Estella The Eskimo

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Title:     Estella The Eskimo
Author: May Kellogg Sullivan [More Titles by Sullivan]

Estella was not the name her parents had given her. That was unpronounceable to the white man's tongue and was replaced by Estella when she married the trader not many years ago.

She was a bright and amiable young woman, though not actually pretty. Born and raised on the Seward Peninsula, she had learned to hunt, fish and trap, as do all the Eskimo women while still in their teens. Numbers of young men among her people had sought her hand in marriage, but up to the time of the advent of the white men into the country she had never yielded to their entreaties.

When approached on the subject she glanced demurely down at the toe of her mukluks, tossed back her long hair, and, turning her back on the suitor who did not suit, ran away to play on the beach with the children.

Her people did not know her heart. She had ambition, though it was unknown to them. None of the young Eskimos entirely pleased her. Some one with better looks and more supplies than they must offer himself before she decided to take a life-mate, she told herself.

At her birth some planet must have bestowed upon her many aspirations above those of the common Eskimo, and though she was ignorant of the cause of her ambition she realized the possession of it.

Being a sensible young woman she hid these things in her own bosom, for why should she trouble her parents? They would not understand her, but would oppose, say harsh things, perhaps, and, at any rate, feel badly.

So she ran away to play with the little ones. If this did not answer her purpose she persuaded her young brother to take her in his didarka on the water to some quiet island, where in the pleasant sunshine they sat upon the sandy beach or fished in some gurgling stream.

In winter there was less freedom. She must keep more to her father's igloo and help her mother at sewing of furs for the clothing, going out at times with the other women to set their traps in the snow for animals whose skins were in demand by the traders.

At last, one day in winter, there came to the home of the Eskimo girl, two white men. They were clothed in furs and rode behind dog-teams. They came to buy skins, principally those of the black fox, mink and white ermine.

One of the men could speak a good deal of the Eskimo language, and had no difficulty in making known their errand. They wished to remain all night in the igloo as it was too late and stormy to proceed farther on the trail.

The Alaskan Eskimo is kindly and generous. No one is ever turned from his door. It matters not how low the state of his larder, or how few sticks there are before the fire; the stranger is always welcome.

The two white traders remained. They bought of the Eskimo what furs they wanted and paid as little for them as possible. A little thread, calico, tea, tobacco, and a few glass beads were given in exchange for the soft and shining skins which in civilized centers would sell for a fabulous sum.

The storm continued. The traders remained for days. When they left the igloo the heart of the Eskimo maiden was no longer her own; she had given it to another who would presently return and take her to his cabin.

The girl's ambition was now about to be realized. To be looked upon by her people as the bride of a white man, and that one a rich trader who owned, not only a cabin and many skins, but dogs, sleds and boats, was truly a great honor and not to be lightly considered. She would soon be in a position high above that of any of the Eskimo women of her acquaintance, and she began to feel the importance and desirability of her station.

The trader who had succeeded in winning where others had failed was much older than his sweetheart. He was of middle height, with black hair, and swarthy, not unlike in this respect to her own family; but totally different in disposition, a striking contrast to the gentle and yielding character of the Eskimo, but the girl in crass ignorance was quite unaware of the difference. To her he was an ardent lover, brave, fearless, strong, and with worldly goods to provide her with all she liked and needed.

Poor, simple-hearted, little Eskimo girl! Are your good and kind devas sleeping that they do not better guard you? Of what can they be thinking? Call them quickly to advise and help you before it is too late, and your happiness is forever blasted! Will they not wake in time to keep you from making this terrible mis-step? Beware of the white man whose heart is blackness!

But her good devas slept on. The return of the trader was expected, and as far as lay in their power the Eskimo had made ready for the great and unusual event soon to be celebrated. The igloo was made tidy, heaps of firewood were piled beside the door, and from the cache not far distant were brought quantities of frozen tomcod, seal meat, and salmon berries. Whale oil for illuminating the interior of the snow-covered igloo was bought in puffed out seal bladders, tied at each end by stoutly knotted sinews.

A new fur parkie for the bride made of reindeer skin and decorated with black and white fur squares for a border, was completed by Eskimo women sitting crosslegged in a corner of the igloo.

At last the white man arrived. He was accompanied by another who was to act as the officiating clergyman; the Eskimo girl wished to have performed the ceremony of his people; but alas! she had not overheard a conversation which had taken place between the two men.

"Get off some rigmarole of your own, I tell you," laughed the coming bridegroom, speaking to his companion, "It's no matter what it is, only don't make me burst out laughing in the middle of it, for Estella might resent it. She's a bright little one, and that's no josh. Seriously, I don't want a bona fide marriage ceremony performed, you understand. When I make my stake and leave Alaska behind forever I don't care to have a legal wife tagging at my coat-tails. I want to be a free man to go and come as I please. See?" and the speaker puffed a cloud of tobacco smoke from between his lips.

