CHAPTER XIV 



Winter weather Klara and the clothes Summertime The boys 

 in the sea Mosquitoes A Polar bear Cod fishing Building 

 houses The boys at play again. 



THE cold winter weather of Labrador 

 has no terrors for the Eskimos. As I 

 walked along the village path, facing 

 a wind that made my cheeks tingle, I often 

 saw them standing bare-headed outside their 

 doors, exchanging the gossip of the day, or 

 working with bare hands when I was thank- 

 ful for the warmth of my sealskin mitts. 

 Klara, the rosy-faced girl who did our wash- 

 ing, used to go straight from the wash-tub 

 into the open air on the bitterest winter 

 mornings to hang out the clothes ; and those 

 were the mornings when we were muffled with 

 blanket coats and sealskin smocks, and when 

 we wore gloves lest our hands should freeze, 

 and dared not touch the door knob with our 

 bare fingers for fear of getting blistered by 

 the touch of the icy metal. 



If I happened to meet Klara in the passage 

 with her basket of clothes I would say, " Klara, 



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