134 AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



the hardest place and needs the most skill ; she is 

 bottom sawyer down below. Soon a neat little hut 

 is standing on that square foundation, and a neat 

 little newly made housewife is cooking by the door- 

 step, or hanging the skins and the codfish to dry 

 above the porch. 



But with the first storm of winter the little hut is 

 buried. The young couple dig their window clear, 

 and make a snow porch to the doorway. Another 

 storm, and the hut is gone again, buried under a 

 mighty drift. More toilsome digging. Another 

 storm, and the young people move their bedding 

 and their cooking pots, their dogs and all their hunt- 

 ing gear, and beg a corner in the house of some 

 better-placed neighbour. In the summer they re- 

 turn, with the careless smile of the Eskimo, and 

 take their little hut away and build it again on the 

 hillside. And that is how the last hut in the line is 

 no hut at all. 



But Juliana's house. I call it Juliana's house 

 because blind Juliana is the most important person 

 there ; the hut belongs to her brother Benjamin, 

 who is by no means a clever hunter, but is neverthe- 

 less head helper in the church, and teacher in the 

 day-school, and also tenor soloist in the choir. 



Now this was a very ordinary Eskimo house, 

 showing signs of much patching, so that while most 

 of the boards are grey and weatherworn, some are 

 new signs of pieces added on. Benjamin had evi- 

 dently made his house grow in the usual way of 

 Eskimo houses. I never saw the house in the pro- 

 cess of growing ; it had finished most of its ex- 



