When they got inside they found some hot bear's
meat waiting for them, and Monnie had both the eyes from her fish
to eat. But she gave one to Menie.
When they were warmed and fed, they pulled off their little fur
suits, crawled into the piles of warm skins on the sleeping
bench, and in two minutes were sound asleep.
IV.
THE SNOW HOUSE
THE SNOW HOUSE
I.
It is very hard to tell what day it is, or what hour in the day,
in a place where the days and nights are all mixed up, and where
there are no clocks.
Menie and Monnie had never seen a clock in their whole lives. If
they had they would have thought it was alive, and perhaps would
have been afraid of it.
But people everywhere in the world get sleepy, so the Eskimos
sometimes count their time by "sleeps." Instead of saying five
days ago, they say "five sleeps" ago.
The night after the bear was killed it began to snow. The wind
howled around the igloo and piled the snow over it in huge
drifts.
The dogs were buried under it and had to be dug out, all but Nip
and Tup. They stayed inside with the twins and slept in their
bed.
The twins and their father and mother were glad to stay in the
warm hut.
At last the snow stopped, the air cleared, and the twins and
Kesshoo went out. Koolee stayed in the igloo.
She sat on her sleeping bench upon a pile of soft furs. A bear's
skin was stretched up on the wall behind her. She had a cozy nest
to work in.
The lamp stood on the bench beside her.
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