“I thought you said she was my grandmother,” White Sox broke in. “Did the reindeer mothers have to draw sleds after the big killing?”
“Spot did,” said Mother Reindeer. “Your Uncle Slim was a fawn then. He trotted along beside her when she pulled the loaded sled. The herders made a little harness for him and worked him with his mother.”
That was the end of Mother Reindeer’s story. If you want to know more about the big killing at Point Barrow, you must read about how the whaling vessels were frozen in the ice there and how more than two hundred white men were reported starving during the coldest part of the long winter. The herders sacrificed their reindeer to save the lives of these men. Of course Mother Reindeer did not know anything about whaling vessels; she called a ship a floating corral. But she was a wise old mother reindeer, for all that. Don’t you think so?
“Away he dashed, with Mother Reindeer at his heels.”
XII
White Sox Learns His Last Lesson
White Sox and his mother had been silent for a long time. But White Sox was not asleep; he had a great deal to think about, and he had just made up his mind that he must not be a baby any longer. He had been to school and had learned many lessons. He must be a leader now. And now was the time for him to make a start.
“Mother,” he said, after he had looked about him this way and that, this way and that, “the moon is going to bed. I see a little streak of daylight creeping over the edge of the world. Let us take a run through that little valley below and finish our lesson on the top of that ridge to the north of here, after we have eaten some breakfast.”
“All right,” said Mother Reindeer. She rose and stretched herself, but she did not offer any advice. She wanted to see what kind of leader White Sox would make.