"What about the children, Buster? Will there be any?"

"You bet your life! The brats can live as well as those up the country with that other squaw of mine. But you're a terror for questions, pard. If you squeal on me I'll send you to thunder," clapping his hand on his hip pocket where protruded a stout, black handle.

"No fear of me," laughed the other. "I'm too eager for the rest of them fine furs which we must try to get. Can't you work the girl for them, Buster?"

"I'll try. In the meantime get the dogs together to-morrow and feed 'em up. They're lookin' thin. I hope to hear from Dan in a day or two as regards that creek and what he's found in it. Then I'm off to the nest of my turtle dove, for the bridegroom is hungry for his bride, eh, pard?" winked the dark-browed fellow, still smoking heavily.

"You're a dandy, sure!" retorted the man designated as "pard" by the trader. "I see your finish if your squaw's people up country find out your doin's here."

"They never will. The Yukon is many 'sleeps' away, and there is no communication between these Eskimos and the Indians."

"You're makin' good the sayin' that a sailor has a wife in every port aint you Buster?" continued the man who in the absence of better employment delighted in teasing his partner.

"Wife be blowed! What's got into you to-night? Go along to bed!"

"Thank you I'm there," mockingly from the other, while tumbling into his bunk in the cabin corner, and pulling away at his smudgy cob pipe after retiring.

The two men understood each other. "Buster", as he was nicknamed, was shameless. He respected neither God nor man. Whatever he willed to do, he did, regardless of results, and was well known in Alaska by the white inhabitants. The other was a trifle weaker though not less wicked. He could stand beside Buster and urge him on, while hesitating to do the same acts of lawlessness. There is small difference in these degrees of sinning. If any, it may be in favor of the Busters, who possibly deserve credit for fearlessness where the others are cowardly.

The scant mock marriage was soon over. The smiling little bride said good-bye to her people, who wept around her; climbed into the dog-sled of her new master, and rode proudly away southward.

With the summer her friends might come on a fishing trip to visit her, and renew their acquaintance in her new home.

She wanted to convince them of the wisdom of her selection. She felt that she could do so--if not now, then by the time of their coming.

Poor child! She had not yet learned that it is best to feel confident of nothing.

Two years passed, and a small, black-eyed toddler kept Estella company. He wore a red calico cap upon his head and his stout and chubby limbs grew perceptibly. While young he was tied upon his mother's back beneath her parkie, a stout leather belt confining the same around the woman's waist to prevent the baby from falling out. There his black eyes winked and blinked above the little, round mouth which had only lately learned to smile, and which was beginning to experiment daily among the difficult mazes of his native dialects. For the child was confronted with two languages; English, spoken by his father, the Eskimo spoken by his mother; but he was as yet ignorant of both. Dearly his mother loved him, and enjoyed his companionship during the long and frequent absences of his father.

Gold in great quantities had now been discovered on the Seward Peninsula. Hundreds of people were flocking into the country. Camps were filling with eager fortune-seekers, and the beach was strewn with tents.

Fur traders had gone into mining. Miners were scattered over the country, carrying supplies by boat up stream to the sections where they looked for gold, and where, in many instances, they found it.

The attention of all had been drawn to a stream called Anvil, near the sea, whose sentinel rock, perched upon a tall hillcrest near, had long and successfully guarded its wealth of gold and treasure.

It could be hidden and guarded no longer. Men now labored strenuously with pick and shovel in the bed of the golden stream; nor stopped for sleeping; while accumulating riches filled their vaults to overflowing.

In a small hut upon the beach lived the Eskimo woman and her boy. Her husband had sailed with others for the north country, and the two were unprovided for and alone. With industrious fingers Estella made small trifles to sell to the white people in camp, many of whom carried heavy purses and coveted the souvenirs made by the natives.

It was her only way of earning a poor subsistence for herself and boy. Her father and brothers supplied her with fish in summer and her wants were not numerous. Like worn out footgear which had served its purpose, being perhaps well fitting and useful for a time, but after fresh purchases to be cast aside as worthless, was the native woman now discarded.

It was summer time in Alaska. Tundra mosses were at their freshest, and wild flowers bloomed and nodded on every side. It was the time for fishing, and Estella's relatives came to take her with them on their annual excursion, when for a time she was happy trying to forget the white man's neglect. It was better than his abuse and curses which she had meekly borne; but which still sorely rankled in her bosom. Her parents did not upbraid her. They appeared to have forgotten the girl's pride on her wedding day, and had only kind words for their sad-hearted daughter in her trouble. But sympathy alone could not put food in her mouth nor that of her boy, and winter was approaching.

