to be not far off.

When a man is first taken sick they do one thing for him, if he is not
very bad. They gather round him and sing to the Good Spirit, in hopes
that He will drive away the bad spirit. If the sick man recovers they
think a great deal of him.

Sometimes my father would tell us stories about his parents and grand
parents, and then he would tell how they said that their parents told
how long, long ago the first people had come from Norway. But no one
knew what Norway was like. Some said it was a great house somewhere;
some said it was the moon, and some said it was where the Good Spirit
lived.

One thing had a great deal of interest for us all. When the sun shone
out brightly at the beginning of the daytime it marked the first of the
year, just as New Year's Day in this country. Then mother and father
would bring out the sacks. Each one was made of a different kind of fur.
Father had his, mother had hers, and each of the children one. In each
sack was a piece of bone for every first time that person had seen the
sun. When ten bones were gathered they would tie them into a bundle, for
they had not words to count more than ten.

* * * * *

In such a land was I born. In such a home was I brought up. In such
pleasures I rejoiced, until there were about fourteen bones in my sack.
Then something happened which changed my whole life. Six tall men came
to our village. Our men were much frightened at first and did not know
what to make of the giants. Some thought them bad spirits. But they were
peaceable, and went hunting with our people and helped them, so that
after a while they came to like one another. The strangers were Iceland
fishermen. After they lived with us for more than a year, they were able
to explain how they were shipwrecked in a storm, and how they got on the
ice and walked on the ice till they came to Greenland. They told how
much they wanted to get back to their families, and how much better
country Iceland was. At last, three Esquimaux families told the
Icelanders they would lend them their dogs and sleds if they would do
them any good. And because they wanted their dogs back again they said
they would go with them.

So they started out. My father's family was the largest in the party,
there being ten of us in all. Most Esquimaux families had only three or
four children in them--sometimes only one child, and often none at all.
I was a young and giddy thing t