A Woman who went to Alaska Part 21

CHRISTMAS IN ALASKA.

Thursday, December thirteenth: The old Eskimo whom I call "grandpa" came from the Home with one of Mr. H.'s a.s.sistants for a load of supplies for the place, and arrived in time for breakfast at half-past nine. They loaded up the sleds, took hot coffee, and started back at eleven in the morning. Mr. M. came back alone before noon, having given up his trip to the Koyuk because his shoulder hurts him. The old horse had finally to be killed, and Mr. M. decided that he did not want to take his place at hauling, so turned back after selling part of his supplies to the others. The weather is fine indeed. A little snow is falling this afternoon, but there was a beautiful sky at sunrise and sunset, the latter at half-past one o'clock.

While giving Jennie her lesson today I was introduced for the first time to little Charlie, who spends a good deal of time with Jennie. He is four years old, and a bright and beautiful child. His papa is an Englishman, and his Eskimo mother is dead. After the lesson I read stories to the two children, holding the little boy upon my lap, while Jennie sat beside us in the lamplight, her big black eyes shining like stars. She wore a brown serge dress, trimmed with narrow red tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, her hair neatly braided in two braids down her back, and tied with red ribbons. Both children wore little reindeer muckluks on their feet, the boy being dressed in flannel blouse waist and knee pants. They are a very pretty pair of children.

Such a charming, soft-tinted, red, purple and blue sky today, stretching along in bars above the snow-topped mountains. It makes one glad to be here, and feel full of pity for those who cannot enjoy it with us. It is good to enjoy everything possible as one goes along, for n.o.body knows how long anything will hold out and what will come next. At noon two hungry Eskimo children came, dirty, forlorn and cold, and we fed them.

Mr. H. came again toward evening with reindeer to get a load of supplies, and the girls and M. went fishing. They had great sport, all dressed in fur, with short fish poles, hooks, bait and gunny sack for the game, coming in frosty and rosy after dark, and calling for hot coffee.

I am quite interested in getting the fox skins for my coat. I have paid the Eskimo girl five dollars for tanning my fur skins, and hope to have a warm coat. My first three skins cost me twelve dollars, the next two ten dollars, and now five dollars for tanning, but I have a lining, and Mollie will make it for me next week.

After supper we had a caller who has been here once before with others.

He is a finely trained baritone singer, and comes from one of the Southern States. He sang and played entertainingly on the organ for an hour, while we sewed and knitted as we do each evening.

Sat.u.r.day, December fifteenth: Eight weeks today since we landed at Golovin Bay. Weather good, skies beautiful, but days are short. Sunset at half-past one in the afternoon; sunrise about ten in the morning.

The Commissioner came with legal doc.u.ments and customary jokes, and I try to get the copying done in between times. He is going to Nome for Christmas, and wants the papers all finished before he leaves. He is considered a very "rapid" young man, and looks like it.

Sunday, December sixteenth: We had breakfast today at sunrise (ten in the morning) and I went for a walk alone upon the ice in a southerly direction, where the natives were fishing. There was a good trail which has been made by a horse-team hauling wood from the other sh.o.r.e, and the air was fine, so that I enjoyed it very much, though my hood was soon frosty around my face. For a while I watched the natives haul tom-cod up through the ice holes, but having no place to sit except upon the ice, as they did, I returned after having been gone two hours, and was soon dressed for dinner in Sunday suit.

After dinner Mr. H. arrived with the teacher to hold an evening service in the kitchen, the latter taking Ricka and Mary with her to call upon some native families, two of whose members were sick. When they returned Ricka was full of laughter at the way they had entered the native igloos, especially Mary, who is a large woman and could barely squeeze in through the small opening called by courtesy a door. Ricka says it was more like crawling through a hole than anything else, and at one time Mary was so tightly jammed in that she wondered seriously how she was ever to get out.

"Ugh!" said Ricka, when Mary related the incident, "that was not the worst of it. I wanted to keep the good dinner I had eaten, but the smell of the igloo almost made me lose it then and there, and as I was inside already, and Mary stuck fast in the door so I could not get out, we were both in a bad plight. When I tried to help her she would not let me, but only laughed at me."

"Next time we will send Mrs. Sullivan," said Alma, laughing.

