Sketches From Oldest America 



At last the fall season came, bringing with it the 

 colder weather. The villagers were returning from 

 their summer trips, and Allugua's father and mother 

 were among the arrivals. Soon he heard some one 

 moving the barricade from the entrance, then his 

 mother looked up through the hole in the floor. 

 She was greatly surprised to see him alive and 

 well; here was a fat, healthy boy instead of the 

 emaciated body of her son, who, she supposed, had 

 starved to death during her absence. 



"Why you are alive and hearty, what makes you 

 so fleshy?" she remarked, "and how you have 

 grown!" Allugua did not tell his mother that a 

 good little fairy had been feeding him. He simply 

 said that the food and water she had left had proved 

 very nourishing. After that his parents decided that 

 as he would not die they would take care of him. 



In time he grew up and was approaching man- 

 hood, when he expressed a desire to join one of the 

 whaling crews. His parents said no; he was blind 

 and would simply be in the way of the whalers. 

 But he persisted, declaring that he would kill a 

 whale. At last they consented, and he went with 

 one of the crews. He had not been long out when 

 he insisted that he should be placed at the head of 

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