The Christmas Reindeer (5 page)

Shyly Tuktu nodded. “If you please,” she said.

My, how the eyes of old Santa Claus twinkled! “They are Donder and Blitzen, Dancer and Prancer, Dasher and Vixen, Comet and Cupid” said he. “I couldn't drive deer by any other names. They are magic names. And those deer will become magic deer when they start on their Christmas journey. Now, my dear, Whitefoot will take you straight back to the place from which he brought you. You have seen that which you may never see again—the choosing of the deer. But always you will remember that in the Valley of the Good Spirit, love dwells, and that love may be carried throughout the world, the blessed reindeer are chosen each year.”

CHAPTER X

TUKTU'S HAPPY THOUGHT

“D
ONDER 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 love them?”

You should have seen Santa's eyes twinkle then. And you should have seen all the laugh wrinkles around his eyes. “I suspect they do,” said he. “I suspect they do, for they love me and they must love the ones who bring me to them each year. But they have never seen my reindeer, so I really don't know.”

And then you should have seen Tuktu's eyes open. “Do you mean,” she asked, “that they never, never have seen your deer?”

Santa Claus nodded. “That's what I mean,” said he. “You see, the night before Christmas when I make that magic trip, I
must go so far and I must go so fast that there is no time, not even one wee minute, to waste. And so, no one sees me then. Sometimes little boys and girls hide and watch for me and for my deer. But they never see us. And those little boys and girls do not always find all the things they hoped I would bring them.”

A dreamy look had come into Tuktu's eyes, a very far-away look. “Do they have as fine deer out there in the Great World as we have here?” she asked.

The laugh wrinkles wrinkled up more than ever, and Santa Claus laughed right out “They have no deer at all, Little One,” said he. “That is, they have no reindeer. Most of them would not know a reindeer if they saw one.”

“No reindeer!” cried Tuktu, and such a look of astonishment as spread over her face. “How can they live without the wonderful deer? Oh, I am so sorry for those children. I wish—” Tuktu paused.

“What do you wish, Child?” Santa Claus asked in his kindly voice. “Tell me what you wish, for you know it is my business to make the wishes of children come true.”

Tuktu hesitated. She dropped her eyes shyly. “I wish,” she said very softly, “that I could send them some reindeer.”

Santa Claus looked at her sharply. He could read her thoughts and there was not one single little thought of self there. She was thinking of the children who had never seen the reindeer and how wonderful it would be if only they could see the blessed eight. When she looked up and saw Santa's kindly eyes studying her, she spoke impulsively.

“Kind Santa Claus,” said she, speaking hurriedly, so hurriedly that the words tripped over each other, “couldn't you go down early some year with your blessed deer so that the children of the Great World might see them? I know they would love them, just as I do.”

Santa Claus sighed. “I am afraid,” said he, “there isn't time. You know it takes time to train deer, and there are no deer in all the Great Northland so well trained as those which take me out into the Great World every Christmas. You saw the eight chosen to-day. It will take me most of my time from now until Christmas to get them properly trained for that magic journey. If the deer were better
trained when I got them, I might be able to do it. You know I do not even have to have reins, they are so perfectly trained. That is why when I am through with them, they are the finest sled-deer in all the world. They are no longer magic deer, but they are wonderful sled-deer. So you think the children of the Great World would like to see the deer? Perhaps they would! Perhaps they would! I shall have to think it over, my dear. I certainly shall have to think it over.”

“Oh, if you only would!” cried Tuktu, her dark eyes shining with excitement. “I-I-I wish I could help. I am so sorry for children who have never seen the beautiful deer.”

Down somewhere in the midst of the wonderful mist a silver bell rang. It was so clear, so sweet, that Tuktu turned her head to listen. When she looked back—Santa Claus had disappeared. The bell rang again and from out the curtain of mist came Santa's voice once more.

“Good-bye, little girl,” said he. “The great herd moves, and you must leave the valley. But remember this, my dear, that whenever you think of others, others will think of you.
And to those who love is love given in return. That is why Christmas is. Remember that, my dear, and always your Christmas will be merry. Better than that, it will be happy.”

Abruptly, Whitefoot turned and began to move away.

CHAPTER XI

TUKTU TELLS HER STORY

W
ITH 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. At one point it glowed a rich deep red, and as she looked, this turned to rose and finally to a faint pink and then vanished. Nowhere was the Good Spirit to be seen.

Out of the valley, over the hill, climbed Whitefoot, and Tuktu turned him in the direction of the camp. There presently she fastened him where Aklak had put him to graze. Her father and brother had not returned. As in a dream, she looked back to the hills around the Valley of the Good Spirit. Could it be that she had been there? Was it not all a dream? But if it were a dream, it had been a wonderful dream—the most beautiful of all dreams. She knew that
Kutok and Aklak would not believe the story she had to tell. They would say that she had been asleep and the dream spirits had visited her. She looked across to the distant hills above the valley, and with a suddenness that startled her, she realized that not a deer was to be seen. Of course not. Had she not seen them move out of the upper end of the valley? There was the proof.

With the realization of this, all thought of anything else was driven from the mind of Tuktu—even the wonderful experience she had been through. The great herd was moving and there were no herders! She must get word back to the herders on the coast. She would take the other pack deer, for White-foot must be tired. Perhaps she would meet her father and brother on the way. She had just prepared to start when in the distance she saw Kutok and Aklak approaching. When they reached her, they were in high spirits. They had had good hunting and they brought with them plenty to eat.

