SAMMY SEALSKIN'S ENEMY.

"Where going, Sammy Sealskin?".

"Down to my kayah, Tommy Fishscales."

"Is there any fish to-day?"

"A few, they say, but there is lots of seals—plenty of 'em on the rocks in the bay."

"All right; bring home something to your friend, Tommy."

Sammy pushed off his kayah from shore. It was a funny sort of boat, according to our notions. It was only nine inches deep, and about a foot and a half wide in the middle, tapering to a point at either end and curving upward. It was about sixteen feet long. Its frame was of very light wood, and this was covered with tanned seal-skin. Sammy's mother was

When he had dropped into his place, he then laced the lower border of his jacket to the rim of the hole, and there he was all snug—not a drop of water could get in. Grasping his single oar, about six feet long, with a paddle at either end, and flourishing it in the water right and left, away swept the young fisherman.

"I should think his craft would be top-heavy, and over he would go," says some reader.

One naturally would think his craft would be top-heavy and over he would go, as the kayah has no keel and carries no ballast, and if we should try a kayah, it would certainly be on land. But those Greenlanders learn to handle themselves so well that their kayahs will go dancing over the big billows and then fly through a ragged, dangerous surf. From their kayahs, too, they will fight the fierce white bear.

Ah! Sammy, what is the matter?

"Ugh-h-h-h!"

Sammy gives a melancholy groan. He begins to suspect that his boat is leaking.

Could any one have slit the seal-skin bottom?

The kayah is really settling.

must go home," he says.

He turns his back upon the bright, beautiful sea, tufted with cakes of ice that seem in the distance like the white, pure lilies on a glassy pond, and paddles off home with good-by to the fishing, good-by to the black-headed seals, good-by to the low islands with their gulls and mollimucks and burgomeisters and tern and kittiwakes and eider-ducks—good-by to the long day's fun!

"It makes me feel like a mad whale," said Sammy, "to be cheated out of my fishing. I wonder who cut my kayah!"

Just then he looked off to the shore, and there stood Billy Blubber, an ancient enemy.

"There's the fellow," said Sammy. "He slit my kayah, I know. If I had him, I'd eat him quicker than a tern's egg. Just see how he looks!"

Billy did look exasperating. He saw everything and he enjoyed everything. Plainly he was the miscreant. He was waddling round on his stout little legs, flourishing a huge jack-knife, and grinning as if he were going to have a big dish of whale-fat for dinner. He looked comical enough. He was dressed in seal-skin, and was bobbing up and down in his mother's seal-skin boots. The women's boots are of tanned seal-skin, bleached white and then colored.

"Billy, I'll give it to you?"

"Will you, Sammy? Try it, old boy."

Thereupon, he put his thumb to his nose and wriggled his finger as exasperatingly as any Yankee boy here in this enlightened land. His flat face, his black little eyes, his stubby little nose, his hair black as coal and long behind, but fashionably "banged" in front, the seal-skin suit, mother's big red boots, and the nasal gesture made a very interesting picture, and a most provoking one also.

"Billy, you will catch it!"

"I should rather think you had caught it already. Did you bring any seal-fat, Sammy?"

Sammy felt mad enough and hot enough to set the water to boiling between his kayah and the shore.

"You had better run, Billy."

"Plenty of time, Sammy."

Sammy's kayah was now ashore. Sammy unlaced his jacket and let himself out of jail. Pulling his kayah high up the shore, he turned it over and let

"Now where's that Billy?" asked Sammy at last. But mother's red boots had prudently withdrawn.

"I will give it to him," said Sammy; "but I will mend this first."

He took up his beloved kayah and walked to the little village. It was not very large. There were half a dozen seal-skin tents, a few houses of stone and turf, and one or two wooden buildings, besides the government-house that proudly supported the flag of Denmark.

"What do you want, Sammy?" said his mother, as he appeared at the door of one of the seal-skin tents. She was sitting on a bed of reindeer skins.

"I want needle and thread, mother. That Billy Blubber cut some holes in my kayah."

"Billy Blubber did?"

"Yes," said Sammy, "and I would like to sew him up in a seal-skin and drop him from the top of an iceberg into the sea."

"Tut, tut, Sammy. It's a boy's trick. Let it go."

