BEHIND ;THE SCENES 293 



Sometimes the office of cook was anything but 

 a sinecure. This was especially the case when 

 missionaries were keeping open house for their 

 Eskimo friends, either at such a season as 

 Christmas when large gatherings came together 

 or during times of scarcity. Again culling from 

 Mr. Peck's diary we read : " This being my week 

 as cook and general housekeeper I spent a very 

 busy time, especially as we tried to help these 

 poor starving people. Large kettles of pea soup 

 were made three days in the week, which helped 

 in some measure." And we have seen in the last 

 chapter that sometimes in this way their relief 

 work amounted to feeding twenty families daily. 

 In missionary fields it is more possible than at 

 home to realize that the word minister means ser- 

 vant. 



There is one note concerning the day's routine 

 which should not be forgotten. It is that after 

 the 1 o'clock dinner there was always a time allotted 

 for recreative reading. The ship brought out an- 

 nually a supply of newspapers and periodicals. 

 These were carefully arranged in chronological 

 order, the oldest being on the top and the newest 

 at the bottom of the pile. This was the order in 

 which they were to be read. So in November 1898 

 Mr. Peck writes: "We are reading now the numbers 

 for November 1897, and somehow we seem to enjoy 

 them as much as if they were this year's issues in- 



