THE ESKIMO BABY 



men of the village are fetched to smooth things down 

 or to add counsel to the confusion ; and finally the 

 missionary is consulted, and the dispute is settled. 



Who would not be an Eskimo baby ? The very 

 first nest it goes into is a charming bag of baby-rein- 

 deer skin, with the fur inside, soft and warm ; and 

 there the baby sleeps, safe from all draughts and 

 chills and cold toes. Hung on the wall, or propped 

 against the end of the bed, the bag looks like a giant 

 watch-pocket ; indeed, one good Eskimo housewife 

 must have been struck by the likeness herself, for 

 she brought me a miniature one when I left Labrador, 

 and told me that it would do to keep my watch from 

 getting sick with the frost. 



The baby spends most of its early days asleep in 

 its bag, stuffed feet downwards into the hood of its 

 mother's sealskin or blanket dicky, but as time 

 passes and it begins to feel the desire to kick, it dis- 

 cards the pocket and nestles in the depths of the 

 hood, and you may see its beady and wide-awake 

 eyes peering over its mother's shoulder as she walks 

 along. Sometimes the mother tires of the weight, 

 land, for the sake of a rest, dumps the baby on a 

 snowdrift to play. "Poor little mite!" I fancy I 

 hear somebody saying, " will it not catch cold ? " But 

 there the fat little object sits, chuckling and goo-ing 

 and grabbing handfuls of snow. 



I have often seen small girls playing nursemaid, 

 strutting along with the big hood hanging lumpily 

 lover their backs, and the long tail trailing on the 

 snow. They have no big hood of their own ; a girl 

 is not allowed to have one until she is old enough to 

 !get married ; so the little girl who sets out to act as 

 nursemaid borrows her mother's. She would be 



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