On the dingy walls of the little hut there hung a colored print of the Saviour’s face. All around were the strange heathen carvings and rude implements of the Alaskan native. The four posts which supported the roof were “totems,” representing in hideous caricature the tribe to which the inhabitants of the hut belonged. The natives themselves, slow of movement and speech, their dull eyes hardly glancing at the strangers, were grouped on the raised margin of the floor.
I said the faces were dull. There was one exception. A young mother bent over a solemn brown baby who lay, round-eyed and contented, in her lap. The girl’s eyes shone with mother-love; her dark hand was gentle as she smoothed Baby’s tumbled little blanket, and looked up shyly and proudly at the new-comers.
The child in its mother’s bosom; the Christ face upon the wall: these were the two points of light in that shadowy home. Christ, who came as a little child to Bethlehem, had sent a baby to Fort Wrangell, and a thought, vague and unformed though it was, of the Saviour whose face looked down upon the little group, from its rude frame upon the wall.
The girls waved their hands to the round little brown berry of a baby, and the mother laughed and looked pleased, just as a New England mother would. Mr. Selborne left in her hand a silver coin—“two bits,” everybody in Alaska called a quarter—and said good-by.
“What tribe do they belong to?” asked Randolph, as they emerged from the gloomy hut.
“Stickeen,” promptly replied Tom. “Let’s give ’em a sing.” And sing they did, until the solemn faces of the natives gathering about them on the beach, actually relaxed into the semblance of a smile.
Reaching the steamer once more, they displayed their treasures before Bess, who could not yet quite venture on a long walk.
There were toy paddles, with ravens’ and bears’ heads painted in red and black; horn spoons, dark and light, with finely carved profiles on the handle; great rough garnets, of which Tom had purchased half a handful for a song, and many other oddities. Of course the kodak army had been busy, but the results could not yet be seen. Many a Stickeen portrait and ugly totem lay snugly hidden in those black leather boxes, to be “developed,” printed and laughed over in gay city parlors the coming winter.
Just as the boat cast off her moorings, an Indian, fantastically dressed, appeared on the wharf, and gave a dance for the benefit of the departing passengers, who threw down bits of silver as the Queen once more started on her course.