Part 3

Our babies ride in carriages, but an Eskimo baby rides on its mother's back. The mother wears a coat with a pocket on the back of it. The pocket is lined inside with soft reindeer skin. This makes a nice warm nest for baby.

[Illustration: Eskimo Mother and Baby.]

In Greenland all the boys and girls have sleds. The runners of the sled are made of bone. The top is made of strips of sealskin. It has a back for the boy or girl to lean against. Dogs draw the sled across the snow. But the Eskimos also have sleds made of ice. I think you would like an ice sled. Oh, how fast it runs over the snow! The boys and girls have fine fun with these sleds!

They play a nice game in the snow with their sleds. I will tell you about it. Do you know what a reindeer is? It is like a deer, but it has long, branching horns. The horns are called antlers. When the Eskimos kill a reindeer for meat, the boys and girls get the antlers. They set these antlers up in the snow on a hillside. They leave spaces between the antlers. Then the boys and girls get on their sleds and slide down the hill. They must go between the antlers, but must not touch them. Sometimes the boys and girls have bows and arrows. They try to hit the antlers with their arrows. This is very hard, but it is great fun. Do you think you could do this?

The boys have boats made of long, thin bones covered with skins. These sail very well on the water. The boys use paddles to move the boats. A paddle is like an oar. The boys sometimes go in their boats to help their fathers catch fish.

Eskimo children cannot read or write. They do not go to school, for the Eskimos have no schools. They are very fond of stories, but they cannot read them in books. So their mothers tell them stories. The mothers cannot read, either. The stories they tell are what they heard from their mothers. Are you not happy that you can read stories for yourself?

Perhaps you think the Eskimo children are unhappy? Oh, no! Though they cannot read books, they play all kinds of games. There is a funny game they play in the house. All the children get on their knees in a ring. Then they hold their toes with their hands and move along by jumps. The one who goes the fastest wins.

The Eskimo boys play a game like the game of "cup and ball." They have two pieces of bone. One is flat, with holes in it. The other is long and sharp like a pin. Both are joined by a string about a foot long. The flat piece is tied to one end of the string, and the pin to the other end. The pin is held in the hand, and the flat piece is thrown into the air. The game is to catch the flat piece upon the point of the pin, by one of the holes.

[Illustration: Eskimo Children.]

Eskimo boys play another game with a ball and a stick made of bone. It is something like shinny, one of the games yon play. They also play a game with a sealskin hall about as big as a baseball. They strike the ball with their hands and try to keep it in the air all the time. The Eskimo boys play football very well. They think it great fun. They never touch the ball with their hands; they only kick it.

The girls have dolls made of wood, with fur clothes. The dolls look like the little girls themselves.

Perhaps you would like to know about the houses the Eskimos live in. They have summer houses and winter houses. The summer house is a tent made of skins. The winter house is made of stones and earth covered with snow. It is not much higher than a man. They have a strange way of getting into these houses. A long, narrow passage leads from the door on the outside. They must crawl on their hands and knees along this passage. Then they go through a small opening into the house. The long passage keeps out the cold.

[Illustration: A Winter House.]

There is only one room in the house. Everything is done in this room. They sleep and eat and cook in it. The beds are of sealskins, and are made on a bench along the wall. There are no stoves in the house. The Eskimos use lamps to keep themselves warm and to give them light. They cook their food, too, with lamps. The lamps give great heat, and the houses are quite warm.

When the men kill a bear they have a party. At the party everybody sits around the lamp The bear is cut up and every one gets a piece. Then the children sing and dance. The Eskimos eat a great deal of meat. They kill seals and bears and birds for their meat. They also eat berries and seaweed.

There are no tables in Eskimo houses. A large dish is set on the floor. The family sit round it and eat out of it. They cut their meat with knives made of bone. Their cups are made of sealskin.

Do you know what a seal is? It is an animal with thick fur. Sometimes it lives on the land and sometimes in the water. The people in the North kill it and make clothes of its skin. Its fur is very warm and makes fine jackets. The Eskimos eat the flesh of the seal. They make knives and other things of its bones.

[Illustration: Seals.]

