part, and we sang many songs with the organ. At
half-past twelve I retired, but the others remained up until two
o'clock.

This evening the storekeeper and two others from White Mountain called
to see if we did not care to go out coasting on the hill behind the
Mission, and five or six of us went. When we got to the top of the hill
the wind was so strong that I could hardly stand, and after a few trips
down the Hill we gave it up, part of our number going out to walk upon
the ice, and the rest of us going indoors. The men were invited into the
Mission, and stayed for an hour, chatting pleasantly, as there is no
place for them to go except to the saloons. It is a great pity that
there is no reading room with papers and books for the miners, with the
long winter before them, and nothing to do. There is a crying need for
something in this line, and if they do not employ their time pleasantly
and profitably, they will spend it unprofitably in some saloon or
gambling place. I wish I had a thousand good magazines to scatter, but I
have none.

I gave Jennie her lesson, and amused both children for a time this
afternoon. Yesterday the snow drifted badly, and I fear the people who
went to Council will not have a good trail on the way home.

January second: It is pleasant to have a corner by myself in which to
write and be sometimes alone. The little northeast corner room where I
sleep has a tile pipe coming up from the kitchen, making the room warm
enough except in the coldest weather. It has a north window with no
double one outside, and when the wind comes from the north I expect it
will be extremely cold. From this window I can see (when the glass is
free from frost) out upon the trail to Nome and White Mountain. Today
there is water on the ice, and it has been raining and blowing. Three of
the boys returned from a four days' prospecting trip to the west, and as
two of them had been sick the whole time since they left here, they came
in wet, tired and hungry, without having much good luck to relate. I
told them it was something to get back at all again, and they agreed
heartily, while eating a hot supper. An hour later and Mr. H. with the
visiting preacher came in from the reindeer station, and their staking
trip, in the same condition as the three boys had been; so a supper for
them was also prepared.

Our kitchen looks like a junk shop these days, and a wet one at that,
for the numbers of muckluks, fur parkies, mittens,