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قراءة كتاب A Treasury of Eskimo Tales

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‏اللغة: English
A Treasury of Eskimo Tales

A Treasury of Eskimo Tales

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 8

will have a dance. Mind you don't laugh, or she will slice you in two with her knife and feed you to my ermine which is in yon little house outside."

Before long a woman entered carrying an oblong chopping-bowl in which lay her chopping-knife. She set it down and stooped forward, turning the bowl as if it were a whirligig. Then she commenced dancing; and when she turned her back toward the stranger he saw that she was hollow. She had no back, backbone, or insides, but only lungs and heart.

Her husband presently joined in the dance, and their attitudes and grimaces were so ludicrous that the stranger could scarcely keep from laughing. He did not wish to be impolite, so he kept turning his face aside and pretending to cough. Fortunately for him, just as he thought he would surely explode with laughter, he recalled the warning the man had given him and rushed out of the house. The Man guessed what was the matter with him, and called out:

"Better call your white bear mascot!"

He did so, and escaped unhurt.

However, he went into the house another day and succeeded in keeping his face straight, so when their performance was ended the Man in the Moon was very friendly to him and showed him all around the house and let him look into a small building near the entrance.

In this building there were large herds of deer which seemed to be roaming over vast plains. The Man in the Moon said, "You may choose one of these for your own," and as soon as he did so the animal fell through a hole and alighted on the earth right by the conjurer's hut.

In another building there were many seals swimming in an ocean, and he was allowed to choose one of these, which also fell down to his hut.

"Now you have seen all I can show you, and you may go home," said the Moon Man. So the conjurer called his mascot and rode down through the air to his hut.

There his body had lain motionless while his spirit was away, but now it revived. The cords with which his hands and knees had been bound dropped off, though they had been tied in hard knots. The conjurer felt quite exhausted from his trip, but when the lamps were lighted he told his eager neighbors all that he had seen during his flight to the Moon.


X

WHAT THE MAN IN THE MOON DID

Long ago there was a poor little orphan boy who had no home and no one to protect him. All the inhabitants of the village neglected and abused him. He was not allowed to sleep in any of the huts, but one family permitted him to lie outside in the cold passage among the dogs who were his pillows and his quilt. They gave him no good meat, but flung him bits of tough walrus hide such as they gave to the dogs, and he was obliged to gnaw it as the dogs did, for he had no knife.

The only one who took pity on him was a young girl, and she gave him a small piece of iron for a knife. "You must keep it hidden, or the men will take it from you," she said.

He did not grow at all because he had so little food. He remained poor little Quadjaq, and led a miserable life. He did not dare even to join in the play of the boys, for they called him a "poor little shriveled bag of bones," and were always imposing upon him on account of his weakness.

When the people gathered in the singing house he used to lie in the passage and peep over the threshold. Now and then a man would take him by the nose and lift him into the house and make him carry out a jar of water. It was so large and heavy that he had to take hold of it with both hands and his teeth. Because he was so often lifted by his nose, it grew very large, but he remained small and weak.

At last the Man in the Moon, who protects all the Eskimo orphans, noticed how the men ill-treated Quadjaq, and came down to help him. He harnessed his dappled dog to his sledge and drove down. When he was near the hut he stopped the dog and called, "Quadjaq, come out."

The boy thought it was one of the men who wanted to plague him, and he said, "I will not come out. Go away."

"Come out, Quadjaq," said the Man from the Moon, and his voice sounded softer than the voices of the men. But still the boy hesitated, and said, "You will cuff me."

"No, I will not hurt you. Come out," said the Moon Man.

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