Her parents had many children, and others depended upon them, and little with which to feed them. The fishing season had been a poor one. Nets and seines had been placed in streams as usual by the Eskimo, but many of these had been destroyed by white men, and where this was not the case the waters of creeks and rivers had been so muddied by mining operations as to ruin all chances of securing fish.

* * * * *

It was a cold and wintry night. The snow was sifting over the tundra in icy gusts from the westward. Morning would see all snow-hidden, including the huts of the four remaining natives on the sandspit between the river and the sea.

Estella's camp fire was dead. There was neither sticks nor coals to feed it. A long-drawn wail from her boy lying huddled in skins upon the ground, reminded her of other deficiencies--there was nothing to eat in the igloo--absolutely nothing. Both were cold and hungry.

Wrapping herself and her little boy as warmly as possible, she took the child's hand and started down the street of the mining camp in the blizzard. There were places open to her. There were the saloons. They were at least filled with warmth and brightness, and she would there be safe from freezing till morning. There were undoubtedly other dangers, but these she could not now contemplate. She could not let her baby freeze while starving.

Making her way along with her boy between the winter blasts, the little one clinging tightly to her hand, she approached the door.

Lights were shining brightly through the windows, and she heard voices. Would she meet her husband if she entered? She hoped not, for she must go in. It was death to remain outside. Timidly she placed her hand upon the door and partly opened it, glancing quickly about the room to note its occupants.

The flaring of the lamps indicated her presence.

"Shut the door, you beggar!" shouted the bartender. "Don't you know the wind is blowin' and lights will go out? Besides its deuced cold night, and coal costs money, you know, Stella," added the fellow less savagely, as, glancing quietly at him, and leading her boy, she slowly moved toward the big coal stove.

"Let 'em warm themselves, can't you?" exclaimed one of the men sitting at a table and shuffling cards for a game.

"Whose hinderin' 'em? I aint! All I'm objectin' to is the length of time she held the door open when she came in."

"Wal, she's in now, and the door's shut, aint it?" drawled the card player.

"Yes."

"Then close your gab!" and lowering his tone to his partner opposite he said shortly, "Play, wont you?"

In the meantime Estella was warming herself beside the fire. On her knees she held the boy whose head soon drooped drowsily in spite of his hunger.

It was a long, bare room, newly boarded as to ceiling, flooring and walls. A smooth and shining counter stretched along the west side of the room, behind which stood rows of well filled bottles, ready to be uncorked. For ornament, upon the opposite wall there hung a great mirror, trying its best to duplicate the owner's stock in trade, as though he would be needing such help before the winter was over, when his whiskies were gone. For further brightening the room there hung suspended from gilt buttons close below the ceiling, certain representations of personages in garments too filmy to assure the observer that they were intended for this Arctic world, because rivalling the costumes of two solitary gardeners in the long ago.

However that may be, the pictures did not disturb Estella--as to the miners they were accustomed to these and many other sights. Something far worse to her troubled the Eskimo. It was hunger.

Suddenly one of the loungers, considerably younger that the others, said to his neighbors:

"I'll bet she's hungry."

"Very likely, Sam, they mostly always are. There's nothin' here to eat if she is, by George."

"There's plenty of booze!"

"Yes, at two bits a drink."

"Then straightening himself in his seat the first speaker called out:

"Stella!"

"What?" answered the woman in a low voice.

"Are you hungry?"

Quick as thought she raised her head and looked appealingly into his face.

"Yes." Her lips trembled, and tears sprang into the dark eyes.

"Have you had anything to eat to-day?"

"No--little fish yesterday," she said quietly, holding up one finger to indicate the number.

"Good God! She's starving! Here, you toddy slinger, there! I say, can't you give this woman something to eat?" to the man behind the bar.

"Wal, I'm sorry to say it, but there aint no grub here; leastwise that's good for Eskimo," he added with a wink.

"I guess most anything would be good for her, and you hand out something real sudden, too," said the young man, tossing a bright silver dollar toward the counter.

"Oh, wal', if that's the game, I'm here. Oyster cocktail and crackers, eh, Stella?"

The woman's eyes brightened at the last words, which she understood; the first she was a stranger to, but if it was something to fill the awful void beneath she could eat it. She nodded eagerly.

Beggars could not be choosers. That was never plainer than now. Cocktail and crackers soon disappeared, a good share of the latter going underneath the woman's parkie to keep for her boy when he awaked. The cocktail he must not have.

An hour later a few of the miners played on. Some, whose well filled "pokes" permitted had gone to warm and comfortable beds, others to cold and cheerless bunks, as the case happened; but the Eskimo woman, with her sleeping boy on her lap, slept heavily. Sitting on the floor in a corner, with her head against a bench, she had for a time forgotten her sorrows.

