CHAPTER XVII 



BLIND JULIANA GOES TO CHURCH 



At this stage in our story I think the reader should 

 be introduced to Juliana. Inasmuch as she was well 

 content with a dinner of raw fish or seal-meat and 

 blubber, and wore the usual long-tailed smock with 

 its trimming of dog-fur and its embroidery in gor- 

 geous wools, Juliana was just an ordinary Eskimo 

 woman. But Juliana was something more. A pure- 

 bred Eskimo, and daughter of old Abia, the head- 

 man of the village, she was learned and gifted 

 beyond the usual. That is, she was teacher in the 

 village school, tailor, and bootmaker in the Eskimo 

 style for a succession of missionaries and mission- 

 aries' wives, well able to play the harmonium, and 

 alto soloist in the choir. Also she was for some 

 years night nurse in our little hospital. So Juliana 

 was a woman of parts. And, withal, a simple, 

 sensible Eskimo woman. 



Now this chapter finds her in her later years, 

 when she was blind blind and feeble. The burden 

 of age was on her shoulders ; long illness had left its 

 mark upon her ; there was little that she could do. 



The services in the church were her chief delight, 

 and Sunday by Sunday Juliana was there, sitting 

 on the bench by the door, where she had sat for so 

 many years as one of the helpers. I can remember 

 her sprinkling the floor with sand on wet days, so 



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