Seeing this, the Eskimos began to move about with care, and to speak in whispers, though it was needless caution, for in his condition the man would probably have continued to sleep through the wildest thunderstorm. Even when baby, tumbling headlong off the elevated floor, narrowly missed spiking himself on a walrus spear, and set up a yell that might have startled the stone deaf, the wearied Kablunet did not move. Okiok did, however. He moved smartly towards the infant, caught him by the throat, and almost strangled him in a fierce attempt to keep him quiet.
“Stupid tumbler!” he growled—referring to the child’s general and awkward habit of falling—“Can’t you shut your mouth?”
Curious similarity between the thoughts and words of civilised and savage man in similar circumstances! And it is interesting to note the truth of what the song says:—
“We little know what great things from little things may rise.”
From that slight incident the Eskimo child derived his future name of “Tumbler”! We forget what the precise Eskimo term is, but the English equivalent will do as well.
When supper-time arrived that night, Okiok and Nuna consulted as to whether they should waken their guest, or let him lie still—for, from the instant he lay down, he had remained without the slightest motion, save the slow, regular heaving of his broad chest.
“Let him sleep. He is tired,” said Okiok.
“But he must be hungry, and he is weak,” said Nuna.
“He can feed when he wakens,” returned the man, admiring his guest as a collector might admire a foreign curiosity which he had just found.
“Kablunets sleep sounder than Eskimos,” remarked the woman.