Presently the door was partly opened, and an Eskimo slipped softly inside. The men were still intent on their "black jack", and he was unnoticed. His anxious face perceptibly brightened when he saw Estella, and he gave a deep sigh of relief as he seated himself near the fire.

There was a lull between games at the green table.

"Say, boys, what's become of Buster?" asked one of the miners.

"Gone to the devil, I guess. That's where he was goin' the last time I saw him," remarked one in no uncertain tone of voice.

"Oh, no, he's married a white woman," exclaimed the youngest of the party.

"Ha, ha! That's a good 'un. My lad, I'm older'n you, and I tell you it may be as you say and still not alter the case of his goin' to the old boy. Some women I know of help a man faster that way than t'other," said the old miner.

"Buster's a chump! Just look at all the money he's made off the natives and see the way he treats 'em!" jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the two asleep in the corner.

"And that kid of his'n. He ought to take care of him instead of lettin' him starve to death like this. I swear its a shame!"

"Yes, he ought to," from another of the group, "but he wont."

"When I was a kid I was told that a bird what can sing and wont sing should be made to sing, and that fits Buster now."

"Oh, well, Alaska's a big place, and there's plenty of natives. It don't matter if a few does die off, There'll be enough left, I reckon," carelessly remarked a man who had not spoken.

"You go 'way back and set down, Tenderfoot; you've allers got a pimple on yer nose! Don't you s'pose that Eskimos feel or sense things? I do. I think that such people as this, 'Stella now, orter be looked after,--'specially with that boy of her'n, for he's a likely kid, and might make somethin'. Wonder why the big guns at Washington don't try a hand at helpin'? Seems to me they could if they'd a mind." The man ended his speech in a lower tone of soliloquy.

"Easy to tell others what ter do, aint it, boss?" queried one.

"I s'pose that's so; but I was thinkin' of my own woman and kids at home, and how I'd feel to see 'em starving!" Then as though regretting the turn the conversation had taken, he reached for his furs, and while pulling his parkie over his head preparatory to leaving, said more briskly: "I'm goin' to bed, boys; you better do the same; it's near mornin'," and with that he left the saloon.

Presently the little boy stirred and whimpered. Instantly the mother roused herself, though with some effort, and the crackers were brought to light. The child was ravenous, and ate greedily. When he had finished the Eskimo by the fire came toward them, saying a few words softly in his own tongue. With that the boy put out his arms and the man took him, going back to his place by the fire.

The woman had changed her position, and was soon again asleep.

When daylight came, the bartender began moving about. He thought the natives had better get into the fresh air, as he wanted to clean the place, he said.

With that the two Eskimos plodded out through the snowdrifts; the man carrying the child in his arms.

The blizzard had died away, and the air was still and cold. When they reached the woman's door they entered, the man first pushing away the snow with his feet, the child still cuddling in his arms.

Beside the camp stove lay piled a heap of small driftwood sticks and a sack of coal. Upon the table a few eatables had been deposited, evidently some hours before. A fire was soon crackling, and a meal was cooking. To the woman's questions the man had not replied. He might have been a deaf man, for all the notice he had taken. She still questioned, speaking their native dialect. When all was done he came close, took her hand in his own, and, speaking in Eskimo, said feelingly:

"My little sweetheart, wont you let me love you now? Many long and weary moons have I waited until my heart is very sore. Tell me if you cannot love me? I will be very good and you shall never starve. I will work. I will bring much driftwood. I have salmon and tomcod, and a dog-team of the best. In summer we will sail for Tubuktulik and make a pleasant hunting camp. There we will shoot squirrels and the big bear, and you shall again be happy with freedom."

At this effort of long speaking the Eskimo seemed abashed, for he was a man of few words usually; but he still clung to the little hand of the woman by his side.

"And my boy?" she whispered eagerly, with tears shining in her eyes, which were now looking unreservedly into his own.

"He shall be mine, and I will ever love him," was the reply, as she glanced proudly toward the baby amusing himself with the sticks.

"You are gentle to Stella, and she will do all things as you say," murmured the woman softly, with drooping head, and trembling.

"And will you love me always, little one?" putting his arms about her and pressing her dose to his heart.

"Yes, always and forever. Then I will not be alone," she smiled brightly through her tears at the prospect, while nestling closer in his strong arms.

"Never alone again, dear one. I promise, if your heart will only love me," said he, kissing her; and the child at play among the driftwood sticks gravely gave a handful to his mother.

"He shall call you his papa," said she almost gaily, "for will it not be true?"

[The end]
May Kellogg Sullivan's short story: Estella The Eskimo

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