"But don't you find the winters very long and terribly cold?" asked Fred.
"On the contrary, we enjoy our winters very much. To be sure, the thermometer runs from thirty to fifty degrees below zero; but if the wind does not blow, we suffer very little from it."
"What do you do to pass the time?" asked Will.
"The boys, when the weather is favorable, trap and hunt. I am getting a little too old and heavy for much of that; so I attend to the chores about the place, trade goods for furs to the hunters and Esquimaux. Our evenings are passed in reading, one often reading aloud to the rest of us. And we have a great deal of music. Joe plays the violin, Sam the flute, and Jennie the guitar or dulcimer."
"By the way," cried Fred, "Let's have a musical soiree to-night. What do you all say?"
This proposition was enthusiastically received.
"Come, Will, let's run up and get the organ. Will you go up?" addressing Joe and Sam.
"Go up, my sons, and see this Alladin's palace," said Mr. Barton. "You will never see its like again."
In half an hour they returned. The young Bartons were wildly enthusiastic in their praises of the globe.
"Jennie, you must not fail to see the wonderful air-ship," cried Joe. Mattie, Jennie, Will and Fred visited the globe, returning just in time for a splendid supper prepared by the skillful Celestial, Sing. All that the larders of both Constance House and the globe afforded had been drawn upon, and it is doubtful if in all inhospitable Labrador a more elaborate and bountiful table was ever spread.