CHAPTER XI.
D
DEC. 8.—The beautiful snow has come at last and to-day it is six inches deep on the level. The trees are loaded and the river and meadows are painfully white. We must get out our snow-glasses, of which we have an abundance for all. Our condition seems to resemble that of the Swiss Family Robinson. We find everything we desire in our cabin, if not in our "wreck." We have no wreck. The north wind has been blowing a gale for days, which at last amounted to a blizzard. I went across the river in the teeth of the wind, just crawling along on the slippery ice, but the fun was in coming back. I had but to keep my balance and the wind did the rest.
We have been having some strange experiences with the Eskimos the past week, which has introduced us to more of their interesting superstitions.
Sunday evening, while we were all engaged in reading, or quiet talk, we were suddenly startled by a loud groaning outside. As the gruesome sound grew nearer we scarcely knew what to expect, but were prepared to give relief to sick or wounded human beings of whatever type. We rushed to the door, to find Charley, the Indian medicine man from the native village above. We thought at first that he was but practicing his arts, but when he was brought in groaning and sobbing we realized that he was really very sick, and the doctor pronounced it pneumonia. Soon Charley's family followed, and one of the little children was nearly frozen. The wind was blowing a gale, and Charley told us that he had come down from his igloo, four miles.
A few days before one of his wives had died, she who had eaten the bear gravy, and, according to Indian superstition that a person who lives in a house after another has died in it will surely die himself, he had moved out of his warm dugout into a tent. Of course it was very cold in the tent, and Sunday morning one of his little girls died as the result of exposure. So Charley could no longer live in either the tent or the igloo, and he was thrown out into the pitiless storm with his other wife and three remaining children. They went to a neighboring igloo, but a native would as soon commit suicide as shelter any of the family of the deceased in his house or enter the house where one has died. As a last resort Charley came to our cabin, and no doubt the whole family would have died but for this.
Of course we warmed and fed all of them, and the doctor attended upon Charley, who was too sick to object to another medicine man's treatment. Several of us then went over to the church cabin and, by stopping the fireplace and putting up a camp stove, we made it a comfortable hospital. Charley is there now. Not a single Indian has been inside our cabin since Charley was here.
Indian Charley and Family.
Indian Charley and Family.
They say if they come in they will surely "mucky" (die). We are very glad they have taken this course, as heretofore they have been too numerous altogether. It would be to our advantage to keep one sick man with us. We have tried to induce a couple of young men to cut wood for Charley, but they declare that also is dangerous. Charley's wife dare not touch an axe for the same reason, so we have to chop their wood ourselves. Wonder if we will any of us be alive in the spring after such dangers. None of the Indians give them any food, so we are attending to that matter. We are doing our best to get them to overcome theseinhuman and exasperating superstitions. They can plainly see that we do not hesitate to care for the sick or the dead.
A Funeral Cortege.
A Funeral Cortege.
Tuesday night the patient was so sick the doctor thought he could not live without especial care, so we decided to watch with him. Rivers and I stayed with him from one to five o'clock in the early morning. And it was an odd experience. We had Charley bolstered up on two benches placed side by side near the stove. We kept a hot water bag on his chest and occasionally made him take ptarmigan broth with soaked hardtack. Poor fellow! had he been fed on such a diet while well and able to appreciate it, he might well have been surprised. But he was too near death to appreciate what we were doing. He would have spasms of coughing and loud groaning, catching his breath and rolling his eyes. Then he would fall back with his head lying limply over his shoulder, breathing short and with scarcely perceptible pulse. We thought he was about to die, but the climax passed and he revived. While we were taking care of him his wife slept, for she had probably been without rest for days. She now waits on him and is very attentive to his wants, and does the best she knows how, being generally more intelligent than most of the women. They all have little ingenuity in caring for the sick, and this is one reason why they die. Could these natives be persuaded to have a few of their women educated as nurses, how much less would be the winter mortality! Had we time we could do this, but it would take years, and women beside. We have no women. But here are, or will be, all the abandoned cabins on the Kowak by spring. What an opening for the mission-inclined! Free hospitals and free beds such as they are. And they are not mean. There are chairs, too, and carpeted floors.
