The Christmas Reindeer

Tuktu was a little Eskimo girl. Tuktu means caribou. She had been given this name, because only a few days before her birth, a relative named Tuktu had died; and as is the custo...

For the greater part of the short Arctic summer, the great herd of reindeer had grazed within sound of the waters of the Arctic Ocean lapping on the beach. More than two thousan...

These were happy days for Tuktu and Aklak. Tuktu’s only duties were to cook meals for her father and brother. An Eskimo girl learns these things very young and Tuktu had been we...

The two pack-deer with which Kutok had moved up near the Valley of the Good Spirit had been kept fastened, each with a long rawhide line. But Kutok well knew that should they be...

In from the distant sea rolled the Arctic fog. It was as if one of those great, white fleecy clouds you have seen sailing high in the sky had come to earth and was being pushed...

Unafraid, Tuktu rode in the midst of the great herd. How long it was before she had a chance to slip from Whitefoot’s back, she had no idea. But presently from sundry sounds, du...

Never had Tuktu seen so many deer together. Behind her, on both sides, in front of her, all along that hillside, the deer were moving forward. On the farther hillside countless...

Motionless, facing the curtain of glorious mist, Whitefoot stood. On his back, as motionless, sat Tuktu. Once more the clicking of many feet had begun. The great herd was moving...

Tuktu still sat on the back of Whitefoot. As Santa Claus talked, he came over to Whitefoot and gently stroked his face. Whitefoot stood without motion. It was the more surprisin...

“Donder and Blitzen, Dasher and Vixen, Dancer and Prancer, Comet and Cupid,” repeated Tuktu to herself, and her eyes were like stars. “Do the children out in the Great World lov...

With his long, swinging trot, Whitefoot rapidly made his way out of the Valley of the Good Spirit. Once only did Tuktu look back at the cloud of shimmering, many-colored mist. A...

Winter had come. The deer were on their winter feeding grounds. Could you have been there, you would, until you had watched them awhile, have wondered where they could find anyt...

Of all the young deer in the great herd,--and there were many,--Little Spot was the most wilful. He was called Little Spot because he was marked exactly like his mother, who was...

Little Spot, the wilful young reindeer, trembled as he crowded up to his mother. He couldn’t get close enough to her. He no longer wanted to be out in the Great World by himself...

Do you ever have day-dreams? If you do, you know that they are made up partly of wishes, partly of plans and partly of the same sort of stuff that sleep dreams are made of. Tukt...

It was while Tuktu was watching Aklak training a young deer to the sled, the great idea came to her. It just happened that the young deer was none other than Little Spot. And be...

Spring came, and before the snow was gone, the fawns were born. It was a cold, cold world that those baby deer came into, but they did not seem to mind it. Those were busy days...

That was a never to be forgotten summer to Tuktu and Aklak. A ship came in the harbor near which they were camped, and they had a chance to see how the white men lived on the sh...

Tuktu and Aklak loved the summer by the shore. Yet both were impatient for the coming of the time when the herds would move up to the Valley of the Good Spirit. The eight deer A...

Summer this year was shorter than usual. As if they knew that the winter would come early and be long and hard, the deer left the Valley of the Good Spirit earlier than ever bef...

It had been known to the village since the forming of new ice that the ship which they had visited in summer had not left for the far-away country from which it had come, but wa...

It was late when Kutok and his family reached the camp near the Valley of the Good Spirit. It had been a wonderful journey. The snow had been just right and the reindeer had tra...