The stern anvil shaped him to world-usefulIt is all in the man! ness. Here at Nome I first made the acquaintance of that strange race in which I afterwards became so much interested-the Eskimo. At first they were a source of considerable annoyance. I always felt like laughing aloud when the queer, fat, dishfaced, pudgy folk came in sight. As we had to depend upon driftwood for our fuel, they would come several times a day, bringing huge basketfuls of the soggy sticks for sale at fifty cents a basket. They soon learned that I was a missionary, and then they would come rolling along, forty or fifty of them at a time, and "bunch up " in front of my tent. If I were cooking dinner they were sure to gather in full force, and would lift up the flap of my tent, grinning at me and eyeing every mouthful I ate. I did not know enough of their language even to tell them to go away. Their rank native odors were overpowering in the hot tent. You could detect the presence of one of those fellows half a mile away if the wind were blowing from him to you. The combined smells of a company of natives, not one of whom had ever taken a bath in his or her life, and who lived upon ancient fish and "ripe" seal blubber-well, I'll stop right here! One evening at a social in our warehousechurch we played the "limerick " game, which was then a popular craze. We would take a word and each one would write a verse on it. One of the words was Esquimaux. A number of the "limericks" were published in the Nome Nugget. With a man's usual egotism I can only remember my own, which I saw at intervals for several years in Eastern periodicals: "Oh, look at this queer Esquimaux! To tell them unlawful. The thought of them fills me with waux." One day I was getting dinner in my tent and the usual company of natives watching the performance, when there came along a couple of men who had just landed and who, evidently, had never seen an Eskimo before. I overheard their conversation. "Say, Jim," said one, "just look there. Did you ever see the like?" (A pause.) Say, do you think them things has souls?" We-e-ll," drawled Jim, "I reckon they must have. They're human bein's. But I'll tell you this: If they do, they've all got to go to heaven, sure; for the devil'd never have them around.” Now let me tell you a sequel: Two years afterwards I was a Commissioner from the newly organized Presbytery of Yukon to the General Assembly, which met at Philadelphia. My fellow Commissioner from the Presbytery-the elder who sat by my sidewas Peter Koonooya, an Eskimo elder from Ukeavik Church, Point Barrow. Ten years earlier, Dr. Sheldon Jackson, then Superintendent of Education for Alaska, had visited that northernmost point of the Continent and had started a school and mission. Peter Koonooya was one of the fruits. He was a native of extraordinary intelligence, a man of property, owning a fleet of whaling oomiaks. He could read, write and talk English, was a constant student of the Bible, and was considered by the Presbytery of sufficient intelligence and piety to represent us in the supreme Council of the Church. I am quite certain that Peter always voted exactly right on all questions which were up before that Assembly; because he watched me very closely and voted as I did. I was able, then, and in after years, to do these gentle, good-natured natives some good, and other Christian teachers have done much more for them. So it comes about that the condition of the Alaska Eskimo, under the influence of the various Christian missions and schools among them, as compared with that of their brothers and sisters of the same race across Bering Strait in Asia, for whom nothing in a Christian way has been done, is as day to night. They are pliable metal, and the Anvil of the Northwest is shaping them into vessels and implements of usefulness and honor. |