Stories of American Life and Adventure | Page 5

boat,
scraping out one end of it while they were burning out the other, and
working at it day after day.
The only tools they had for scraping were shells from the river, and
sharp stones. Keketaw sometimes used his deer-horn tomahawk for the
same purpose. It was fourteen days from the time they first lighted the
fire at the foot of the tree until their canoe was finished. Two more days
were spent in making paddles. This work was also done by burning and
scraping.
When all was done, the canoe was slid down the soft bank into the
water. It floated right side up to the delight of its makers. The boys now
thought it would be a fine stroke to take a deer home with them. So
they pulled one end of their canoe up on the shore, and started out to
look for one.
But the first tracks they found were not deer tracks. They were the
footprints of men. Keketaw made a sign to Henry by turning the palm
of his hand toward the earth, and then moving the hand downward.
This meant to keep low, and make no noise. Then Keketaw climbed a
high pine tree. From the top of the tree he could see a number of
Indians at a spring of water.
The boy slid down the tree in haste. "Monacans on the war path!" he
whispered as he reached the ground.

Swiftly and silently the two boys hurried back to their canoe. They
wasted no time in admiring it. They gathered their weapons and fishing
lines, and got aboard. It was not a question of killing Monacans now,
but of saving themselves and their friends. They rowed with all their
might from the start.
For hours they kept their new paddles busy. They reached the village
after dark, and when they uttered the dreadful word "Monacans," it ran
from one wigwam to another. The women and children shuddered with
fear. The warriors smeared their faces with paint, to make themselves
uglier than ever, and departed. Soon after the boys had started home,
the Monacans had found their camp fire still burning. Thinking they
had been discovered, and knowing that a strong party of the Powhatan
Indians might come after them, the Monacans had hurried back to their
own home more swiftly than they had come.

SOME THINGS ABOUT INDIAN CORN.
When the white people first came to America, they had never seen
Indian corn, which did not grow in Europe. The Indians raised it in
little patches about their villages. Before planting their corn, they had
to clear away the trees that covered the whole country. Their axes were
made of stone, and were not sharp enough to cut down a tree. The
larger trees they cut down by burning them off at the bottom. They
killed the smaller trees by building little fires about them. When the
bark all round a tree was burned, the tree died. As dead trees bear no
leaves, the sun could shine through their branches on the ground where
corn was to be planted.
Having no iron, they had to make their tools as they could. In some
places they made a hoe by tying the shoulder blade of a deer to a stick.
In other places they used half of the shell of a turtle for a hoe or spade
to dig up the ground. This could be done where the ground was soft. In
North Carolina the Indians had a little thing like a pickax which was
made out of a deer's horn tied to a stick. An Indian woman would sit
down on the ground with one of these little pickaxes in her hand. She

would dig up the earth for a little space until it was loose. Then she
would make a little hole in the soft earth. In this she would plant four or
five grains of corn, putting them about an inch apart. Then she covered
these grains with soft earth. In Virginia, where the ground was soft and
sandy, the Indians made a kind of spade out of wood.
Sometimes they planted a patch a long way off from their bark house,
so that they would not be tempted to eat it while it was green. The
Indians were very fond of green corn. They roasted the ears in the ashes.
Some of the tribes held a great feast when the first green corn was fit to
eat, and some of them worshiped a spirit that they called the "Spirit of
the Corn."
When the corn was dry, the Indians pounded it in order to make meal or
hominy of it. Sometimes they parched the corn, and then pounded it
into meal. They carried this parched meal with them