"Do not cry, my little one," said Mother. "Are there not many more corn ears in the field?"
"Yes, my Mother," sobbed the child, "but no more Cornelias!"
And that was final. Never again could Bah go back to the cornfield. Never again! How could Mother even have suggested such a thing! Didn't she know that Cornelia, since the day of her birth, had been different from all other ears of corn?
Why, Cornelia was a doll—she and Billy had decided that—and the rest were vegetables! Oh, didn't Mother understand? Perhaps Mother did, for her next remark showed it.
"One day, Bah, when I went to the Trading Post near Tuba I saw a most beautiful doll. She was an Indian baby—a papoose—and she was strapped upon the prettiest little laced baby cradle you ever saw. She was dressed in a bright blanket and she had real hair and such lovely beads around her neck."
A smile was trying to chase away the tears on the face of the little mother as she listened to her own mother's recital of something too wonderful to imagine. She said sorrowfully: "Some white child will buy her, and how happy she will be. Ah, how I should like to have her."
Mother said: "And so you shall, if you will work to have her."
Bah's eyes asked the question: "How?" and her mother went on: "You know, Bah, that Mother sells or trades blankets, and that Father sells or trades his beautiful silver and matrix jewelry to the Trading Post. We do this so that we may have, in return, things which we want and need. Now, you want and need a little doll. Why not sell your work? Bah must weave a little blanket and take it to the store where they will perhaps trade with you for the papoose doll."