The Snow Baby: A true story with true picturesPeary, Josephine Diebitsch
General
The Snow Baby: A true story with true pictures
Peary, Josephine Diebitsch
Arctic regions -- Juvenile literature; Eskimos -- Juvenile literature; Peary, Marie Ahnighito, 1893-1978
After AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father had selected the Eskimos who were to help
him move the great heaven-born stone, the old ship turned her nose
toward Meteorite Island, where this mass of iron lay. It was snowing so
thick and fast that one could not see any distance ahead, and
AH-NI-GHI´-TO thought she must be sailing through the clouds, because,
when she looked beyond the ship, she could see nothing but whirling
snow-flakes above, below, and all about her. The ship moved along very
slowly, feeling her way carefully, to avoid collision with the floating
icebergs, numbers of which were to be seen before the snow descended. At
last the island was safely reached, and AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father, with the
help of the Eskimos, at once began his search for the great meteorite.
Everything was now buried under the snow, which was still falling fast.
The great iron rock was soon found, however, and the snow removed; then
the work of getting it alongside the ship was begun. This was no easy
thing, for it was found to weigh nearly one hundred tons.
For a week everybody worked. The Eskimos, with AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father to
lead them, worked by night,—for you know it was daylight all the time,
even when the sun was behind the clouds,—and the captain of the ship,
with his men, worked during the day.
The great iron stone was shaped like one of the Eskimo tents, and for
that reason the natives called it “tupic.” They chatted all the time
they were at work, wondering what the woman could have done that she
should have been cast out of the sky with her dog and her tent.
“Billy-Bah” told AH-NI-GHI´-TO that she had heard her great-grandfather
say that his grandfather told him when these stones first fell from the
heavens they were red-hot, but after they had cooled, they looked just
like other rocks about them, and none of his people thought they were
any different, until one day one of the dusky hunters of the tribe had
shot his last arrow into a polar bear, and the animal, though wounded,
had managed to escape, leaving the hunter without any arrows.
He hastened to the shore, and began looking for sharp stones from which
to make new arrow-heads. As he came upon the heaven-born stones, it
occurred to him that perhaps these would give him luck, and picking up a
large stone, he began to pound down upon one of the sharp brown ridges
of the iron stone. Wherever he struck the brown coat became spotted with
silver, but instead of knocking off a splinter, the stone with which he
struck flew into fragments. He then searched far and near for a piece of
rock harder than the one he had been using, and after a long time he
found a piece. Hurrying again to the meteorite, he began to pound and
chip, and to his joy he saw that he was making an impression on the iron
stone. After hours and hours of hard work, he succeeded in getting a
splinter. How it glittered in the sunlight; and when he ran his finger
over the edge, the spurting blood taught him how sharp it was.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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