Eskimo boys and girls have a funny kind of candy. It is the red skin of a bird's foot soaked in fat. You would not care for this. But the Eskimo children eat it and like it. The cold weather makes them like to eat fat.

RUSSIA.

"Your nose! your nose, sir!" This is a cry often heard in the streets of Russia.

Russia is a very large country. Part of it is in Europe. A great part of it is very cold. When a person in the cold part of Russia goes out riding in winter, he has to cover his face, all except the nose and eyes. Sometimes his nose gets very cold, and would freeze if some one did not cry out, "Your nose, sir!" Why? When one's nose gets so cold, it becomes numb. It has no feeling. One would not know that it was freezing if some person did not cry out. The cold nose must then be rubbed with snow. You would think this a strange way to keep it from freezing, but it is the best way to take out the frost.

There are many kinds of houses in Russia. The houses have to be made very warm. So they are built with double walls. In rich people's houses they have stoves like ours. But in the poor people's houses the stoves are built of brick. They always burn wood, for coal costs too much in Russia. The stoves are sometimes built very high. Often they are as high as the ceiling. Sometimes people lie on top of the great stove to keep themselves warm.

[Illustration: A Russian Carriage.]

In most of the houses in the country, they have no beds. There are benches along the wall, which they use both for chairs and beds. In some houses the children sleep on the floor on pieces of felt.

Most of the people in Russia are farmers. They raise a great deal of wheat. The people in many other countries get wheat from Russia.

[Illustration: A Russian Farmer and his Family.]

The children have to wear very warm clothes because it is so cold the greater part of the year. Their coats are lined with fur. In winter the children in the towns have great fun on the ice hills. Ice hills are made in all the towns.

First they build a high tower, and down from the top of it they make a steep hill. Blocks of ice are laid on this hill and water is poured over them. The water freezes, and thus the ice hill is made. On one side of the ice hill there is a place to draw up the sleds. The boys and girls start at the top, and down they go with merry laughing and shouting! So you see they have fine sport on their ice hills.

When the children are not playing on the ice hills, they go skating or sleighing.

In some parts of Russia they have funny ferryboats. When the rivers are frozen over in winter, the boats cannot sail on them. Then the people use chairs instead of boats. There are warm covers on the chairs, and men on skates push them across the ice. It costs less than one cent to ride across a river in one of these chairs.

In St. Petersburg they build an ice palace every winter. St. Petersburg is the largest city in Russia. It is the place where the emperor lives. The Emperor of Russia is sometimes called the Czar.

They make the ice palace with square blocks of ice. They put the blocks together and pour water between them. When the water freezes, the wall is solid like a wall of brick or stone. Everything inside the palace is made of ice. There are ice stairs and ice tables, and ice chairs, and beautiful flowers made of ice. Warm rugs of fur are put on the chairs so that people who sit on them may not be cold. Often there are grand balls and parties in this beautiful palace of ice.

[Illustration: A Russian Family.]

In summer, too, the boys and girls in Russia have a good time. The boys have wrestling matches, for they are strong.

The girls have a game like ring-around-a-rosy. They also have a game much like our seesaw. A girl stands on each end of a board. Then one girl jumps up and comes down on the board. This sends the other girl up, and in her turn she comes down on the board and sends the first girl up. And so they play on, going up and down. This is not an easy game to play. It is some time before the girls can do it well. Some girls are so skillful at this game that they can keep jumping a long time without falling.

Some people in Russia have very queer cradles for their babies. One kind of cradle is a basket which hangs by ropes from the ceiling. Another kind of cradle is made of cloth sewed to a wooden frame. This cradle also hangs from the ceiling.

In some places in Russia the nurses who take care of the babies wear dresses to show whether the baby is a girl or a boy. If it is a boy the nurse wears a blue dress. If it is a girl the nurse wears a pink dress.

There are not schools in all parts of Russia, but in some places there are good schools, and the children learn to read and write.

I must not forget to tell you of the great bell in Russia. It is the largest bell in the world. It is in Moscow, a very old city of Russia, and it is called the great bell of Moscow. But it has never been rung, for it was cracked in the side when it was being made. It is nearly twenty feet high, and is now used as a chapel.