"And you go along with me," said I, knowing that I could stand as long as Alma the smell of the Eskimo huts and their seal oil. So that was settled, Miss J., I presume, thinking us all very foolish to make so much fuss over a little thing like that in Alaska.

This evening, when the kitchen was filled with natives, their service had begun, and while some of us sat in the sitting-room to leave more chairs for the others, there came a knock at the door, and in walked the Commissioner and the young baritone singer, who was persuaded to sing a few solos after the meeting was through in the kitchen.

Monday, December seventeenth: Mollie is cutting my fur coat for me, but says I must have one or two more skins to make it large enough. She says she is too busy to study before Christmas, but will afterwards. The Commissioner brought more copying for me to do, and told me I could have the money for my work at any time. Some tell me he never pays anything he owes, and that I must look sharp or I will not get anything. The other Commissioner has invited me to go to a New Year's party at Council, fifty miles away, saying he will take me there and back behind his best dogs, but I refused, telling him that I never dance, and that I am a married woman. At that he laughed, said he was also married, with a wife in the States, but that does not debar him from having a good time.

Word comes of a new gold strike not far away, but I think we are not really sure that it is bona fide, and must not put too much dependence on what we hear. The Commissioner comes with his copying, and is full of jokes.

Wednesday, December nineteenth: A man came from the Home yesterday who has persuaded M. to go with him on a short staking expedition. They think they know of a new "find" very near home, and I ran over to the Recorder's to get two attorney papers made out for them to take as they say they will stake for the girls and me. The Commissioner paid me twenty dollars on copying, and said he would settle the remainder when he got back from Nome, as he and the other Commissioner were just setting out with a dog-team for that place. I have had to buy another fox skin for my coat, making twenty-seven dollars paid out on the garment thus far.

Right sorry I was today that Mr. H. carried away the big velvet couch yesterday that I have slept on nights since coming here, and I tried last night the wooden settle brought down from upstairs to the sitting-room. I found it a most uncomfortable thing to sleep on, as my feet hung at least six inches over the end of the lounge, and they were icy when I wakened in the morning. I then decided to go upstairs to one of the canvas bunks in the northeast room, and I find it much better every way. The bunk is long, wide and warm enough with a reindeer skin under me, and all my blankets and comforters over me, while I have the room alone, temporarily, at least.

Sat.u.r.day, December twenty-second: This is the middle shortest day of winter, and a fine one, too, though we had not more than three and a half hours daylight. The skies are beautiful, with many bright colors blended in a most wonderful way.

The girls are hard at work cooking for Christmas, and while the boys were all away today and we needed wood brought into the house, I rigged myself in rag-time costume and fetched several loads in my arms. How the girls laughed when they saw me, and declared they would fetch the kodak, but I ran away again.

This afternoon M. and the other man returned from their little trip, looking bright and happy over having staked some claims for themselves and us not very far away. These are our first claims staked, and we naturally feel more than usually set up, though the men say of course there may be nothing of value in them.

When I went to give Jennie her lesson I heard her father and another man talking of a party of five persons who have been taken out to sea on the ice, near Topkok. They started about three days ago from here, and one was the sick woman who has been at the hotel, all on their way to Nome by dog-team.

There were two women and three men, two dog-teams and sleds. They were crossing the ice between two points of land while upon the winter trail to Nome, the wind had loosened the ice, and when they tried to get upon sh.o.r.e again they found it impossible, and they were blown directly out to sea. Without food or shelter, and with the nights as cold as they are, how can they live on the ice at sea? Some men have arrived bringing the news, and say that two men went out in a boat to their rescue, but broke their oars, the ice closed in on them, they were soaked through, and were obliged to use their best efforts to save themselves.

The following night was very cold, and all think the unfortunates must have perished. What a terrible fate, and one that may happen to any one traveling in this country, though it does seem as if this ice should soon freeze solidly.

Sunday, December twenty-third: Soon after breakfast today a man came to our door asking for iodine, or remedies for a dog bite. A mad dog had rushed upon a man sleeping in a tent in the night and bitten him quite severely upon the hands and leg. Mary and I put on our furs immediately and started out with the man, who piloted us into a small saloon, where the poor fellow sat by the stove with a white and pinched face.

