The Snow Baby: A true story with true pictures — John Shaqi
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
As the good ship sailed South, she gradually came into the zone where
the sun goes down every evening and rises every morning. This
AH-NI-GHI´-TO did not like at all, for now she could not go on deck
after supper as she had been in the habit of doing, nor could she have
daylight in her cabin whenever she pleased by simply pulling the old hat
out of the tiny round window. Instead, she had the moon and stars to
keep her company through the night.
[Illustration: _Ah-ni-ghi´-to’s Birthday_]
One morning (it was the twelfth of September) AH-NI-GHI´-TO awoke and
found on a little stand by the side of her bed a beautiful cake all iced
with chocolate,—this was her favorite cake,—and upon it four colored
candles burning brightly. What do you suppose this meant? It meant that
four years ago that day the stork had brought little AH-NI-GHI´-TO to
her father and mother, in the little black house way up in the Snowland;
so this was her birthday. All the gentlemen on board ship, whom she
called her “brothers,” had remembered the little girl, and her presents
were different from any she had ever received on her other birthdays.
There were ivory rings, an ivory locket and chain, and an ivory cross;
all these had been carved by the Eskimos. Then there were two white-fox
skins, and two blue-fox skins; sealskin mittens, shoes, and slippers; a
muff and neckpiece made of eiderdown, and a lovely eiderdown quilt, with
the beautiful green and black skins of the necks of the birds used as a
border all around it. But the funniest thing of all was a big Eskimo
doll, almost as tall as AH-NI-GHI´-TO herself, dressed like an Eskimo
hunter, with his sealskin trousers and coat, and his fur hood pulled
over his face in true Eskimo style. Such a happy little girl she was
that day. In the afternoon she invited her friends, whom she called her
brothers, to share her cake and whatever else could be found in the
“goody” line. What a jolly time there was in the little cabin! Every one
wished AH-NI-GHI´-TO “many happy returns of the day;” the captain
hoisted the stars and stripes on the mainmast, and the engineer blew
four loud blasts with the whistle. This, he said, would let all the
seals and walrus, and even the polar bears, if there were any within
hearing distance, know that there was a celebration on board ship, and
that AH-NI-GHI´-TO, the Snow Baby, was four years old that day. If they
heard the whistle, they did not make any sign, for not an animal was to
be seen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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