"No. Can you do it?" asked the Plush Bear.

"You should see me!" boasted the big white Bear. "I don't believe
anywhere in North Pole Land you will find a better somersault turner
than I. Watch me!"

The Plush Bear and the other toys leaned forward from the shelves and
tables where they sat or stood to see what would happen. If they had not
been so eager to see what the Polar Bear was going to do some of them
might have noticed a small, dark figure stealing up outside the workshop
of Santa Claus, and stopping beneath one of the ice windows.

This little figure was that of an Eskimo boy--the same little chap, all
dressed in sealskin and fur, who had looked in and almost reached
through the window to take out the Plush Bear when he had interrupted
the toys in the midst of their snowball fight.

"Ah, now is my chance!" murmured the little Eskimo boy, as he stepped
softly over the snow, coming nearer and nearer to the workshop of Santa
Claus. "If I can open a window I'll take out that Plush Bear, cart him
off to the igloo, and have a lot of fun."

The Eskimo boy lived with his father and mother in a house made of
blocks of snow and ice. This house was called an "igloo," and it takes
its name from the house built by the seals in the far North. The Eskimos
build their houses the same shape as the houses made in the ice by the
seals. If you cut an orange or an apple in half, and put the flat side
down on a table, you will see exactly how an Eskimo igloo is shaped.