[Illustration:  Seals.]

Eskimo boys and girls have a funny kind of candy.  It is the red skin of a bird’s foot soaked in fat.  You would not care for this.  But the Eskimo children eat it and like it.  The cold weather makes them like to eat fat.

RUSSIA.

“Your nose! your nose, sir!” This is a cry often heard in the streets of Russia.

Russia is a very large country.  Part of it is in Europe.  A great part of it is very cold.  When a person in the cold part of Russia goes out riding in winter, he has to cover his face, all except the nose and eyes.  Sometimes his nose gets very cold, and would freeze if some one did not cry out, “Your nose, sir!” Why?  When one’s nose gets so cold, it becomes numb.  It has no feeling.  One would not know that it was freezing if some person did not cry out.  The cold nose must then be rubbed with snow.  You would think this a strange way to keep it from freezing, but it is the best way to take out the frost.

There are many kinds of houses in Russia.  The houses have to be made very warm.  So they are built with double walls.  In rich people’s houses they have stoves like ours.  But in the poor people’s houses the stoves are built of brick.  They always burn wood, for coal costs too much in Russia.  The stoves are sometimes built very high.  Often they are as high as the ceiling.  Sometimes people lie on top of the great stove to keep themselves warm.

[Illustration:  A Russian Carriage.]

In most of the houses in the country, they have no beds.  There are benches along the wall, which they use both for chairs and beds.  In some houses the children sleep on the floor on pieces of felt.

Most of the people in Russia are farmers.  They raise a great deal of wheat.  The people in many other countries get wheat from Russia.

[Illustration:  A Russian Farmer and his Family.]

The children have to wear very warm clothes because it is so cold the greater part of the year.  Their coats are lined with fur.  In winter the children in the towns have great fun on the ice hills.  Ice hills are made in all the towns.

First they build a high tower, and down from the top of it they make a steep hill.  Blocks of ice are laid on this hill and water is poured over them.  The water freezes, and thus the ice hill is made.  On one side of the ice hill there is a place to draw up the sleds.  The boys and girls start at the top, and down they go with merry laughing and shouting!  So you see they have fine sport on their ice hills.

When the children are not playing on the ice hills, they go skating or sleighing.

In some parts of Russia they have funny ferryboats.  When the rivers are frozen over in winter, the boats cannot sail on them.  Then the people use chairs instead of boats.  There are warm covers on the chairs, and men on skates push them across the ice.  It costs less than one cent to ride across a river in one of these chairs.