170 BY ESKIMO DOG-SLED 



peering over its mother's shoulder as she walks 

 along. Sometimes the mother tires of the 

 weight, and, for the sake of a rest, dumps the 

 baby on a snowdrift to play. " Poor little 

 mite ! " I fancy I hear somebody saying, " will 

 it not catch cold ? ' : But there the fat little 

 object sits, chuckling and goo-ing and grabbing 

 handfuls of snow. 



I have often seen small girls playing nurse- 

 maid, strutting along with the big hood hang- 

 ing lumpily over their backs, and the long tail 

 trailing on the snow. They have no big hood 

 of their own ; a girl is not allowed to have 

 one until she is old enough to get married ; 

 so the little girl who sets out to act as nurse- 

 maid borrows her mother's. She would be 

 helpless without a hood ; no Eskimo baby 

 would be satisfied with any other sort of 

 perambulator ; there is a queer swaying of 

 the shoulders as the girl walks along that 

 gently swings the baby from side to side, and 

 rocks it to sleep in a way that no amount of 

 pushing about on wheels or sled runners would 

 ever do. 



While their sisters are making themselves 

 useful by minding the baby, the boys spend 

 all their time playing in the snow or on the 

 water. Boys are always out of doors : no 

 weather seems too cold for them, no snow too 



