About seven years before this unpretending, now weather-beaten house had been erected, and the kindly little dark-eyed man put in charge was at once at home. He was blessed with rare versatility and patience, as well as a great heart of love for all mankind, including the dark-skinned, seal-eating races of the Arctic.
From a door-latch to a baby's cradle, from a log-house to a sail-boat rigged with runners on the ice, he planned, contrived and executed, principally for others, for years. Here we found, in one room, from his hands a bedstead, a table, and a washstand commode, all made in white wood, of regulation size, shape and pattern, though without paint or staining. Relegated now to an upper room, since the velvet couch had arrived, was a long, wooden settle, with back, ends and sliding seat, the latter to be pushed forward upon legs and made into double bed at night.
One day in the winter, when searching for open places under the roof through which the snow was sifting, wetting the ceiling of the room below, I found in the attic a number of curious things, and among them a child's cradle. Not all the thought of the good man had been given to the needs of the "grown-ups," but the small, weak and helpless ones of his flock had received their equal share of attention. The cradle was well made with solid high sides and ends, and curved upper edges, swinging low and easily upon its two strong rockers. All was smooth, well finished, and rounded, though there was no paint nor varnish, these articles being doubtless unprocurable and not deemed strictly essential. Near by were the remnants of a white fox robe fitting the cradle. It was made of baby fox skin, fine, soft and pretty. A flannel lining with a pinked-out edge completed what had once been a lovely cover for baby, whether with white face or black, and I fell to wishing I might have seen the complete outfit in its former days.
From the rafters of the attic hung articles of wearing apparel of curious make and pattern, sometimes of skins of the wild reindeer or spotted seal. Of old mittens and muckluks there were numbers, still preserved for the good they had done or might yet do at piecing out somewhere. There were things for which I had not yet learned the uses, but might do so before the cold winter had passed. There were also many fur skins, and new articles of value stored in the attic.
Tuesday, October twenty-third, the weather was not cold, but snow fell part of the day, and it grew dark about half-past four in the afternoon. The gale of Monday had subsided, and the sky was overcast. The steamer "Sadie" of the Alaska Commercial Company surprised us by coming into Golovin, and again suddenly we fell to letter writing in order to send them out by her, remaining several hours as she always did to unload freight and baggage, for this would positively be our last steamer. Outside the boys worked as industriously as we women. In the old log-house, a hundred feet from our door, was the building now used for a woodshed. Here, upon a big "double-decker" saw-buck, two of the boys, with the big saw between them, worked away, hour after hour, at the great logs of driftwood brought from the beach, as this was the only kind of fuel here used, and much was needed for the winter fires.
When I had finished my work of sewing, and it grew too dark to thread needles, between that hour and the one for the lamp lighting, I was usually seated at the organ, and our music was not all Hymns from the Hymnals, certainly. There were marches and polkas, and sprightly waltzes, too, and nothing was ever tabooed, though these classic selections were always omitted on Sunday. None ever minded how long I sat at the organ, or how many times a day a certain piece was played, and a few could never be sated; but I took good care that my work never lagged, and a duty was never neglected for such pleasure, thereby making it always the recreation and enjoyable exercise it was intended to be and not tiresome.
Miss J. now took a lesson on the instrument each day for a half hour after the lamps were lighted, and as she had already had a few lessons, and could play a few hymns, she was much interested in acquiring a further knowledge which would be helpful in church and Sunday school services. Miss E., too, thought of beginning lessons if she could find time from her manifold duties as house-mother of the numerous flock, and did take a few lessons before they moved away.
In the evening there was always singing, for some were sure to be present then, who had been absent during the day. Perhaps Mr. H. had arrived with a Christian native from the Home, to spend the night before going back on the morrow, with supplies of some sort for the completion of his new house. He now headed the two establishments and vibrated between them, simply camping at the new place and enjoying everything of home life possible in the Mission. At jokes and repartee he was as good as the best of them, and always enjoyed a laugh like the youngest.
A level head and firm hand had this Swedish missionary of long experience. From a dozen or more years at Yakutat, in southern Alaska, where he had done invaluable work for that Mission, he had come about two years before to Golovin Bay, and now had, besides the Eskimo children in that place, over four hundred government reindeer in charge. For these he kept a number of experienced and trusty native drivers, and these either lived in his Mission or with their families near at hand, as a few of them now were married.
This herd of animals was kept upon the hills where the reindeer moss grew in plenty, for they could not, and would not, eat anything else if they literally starved to death, and they were now five miles away. To remove this great family of a score and more with their belongings over the ice, a distance of twelve miles in winter by dog-team, getting settled in a large frame building, unplastered, and upon a bleak, unprotected shore, was an undertaking which would have discouraged most men; especially as a shipload of needed supplies for their new Home, including furniture, had been lost at sea, leaving them short of many such necessities. But this was not all. The whole reindeer herd and their drivers, with their several families, were also to be moved near the new Home, and to fresh moss pastures.