SLEDGES AND DOGS 



pelting against the window panes, I quite missed the 

 merry noise. Sometimes there was a louder din than 

 usual, and this generally meant that four or five were 

 huddled together on a big sealskin for want of a 

 proper sledge, clinging to one another and roaring 

 with the delight of a new sensation. The sealskin 

 seemed to slide easily enough when the hair was 

 right way on, but it twisted and lurched over the 

 lumps in the track and ended by turning wrong way 

 on and spilling its passengers into a snowdrift. 



I have even seen the little rascals sliding down 

 the hills without anything at all in the shape of a 

 sledge, trusting to the wearing qualities of their 

 sealskin clothes ; and sometimes I have seen in- 

 dignant mothers pounce round the corner and drag 

 their bright-eyed urchins off to less destructive 

 play. 



Sometimes a man's first present to his son is a toy 

 whip, with a lash five or six feet long, and children 

 hardly out of their babyhood crawl about the floor 

 shouting at imaginary dogs and dealing vicious 

 smacks at them. Out of doors the boys play with 

 full-sized whips, and it is marvellous to see how 

 cleverly the little fellows wield the thirty feet of 

 lash. They set an empty tin on a hummock of ice 

 and flick it off time after time from the full length of 

 the whip ; or two of them wage a hot battle, each 

 trying to entangle the other's lash. But whips are 

 only accessories to the great game of sledge-driving, 

 and an Eskimo boy's most constant plaything is 

 the dog. The men always hand the puppy dogs 

 over to the boys ; it is a training for both boy and 

 dog, for the boy uses all the tricks and mannerisms 



that he has seen his father use in driving the big sledge, 



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