A young man, who sees a girl he thinks he would like to have for a wife, makes a great many excuses to come to her father's snow-house. Sometimes he wants to borrow a flint, or blubber, or something else. If he comes without any excuse, the girl's parents tell him, "I know very well what you do want; you want my girl, but you never shall get her." Then he gets kind of scared and runs off. But he sneaks round again pretty often. He thinks may be her parents will go out for a dog-sleigh ride, or may be they would lay them down to sleep some time. If he does get her out of the snow-house without being caught, the girl's parents send right back for him and think nobody is any smarter than he is, and do all they can for him.
The reason a girl's parents want the young man to steal her is, that they want to find out whether he is willing to risk his life for his own girl or not. They think if he is not smart enough to steal a girl, he would not be smart enough to take care of her--kill a polar bear, so that she would have enough to live on.
There are not many old bachelors in my country, for if a man has not spunk enough to steal a girl he is looked down upon as a sort of soft, good-for-nothing fellow.
Many people are disappointed when they see me, because I am not darker colored, with black hair. More of my people have light hair than dark, and we know that we are naturally a fair-skinned people, because when a baby is born in my country it is just as white as any American baby, and it has light hair and blue eyes. But the mother does not wash it with soft water and soap, as they do in this country, but she goes to work and greases it all over, and the child is never washed from the day he is born till he dies, if he remains in that country. The mother wraps her little one in the skin of a young seal, which has been made very soft by pounding and rubbing it on the ice. If baby cries, the mother will not take it up and care for it, but she puts it in a corner and leaves it there until it stops crying, and then she takes it up and pets it. She can only nurse it about a month. Then the mother will warm some blubber for it; but in a little while it must live just like the rest. She carries the baby in her hood, and does not expect it to learn to walk until between two and three years old. Then she makes a suit for it of young seal's fur. When the child becomes larger, say six or seven years old, a thicker suit is made of polar bear skin; and then little "Auska" feels as proud of his new clothes as "Our Charlie" does of his new boots, and the chubby "Roegnia" rejoices over her white suit as much as dainty Flora in her arctics and muff and fur collar. But Auska and Roegnia are dressed more nearly alike than Charlie and Flora. Men's clothes are just like women's clothes; only a woman's coat comes down to a point and man's coat is cut off square, and that is all the difference. They wear fur mittens and fur shoes.