14 AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



as many of the Eskimos as could be spared from the 

 hunting and set them to digging out the brook. 

 With spades and hatchets and great snow-knives 

 they dug a channel for the stream, sometimes thirty 

 feet down from the top of the drift ; they loaded 

 their sledges with the blocks that they were chop- 

 ping, and sent them sailing away to the beach where 

 the tides were beginning to creep and rustle under 

 the thick sea ice. All this was a costly business ; and 

 we thought, with an eye to economy, to give the 

 brook its way, and let it make a channel for itself. 

 So we did ; and day by day I watched the water 

 trickling over the edge of the drift ; and day by day 

 I saw the people come with their kettles and their 

 buckets to catch the running water. We forgot that 

 the stream was boring a way beneath the drift. On 

 that Sunday afternoon a little Eskimo boy was 

 seated on the top of the drift, scooping for himself 

 a drink of water ; there came a great roar of sound, 

 and with a whirl of snow the great drift went raging 

 down to the frozen beach. It passed my window ; 

 the walls shook, the railings were torn from their 

 sockets, and water was splashing and foaming about 

 the tower of the church. We rushed out ; nobody 

 was hurt, but there, away on the beach, sat a be- 

 wildered small boy, looking around him, and grop- 

 ing with his tin mug for a drink. 



So much for the brook. I seem to have said a 

 good deal about it ; you might even think that 1 am 

 wasting your time, but the brook is the very heart 

 of this story. 



Now let me tell you how that is. 