“They have moved!” cried Tuktu. “The deer have left the Valley of the Good Spirit.” Kutok threw down his load and hurried to
the rise of ground from which he had been accustomed to watch the deer on the distant hills. Long he looked, searching every bit of ground within range of his eyes. Not a deer was to be seen.

“It is so, Little Tuktu,” said he on his return. “The herd has started for the winter grazing grounds. It is time that we also should move. Aklak shall go back to carry word to the herders, while you and I will follow the deer. They will move slowly, so there is no hurry. But it is well that we should catch up with them soon, lest the wolves attack, finding them unguarded.”

So Aklak started back to the summer camp to send up the herders and to help break the camp and move toward the winter home. Tuktu and her father, with a small skin iglu or tent wherein to sleep, and food enough for their immediate needs, started at once to catch up with the great herd. Through years of experience, Kutok knew in what direction the deer would travel and the shortest way to reach them.

They traveled too fast for much talking. Tuktu longed to tell her father what she had
seen in the Valley of the Good Spirit, but somehow she couldn't. “He will laugh at me,” she thought. “He will not believe, and he will laugh at me; and I do not want to be laughed at.” So she said nothing. But all the time there was a song in her heart.

It was not until Aklak had rejoined them that she told of her adventure in the Valley of the Good Spirit. At first Aklak laughed, as she had known he would. “It was a dream, Tuktu,” he cried. “It was a dream. You must have slept through that fog while Father and I were hunting, and the dream spirits took you with them. No one ever has seen the Good Spirit, and no one ever will.”

But Tuktu stubbornly insisted that it was not a dream, until at last even Aklak began to believe that it might be so. You would have laughed to hear him ply her with questions, all the time pretending that he didn't believe a word of it. But Tuktu caught him looking at her with a respect in his black eyes which was new in her experience. And she noticed, too, that he no longer teased her, and that now he was never selfish. The biggest share of anything was always hers. Never
had he been so gentle and thoughtful. Yet never once could she get him to say that he believed her story of the Valley of the Good Spirit.

Now there was one thing that Tuktu did not tell Aklak. It was that the last deer chosen was from their father's own herd. Never had Kutok had a deer chosen by the Good Spirit from his herd until now. Tuktu had known that it was her father's deer, because she had been near enough to see the earmark. Besides, there was no other deer in the herd to compare with it. Sometimes when Aklak insisted that it was all a dream, she would be almost persuaded that he was right. Then she would remember that it was her father's finest deer Speedfoot, which had been chosen.

“If,” she would say to herself, “we cannot find Speedfoot in the round up, I shall know for a certainty that I did not dream. It will be the proof.”

Thereafter she spent many hours wandering in and out through the great herd looking for this particular deer and rejoicing that she could not find it.

CHAPTER XII

THE DEER PEOPLE

W
INTER 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 anything to eat. As far as could be seen, and far, far beyond that, there was nothing but snow.

But the deer people minded this not at all. They knew that the snow was but a blanket to protect and keep in splendid condition the food they loved best, the reindeer moss as it is called, which carpeted the ground, the lichens which nature had provided specially for the reindeer and caribou.

Tuktu liked to go out and watch them paw down through the snow. “See, Aklak,” she cried, “they know just where they will find the best food. Do you suppose they never make mistakes?”

“The deer are wise with a wisdom not given us,” replied Aklak. “Perhaps they make mistakes sometimes, but it is not often. I heard such a queer thing the other day. It makes me laugh every time I think of it.”

“Tell me, for I want to laugh too,” cried Tuktu. “What was it, Aklak?”

Aklak chuckled. “You remember the visitors that came in great ships last summer,” said he. Tuktu nodded. “Well, one of them who never had seen reindeer before, asked if the deer used their horns to shovel away the snow in winter. He said that he had been told this, and that many people believed it to be so. It is a lucky thing it isn't so, or those big, old bucks would go hungry now that they have dropped their horns. But just look at the way they are pawing up that moss over there. I guess it is a good thing they haven't their horns, or they would be so greedy and selfish that they would get all the best of the food. See, Tuktu! See that young spike-horn over there driving away the old buck from that moss he has uncovered!”

Sure enough, a youngster with only two sharp spikes for horns was butting a big old
buck who had just pawed away the snow from a bed of reindeer moss. Those spikes were sharp and they made the old buck grunt. Having no horns himself, he could not fight back except by striking with his forefeet, and these the youngster took care to avoid. So finally the old fellow gave up and went to look for a new supply of food while the youngster ate undisturbed.

“I have wondered a great many times,” said Tuktu, “why it is that the old bucks drop their wonderful antlers so long before the mother deer and the young spikehorns do. But I guess I know now. It is because they are the strongest, and so they are made to look after the weaker ones, whether they want to or not.”

Aklak nodded. “That's it I guess,” said he. “By and by those little spikes will drop. Then the only ones to have horns will be the
mothers. Theirs will not drop until after the fawns are born. Do you know why the reindeer always face the wind when they are feeding?”

“So that the wind may bring them the scent of any enemies that may be ahead of them,” replied Tuktu promptly.

Aklak nodded. “That is one reason, but it isn't the only reason,” said he. The wind keeps their eyes clear of drifting snow. So they always face the wind, no matter how bitter it may be. They are a wise people, the deer people. They know how to take care of themselves. They cannot see as well as some other animals, but they can smell and hear better than most. Their wild cousins, the caribou, are the same way. When we are hunting them we have to take the greatest care that they neither hear nor smell us.”