THE HOME-COMING 



people straggling down the various paths to the church 

 when the bell rang, each meeting-time brought a 

 bustling crowd hurrying along ; and instead of the 

 half-empty church, chill and bare, there was the 

 pleasant warmth of a crackling stove, and the cheer- 

 ful sight of scores upon scores of brown faces shining 

 with good feeding, and bright eyes twinkling with 

 pleasure. " Home for Christmas " was the uppermost 

 thought in everybody's mind; and day by day the 

 sledges came, and the excitement grew and grew, 

 to culminate on Christmas Eve, when the last belated 

 stragglers hove in sight, and when with a roar of 

 " Tikkiput kemmutsi-i-i-t " (they are come the 

 sledges), the whole population of the village went 

 racing over the ice to meet the last comers and 

 hurry them homewards. Not only boys and girls, 

 but staid and stolid fathers of families, mothers 

 with sleeping babies in their hoods, grim old grand- 

 mothers and ancient white-haired veterans, joined 

 in the rushing, shouting crowd, careering at their 

 best pace and a remarkably fast pace, too over 

 the slippery sledge track. Sometimes those last 

 isledges had been in difficulties on the way. I 

 have seen men come home with their legs encased 

 in ice, showing that on some treacherous place 

 they had slipped through into the sea, and had 

 pnly saved themselves by clutching at the sledge ; 

 |ind once a sad-eyed party reached the village, 

 .vith a mother sobbing over the loss of her little 

 rirl, who had tumbled into the black water and 

 )een lost when the sledge gave a sudden lurch 

 its the ice broke under it. But " home for Christ-' 

 nas " is the great idea : the Eskimos will run a 

 e risk rather than be late, though, happily, the 



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