"Mittens thou shalt have," said she, and made her promise good at the charges of a brace of blue hare, whose longs-and-shorts she patiently followed up until her throwing-stick decided the ownership of the peltries which she claimed.
Pŭl-Yūn watched her stitching: a needle snapped. "My wife will be wanting a touch of my skill," he said, and selected a shank-bone, slim and straight, split it, and scraped the more promising piece to a point.
"That is all very well," said the Master-Girl, "but how about the eye?—I have no bits small enough for drilling a needle-eye. We must punch our holes in the skin, and poke the sinew through with a forked bone, as when one nets."
THE GHOST-BEAR
"That makes clumsy stitches," remarked the man. "No, I do not think we shall come down to the punch. Thy needles are pit-eyed—"
"We always make them so; how else?—with the centre-bit, a bent stick, a twist of hazel," said the girl.
"But we use the strung-drill. Hast never seen it?" She stared. "Then there is something that even a Little Moon woman can learn from her man!" He spoke in humorous mockery, but with a spice of malice, for truly this astonishing squaw of his had forereached upon her master in a manner beyond all precedent; would he ever get the whip-hand of her again?
She understood; she crawled to him cooing gently; patted his hand; they rubbed noses.