After school Docas went to the storehouse, too, and found Massea sitting on the floor with the other men. Massea tied a few empty husks together; then he took the ears that Docas had husked. He rubbed a full ear against the husks until all the grains of corn had dropped down into the basket on the floor.
Then it was ready to be roasted.
[1] Tu’le, a large bulrush growing abundantly on overflowed land in California and elsewhere.
THRESHING THE GRAIN
ONE morning Massea took the rough wooden plough and went out to a smooth piece of ground near the Mission. He began to plough the ground in a circle, not ploughing very deep, but only loosening the top.
Heema and Alachu were wading in the irrigating ditch.
Alachu said, “See! father is making a garden.”
“That’s a queer place to make a garden,” said Heema.
They did not pay any more attention, but went on wading.
That afternoon Docas and some other boys and men went out with Massea to make a tight fence around the circle Massea had ploughed. Docas tied the fence together with rawhide strings so that it could not come apart.