A SNOW HOUSE 



At last the spiral was finished, all but the 

 " keystone." Julius sprawled on the side of the 

 house, while Johannes's hands shoved a big slab 

 through the opening that still remained at the top. 

 Julius laid it over the hole, and chipped the edges 

 away with his knife until it gently dropped into 

 place, and the building was ready. A scraping and 

 trampling noise inside was the next thing ; that was 

 Johannes smoothing the floor. Meanwhile Julius 

 was filling all the crevices with handfuls of snow. 

 "Keep the wind out," he said, "boy's work, this"; 

 from which I gathered that the Eskimo boy learns 

 to build by filling the crevices with snow as his 

 father fits the slabs together. "Yes," said Julius, 

 " and boy has to follow quick, too ; if he gets behind, 

 he's no good. Soon learn quick. Now my boy 

 and Julius was off into an anecdote of his boy's 

 quickness. 



Soon Johannes was ready to come out. I always 

 knew when, because he used to light his pipe ; and a 

 weird and rather pretty sight it was, to see the glow 

 through the snow walls, with all the joints and 

 crevices marked out because the snow was softer 

 there and let the light through. It was generally 

 dark by the time the house was ready. Johannes's 

 sword poked out suddenly, and slashed a doorway in 

 the wall, and the man himself crawled out and made 

 straight for the sledge. 



Then the dogs began to sit up. They knew that 

 feeding-time was near. They were usually quiet 

 while the building was in progress, but the finish of 

 the work seemed to wake them up. They began to 

 whine and prowl about, and Julius often had to show 

 them the whip to keep them in order. They would 



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