large bunch of muscle on the upper
side of my arms, and they are crooked, so that I can never straighten
them. A doctor in Iceland once tried to straighten one arm by pulling,
but he could not change it one bit; and it was very sore for a long time
afterward and the muscles were much swollen. But it was not so with my
father and brothers. They went out to hunt and had more exercise and
more pulling to do, and so their arms were straight.

It was a great thing when the men would come home from a hunt, for then
we would have a great deal to talk about:--how far they went, how cold
it was, how they found the bear, or walrus, or seal, and who was most
active and brave in killing it. Father would often say to mother, "Oh,
how I wish you had been along, for we had such a nice drink of warm
blood." The warm blood of a dying animal was considered the greatest
luxury we could get, because we had not any cooked food at all. We ate
it all frozen and raw, except when fresh from the animal. It was a great
thing to strike the animal first with a spear, for the one who drew
first blood was owner of the skin and was the boss of the whole job.
They just had to cut it to suit him. The flesh was divided equally
between all the hunters.

Sometimes we used to get very tired in the dark snow-house, and then we
would try a little amusement. Two of us would sit down on the fur carpet
and look into one another's faces and _guess who was the prettiest_. We
had to guess, for we had no looking-glass in which to see our own faces.
The one whose face shone slickest with the grease was called the
prettiest.

If at any time we grew too tired of it all and ventured to romp and
play, we were in danger of being punished. As there were no trees from
which to cut switches there, they took a different way. When any child
was naughty, mother would take a bone and she would put it into the fire
and leave it there until it was hot enough for the grease to boil out.
Then she would take it and slap that on her child and burn it. She was
not particular where she burned her child, only she was careful not to
touch the face.

I can well remember what I got my last punishment for. I had been
playing with my little brother inside the snow-house and I got mad at
him, and so I threw him down and bit him on the back of the neck. Then
mother heated a bone and burned me on the same place where I bit him. I
got tired of that and didn't do that kind of a trick afterward