t up
with an axe into pieces weighing about two pounds each. Soon they were
in the pot, boiling for our dinner. I furnished some tea, and while
everything was being got ready by a few, the rest of us sat down and
talked.

They were indeed anxious for instruction in spiritual things. I read
and, through my interpreter, explained truth after truth, to which they
gave the most earnest attention. Then we stopped a little while, that
we might have dinner. As I and my men were the guests of this
chieftainess I did not get out my tin plates, and cups, and knives and
forks, but sat down beside her in her wigwam with the rest of the
people, completing a circle around the big wooden dish, in which the
large pieces of cooked reindeer heads had been thrown. I asked a
blessing on the food, and then dinner began. The plan was for each
person to help himself or herself to a piece of the meat, holding it in
the hand, and using hunting knife or teeth, or both together, to get off
the pieces and eat them.

I am sorry to say my lady friend on the right, this chieftainess, had
very dirty-looking hands, and long, strong, brilliant teeth. She took
her piece of meat, and, turning it over and over in her hands, began
tearing and cutting at it in a way that was not very dainty, but
extremely otherwise. After biting off a few mouthfuls, she threw it
down on the dirty ground of the wigwam before her, and, inserting one of
her greasy hands in the bosom of her dress, she pulled out a large piece
of soiled paper, and, unfolding it before me, she began in excited tones
to tell me how she had kept the tally of the "praying days," for thus
they style the Sabbath. Greatly interested in her story, and in her
wild joyous way of describing her efforts to keep her record correct, I
stopped eating and looked over her paper, as she talked away. Imagine
my great delight to find that through the long months which had passed
since I had given her that paper and pencil, she had not once missed her
record. This day was Thursday, and thus she had marked it. Her plan
had been to make six short marks, and then a longer one for Sunday.

"Missionary," she said very earnestly, "sometimes it seemed as though I
would fail. There were times when the ducks or geese came very near,
and I felt like taking my gun and firing. Then I remembered that it was
the praying day, and so I only put down the long mark and rested. I
have not set a net, or caught a fish,