Brooks's Readers, Third Year Part 13

Then the baby and her mother went on board the s.h.i.+p and steamed away south to their own American home.

_From "The Snow Baby."

Copyright, 1901, by Frederick A. Stokes Company._

A SNOW HOUSE

knees puppy harness dries force needle clothing twists thaws dimly platform whales

In the summer time the Eskimo people live in tents made of skins. In the winter they build their houses out of hard blocks of ice and snow.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Perhaps you would like to visit an Eskimo family, and see how these yellow people live in a snow house. But how shall we get into the house?

There seems to be no door in this strange-looking mound of snow.

We must bow our heads and crawl on our hands and knees through a dark pa.s.sage. Soon we come to an open s.p.a.ce where we stand upright in a dimly lighted room.

All around the room is a bank of snow next to the wall of the house.

The top of this bank is broad and level like a table. It is covered with the thick skins of reindeer, bear, and foxes. Here the family eat and sleep, and here the children play.

Near the doorway stands the stove, on a raised platform. You would think it a very poor stove, for it is only a hollow stone filled with oil and moss. When the moss is lighted, it burns like the wick of a lamp.

This stove warms the room, melts the water for drinking, dries wet clothing, and thaws the frozen meat. It lights the room dimly and we see the Eskimo father, mother, and children in their snow house.

A bag is lying on the thick furs. Now it moves and the mother takes it in her arms. See, it is a baby boy in a bag of feathers.

When an Eskimo baby is in the house, he lies in his feather bag. And when he is out of doors, he is always on his mother's back, inside of her fur hood.

As soon as an Eskimo boy is old enough to walk, he has a puppy for a playmate. He learns to harness his dog and drive it all around the room. Soon he will be able to drive a team of dogs, as his father does, and ride swiftly over the snow.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The large boys catch fish and hunt seal. They even help to kill great whales and fierce white bears.

But what does the little Eskimo girl do? The little sister learns to sew and to make clothes out of skins. She makes her own needle from a hard bone or a piece of iron, and she twists thread from strips of deerskin. Everything the Eskimos use they make with their own hands.

Sometimes our s.h.i.+ps force their way through the frozen ocean to their land of ice and snow. The Eskimo people think these great s.h.i.+ps the most wonderful things they have ever seen.

THE NORTHERN SEAS

Up! up! let us a voyage take; Why sit we here at ease?

Find us a vessel tight and snug, Bound for the northern seas.

I long to see the Northern Lights, With their rus.h.i.+ng splendors, fly, Like living things, with flaming wings, Wide o'er the wondrous sky.

I long to see those icebergs vast, With heads all crowned with snow, Whose green roots sleep in the awful deep, Two hundred fathoms low.

I long to hear the thundering crash Of their terrific fall; And the echoes from a thousand cliffs, Like lonely voices call.

There we shall see the fierce white bear, The sleepy seals aground, And the spouting whales that to and fro Sail with a dreary sound.

We'll pa.s.s the sh.o.r.es of solemn pine, Where wolves and black bears prowl, And away to the rocky isles of mist To rouse the northern fowl.

And there, in the wastes of the silent sky, With the silent earth below, We shall see far off to his lonely rock The lonely eagle go.

Then softly, softly we will tread By island streams, to see Where the pelican of the silent North Sits there all silently.

--WILLIAM HOWITT.

DECEMBER

And now December's snows are here, The light flakes flutter down, And h.o.a.rfrost glitters, white and fair, Upon the branches brown.

--SELECTED.

JANUARY

Wintry day! frosty day!

G.o.d a cloak on all doth lay; On the earth the snow he sheddeth, O'er the lamb a fleece he spreadeth, Gives the bird a coat of feather To protect it from the weather.

--SELECTED.

FEBRUARY

In the snowing and the blowing, In the cold and cruel sleet, Little flowers begin their growing, Underneath your feet.

--MARY MAPES DODGE.

CHRISTMAS EVERYWHERE