Perhaps the next most important employment of the feminine portion of the community is the preparation of skins, the softening of leather, and the finer animal tissues, the washing, drying, and stretching of gut, and the manufacture of the marvellously fine sinew used for sewing and stitchery. All this includes the making of tents and clothing. The old women help the housewives as far as they are able, and the girls watch and learn, with a view to rendering themselves eligible in the eyes of the young men as accomplished brides-to-be. The women are perpetually employed chewing the edges of skins and leathers to make them pliable and soft for sewing. This process tends to wear down the teeth to very unsightly stumps. The heavy work is done by the hale and hearty, who leave only the lighter tasks, such as the tending of the lamps and the minding of the house, to the older folk. Womanlike all the world over, the crones love to get together and indulge in unlimited gossip. All the women, indeed, pay a constant round of visits, and gathering, now here, now there, sit about smiling and gossiping, as is their wont from the tropics to the pole. The Eskimo are a genial, jovial, peaceable people, among whom quarrelling is a crime, and he or she who disturbs the general peace is a villain of the deepest dye. So, whatever else comes of all the gossip, it is not—in an Eskimo village—malevolence, backbiting and spite. They talk—these fur-clad, hard-working women—of their last year’s journeyings, who and what they saw and heard, of their trials and vexations, of their children and relations and husbands—each one’s contribution to the conversation being punctuated by a chorus of “Ah, Ah’s,” “Elarle! Elarle!” (Indeed! Yes!) from the rest. Suddenly, however, just when their enjoyment may be at its height, the children’s cry of “Kumokse! Kumokse! Netsérkpok!”—(A sled, a sled! He’s got a seal!) breaks up the gathering in excited confusion. There is a rush, each wife to her own home. Cries of joy and anticipation fill the air, and the whole village is stirred with cheerful and prosperous bustle. The hunters are returning, and fresh supplies are at hand. Very soon the cracking of the dog whips is heard, shouts of command, barks and howls; and the teams appear, scrambling over the sigjak (the broken ice along the shore), with their welcome loads. Quickly the harness is thrown off and safely bestowed, the lines and everything eatable being carried into the sukso; the dogs are fed and quieted, and curl round and go to sleep in the snow.