[Illustration: The Great Bell at Moscow.]

The next largest bell in the world is also in Moscow. This bell is hung up in a church; and when they ring it, the sound is heard all over the city like the rolling of thunder.

SWITZERLAND.

Switzerland is a land of mountains and hills and valleys and beautiful lakes and streams. Every year many people go from all parts of the world to see the beautiful Swiss mountains and valleys.

Sometimes large masses of snow and ice, mixed with earth, fall or slide down the sides of the mountains with a loud crash. As they slide, they tear away rocks and trees, and bury houses and villages beneath them. These masses of snow and ice are called avalanches.

[Illustration: An Avalanche.]

Snow falls all the year round on the tops of the mountains in Switzerland. As the snow falls, it packs down hard and changes into ice. At last it becomes a great mass of ice, and slides very slowly down the sides of the mountains into the valleys. These masses of ice are called glaciers. They move so slowly that you cannot tell they are moving by looking at them. But by driving a stake down, you can see, after a long time, that the ice has moved a little way.

A great many of the people in Switzerland live by keeping cattle and sheep and goats. Their houses are in the valleys. But in spring, when the snow begins to melt and the grass begins to grow, the men drive their flocks up the mountain sides to feed. There they stay till the end of summer. The men take with them a supply of food, and they sleep in huts on the mountain side.

There is a kind of goat in Switzerland called the chamois. It lives high up in the mountains. It is very hard to hunt the chamois, for it can go into places where a man cannot follow it. It can leap very nimbly from one rock to another. It can go up and down a rough mountain side.

[Illustration: Chamois.]

In the summer the chamois feeds on herbs and flowers. In winter it eats the shoots and buds of pine trees. It is very fond of salt. There is a kind of stone in the mountains that is partly made of salt. The chamois licks these stones to get the salt.

The chamois feed together in herds of fifteen or twenty. One of them is always on the watch to give notice if anybody comes to hunt them. When it sees any one coming, it stamps on the ground with its fore feet and makes a sharp cry. Then all start off. They leap from crag to crag till they are far out of danger.

The skin of the chamois is very soft. It is made into a fine, soft leather. This leather is called shammy leather. Have you ever seen a piece of shammy leather? The flesh of the chamois is very good to eat.

The people in Switzerland use a great deal of milk and butter and cheese for their food. They also have potatoes and bread and fruit. They eat very little meat.

The Swiss houses are made of wood. Stones are often put on the roofs. The stones keep the shingles from being torn off by the wind. The Swiss are very neat and clean. On every window sill there are flowerpots, for the Swiss are very fond of flowers.

[Illustration: A Swiss House.]

In every village in Switzerland there is a school. The Swiss have very good schools. The boys and girls must go to school when they are six years old. They learn all that we learn in our schools. There are also schools where the boys are taught trades. The boys and girls go to school only eight months in the year. So they have four months' vacation.

After school, the boys help to take care of the sheep and goats and cattle. The girls help about the housework. All find plenty to do.

But the Swiss boys and girls have some time for play as well as for work and school. They often have holidays. One of their greatest holidays is the day that the men come home from the mountains with their flocks. The boys and girls go out to meet them. They sing songs. The bells ring, and flags wave. Everybody is merry and happy.

The children in Switzerland have a great many pretty toys. Some of their toys are made to play music. The Swiss make all kinds of music boxes.

In Switzerland, instead of a king, they have a president, as we have. And in past times they had brave men who fought to make their country free. One of their great men was William Tell. The Swiss love his name as strongly as we love the name of George Washington.

[Illustration: Swiss Dog Cart.]

HOLLAND.

The people who live in Holland are called Dutch.

There are many canals in Holland. In some of the towns they have canals instead of streets. There are bridges across the canals for people to go from one side of the street to the other. In some of the streets they have no sidewalks, and nothing between the houses but canals.

[Illustration: Canals in Holland.]

In most of the houses they have no carpets. They scatter white sand on the floor every morning. They keep their houses very clean. In their kitchens they have open fireplaces, with fires blazing brightly. Near the fires they have footstools made of cork. In some houses they have fire boxes for warming their feet. They can carry these boxes wherever they like. In cold weather they take their fire boxes to church.