Several other men were standing about, after having done all they could for the injured man, but Mary washed the torn flesh in strong carbolic acid water, and tied it up in sterilized bandages, for which he seemed very thankful.

The little saloon was neat and clean, containing a big stove, six or eight bunks across the back end, and a long table, upon which were spread tin plates, cups and spoons. A short bar ran along one side by the door. The men said that the mad dog had been shot immediately after the accident, but there were others around in the camp, they feared.

I could easily see that the injured man was badly frightened as to the after-effects of the dog bite, and both Mary and I did all in our power to suggest away his fear, knowing well that this was as harmful as the injury. I told him that the missionary, Mr. H., had had a great deal of experience with such accidents, but never yet had seen a person thus bitten suffer from hydrophobia, which appeared to comfort him greatly.

When we left the place he seemed more cheerful, though still very pale, and Mary promised to come again to see him. He belongs to a party of three men bound for Koyuk River. The young man who sings so well sometimes at the Mission is one of the three, but the other I have not yet seen.

Later on Mary and I called upon Alice, the Eskimo girl, who lives with her mother, near the hotel, and who is suffering with quinsy. I found Jennie and Charlie there, and took them out for a walk down on the beach, where the little girl's aunt was cutting ice. As we pa.s.sed the A.

E. Store I noticed a dog lying on the porch having a b.l.o.o.d.y mouth, but as he lay quietly I did not think much about it. After we had pa.s.sed down the trail for a block or so, I heard a commotion behind us, and looking back saw a young man rush out into the trail and shoot a dog, the one, as I afterwards learned, that I had seen on the porch. It had been mad, and snapping around all day, but the men could not find it earlier, and the two little children and I had pa.s.sed within a few feet of it without being conscious of danger.

Mr. H. came in to supper, also two others from the camp of the shipwrecked people, thirty miles away to the east of us. At supper one of the men offered to stake some claims for us over near their camp, where they think there is gold. They took our names on paper, and said that after prospecting, if they found gold, they would let us into the strike before any others. They will remain over night, and leave early in the morning. Mr. H. and Mary called after supper to see the man who was bitten by the mad dog, and found him looking better, and not so worried as this morning. His friend was playing on the banjo, and all were sitting quietly around the fire.

Monday, December twenty-fourth: The two boys, G. and B., came in late last evening, tired and hungry, from the Nome trail, glad to arrive at home in time for Christmas.

Early this morning Mary dressed herself up hideously as Santa Claus, bringing a big box of presents in while we sat at the breakfast table and distributing them. Of course there were the regulation number of fake packages, containing funny things for the boys, but each one had a present of something, and I had a souvenir spoon just from Nome, an ivory paper knife of Eskimo make from the girls, and later a white silk handkerchief.

Going into the sitting-room after breakfast, we were met by the fumes of burnt cork, hair or cotton, and upon inquiry were told that Santa Claus had had a little mishap; his whiskers had been singed by coming into contact with the lamp chimney and that it had delayed matters somewhat until Ricka, his a.s.sistant, could find more cotton on the medicine shelves; but the end of all was hearty laughter and a jolly good time; an effort to forget, for the present, the day in our own homes thousands of miles away.

This morning, before noon, all in the Mission went to the Home to the Christmas tree and exercises, leaving me alone to keep house, the first time this has happened in Alaska. Mr. H. had left the dog-teams, two reindeer, and three sleds, with which they were to drive over, and a merry party they were. When they had gone I worked for some time at getting the rooms in order, and making all as tidy and snug as possible, but I had no holly berries nor greens with which to decorate. All was snowy and white out of doors, and a cheerful fire inside was most to be desired. In the afternoon I gave Jennie her lesson as usual. I am invited to eat Christmas dinner tomorrow with Mollie, the captain and little Jennie, and shall accept. A good many in camp have been invited, I understand, and I am wondering what kind of a gathering it will be.

Tuesday, December twenty-fifth: Christmas Day, and I was alone in the Mission all night, so I had to build my own fires this morning. I did not get up until ten o'clock, as it was cold and dark, and I had nothing especial to do. There is plenty of wood and water, and everything in the house, so I do not have to go out of doors for anything.

