stefansson-wrangel-09-34-006

2.

about to take place on this island must be recorded and
there was no one else, now, to do it.

"March 16.
I have not feeling well for three days first
I was headach and then I had stumpick trouble
and today I feel much better I was over to
the traps but no fox or fresh tracks. and
last night knight told me I can keep the bible
he said he give them to me, very nice day so
far.”

The Bible was a discovery she had made at the
mission school, along with the habit of prayer and brushing
her teeth. By now her religion was far removed from the
ancient rituals of the tribal angakoks. Burning a wisp of
hair plucked from her forehead, for instance, so that the
smell would drive out evil spirits, well, that was foolish-
ness and it had no place in a world where she knew God to be
a Living Presence, and Jesus His Beloved Son, and the Bible
His Holy Word.

But what a surprise that Knight had given her
his Bible which had belonged to his grandfather and was a
most precious thing! True, he had said he was feeling better,
his swollen gums had started to go down and he was sleeping
nights, and that might explain it but there was a time when
he would not have done such a thing. Those first days on the
island she had been sure that Knight, even more than the others,
hated her and wished her dead.

How afraid she had been! — and the big man had
had no understanding of her fears at all. When she begged him
to stop sharpening his knife, explaining that the fortune-
teller in Nome had warned her to beware of knives and fire, he