Timid Hare | Page 4

her
dress, and of White Mink's words. Perhaps--perhaps--the sock would
help her. But how? She must guard it, at any rate; not even The Stone
should discover it. Kind sleep was already drawing near. The tired eyes
no longer shed tears. Till morning should come, Timid Hare was free
from trouble.
HARD WORK
The sun, shining into the tepee through the opening over the fireplace,
roused The Stone to her day's work. She lost no time in setting a task
for her little slave. Handing her a needle carved from the bone of a deer
and thread made of a deer's sinew, she hade her sew up a rent in the
skin curtain of the doorway.
Poor Timid Hare! she had learned to embroider and to weave baskets in
the old home, but sewing on heavy skins had never yet fallen to her
share of the daily duties. "There will be time enough," White Mink had
thought, "when the little fingers have grown bigger and the tender back
is stronger."
So now the hands were clumsy, and the stitches were not as even as
they should be. The Stone watched her with a scowl and frequent
scoldings; often an uplifted arm seemed ready to strike. But seeing that
the child was trying to do her best, the expected beating did not come.
After she and Black Bull had eaten their own breakfast of bread made
out of wild rice, together with some buffalo fat, she gave a small
portion to Timid Hare. Then she and Black Bull went out of the lodge,
leaving the little girl alone at her work.
How different--how very different--this home was from the one among

the Mandans! The old one was so big and comfortable, and there was
such a jolly household of parents and grandparents and uncles and
aunts, and children of all ages gathered together under one roof. Then,
too, the floor was so smooth and shiny, and the bedsteads, each one
shut off by a curtain and made pretty with fringe and pictures, seemed
almost like tiny sleeping rooms. Moreover, the banking of earth over
the framework of the lodge kept out the chill winds and biting cold of
winter.
But here, in The Stoned tepee, where the skin covering was old and
torn, one must often suffer. At least so thought Timid Hare as she
looked up now and then from her work to get acquainted with her new
home.
"Besides, it is so small," she said to herself, "and only two people in the
whole household before I came. How strange it is!"
It was quite true that the ways of the Dahcotas were unlike those of the
Mandans. Each family lived by itself and thus the home did not need to
be so large. Timid Hare did not know this, nor that the people, as a rule,
lived in great comfort. They preferred tents, rather than houses like
those of the Mandans, of frame-work covered with earth because they
liked to move from place to place and they could thus carry their homes
with them. Yet their tepees were warm and comfortable because the
covering of strong, thick buffalo skins was generally double. Fires were
kept burning on their hearths in winter and supplies of food and
clothing were easy to obtain from the wild creatures of the woods and
prairies. What more could any red people wish?
Timid Hare had heard her foster father tell much of the powerful
Dahcotas and that they were rich, as Indians count riches.
"Why are they so powerful?" she now asked herself. "Ugh! it was
because of their fierce war spirit. It was this that made them drive other
tribes before them, so that they became free to roam over the prairies
and enjoy the richest hunting grounds."
"I cannot help myself," now thought the child. "If I should run away,

the braves would either find and kill me, or I should be devoured by the
hungry wolves that go forth at nightfall."
But might not Three Bears make up a war party and go forth to seek her?
"Alas! that may not be," Timid Hare told herself. "My dear father
would himself meet death at the hands of these cruel warriors."
The rent in the curtain was nearly sewed up when Black Bull stole into
the lodge. He wanted to talk to the little stranger with eyes sad like his
own, and he did not wish his mother to know it.
Behind Black Bull came his dog, wolfish-looking like most of his breed,
but as Black Bull squatted in his corner, the animal crouched close at
his master's side as though he loved him.
"Poor fellow, he has a pet to follow him about just as I had at home,"
thought Timid Hare.