The seal skins were turned over to Mrs. Abel, to soak and scrape and
prepare for boots and other garments, which Abel and Skipper Ed and
Jimmy, as well as she herself, and Bobby, would require.
Bobby developed a vast liking for the choice morsels of the seal
flippers and meat, which were always reserved for him, and it was not
long before he demanded his due share of the fresh blubber, too.
He loved, when Mrs. Abel was at work sewing the boots with sinew, to
help her by chewing the edges of the oily leather, to soften and render
it pliable for the needle. Indeed, Bobby quickly developed into an
Eskimo child in all save the color of his skin, and texture and color of
his hair, which persisted in remaining silky and yellow.
And thus the weeks passed. With the rapidly shortening days of November,
cold increased with grim earnestness. Already the snow was gathering
depth in the forest, and on the open spaces it lay frozen and hard, and
the sun now had no strength to soften it. A coating of ice crusted the
beach where the tide rose and fell, and this crackled and snapped as the
waves broke upon it. A strange, smoky vapor lay over the sea, shifting
in the east wind. The sea was "smoking," and was only waiting now, Abel
said, for a calm, to freeze.
Then suddenly one night a great uncanny silence fell upon the world, and
in the morning a gray level plain reached away, where the day before had
been the heaving billows of the bay. The sea was frozen at last, and for
many long months there would be no breaking of waves upon the rocks or
lapping of tides upon the sandy beach.
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