HOW AGOONACK LIVES THROUGH THE LONG SUMMER.
It is almost noon one day when Agoonack's mother wraps the little girlin her shaggy clothes and climbs with her a high hill, promising apleasant sight when they shall have reached the top.
It is the sun, the beautiful, bright, round sun, which shines andsmiles at them for a minute, and then slips away again below the far,frozen water.
They haven't seen him for many months, and now they rejoice, for thenext day he comes again and stays longer, and the next, and the next,and every day longer and longer, until at last he moves above them inone great, bright circle, and does not even go away at all at night.His warm rays melt the snow and awaken the few little hardy flowersthat can grow in this short summer. The icy coat breaks away from theclear running water, and great flocks of birds with soft white plumagecome, like a snowstorm of great feathery flakes, and settle among theblack rocks along the seashore. Here they lay their eggs in the manysafe little corners and shelves of the rock; and here they circleabout in the sunshine, while the Esquimau boys make ready theirlong-handled nets and creep and climb out upon the ledges of rock,and, holding up the net as the birds fly by, catch a netful to carryhome for supper.
The sun shines all day long, and all night long, too; and yet hecan't melt all the highest snowdrifts, where the boys are playingbat-and-ball,--long bones for sticks, and an odd little round one fora ball.
It is a merry life they all live while the sunshine stays, for theyknow the long, dark winter is coming, when they can no longer climbamong the birds, nor play ball among the drifts.
The seals swim by in the clear water, and the walrus and her young oneare at play; and, best of all, the good reindeer has come, for the sunhas uncovered the crisp moss upon which he feeds, and he is roamingthrough the valleys where it grows among the rocks.
The old men sit on the rocks in the sunshine, and laugh and sing, andtell long stories of the whale and the seal, and the great whitewhale that, many years ago, when Agoonack's father was a child, cameswimming down from the far north, where they look for the northernlights, swimming and diving through the broken ice; and they watchedher in wonder, and no one would throw a harpoon at this white lady ofthe Greenland seas, for her visit was a good omen, promising a mildwinter.
Little Agoonack comes from her play to crouch among the rocky ledgesand listen to the stories. She has no books; and, if she had, shecouldn't read them. Neither could her father or mother read to her:their stories are told and sung, but never written. But she isa cheerful and contented little girl, and tries to help her dearfriends; and sometimes she wonders a great while by herself about whatthe pale stranger told them.
And now, day by day, the sun is slipping away from them; gone for afew minutes to-day, to-morrow it will stay away a few more, untilat last there are many hours of rosy twilight, and few, very few, ofclear sunshine.
But the children are happy: they do not dread the winter, but theyhope the tired travellers have reached their homes; and Agoonackwants, oh, so much! to see them and help them once more. The fatherwill hunt again, and the mother will tend the lamp and keep the housewarm; and, although they will have no sun, the moon and stars arebright, and they will see again the streamers of the great northernlight.
Would you like to live in the cold countries, with their long darknessand long sunshine?
It is very cold, to be sure, but there are happy children there, andkind fathers and mothers, and the merriest sliding on the very best ofice and snow.