“Not until afternoon; but you may go to the marsh with me to gather reeds to blow on at the dance,” answered Massea.
Just before lunch, Heema burst into the hut where Ama was busy putting food into their baskets.
“I got all these reeds myself and I tied them together myself,” he cried. He held up a bunch of reeds tied together with a deerskin string and almost as big as he was.
“Such fun as we shall have at the acorn dance!” he exclaimed, pulling a reed out of the bunch, and cutting it in such a manner that it made a rude flute. He began to jump around the hut, blowing on the reed meanwhile. As he gave an extra big jump, he lit on the edge of one of the baskets, tipped it over, and spilled the clams in it all over the ground.
“I wish you would be more quiet, like Docas,” said Ama.
“Never mind, I’ll pick up the clams,” said Heema, hurrying to get the clams back into the basket again. “Docas wants to be a man. You can’t have much fun with him these days,” he said.
Just as he put the last clam back, Docas and Massea came in sight, and Heema ran to meet them.
By the middle of the afternoon, everything was ready, and they started with their reeds for the village of Chief Yeeta. They carried a great many clams and much grass-seed bread, for they were to be gone several days. Yeeta’s village was about eight miles away, by the side of a little brook.
The Red Deer