Little Dove felt her heart sink.
“Who is it that has asked to marry me, father?”
“Straight Arrow, son of Big Bow, my daughter, for today you told him you could weave.”
Father and daughter smiled at each other, and then Little Dove left to talk with her mother and tell her how wrong a foolish young Indian girl could be.
RED CLOUD’S DREAM
Red Cloud was a young Algonquin lad who played and romped in his village along with the other young Indian braves and girls. He was a tall Indian for his age and quite good looking.
As was the custom among the Algonquins, however, no child, boy or girl, would be considered mature until he or she had a dream in which the powers of nature promised success and courage in his or her adult life.
Red Cloud entered adolescence and he knew that the time was fast approaching when he would be required to spend many lonely nights in the forest, fasting and waiting, until the Thunderbird, the Sun, or other powers of nature had spoken to him.
Each day Red Cloud would awake and expect his father to call him to inform him that today was the day. But many days passed, and still Great Cloud did not call for his son. Soon with the excitement of the games and the learning of lessons from his father concerning the use of weapons and tracking, the problem of coming into maturity left the mind of Red Cloud and going off alone into the forest was the farthest thing from his mind.
Each day in the beginning as he had padded along the trail with his father he had expected to be told of the ordeal he must go through, but as each day passed and nothing was said, Red Cloud began to look forward to his lessons and to forget even the possibility of anything else on these daily walks.