The Snow Baby: A true story with true pictures

by Josephine Diebitsch Peary

As the good ship sailed South, she gradually came into the zone where the sun goes down every evening and rises every morning. This AH-NI-GHI´-TO did not like at all, for now she could not go on deck after supper as she had been in the habit of doing, nor could she have daylight in her cabin whenever she pleased by simply pulling the old hat out of the tiny round window. Instead, she had the moon and stars to keep her company through the night.

Ah-ni-ghi´-to’s Birthday

One morning (it was the twelfth of September) AH-NI-GHI´-TO awoke and found on a little stand by the side of her bed a beautiful cake all iced with chocolate,—this was her favorite cake,—and upon it four colored candles burning brightly. What do you suppose this meant? It meant that four years ago that day the stork had brought little AH-NI-GHI´-TO to her father and mother, in the little black house way up in the Snowland; so this was her birthday. All the gentlemen on board ship, whom she called her “brothers,” had remembered the little girl, and her presents were different from any she had ever received on her other birthdays. There were ivory rings, an ivory locket and chain, and an ivory cross; all these had been carved by the Eskimos. Then there were two white-fox skins, and two blue-fox skins; sealskin mittens, shoes, and slippers; a muff and neckpiece made of eiderdown, and a lovely eiderdown quilt, with the beautiful green and black skins of the necks of the birds used as a border all around it. But the funniest thing of all was a big Eskimo doll, almost as tall as AH-NI-GHI´-TO herself, dressed like an Eskimo hunter, with his sealskin trousers and coat, and his fur hood pulled over his face in true Eskimo style. Such a happy little girl she was that day. In the afternoon she invited her friends, whom she called her brothers, to share her cake and whatever else could be found in the “goody” line. What a jolly time there was in the little cabin! Every one wished AH-NI-GHI´-TO “many happy returns of the day;” the captain hoisted the stars and stripes on the mainmast, and the engineer blew four loud blasts with the whistle. This, he said, would let all the seals and walrus, and even the polar bears, if there were any within hearing distance, know that there was a celebration on board ship, and that AH-NI-GHI´-TO, the Snow Baby, was four years old that day. If they heard the whistle, they did not make any sign, for not an animal was to be seen.

It was still a week’s sailing before the American shore would be reached, and AH-NI-GHI´-TO began to grow eager to get home, where she had left her family of dolls, taking only her eldest with her, for, she said, “they must miss a mother’s care, poor things, and I am homesick for them too. I wonder what they will say to the new Eskimo sister and brother that I am bringing to them. I hope they will be pleased, even if the new children are not beauties. Then, too, I am so anxious to tell all my dear ones what a good time I have had, and to show them my new presents and also to give them the curious things I have brought from the Snowland for them.”

At last the shore was in sight, and toward evening it was reached. That night AH-NI-GHI´-TO slept in a hotel with her father and mother; and very queer it felt to sleep in a bed that did not rock to and fro, and to wake in the night and not hear the steady, even pulsing of the engine, together with the swish of the waves against the ship’s sides, which had been her steady company for nearly three months.

Home Again

There was still a long journey to be made on the railroad, and AH-NI-GHI´-TO thought it would never end. But at last, with a clanging of bells and a puffing of steam, the long dusty train rolled into the station, and there among the eager crowd AH-NI-GHI´-TO saw her “Tante” and the gentle kindly face of “dear old Grossma,” both glad to have their baby back again safe and well.

Of course there was much to hear and much to tell; presents to give, friends to see, and her own family of dolls to look after and the new ones to be introduced, until when night came it was a very tired AH-NI-GHI´-TO that mother tucked away in the little white bed.