The Eternal Maiden | Page 4

possessed a beauty rare
among her people. From her father, one of the brave white men who
had died with the Greely party years before at Cape Sabine, Annadoah
had inherited a delicacy and beauty more common indeed with the
unknown peoples of the south. Her face was fresh and smooth, and of a
pale golden hue. Her cheeks were flushed delicately with the soft pink
of the lichen flowers that bloom in the rare days of early summer. Her
eyes played with a light as elusive, as quick as the golden radiance on
the seas. Her dark silken hair straggled luxuriantly from under the loose
hood of immaculate white fox fur which had fallen back from her head.
The soft skins of blue foxes and of young birds clothed her. From her
sleeves her hands peeped; they were small, dainty, childlike. Almost

childlike, too, was her face, so palely golden, so fresh, so lovely, so
petite. There were mingled in her the coyness of a child and the
irresistible coquetry of a woman.
She waved her hands joyously to the hunters leaving the shore. They
called back to her. Some of the women frowned. One shook her fist at
Annadoah.
Papik, lingering behind, approached Annadoah timidly.
"Thou art beautiful, Annadoah; thou canst sew with great skill. With
the needles the white men brought thee, thou hast made garments such
as no other maiden. Papik would wed thee, Annadoah."
"Thou art a good lad, Papik," Annadoah replied, laughing gaily. "But
thy fingers are very long--and long, indeed, thy nose!"
Papik flushed, for to him this was a tragedy.
"But with my fingers I speed the arrow with skill," he replied.
"True, but the fate of him who shoots with a skill such as thine is
unfortunate indeed; for soon the day will come when thou wilt not
speed the arrow, when thy hands will be robbed of their cunning. When
ookiah (winter) comes with his lashes of frost he will smite thy
fingers--they will fall off. Then how wilt thou get food for thy wife?
Ookiah will twist thy nose, and it will freeze. Poor Papik!"
Annadoah lay her hand gently on his arm, and a brief sorrow clouded
her smiles.
Papik bowed his head. He understood the blight nature had set upon
him and it made his heart cold. Truly his fingers were long and his nose
was long--and either was a misfortune to a tribesman. He knew, as all
the natives knew, that sooner or later during a long winter his fingers
would inevitably freeze, then he would lose his skill with weapons;
consequently he would not be able to provide for a wife. His nose, too,
in all probability would freeze; then he would be disfigured and the
trials of life would be more complicated.
From the inherited experience of ages the natives know that a hunter
with short hands and feet is most likely to live long; a man's length of
life can be pretty accurately gauged by the stubbiness of his nose. The
degree of radiation of the human body is such that it can prevent
freezing in this northern region only when the extremities are short;
thus a man with long feet is almost for a certainty doomed to lose his
toes, and the most fortunate is he whose feet and hands are short, whose

nose is stubby and whose ears are small. The exigencies of life place an
economic value on the structure of a hunter's body, and the little
Eskimo women--endowed with a crude social conscience which
demands that a father shall live and remain efficient so as to care for his
own children--are loath to marry one afflicted as was Papik.
"But I care for thee, Annadoah," Papik protested.
"And well do I know thou art a brave lad, but seek thou another maiden;
thou dost not touch my heart, Papik, and thy fingers are very, very
long."
With native spontaneity, Papik laughed and turned shoreward. As he
passed the assembled maidens he paused momentarily and greeted
them. He made a brief proposal of marriage to Ahningnetty, a fat
maiden, and was met with laughter.
"Go on, Long Fingers," one called. "How wilt thou strike the bear when
thy fingers are gone? How wilt thou seek the musk ox when ookiah
hath bitten off thy feet?"
The maiden who spoke was extremely thin.
"Ha, ha!" Papik returned. "How wilt thou warm thy husband when the
winter comes? How wilt thou warm the little baby when thou art like
the bear after a famished winter, thou maid of skin and bones!"
"Long-nose! Long-nose! may thy nose freeze!" she called.
The other maidens laughed and gibed at her. In anger she fled into her
tupik, or tent. Being very thin she, too, like Papik, suffered