In Fond Remembrance of Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

could be saved—before that, we looked at it a long time. “I found it!” “No, I found it!” ( Laughing .) “No—!”
HN:
I’d like to have seen it.
MN:
I’d like to see it again myself.
HN:
How big was it?
MN:
Two—three, of that stove, there. ( Points to the cast-iron potbelly stove .) It was at Akiliniq. How could we carry it back? We chopped it up. How could you get the big carved face—very large—wooden face—the nose gone—all the way back? But when we got home we told everyone. We described it.

    NOAH WOULD NOT GIVE UP
EVEN A SPLINTER
    Â 
    It was almost winter. But the water had not turned to ice yet. After one storm a piece of driftwood was seen out at sea. The villagers gathered together and pointed at it. “It’s on top of a wave now,” one shouted. “It’s disappeared now! It’s on top of a wave now!” But that piece of driftwood didn’t tumble in. “I hope we can have one more driftwood-fire before winter,” a man said.
    The next day, a storm. No driftwood. The next day, a storm—no driftwood. The next day, a storm—no driftwood. The next day someone shouted, “Look—out there!” Everyone saw a big wooden boat on top of a wave.
    A storm hit hard. It was windy and there was sleet. When the storm ended, some villagers went looking for driftwood. No driftwood. But they found an animal washed up on the rocks. “What is that?” a man asked.
    â€œIt’s not a seal,” another man said. “It’s not a polar bear. It’s not-It’s not—It’s not” People were confused.
    â€œIt’s not a whale,” another villager said. The animal had a very long neck. It was very tall. It had yellow skin and black spots. “No, that’s not a seal,” a woman said. In a short while every villager had gone out to look at this animal.
    â€œIt must have escaped from the wooden boat,” a man said. “Where else could it have come from?”
    â€œSome of you haul it back out there,” another woman said.
    It took a lot of men to do this. They lay the tall animal across their kayaks. Paddling was not easy. There were rough waves and the spotted animal tilted the kayaks and kept them dangerously low
in the water. When they got to the big wooden boat, a man shouted up, “Hey—hey there!”
    On deck appeared a man. He was standing next to a tall animal with black spots. It had a long neck. Its skin was yellow—not paled by drowning, either. It had small horns. “Hey, there’s another one!” a man shouted. “I wonder how it tastes?”
    â€œWhat do you want?” the man shouted down.
    â€œWe’ve brought this dead animal back.”
    â€œIt fell off my ark.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œIt’s what my boat is called.”
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    â€œNoah.”
    â€œWhat’s this animal called?”
    â€œA giraffe.”
    â€œWhere you come from do you eat it?”
    â€œNot my family.”
    â€œIs your family with you?”
    â€œYes—my wife. My son. My daughter.”
    â€œI bet they’re inside the ark eating a giraffe.”
    The villagers in kayaks all laughed.
    â€œNo—no—there’s only this one left alive,” said Noah.
    â€œWinter is coming in fast. You’ll be without food. You better think about eating that giraffe.”
    â€œNo,” said Noah.
    â€œWell, the one lying across these kayaks is dead. We don’t eat dead animals. Ravens might—foxes might, if the carcass is frozen. Crows do that, gulls do that.”
    â€œI don’t want the dead giraffe,” said Noah.

    With that, the villagers pushed the giraffe into the sea. “Giraffe-sank-away,” a man said.
    It became winter. It was snowing. The ark was trapped in ice out there. Great hummocks of sea ice pushed up against it. Snow fell on the