OLD AGE 



away without illness or suffering. They are 

 always those who have clung the most closely to 

 their own native foods, and can always speak of 

 having been mighty hunters once upon a time. 



Their activity and endurance are remarkable. 

 Women who are too old and toothless to chew 

 the boot-leather can still scrape the sealskins, 

 perhaps with a skill that the younger women lack : 

 if they are too blind and feeble to scrape, they can 

 sit behind a wall of snow upon the sea-ice, and jig 

 for the sleepy rock-cod through a hole. "Are you 

 cold ? " I asked old Klara. She laughed in heij 

 shrill old way : " I am an Eskimo," she said. Old 

 Abia, my white-haired neighbour from the hut under 

 the shadow of the hospital wall, was a most energetic 

 old fellow. He used to make me anxious for 

 his safety. One morning I saw him go off over 

 the ice, dragging a small sledge. I thought he 

 had gone to gather sticks along the sledge track, 

 and that he would be home in a couple of hours. 

 He was not at the evening meeting, however, and 

 a meeting in church was a thing that he never 

 missed. 



I searched for his white head among the rows 

 of black ones, but he was not there. His son 

 Samuel was in the choir all right ; I could hear his 

 powerful tenor when we sang ; so I waited for him 

 after the meeting and asked "Abia, nanneka?" 

 (where is Abia ?). 



" A-a-tsuk " (I don't know), answered Samuel. 



" Where did he go this morning ? " 



" A-a-tsuk." 



" Had we not better go and look for him ? " 



" A-a-tsuk," said Samuel, with a grin ; " kujanna 



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