In the meantime Charley's dead child, as we supposed, had been sole tenant of the igloo which had been vacated. This fact gave a sudden joy to C. C, the undertaker. As if by instinct he scented a resurrection of his neglected business, and it was with little difficulty that he persuaded Charley to let him give it a Christian burial. C. C. and Joe Jury went up to see about it, and found that the ceremonies had already been performed and the corpse was resting on one of the usual scaffolds near the igloo. This did not matter. They made a coffin of boards, sawed at our mill, and brought the corpse down to Penelope Camp, Jury as coroner and C. C. as funeral director. The hearse was a sled and the black horses a couple of dogs. Of course Charley was too sick to attend the funeral services, but his woman came and watched proceedings. She objected to nothing in any way when told that was the way white men buried their dead. But she insisted on putting some dishes and half a sack of flour in the grave before it was filled. The flour C. C. had brought down from the igloo, intending it for the family to eat. But they couldn't think of consigning a dead child to the unknown future without supplying it with sufficient means of support until it should reach its uncertain destination. So twenty-five pounds of good flour was interred with the coffin. C. C. intended this burial to teach the natives better methods than their own superstitious ways, but I for one doubt the propriety of burial in the ground in this country, as in summer the earth is saturated and covered with water, and in winter it is frozen to granite. As it turned out, the funeral was not a very extraordinary object lesson, for not a single Eskimo attended, save the woman mentioned, though they were especially asked to come. I am not sure that the funeral director was not guilty of making a "grave" mistake in the closing ceremonies.He had just been assuring the woman mourner that the dead would need no further food or clothing in the "beyond" where she had now gone, when it occurred to him that a single demonstration of sorrowful affection might be appropriate. Just before filling the grave he had all the by-standers (gold-hunters on the Kowak) throw in each a spruce bough, and the woman did likewise. I suppose he chose the spruce in place of impossible flowers, but the solitary mourner must have considered the act an inconsistent one after the remarks which had been made.
The doctor and I felt some uneasiness as to a special feature of the funeral and accordingly acted. Now I have no doubt my friend was no stranger to the scheme, but I was; nevertheless I went about my duty with the approval of my immature conscience. We went out as if to take a stroll, as was our frequent custom, and dug into the grave, removing the buried sack of flour. We very carefully filled in the grave and left all as it had been before. The snow which was falling at the time soon covered our footprints (whereupon might be written a poem), and no Eskimo will ever suspect our subtle deed. We put the flour into a new clean sack and presented it to Charley as a mutual gift. This was Kowak philanthropy, though, if the natives had found us out, we might have had to suffer. The doctor and I congratulate ourselves on doing a real good deed in a naughty world.
Yesterday Charley's father came down from the village to pay his son a visit, but he evidently did not intend to enter the cabin, carrying on his conversation from without, very much as white folks do in cases of scarlet fever or other infectious disease. Some of us happened to be near by chopping wood, and we tried to induce him to go in. Finally the woman came out and built a fire, putting on green spruce twigs to make a dense smoke. The old man then stooped over the smudge, spreading a blanket over and around himself, thus confining the smoke about his body for several minutes. He then apparently considered himself immune from any evil and went into the cabin without further hesitation. This process of disinfection is certainly reasonable, only it was applied at the wrong end of affairs. He is a very old man and of no help about the patient, so we have an added charge.
Dec, 12, Monday.—I shot three redpolls this morning over in the willows. I then tried to utilize our brief stint of daylight to skin them by, but was obliged to resort to the dim light of a candle after all. We get no more sunshine here in the valley. At noon only the snowy mountain peaks are illuminated by straggling rays from the truant sun. The landscape is often magnificent. I stood on the bank several minutes at noon admiring the views. The northern horizon was deep blue, and, contrasted with it, were the snow-covered ranges, which were tinged a rich pink. The sky above was slightly overcast, as if covered by a delicate pink veil. Dark purple shadows crossed the zenith, but toward the sun all was bright bellow and gold. The snow-covered river and meadows beyond were so white that they seemed to have a blue tint. Then the spruce forests with their ragged outlines looked dark and gloomy as they were sketched against the mountains or horizon. I never imagined such color effects as are displayed every day here. I do not think that the brightest colors on an artist's palette could exaggerate the brilliant hues of the sky during our short period of twilight. We are looking for a tenant for our cabin. Let some club of artists engage it for a season and they will be in ecstasy.
A change in the weather! This morning a southeast wind sprang up and sent the thermometer to twenty-three degrees above zero. At this hour yesterday it was thirty-four degrees below. Although nine degrees below freezing, the air feels balmy as it strikes our faces. This is the first day in two months that I have taken a walk across the river in an ordinary hat. I could not go far, as the snow is badly drifted now. I saw a few redpolls and one raven. Rivers and Uncle Jimmy dug a new water-hole to-day. The ice is three and one-half feet thick.
