Anvik, Tuesday, June 29. Last night gave talk on evolution to white teachers, etc. Quite appreciated, regardless of previous state of mentality.
Caught up with some sleep, even though my attic room was so hot that the gum from the spruce boards was dropping down on me. Good breakfast with the doctor—canned grapefruit, corn flakes with canned milk, bread toasted in the oven, and coffee.
Pack up my Greyling skeleton—much drier to-day—and dispatch by parcel post, through the doctor as postmaster.
Photograph school children and village. Gnats bad and have to wear substantial underclothing (limbs are already full of dark red itching blotches where bitten by them) though it is a hot day again.
The full-blood and especially the slightly mixed children would be fine, not seldom lovely, were they fully healthy; but their lungs are often weak or there is some other tubercular trouble.
The color of the full-bloods, juvenile and others, on the body, is invariably submedium to near medium brown, the exposed parts darker; and the chest test (mine) for full-bloodedness holds true. The young are often good looking; the old rather ugly.
All adults fishing now, the fish running much since a day or two; all busy at the fish camps, not many, in the daytime especially, about the mission.
At noon air fills with haze—soon recognized as smoke from a fire which is located at only about a mile, and that with the wind, from the mission. We all hasten to some of the houses in the brush—find enough clearing about them for safety. The school here burned two years ago and so all are apprehensive. Natives from across the river hasten to their caches. Luckily not much wind.
After lunch children come running in saying they hear thunder; one girl saying in their usual choppy, picturesque way, "Outside is thunder"; another smaller one says, "It hollers above." Before long a sprinkle and then gradually more and more rain until there is a downpour followed by several thunderclaps (as with us) and then some more rain. That, of course, stops the fire from approaching closer and all is safe. Such storms are rare occurrences hereabouts.