DOCAS’S NEW SKIRT
MASSEA and some of the other Indian men went out to hunt deer. Docas ran to meet them as they came home.
“How many did you get? One, two, three, four, five, six,” he said, counting the deer.
Then he ran to his mother and said, “Oh, mother, may I not have a new skirt? I want one of deer-skin instead of rabbit-skin this time.”
“Yes, you shall have it as soon as I can make it for you,” answered his mother.
After the deer were skinned, Ama took up a skin and said to Docas, “Put it into a still pool in the creek and let it stay there.”
“How long must it stay?” asked Docas.
“Until the hair is loose,” answered Ama.
So every morning Docas went out to the skin to see if the hair was loose. One morning he came running to his mother, crying, “Look, mother, I pulled this bunch of hair out so easily this morning!”
Then Ama took the skin out of the water.
“You may pull all the hair out,” she said to Docas. “After that I will scrape it with a sharp stone.”
When both sides were scraped clean, Ama and Docas went out into the woods.
“We must find two trees so close together that we can stretch the skin between them,” said Ama.
By and by they found them, stretched the skin, and went back to camp. Every little while Docas went running out to the skin to see how fast it was drying.
“It just seems as if I couldn’t wait for my new skirt,” he said.
When it was half dry, Ama warmed some deer’s brains at the fire.
“Now, Docas, get the deerskin,” she said. “You may rub some brains of a deer on the skin.”
Docas rubbed and rubbed for a long time.
“Haven’t I rubbed enough?” he asked after a while.
“No, you must get the skin very soft,” she answered.
Docas’s arms grew tired after a little, so Ama said, “Go out where the ground is wet and dig a hole. I will finish rubbing the skin.”
Massea bringing home a deer.
By the time the hole was ready the skin was soft. Ama brought it to the hole and said, “Now we will bury the skin for four or five weeks.”
“Bury it!” exclaimed Docas. “I thought it was ready to make into my skirt, now.”
“Not yet,” answered Ama.
For several days Docas kept asking Ama if the skin was not almost ready, but after a while he grew tired of asking and forgot all about it.
When the time was up, Ama went out to the hole one evening after Docas was asleep. She dug up the skin, cleaned it, and made it into a skirt. She put a fringe on the bottom of the skirt to finish it off. After the skirt was done she laid it by Docas’s side, where he would see it the first thing in the morning.
Such a happy boy as he was when he found his new skirt!