42 AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



know that for seven weeks in the heart of the winter 

 the high hill on the south would keep the sun away ; 

 they did not find it out till winter came, and then 

 they made a joke of it, a joke that has lasted a 

 hundred and fifty years ! 



For the one on whose window the sun first shines 

 after the seven weeks of gloom must find a meal of 

 tea and cake for all the others and I, among 

 others, have had to provide that tea-party for the 

 dwellers in the mission-house, because the hospital 

 was a tall building and its windows caught the sun 

 before the others. 



So the pioneer missionaries digged and built and 

 hammered by the side of our brook the same brook 

 in which we see the women trampling and chattering 

 over the washing of clothes. 



They made haste to get their house built ; but 

 every day they found time to climb the hill by the 

 track beside the brook, and walk by the side of the 

 swamp to the heathen village, there to sit in stuffy, 

 heathen huts and talk to the people about God and 

 Christ and slowly to bring the Bible to them in their 

 own strange dialect. And thus the brook was the 

 beginning of the new village, and the feet of the early 

 missionaries were the first to tread the little path 

 along which John the Driver led me on that summer 

 afternoon. 



Curiosity played its part, for surely there was 

 much talk at night-time in the heathen huts about 

 the strange doings over by the brook. ' ' What queer 

 things are the strangers doing," said the heathen 

 folk ; * * they are building a great house a mighty 



