THE HOME-COMING 



dogs to find a specially neat little tree in some 

 sheltered hollow of the hills : if he has not the incli- 

 nation to go so far afield, he probably brings home a 

 bundle of spare branches and fastens them into bare 

 places on the tree he has chosen because trees that 

 grow in exposed places have all their branches on the 

 south side. 



In the evenings I used to hear the bandsmen 

 practising Christmas music. Samuel, the performer 

 on the tenor horn, lived in a little hut not ten yards 

 from my window, and there he sat, hour after hour, 

 making the walls rattle with the most weird and 

 awful hootings ; and just behind us was the cooper's 

 house, where Solomon, the cooper's growing lad, 

 was taking first lessons on the cornet, and setting all 

 the village dogs a-howling in the moonlight. 



The people were home for Christmas and home, 

 to the Eskimo, is his wooden house at the Mission 

 village. 



65 



