162 MAKING SEALSKIN BOOTS. 



fine Esquimaux sealskin boots, and will do other similar work, 

 though attention to her large family makes it impossible for her 

 to spare much of her time for outside work. Grannie Roberts is 

 also noted for her nice, careful sewing of boots, pouches, or 

 sealskin bags to wear on the back, in which to carry provisions, 

 game, or other articles that the hunters may require, while she takes 

 in such work as filling pillow cases and bed ticks, making hunting and 

 warm working jackets for winter, or mending socks, mittens, and 

 other articles for general use or wear. She is a good old lady, 

 and thought well of everywhere, while her work is always well 

 and cheaply done, and her nearly fourscore years combined with 

 her remarkable cheerfulness give her a good word from every- 

 body on the coast. Further to the westward work from Aunt 

 Jane's is known in all directions. 



If I have described elsewhere a pair of native shoes, as they 

 are often called, a brief description of them here again may not 

 be out of place, since it is necessary to have a clear under- 

 standing of the process of making them. A good deal more 

 than at first appears to a purchaser depends upon every little point 

 in the operation. To begin, — suppose Grannie Roberts is to make 

 a pair of sealskin boots for some buyer. From a lot of sealskins 

 one is selected either from a harbor seal with the hair on, or a 

 large harp from which the hair has all been scraped off; in either 

 case the skin, to be the most serviceable, must be well scraped of 

 fat on the inside and dried for two or three months on some 

 frame on which it has been stretched to its fullest extent in the 

 sun, exposed on the woodpile or roof of the house (after the hair 

 has been taken off if a harp, and with the hair on if a harbor 

 seal) . These dry skins will not shrink, and for every purpose of 

 wear are infinitely better than the shoes, sold in large numbers, 

 made of quickly dried skins, sewed upon wooden forms, which 

 shrink and tear, while they soon wear useless. Out of them 

 the bootleg is cut, from a paper pattern of any kind the wearer 

 may choose. All, or nearly all, bottoms are cut from like patterns 

 to fit a foot of any shape, but invariably from the dried skin of 



