Alaska -- Description and travel; Frontier and pioneer life -- Alaska
May eighteenth: The night I slept in grandmother's cabin with Jennie
passed quietly for us. I slept in my clothes and muckluks, an old quilt
and fur parkie on some boards being my bed, though grandmother finally
gave me a double blanket for covering when I asked for it.
It was long past midnight before we slept. The child was restless, and
urged her grandmother to tell her Eskimo stories. O Duk Dok slept
heavily, unconscious of all around her. My own senses were on the alert.
I listened intently to catch every sound, but we were too far away from
the hotel to hear the carousal that I well knew was there in progress.
The mushers from the dance were hourly expected home, and would then add
their part to the midnight orgies. The low droning of the old Eskimo
woman, telling her tales of the Innuits, of the Polar bear, the seal and
the walrus, of the birds, their habits and nestlings; this was the only
sound I heard.
After a time the others slept and I went to the window and looked out.
At my right, only a stone's throw away, was the Mission, its windows and
doors all fastened, and its occupants gone. I felt a heart-sinking
sensation as I thought of the friends who were there lately. Across the
way was the old schoolhouse, in which were the musician, his partner and
the deaf man, who had been bitten by the mad dog. They were within
calling distance, and for that I felt thankful. I had dreaded the night
in the cabin for fear that I should suffer for fresh air, but seeing a
broken pane of glass into which some cloth had been stuffed, I removed
the latter, and allowed the pure air to enter. Of course the place was
scented with seal oil, but grandmother's cabin was comparatively tidy
and clean.
Next morning, when we knew that breakfast was over, we went in a body to
the hotel, grandmother carrying Jennie on her back, according to Eskimo
custom. Some of the men were still sleeping off their dissipation of the
night before. Nothing was said about our remaining away, and the Eskimo
women spent the day with us. Others also came, called quietly in to see
Jennie, and remained to the meals I was glad to give them for their
company.
When six o'clock arrived, and still we saw nothing of Mollie, I felt
anxious. If she did not return it meant another night in the native hut
for us. Eight, nine, ten o'clock--thank God! She had come at last. I
could have hugged her for joy. She had nearly one hundred ptarmigan,
enough to last till the captain came home, and would not leave us again
alone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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