“Blood soup—wow!”
Maybe that does not sound good to you, but Eskimos love it, and Guninana could make the delicacy just right. Lips smacked, eyes brightened, Taptuna and Kak hurried their guest inside; and almost before he was clear of the tunnel Noashak hurled herself on him. Now the Kabluna had come to live with them she claimed him for her own; scrambled on to his knee, felt his bushy hair, tried to tickle him, and pried out of his fingers a little box he had taken from among his things on the sled when he put the gun away; such a curious little box, full of many little straight pieces of wood, with red ends stuck on to them like tiny bits of rock. Noashak was delighted. She opened the box upside down and all the pieces fell out over the rug.
“Now, now! Leave our visitor in peace!” her father cried; and Guninana, squatting in front of her lamp, scolded mildly.
But Noashak only laughed. She knew she might safely be as naughty as she liked, for her parents never punished her. That is probably why she was so very awful and a plague to everybody.
In our country when a boy is really mischievous and bad his father or mother or schoolmaster or somebody gets after him and gives him a first-class, good whipping to drive the badness out. Unfortunately Eskimos believe if they whip their children, or punish them at all, they will drive not badness but goodness away from them—a sort of guardian angel who brings the children luck and blessings. Of course if either boy or girl is naughty enough to need to be whipped, it is quite fair for the angel to pick up and go off; but the parents naturally do not want this to happen, so they try to bluff the spirit by not punishing at all. No matter how bad Noashak was, she never got a whipping—but oh, how the neighbors hated her at times!
Even the Kabluna thought her a bother when he saw all his matches spilled on the rug. He began to gather them together carefully, for there are no shops in Victoria Island where one can buy such things, and it is very awkward to run out of matches when traveling in an ice-cold country. Two articles the white man valued more than anything else—the ammunition for his gun and his matches. However, since he was a stranger, far away from home, and her father’s guest, and had come so many miles to see these people, and wanted above all things to be friends with them, he did not say one cross word nor even frown; but took up a single little piece of wood, struck its rock end, and held the fire out to Noashak. Now when the child saw this magic and felt the hot flame she leaped away, hiding behind Taptuna, and would not come near the visitor again; though the others crowded around full of wonder. They had never seen a sulphur match.
The Kabluna lighted another and another, explaining their convenience, and finally allowed Kak to strike one and hold it blazing in his own fingers. Thus encouraged, the boy blurted out his eager question:
“That queer weapon you carried under your arm—what is it for?”
The white man smiled. “You mean my rifle?”
Kak never having heard the foreign word, rifle, looked puzzled. “The thing with a long nose,” he explained. “The one you packed away on the sled.”