tuning
of the same. Mr. H. had gone to the Home the afternoon before, so there
had been no preaching service as ordinarily in the little schoolhouse
across the road. The boys were talking of going to the Home across the
bay next day in a boat, but a wind came up which finally developed into
a stout southwester, and Monday was a most disagreeable day. Alma worked
on a fur cap, to practise, she said, on some one before making her own.
Ricka mended mittens and other garments for the boys, while I sewed on
night clothes for the little Eskimo baby.

The child was probably between three and four years old, but nobody knew
exactly, for she was picked up on the beach, half dead, a year before,
by the missionary, where she was dying of neglect. Her mother was dead,
and her grandfather was giving her the least attention possible, so that
she was sickly, dirty and starved. She had well repaid the kind people
who took her into the Mission, being now fat and healthy, as well as
quite intelligent. She was a real pet with all the women immediately,
being the youngest of this brood of twenty youngsters and having many
cunning little ways. In appearance she looked like a Japanese, as, in
fact, all Eskimos do, having straight black hair, and eyes shaped much
like those of these people, while all are short and thick of stature,
with few exceptions.

Among this score of little natives there were some who were very bright.
All were called by English names, and Peter, John, Mary, Ellen and
Susan, as well as Garfield, Lincoln and George Washington, with many
others, became familiar household words, though the two last named were
grown men, and now gone out from the Mission into houses of their own.

As to the dressing of these children, it was also in English fashion,
except for boots, which were always muckluks, and parkies of fur for
outside garments, including, perhaps, drill parkies for mild weather, or
to pull on over the furs, when it rained or snowed, to keep out the
water. As the weather gr