Wherever you go in Holland you see windmills. When you see them far off they look like giants with their arms stretched out. The arms are shaped like ladders. The arms have sails on them to catch the wind. It is the wind that makes the arms go round. With these windmills the people pump up water, and grind corn, and saw wood. The land is very flat and low. There are no swift running streams to turn the mills. So the people build windmills.

[Illustration: Windmills in Holland.]

The great wonder of Holland is the dikes. Holland is near the sea, and so dikes are built along the beach to keep the water out. The dikes are strong walls made of earth and stones. They are very high, and so thick that on the top there is a road to walk and ride on. In some parts of Holland there are houses also on the top of the dikes. If it were not for these dikes, the sea would flow in on the land. Then it would cover the houses and towns, and drown the people.

Did you ever hear the story of the little boy and the hole in the dike? The little boy's name was Hans. He lived near the great dikes along the sea. One day his mother sent him on an errand.

When he was coming home, he saw water flowing from a small hole in the dike. He knew that the water came from the sea. Then he said to himself, "If that water is not stopped, the hole will get larger. Then the sea will break in, and we shall all be drowned."

So Hans went up to the dike and put his hand against the hole, and stopped the water. This was very hard to do. But the little fellow held bravely on.

When night came and Hans did not come home, his father and some of the people who lived close by went to search for him. After many hours they found him at the dike, keeping the water back with his hand. Then his father took him home, and the men stopped up the hole in the dike. Everybody praised Hans for what he had done.

The little children in Holland are very pretty. They have round, fat faces, golden hair, and blue eyes. The boys wear wide trousers and little round caps. The girls wear jackets and skirts and little caps with gold braid.

Both boys and girls wear wooden shoes. And what a noise they do make with their wooden shoes when they run around! They have great fun playing their shoes are boats. They sit on the sides of the canals and take off their shoes and sail them on the water like little boats. They tie strings to the shoes so that they can draw them in whenever they like.

[Illustration: Dutch Girl with Wooden Shoes.]

Dutch children do not wear shoes in the house, but wear slippers. When they go home after playing or from school they take off their shoes. They leave them outside the door. Would you not think it strange to see rows of little shoes outside the doors?

Every Saturday the children clean their shoes. But they do not shine them as we do. They wash them with soap and water, and dry them at the fire. If the sun shines, they hang them on a bush to dry. When they are dry, they are almost as white as snow.

Winter is a very merry season in Holland. Then all the canals are frozen, and there is great fun skating. Everybody has skates, even the little children. And how merry and happy the boys and girls are, skimming along on the ice!

[Illustration: Skating in Holland.]

The men and women go to market on skates. Those who do not wish to go on skates go in sleds or chairs with runners on them. The chairs are pushed by skaters.

But the best fun of all is on the ice boats. The ice boats have sails, and can go very fast on the smooth ice.

The first day of skating every year is a holiday. There is no school that day, and everybody goes out skating, or riding in sleds or ice boats. How glad the boys and girls are when Skating Day comes! What fun they have! And of course they have sleigh riding, for every family has a sleigh. The sleighs are made like shells, or boats, or swans. When the people go sleigh riding at night, they carry lighted torches.

The greatest holiday the Dutch have is Santa Claus's day. It is on December 6. All the stores are made pretty on that day. Santa Claus is in the windows. He is dressed in red with white fur, and rides a large horse. The streets are crowded with boys and girls to see all this. They have Santa Claus cakes, and gingerbread made like chairs and tables and fishes and horses and many other things.

At night Santa Claus rides on the roofs of the houses, and drops nice things down the chimneys for good children. And the boys and girls leave their shoes near the fireplace for the things to drop in.

But they do not find many toys in their shoes, for Santa likes better to give them cakes and money. The Dutch boys and girls have not many toys, but they play for hours with their shoes. They use them for boats, baskets, dishes, or beds for their dolls.

They have fine schools in Holland, and the boys and girls go to school and learn the same things that we learn in our schools.

Some Dutch girls go to market to sell milk or cheese. They have donkeys to carry the milk or cheese. Sometimes, the girls ride on the donkeys' backs.