“September 12, 1900, and my birthday. I never expected to spend it in this country when I left home. Grossy promised me a party, but mother gave it to me here instead, and I have had a beautiful day. When I came into the cabin I found such a nice chocolate cake, with seven candles burning around it, and a doll, oh a beauty, all dressed in dotted swiss over pink silk with a pink sash and white stockings and white kid shoes. She is one of my prettiest children, and I have named her Lois, after a little girl I met in Sydney, and who was very kind to me. I also found a pair of doll’s real seal-skin slippers, a purse, a box of chocolates, and a two-and-a-half gold-piece. The sailors asked Captain Sam to allow them to hoist the flag in my honour and he did so. The men gave me three cheers when they hoisted it. Mother had the steward make a pitcher of hot grog and cut up a big cake, and then he and I took it around to all the men and gave them their share. At tea time I invited Captain Sam and the Chief Engineer to take tea with me. The supper-table looked very pretty, with the candles burning about my cake, and we had a jolly time playing games afterward, but oh dear, I could not help thinking every little while if only father were here how much nicer everything would be. I had nothing to give the Eskimos except some coffee and biscuit, which they like, and some candy which they don’t care much about, but they seemed pleased, especially with my doll. They thought it was alive because it had real hair and could open and shut its eyes.”

Achatin?wah was AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S daily companion, and the two little girls had a merry time together. This little Eskimo girl’s father was dead. A walrus had pulled him into the water and drowned him. But her mother, Aweah, had another husband, who took care of Achatin?wah. She had two real brothers and a stepbrother.

One of her own brothers was Ahn?oodloo, who, besides being the “Captain” of all the Eskimos who worked for AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father, was the husband of “Billy Bah,” the Eskimo girl who was AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S first nurse. She came to AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S home in Washington and spent a year with her and then returned to the Snowland.

Ahn?oodloo was one of the only two left-handed men in the tribe, and he was the best hunter of all. He was very fond of AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father and always stayed with him.

Achatin?wah also had another brother, Wee-shÁ-kup-sie, who spent a year in New York City and returned to his country when AH-NI-GHI´-TO´S father went there the last time. So Achatin?wah knew more about the ways of the “Kab´loonahs” (white people) than most of her tribe.

Her hair was always smooth and her face and hands clean when she came to play with AH-NI-GHI´-TO.

She wore yellow kamiks (boots) made of the tanned seal-skin, and these she rubbed with snow to clean them before coming on the ship. Her trousers, made of the skins of the blue fox and the white fox, she also rubbed with snow and beat with an ivory knife made for this purpose out of a walrus tusk, until they looked like new. Her kapetah (coat with hood), made of the fox-skins, too, she took off in the cabin, and her bird-skin shirt looked white and clean.

The days grew shorter and shorter, and soon the day came when the sun did not shine in the little harbour at all, and, looking to the south, the big, round, yellow ball could not be seen on the horizon. This meant that he was on his way south and would keep travelling away from the Snowland until the 21st of December. Then he would start back again, but not until the middle of February would he shine upon AH-NI-GHI´-TO and the ship again.

It was now settled that the “Windward” must stay in her icy bed during the coming winter and spring and part of the summer, and every one was busy making things as comfortable as possible; for it grows very cold after the sun leaves, and the north wind blows through every crack and cranny.

During these long months it was dark all of the time, except for the moonlight and starlight, which made deep black shadows on the snowdrifts and ice hummocks. These caused AH-NI-GHI´-TO to have many a tumble, because the ice seemed level where it was full of hollows and holes.

But Achatin?wah and the two Eskimo boys came every day for AH-NI-GHI´-TO to go sliding and coasting with them, in spite of the cold and darkness.

Many curious things she learned these days, as this extract from her diary will show:

“Clear day. No wind. Achatin?wah and I were out coasting from eleven to nearly one. The stars were very bright.

“Achatin?wah told me all about the Eskimo stars. I know only one, the great Dipper. Achatin?wah says the stars in this are a herd of reindeer in the sky. The Eskimos call it TOOK-TOK´-SUE. Then there are three other bright stars which are the stones supporting the lamp of an Eskimo woman up in the sky; and a hunter and his dogs after a bear, and lots more.

“I wish Father were here to tell me what we call them. When we came on board, Captain Sam said the thermometer on deck had been at seventy-two degrees below freezing all day.”