12 AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



ling. Watch that fat little fellow. How he loves it ! 

 His sleepy head nods from side to side, he nestles 

 deeper in the deep, snug hood, and his mother goes 

 on with her trampling. 



And the women are talking. Eh, how they 

 chatter ! Their fongues go a-clacketting outside my 

 window chatter, chatter, chatter loud and shrill, 

 with many a burst of laughter. 



They are happy at their washing are those 

 women. 



Sometimes they sing and sway to the singing 

 tramp, tramp, tramp to Sankey's tunes and harsh, 

 long Eskimo words ; but the thought of it brings a 

 lump to the throat, does it not ? For the old for- 

 bears of those women, those women singing 

 Sankey's hymns, were heathen and wild, the 

 mothers and wives of murderers ! And so the women 

 go on with their washing, singing, chattering, sway- 

 ing, trampling, and the brook rustled and tumbled 

 outside my window, and by day and by night I could 

 hear the sound of the water among the rocks and 

 the stones. 



But the brook does not always run ; it freezes in 

 October, or even sooner. Already in September it 

 is trickling and splashing between icy banks, and in 

 October it comes oozing over a deep bed of ice. In 

 November it is frozen solid, and instead of bringing 

 buckets for water, the women come with sacks and 

 carry home chopped ice. Long after the brook had 

 ceased to rustle, and long after the women had given 

 up their trampling in the rock-pool driven away by 



