Alaska -- Description and travel; Frontier and pioneer life -- Alaska
The winter is rapidly passing, and so far without monotony, though what
it will bring to us before spring remains to be seen. Little Jennie has
been suffering more and more with her leg of late, and her papa sent for
the doctor at White Mountain, who came today by dog-team. The child's
mother has had a spring cot made for her, and she was put to bed by the
doctor, who says the knee trouble is a very serious one, and she must
have good nursing, attention being also paid to her diet. The Eskimos
are all exceedingly fond of seal and reindeer meat, and Jennie's Auntie
Apuk or grandmother will often bring choice tidbits to the child at
bedtime, or between meals, when she ought not to eat anything, much less
such hearty food. When the little child sees the good things, she, of
course, wants them, and having been humored in every whim, she must
still be, she thinks, especially when she is ill. A problem then is here
presented which I may help to solve for them. Jennie and I are growing
very fond of each other, and she will do some things for me which she
will not do for others who have obeyed her wishes so long. I begin by
round-about coaxing and reasoning, and get some other idea into her
mind, until the plate of seal meat is partially forgotten, and does not
seem so attractive at nine in the evening as when presented with loving
smiles by her old grandmother, who does sometimes resent the
alternative, but is still exceedingly solicitous that the little girl
should recover. As grandmother understands English imperfectly, Mollie
is obliged to reiterate the doctor's orders in Eskimo, making them as
imperative as possible, and the poor old Eskimo woman goes home with the
promise that Jennie shall have some of the dainties at meal-time on the
morrow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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