"There," thought Sammy, shouldering his kayah and moving off, "that is what mother always says when Billy harms me."

"Where are you going, Sammy?"

"Nonsense! Only women can mend kayahs. I will fix it. You go off and take a walk, and then come to dinner. We are going to have a young seal."

A seal! Wasn't that nice? Who wouldn't be a young Greenlander, own a kayah, and have seal for dinner? The prospect before Sammy made him feel better. The world, too, looked different.

"What a nice place we live in!" thought Sammy. "I wouldn't live in Denmark for anything, old Denmark, where our rulers come from."

The scenery about the Greenland village was indeed interesting. There was the blue sea before it, dotted with "pond-lilies." Off the mouth of the harbor, the icebergs went sailing by, so white, so stately, so slow, like a fleet almost becalmed. Back of the village swelled the rocky cliffs bare of snow now, and many rivulets went flashing down their sides from ponds and pools nestling in granite recesses. Away off, towered the mountains, their still snowy tops suggesting the powdered heads of grand old Titans sitting there in state.

"Who wouldn't live in Greenland?" thought Sammy, entirely forgetting the long, cold, dark winter.

However, it was summer then. He went back of his mother's seal-skin tent. There he could see a

"Ky-ey! Ky-ey!"

"My!" exclaimed Sammy. "What is that noise? It must be a dog somewhere—hurt!"

Sammy started to the rescue.

"Ky-ey! Ky-ey!"

"It must be a dog," declared Sammy, and he expected to see one of those large Greenland dogs, wolf-like, with sharp, pointed nose, and ears held up stiff as if to catch every sound of danger in their dangerous travels.

Sammy rushed up a little hill before him, and rushed in such a hurry that he did not think how steep the other side was. He lost his balance, and

"Ky-ey! Ky-ey! Ah, Sammy! Ky-ey! Ky-ey! Catch him!"

It was that old enemy, Billy Blubber, ky-eying in part, and laughing also as if he would split. He only expected to get Sammy to the top of the hill and there tell him he was fooled.

"This though is better than a sea-lion hunt," thought Billy, and he roared again and shook till he threatened to come in pieces like a barrel when the hoops are off.

"I will catch you and pay you," said Sammy.

"Try it," defiantly shouted Billy, wearing now his own boots, having dropped his mother's red casings.

Off went Billy. Right ahead, was a great gray ledge. There was a crack in the ledge big enough for a boy's foot. Billy was the boy to have his foot caught in it! He tried to pull it out, but the sudden wrench was not good for his foot, and there he stood yelling—he was ky-eying now in good earnest.

"I have a great mind," thought Sammy, "to let you stay there. I wonder how you would like to stay and have a duck come along and nip off your nose."

It would have been a nice little nip, for Billy's nose

Well, how long should Sammy have kept him there?

"Till the sun went down," says some one.

The idea! Why, the sun in summer goes round and round and round, never setting through June and July. Then the sun begins to dip below the horizon, going lower and lower, till at last it disappears. For one hundred and twenty-six days Sammy and Billy did not see the sun. Through that long, dark night, the stars would shine, so white and solemn, down upon the ice and snow everywhere stretching. Until the last of July would have been a long time for plum-nosed Billy to stand with his foot in that crack. Suddenly, Sammy heard a noise. "What is that?" he asked.

It was a walrus bellowing in the bay. Sammy turned toward the blue water. As he turned, he saw the minister standing near his chapel. Sammy thought of the text he preached from, the Sunday before, and he began to repeat it to himself:

"Love your enemies—"

"I guess I will let Billy stay here about an hour," said Sammy, meditating.

"Bless them that curse you—"

"Do good to them that hate you—"

"I guess I will let Billy stay here ten minutes."

"And pray for them which despitefully use you—"

"I guess I will take Billy out now!" And Sammy ran towards the prisoner.

"Billy, are you hurt?"

Billy turned his head away, ashamed to speak.

"Let me take your foot out."

Billy's foot was about as fat as a bear's in July, and it came hard. He shook his head. His tongue stuck to his mouth like a clam to his shell, and moved not. Neither could he step.

"I will take you on my back, Billy!" said Sammy.

And that's the way they went home. Billy in his dress generally looked like a seal standing on his hind flippers, and Sammy resembled one also—nevertheless it was a pleasant sight.