By noon I had finished my work, put on my best dress, and sat down at the organ to play. I went over all the church music and voluntaries I could find at hand, read a number of psalms aloud, and as far as possible for one person I went through my Christmas exercises.

If a certain longing for things and people far away came near possessing me, I would not allow it to make me miserable, for longing is not necessarily unhappiness, and I had set my mind like a flint against being dissatisfied with my present state. With what knowledge I possess of the laws of auto-suggestion, I have so far since my arrival in Alaska managed the ego within most successfully, and tears and discontent are not encouraged nor allowed.

We are creatures of voluntary habits, as well as involuntary ones, and habitual discontent and discouragement, gnawing at one's vitals are truly death-dealing. The study of human nature is, in Alaska, particularly interesting in these directions, to the one with his mind's eye open to such things, and I am resolved, come what will, that I will keep the upper hand of my spirit, that it shall do as I direct, and not harbor "blues" nor discouragement.

About two in the afternoon in came M. and one of the visiting Swedes, after having walked from the Home, where they had attended the Christmas party, and they were well covered with icicles. I prepared a hot lunch for them, and ate something myself. Later a native was sent by Mollie to fetch me over to the hotel to dinner, it being dark, and as I was already dressed for the occasion, I went with him.

When I arrived at the dining-room they were just seated at table, and the waiters were bringing in the first course. Twenty-five persons sat at the Christmas board, at one end of which sat the captain as host with his wife and little Jennie at his left. At his right sat the young musician, who had entertained us at the Mission several times with his singing, and the storekeeper, but with a place between them reserved for me.

After a quiet Christmas greeting to those around me, I took my seat, and the dinner was then served. A bottle of wine was ordered by the host for me, and brought by the waiter, who placed it with a gla.s.s beside my plate. At each plate there had already been placed the same accompaniments to the dinner, with which great care had been taken by the two French cooks in the kitchen, and upon which no expense had been spared by the captain, who was host. While the waiters were serving the courses, and conversation around the table near me became quite general, on the aside I studied the company. It was cosmopolitan to the last degree. Opposite me sat the hostess (Mollie) with her little Jennie, dressed in their very best, the woman wearing a fashionable trained skirt, pink silk waist and diamond brooch, while the little child wore light tan cloth in city fashion, and looked very pretty. Below them sat the regular boarders at the hotel, hotel clerk, the bartender, miners, traders and the woman who kept the saloon. The latter appeared about thirty years of age, dark, pet.i.te and pretty, richly and becomingly gowned in garments which might have come along with her native tongue from Paris. On our side of the long table, and opposite this woman, sat the only other white woman besides myself present, and she, with her husband, the two neighbors who had given us our first sleigh ride behind the grey horse. On this side sat more miners and the few travelers who happened to be at the hotel at this time. The clerk, next his employer, who sat at my right, and the musician on my left, completed the number of guests, with the exception of the one at the farther end of the board, opposite the host. This was a young man in a heavy fur coat, his head drooping low over his plate.

"Don't let H. fall upon the floor, boys," said the captain, as he saw the pitiable plight of the young man. "Poor fellow, he has been celebrating Christmas with a vengeance, and it was too much for him, evidently. It don't take much to knock him out, though, and this wine,"

taking up his wine gla.s.s and looking through the liquid it contained, "won't hurt a baby."

"Do you never take wine?" politely inquired the musician of me, as he noticed that my wine gla.s.s remained untouched, and a gla.s.s of cold water was my only beverage.

"I never do," said I firmly, but with a smile, as I noticed that both he and the gentleman at my right barely touched theirs, while others drank freely.

"Waiter, bring Mellie another bottle of that wine," called the bartender, from the other side of the table, "those bottles don't hold nothin' anyway, and a woman who can't empty more'n one of 'em ain't much," and a second bottle was handed the female dispenser of grog, a connoisseur of long standing, and one who could "stand up" under as much as the next person. By this time the woman opposite her was considerably along the road to hilarity, and shouts and laughter came from both, called forth by the jests of their companions alongside.

Meanwhile the dinner progressed. The turkey was bona fide bird, and not a few gull's bones from a tin quart can, while the cake and ice cream with which my meal was ended, were all that could be desired in Alaska.