74 AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



And so it came about that day by day as I sat at 

 work I could hear the old man with his hammer tap- 

 tap-tapping, patching up my old boat. He came to 

 beg discarded packing-cases. He knocked them to 

 pieces with his hammer and carefully saved up every 

 nail. He came back to borrow my saw, and when 

 I strolled down the beach to watch him at work I 

 found him filling the worst holes with wooden 

 patches. Then Maria began to hover about the 

 kitchen door on the look-out for empty meat cans. 

 These the old man flattened out to make tin patches 

 for gaping seams and bulging joints. Altogether my 

 old boat provided scope for some wonderful work, 

 and old Kornelius and his daily doings became a 

 centre of attraction for the village. Passers-by 

 turned from the pathway to give a look, and many 

 a man paused on his way home from the fishing to 

 offer a word of advice. And, to give Kornelius his 

 due, I must say that the old man did his work well. 

 He set about it with true Eskimo thoroughness, and 

 stuck to it with untiring perseverance. He was never 

 idle and he was never alone. From morning till 

 night his faithful old Maria hobbled about, holding 

 nails, fetching tools, steadying a board for the saw, 

 and doubtless criticising in a wifely sort of way. 

 The patches multiplied amazingly ; the old boat 

 began to look quite staunch again. 



At last there came a day when Kornelius, for all 

 his searching, could find no other place to patch, 

 and then he spent a morning in coating the piebald 

 hulk with tar. That was a great day for Maria. She 

 beamed with pride as she turned to her share of the 



