A Northern Christmas by Rockwell Kent Page A

foolishly adoring women of his kind, otters that now and then sat basking on the rocks, blue jays and gulls, and porcupines. It was enough. Of the fullness of the days—fullness of work and thought, of play, of little happenings, of uneventful peace—we kept record.

    That record is a book: its name is
WILDERNESS
. From
WILDERNESS
these notes about a happy Christmas in the north are drawn.
Thursday, December nineteenth
    This day is never to be forgotten, so beautiful, so calm, so still with the earth and every branch and tree muffled in deep, feathery, new-fallen snow. And all day the softest clouds have drifted lazily over the heaven, shrouding the land here and there in veils of falling snow, while elsewhere or through the snow itself the sun shone. Golden shadows, dazzling peaks, fairy tracery of branches against the blue summer sea! It was a day to Live,—and work could be forgotten.
    So Rockwell and I explored the woods, at first reverently treading one path, so that the snow about us might still lie undisturbed. But soon the cub in the boy broke out and he rolled in the deepest thickets, shook the trees down upon himself, lay still in the snow for me to cover him completely, washed his face till it was crimson, and wound up with a naked snow-bath. I photographed him standing thus in the deep snow at the water’s edge with the mountains far off behind him. Then he dried himself at the roaring fire we’d made ready and felt like a new boy—if that can be imagined. Meanwhile I searched in the woods for a Christmas tree and cut a fair-sized one at last for its top. Christmas is right upon us now. To-night the cranberries stew on the stove.
Friday, December twentieth
    The beautiful snow is fast going under the falling rain! With only five more days before Christmas it is probable we’ll have little if any snow on the ground then. A snowless Christmas in Alaska!
    This day was as uneventful as could be. Part of the morning was consumed in putting a new handle into the sledge hammer. It wastoo dark to paint long, hardly an hour of daylight. These days slip by so easily and with so little accomplished! Only by burning midnight oil can much be done.

Sunday, December twenty-second
    Both yesterday and to-day it has poured rain. They’ve not been unpleasant days, however. Occasional let-ups have allowed us to cut wood and get water without inconvenience.
    Both days I have been occupied with humble, house-wifely duties,—baking, washing, mending, and now the cabin is adornedwith our drying clothes. Here, where water must be carried so far, it is the wet days that are wash days. Darning is a wretched nuisance. We should have socks enough to tide us over our stay here. Last night after Rockwell had been put to bed I sat down and did two of the best drawings I have made. At half past twelve I finished them, and then to calm my elation a bit for sleep read in the “Odyssey.”

    Ten days from now it comes due for Olson to go to Seward. If only then we have mild, calm weather! But as yet we have seen no steamer go to Seward since early in the month. It looks as if the steamship companies had combined to deprive Alaska of its Christmas mail and freight in a policy of making the deadlock with the government over the mail contracts intolerable. Meanwhile, instead of serving us, the jaunty littlenaval cruisers that summered here in idleness doubtless loaf away the winter months in comfortable southern ports.

Monday, December twenty-third
    Up to this morning the hard warm rain continued, and now the stars are all out and it might be thought a night in spring. At eight-thirty I walked over in sneakers and underwear for a moment’s call on Olson, but he had gone to bed. And now, although we’ll have no snow, the weather is fair for Christmas.
    If Olson believes, as he says, that Christmas will pass as any other day, he is quite wrong. The tree waits to be set up and it will surely be a thing of