ar at hand,
as a few of them now were married.

This herd of animals was kept upon the hills where the reindeer moss
grew in plenty, for they could not, and would not, eat anything else if
they literally starved to death, and they were now five miles away. To
remove this great family of a score and more with their belongings over
the ice, a distance of twelve miles in winter by dog-team, getting
settled in a large frame building, unplastered, and upon a bleak,
unprotected shore, was an undertaking which would have discouraged most
men; especially as a shipload of needed supplies for their new Home,
including furniture, had been lost at sea, leaving them short of many
such necessities. But this was not all. The whole reindeer herd and
their drivers, with their several families, were also to be moved near
the new Home, and to fresh moss pastures.

Near the Home was a good-sized creek of fresh and pure water, which ran
singing along through the hills to the ocean, and for this reason the
site had been selected and built upon.

CHAPTER XV.

WINTER IN THE MISSION.

The first few garments I made for Little Bessie were not a great
success. I had told Miss E. that I would be delighted to assist her in
any way that I could, never dreaming what would come; and she being more
in need of warm clothing for the children than anything else, with rolls
of uncut flannels, and baskets piled high with materials to be made into
underwear, said immediately that I might help with their sewing.

She then brought a piece of Canton flannel, and the shears, and put them
into my hands, saying that I might make two pairs of night-trowsers for
the baby. My heart sank within me in a moment. I made a desperate effort
to collect myself, however, and quietly asked if she had a pattern. No,
she had none. The child, she said, kicked the cover off her in the night
so often, and the weather was growing so cold, that she and Miss J.
thought a garment of the trouser description, taking in the feet at the
same time, would very well answer her needs, and this I was requested to
originate, pattern and all. Whatever should I do? I could more easily
have climbed Mt. McKinley! If she had told me to concoct a new pudding,
write an essay, or make a trip to Kotzebue, I should not have been so
much dismayed; but to make a garment like that, out of "whole cloth," so
to speak, from my own design--that was really an utter impossibility.

"O, well," she sa