Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories Part 3

"Plenty of time, Sammy."

Sammy's kayah was now ash.o.r.e. Sammy unlaced his jacket and let himself out of jail. Pulling his kayah high up the sh.o.r.e, he turned it over and let the water escape. There were two ugly gashes in the seal-skin bottom--just as he expected.

"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 But mother's red boots had prudently withdrawn.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?"

"Off to mend my kayah, mother."

"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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 t.i.tans 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 beautiful valley in the shadow of the cliffs. Moss and gra.s.ses thickly carpeted it. Little brooks went sparkling through it. There were flowers in bloom, poppies of gold, dandelions and b.u.t.tercups, saxifrages of purple, white and yellow. "And trees were there?" asks a reader. Do you see that shrub just before Sammy? That is the nearest thing to a tree. It is pine. If the fat for cooking the dinner should give out, young Miss Seal may be warmed up by the help of this giant pine. As a rule, we are inclined to think that Sammy takes his seal same as folks who like "oysters on the sh.e.l.l"--raw.

"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 over he went, head down, seal-skin boots up, turning over like a cart-wheel.

"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 was quite plump.

It looked like a fat plum stuck on to the side of a pumpkin.

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 s.h.i.+ne, 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_--"

"I guess I will let Billy stay here half an hour."

"_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 sh.e.l.l, and moved not. Neither could he step.

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