The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1891-12-17
LITTLE ESkiMoS' TOYS.
How tho Children Of tho North ANU.
ThemSelveA.


Youngsters are youngsters all the
world over. All the time that the
children Of the north and the children
Of the south are considering each 9TH
er as remarkable beings. utterly unlike
themselves. they are playing exactly
the same games in the same way, and
using the same sort of toys.
] You would think that SO much of the
little Eskimo's time would be spent
trying to keep warm that he wouldn't
have great deal left for play. But
those little fur-clad tots in the ice and
snow are having more fun than a cir
Gus and summer vacations rolled into
one.
The Eskimo small boy is amazingly
| like other small boys Hes round
faced and brown-cheeked and chubby
beyond belief. lie wears queer gar
mcnts of skins and of leather He
doesn't know what hat is. lie never
ate pound of candy or dish Of ice
cream in his life. and he never heard Of
baseball game, but he's lots like other
boys for all that.
As for the girl. she's precisely like
her blonde sister down here, who
hasn't the faintest notion how good
whales blubber is. She knows just
the same kind of games. When one
brown tot goes visitin" another
brown tot she lugs her favorite doll
with her. and then she sits right down
in the dark little hut and begins to
''play house."
That doll of hers is a Strengthening
being. 1t has fiat face made Of wood
or bone, and it has the stiffest kind of
arms and legs. not joint in them, and
its eyes are just painted on the face,
and it's lucky doll that has hair on
its head; but little Miss Eskimo loves
that doll just as much rs if it were
fiaxcn-haired and had red cheeks and
shining blue eyes. Dolly couldn't
speak mamma" If you squeezed it to
pieces, and it would never think of
such . thing as letting you turn its
head, but Miss Eskimo doesn't mind
that a bit. She just dresses and un-
dresses her aud whips her and cries
over her dreadful misdeeds quite as If
her name was Maude Athel Van Buren,,
instead Of being an unpronounceable
thing in consonants and q grunt
She has good many gowns. too, has
little Miss Iceberg. Why. there's her
mink-skin walking gown, and her otter
sledging get-up, and her sealskin cloak.
and, finest of all, her feather dress
Pretty things they are, these gay skin
garments. They are wonderfully made.
dclicately sewed, and sometimes they
are wondrously embroidered with quilts
from the fretful porcupine.
They don't have trains of cars to play
with, those blue-nosed shiverers; they
wouldn't know what to do with them
il they had, but they have jolly
substitute. There's tiny sledge of
bone, drawn by four sleuth-like dogs,
and there are bold forerunners going
on before and daring hunter walking
nonchalently behind. There's toy for
you. There's something even better
than that, though. There's regular
Santa Claus Of doll. sitting in sledge
and driving four beautifully snarling
dogs.
When the long winter dark comes on
the BOYS sit in their low huts and make
tiny boats of fish skin cunningly
stretched over skeleton OF fir wood.
While they are tinkering away at these
pretty boats the small sister sits beside
them on the bcarskin and makes soft
little fur boots for her doll.
The mother is close by making nets or
trimming robe with delicate border
Of porcupine quilts. She can tell The
loyelies. fairy tails. can that little bit
Of fat. rolv-poly mothcr-fairy tales
all about queer little seals who can
turn up their fur hoods and turn into
the splendidest bow-lcgged men. There
are strange legends about the crow and
his wife, and tales of the domestic life
Of the big white bears. When the boy
grows weary of the legends he runs
out and has tumble in the snow.
There's always plenty Of snow-such
sleigh rides. such snow fights-only
think of the fun those little blue-chins
have.
They have the funniest kind 0. foot
balls. They look like huge potatoes
that have been put down celler and
sprouted. They're all covered with
long tufts of fur that flies about in a
most confusing way when the ball goes
round. They make snowshoes for
themselves, too, and for their dolls, and
they go out ''shoeing,"
Not such bad idea. this living Mt
the North Pole, is it:-San Francisco
Examiner.
ENROLLING THOUGHTS.