Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/187

166 warmth and home. Knitting stockings for her husband! How much of dear home was in that favourite domestic occupation! Then, too, her voice, her words and language, the latter in my own vernacular, were something more than common in that region. I have before said that she was peculiarly pleasing and refined in her style and manners; and now, while sheltering me beneath her hospitable roof, with the bright lamp before me, the lively prattle of the two boys came in strong contrast to the soft tones of her partly civilized tongue as my mind opened to receive all she uttered. What she said, and what my impressions were at the time, will be found in the following extract from my journal: "November 14th, 1860.—Tookoolito, after returning from England five years ago, where she and her wing-a (husband) spent twenty months, commenced diffusing her accomplishments in various ways, to wit, teaching the female portion of the nation, such as desired, to knit, and the various useful things practised by civilization. In all the places around Northumberland Inlet she has lived, and done what she could to improve her people. A singular fact relative to dressing her hair, keeping her face and hands cleanly, and wearing civilization dresses—others of her sex, in considerable numbers, follow these fashions imported by her. This shows to me what one person like Tookoolito could accomplish in the way of the introduction of schools and churches among this people. To give this woman an education in the States, and subsequent employment in connexion with several of our missionaries, would serve to advance a noble and good work. And yet I must state that, unless a working colony, or several of them, were established, co-operating in this work, and laws were made by the fundamental power that should be as rigid relative to whalers visiting the coasts as those of Denmark to Greenland, all would be as nought. "The working or trading colony would make its government, school, and church institutions self-supporting. Let the plan of Denmark for Greenland be followed. It is a good one, and works well.