The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball That Floats in the Air | Page 8

of the white yarn with which mamma knits yours. Her mamma has sewed them from the skins of birds, with the soft down upon them to keep the small brown feet very warm. Over these come her moccasins of sealskin.
If you have been on the seashore, perhaps you know the seals that are sometimes seen swimming in the sea, holding up their brown heads, which look much like dogs' heads, wet and dripping.
The seals love best to live in the seas of the cold countries: here they are, huddled together on the sloping rocky shores, or swimming about under the ice, thousands and thousands of silver-gray coated creatures, gentle seal-mothers and brave fathers with all their pretty seal-babies. And here the Esquimaux (for that is the name by which we call these people of the cold countries) hunt them, eat them for dinner, and make warm clothes of their skins. So, as I told you, Agoonack has sealskin boots.
Next she wears leggings, or trousers, of white bear-skin, very rough and shaggy, and a little jacket or frock, called a jumper, of the same. This jumper has a hood, made like the little red riding-hoods which I dare say you have all seen. Pull the hood up over the short, black hair, letting it almost hide the fat, round face, and you have Agoonack dressed.
Is this her best dress, do you think?
Certainly it is her best, because she has no other, and when she goes into the house--but I think I won't tell you that yet, for there is something more to be seen outside.
Agoonack and her mother are coming home to dinner, but there is no sun shining on the snow to make it sparkle. It is dark like night, and the stars shine clear and steady like silver lamps in the sky, but far off, between the great icy peaks, strange lights are dancing, shooting long rosy flames far into the sky, or marching in troops as if each light had a life of its own, and all were marching together along the dark, quiet sky. Now they move slowly and solemnly, with no noise, and in regular, steady file; then they rush all together, flame into golden and rosy streamers, and mount far above the cold, icy mountain peaks that glitter in their light; we hear a sharp sound like Dsah! Dsah! and the ice glows with the warm color, and the splendor shines on the little white-hooded girl as she trots beside her mother.
It is far more beautiful than the fireworks on Fourth of July. Sometimes we see a little of it here, and we say there are northern lights, and we sit at the window watching all the evening to see them march and turn and flash; but in the cold countries they are far more brilliant than any we have seen.
[Illustration]
It is Agoonack's birthday, and there is a present for her before the door of the house. I will make you a picture of it. "It is a sled," you exclaim. Yes, a sled; but quite unlike yours. In the faraway cold countries no trees grow; so her father had no wood, and he took the bones of the walrus and the whale, bound them together with strips of sealskin, and he has built this pretty sled for his little daughter's birthday.
It has a back to lean against and hold by, for the child will go over some very rough places, and might easily fall from it. And then, you see, if she fell, it would be no easy matter to jump up again and climb back to her seat, for the little sled would have run away from her before she should have time to pick herself up. How could it run? Yes, that is the wonderful thing about it. When her father made the sled he said to himself, "By the time this is finished, the two little brown dogs will be old enough to draw it, and Agoonack shall have them; for she is a princess, the daughter of a great chief."
Now you can see that, with two such brisk little dogs as the brown puppies harnessed to the sled, Agoonack must keep her seat firmly, that she may not roll over into the snow and let the dogs run away with it.
You can imagine what gay frolics she has with her brother who runs at her side, or how she laughs and shouts to see him drive his bone ball with his bone bat or hockey, skimming it over the crusty snow.
Now we will creep into the low house with the child and her mother, and see how they live.
Outside it is very cold, colder than you have ever known it to be in the coldest winter's day; but inside it