The boy remembers well his first candy. He had been ill, but was getting strong once more. His good patient mother wished to bring a smile to his pale face, so while he was sleeping she prepared a surprise.
She took the red feet of a bird called the dovekie, and, drawing out the bones, blew into the skin until it was puffed out as full as possible. Then she poured melted reindeer fat into these bright-colored pouches, and the candy-bags were finished.
Etu's eyes grew suddenly bright when they opened upon the surprise prepared for him. It did not take many minutes, you may well believe, for every bit of this odd candy to disappear. You may like chocolate creams and cocoanut cakes, and think them the greatest treat in the world, but in Etu's opinion there is nothing better than a big lump of seal blubber or the marrow from the inside of a deer's bones.
When he had his first bow and arrow, it was a very tiny one. He learned to shoot at a target inside his winter home. His mother would hang up pieces of fat meat across the room where he sat, and he would try very hard to pierce them. If he succeeded, he could have the meat to eat, so of course he tried very hard.
At other times he would sit watching for a dog to push his head up through the doorway, and let fly the arrow at him. At first this seems like a very cruel sport, but the arrow was blunted and very small; it could not do much harm, even if it struck the dog, who would bound away out of sight only to appear again in a few moments.
Of course, Etu has played ball all his life, but his ball is of a different kind from yours. It is made of sealskin. Sometimes he will try with other boys to knock it about so continually that it is kept in the air for a long, long time without falling. At other times all engage in a grand game of football, but, according to their ideas, the children must on no account touch the ball with their hands. That would be a "foul play," as you boys would say. By their rules it can only be kicked.
In the long winter evenings there is still more fun. In Etu's big household old and young gather around the dim, smoky lamp and tell stories. There are such wonderful adventures to relate of daring deeds on sea and land. Etu listens breathless to tales of the white bear surprised in his den, of long tramps after prey, when life depended on fresh supplies, and King Frost was striving to seize the weakened bodies of the hunters.
Then there are quaint legends and fairy tales, besides stories of wondrous beings in the unseen world around. Some of these beings are good, and some bad. Etu does not like to hear about these last, and tries to put them out of his mind when he is travelling alone.
But the evenings are not wholly given to story-telling, for the people are fond of music. They like dancing, also, for it makes them feel jolly and gay. They pass many an hour singing monotonous songs which they think very sweet, but which we would think tiresome.