In the cabin all is quiet as I write. The only light is my little candle on the dining-table. Uncle Jimmy is asleep, with his head on his crossed hands, on the opposite side of the table. C. C. is sitting in an arm-chair at the further end of the room probably thinking of home. Brownie and Clyde went over to one of the Iowa camps a few hours ago. Some of the boys are restless and delight in visiting.
Dr. Coffin got word from Dr Gleaves to go down to the Hanson Camp. A man on his way up the river from one of the lower camps has frozen his toes, and they are in such a condition that amputation is necessary. Dr. Coffin wanted me to go with himto assist, thinking: me cool and nervy, but I declined. If they were nice, fresh, sound members, nothing would delight me better than to render assistance, but I have a repugnance to dead, decaying flesh. For this and other reasons I never would skin a bird that had died of itself, though I saw it fly against a telegraph wire.
I am studying hard. I am at work on my physiology, and also committing to memory a "Glossary of Scientific Terms." The boys ridicule me for reading the dictionary so much, saying that the subject is changed too often to make it profitable reading. I am also teaching German to Rivers and Brownie. They are a very willing class. Other times I am studying bacteriology with the doctor. We are a literary and scientific crowd. Our latest argument last night was "How to Dispose of the City Slums." The doctor reads portions of Josiah Strong's "New Era" to us and then we discuss it. The Literary Society of the Kowak met Wednesday evening with a good attendance. "The Practical Value of Art" was thoroughly expounded by Solsbury of the Hanson Camp, though he required two hours to do it and some of the art-less ones grew sleepy.
Native Family at Home.
Native Family at Home.
Indian Charley is nearly well now, and, like a white man in such circumstances, is appreciative of all we have done for him. He assures us that his woman shall sew for us, and that he himself will bring us fish when the spring opens. We hope he will continue in a thankful frame of mind. Another native died at the Hanson Camp of pneumonia. Dr. Gleaves kept him in his own cabin for days but failed to restore him, as the man was too far gone when he saw him. The relatives of the dead man had heard how C. C. buried Charley's little girl in a box, and insisted that they, too, have a "cabloona" (white man's burial). Again was our undertaker alert and in his "native element," so to speak, and superintended the making of a coffin, and the various other incidentals of the funeral. The friends of the deceased brought a large number of articles, including a new gun, spy-glasses, parkas, skins, etc., to be interred with the body, but were finally dissuaded from thus destroying everything, save the dead man's pipe and tobacco pouch. These they believed he could by no means get along without in the next world. Before the Indian died he begged several times of Dr. Gleaves to kill him with a knife, and thus aid him in parting from his own misery. We are assured that the native medicine men sometimes do this, and at first glance there seems a humane side to the argument. On second thought, however, it is clear that the duty of a physician is to allay suffering, while life is naturally prolonged, leaving it to some other One to name the date of release. We hear of a woman sick at the village. Surely the Eskimos will soon be a race of the past unless civilization comes to their aid.
Dec. 19.—It has blown a gale for six days and we have scarcely been out of the house in that time. The bright, warm cabin is preferable. We only hear the roar of the wind outside, and occasionally from the corners comes a cold draught of air dumbly whistling through the moss-crowded chinks. The two Harrys got back Wednesday night after a very hard trip. They only got twenty miles beyond Ambler City before they were caught by the snow, which shortly was more than a foot in depth and they could not travel. Harry R. induced a severe attack of rheumatism and could walk only with difficulty. He came near freezing to death. He wanted to lie down and sleep, and Cox had all he could do to forcehim on until they reached a cabin. Harry R. must have suffered terribly, for he is as thin and pale as any ghost I ever met. Although they went only about fifty miles up the river, they heard rumors from beyond which knock all the props from under our recent hopes. Our boys of the upper camp who started for the Allashook have returned, not being able to get over the pass on account of the deep snow. Moreover it is rumored that the golden reports from the Allashook were invented by a couple of men, one of whom has eight hundred pounds of provisions over there to sell, and the other wants to be recorder of claims.
There are other reports of strikes up the river, but I for one shall pay no heed, nor will I write about them. Several people have been up from camps below, trying to get loads of provisions. They are having a hard time. Several have returned and two are waiting for better weather. It is really dangerous traveling now. More than one man has nearly lost his life. One came to our cabin with his face frozen, and did not know it until we told him. It is useless to think of traveling in this biting cold. And here comes a pounding on our woodshed door. Half a dozen of us run to open it, glad that we have shelter for any wanderer.