Although my old grandmother was good to me, I often wept for my mother. I was lonesome in our winter lodge, and we Indian children did not have many playthings. Old Turtle made me a dolly of deer skin stuffed with antelope hair. She sewed on two white bone beads for eyes. I bit off one of these bone beads, to see if it was good to eat, I suppose. For some days my dolly was one-eyed, until my grandmother sewed on a beautiful new eye, a blue glass bead she had gotten of a trader. I thought this much better, for now my dolly had one blue eye and one white one.
I liked to play with my father’s big hunting cap. It was made of buffalo skin, from the part near the tail where the hair is short. He wore it with the fur side in. Two ears of buffalo skin, stuffed with antelope hair to make them stand upright, were sewed one on each side. They were long, to look like a jack rabbit’s ears; but they looked more like the thumbs of two huge mittens. My father, I think, had had a dream from the jack-rabbit spirits, and wore the cap as a kind of prayer to them. Jack rabbits are hardy animals and fleet of foot. They live on the open prairies through the hardest winters; and a full grown rabbit can outrun a wolf. An Indian hunter had need to be nimble-footed and hardy, like a jack rabbit.
Small Ankle thought his cap a protection in other ways. It kept his head warm. Then, if he feared enemies were about, he could draw his cap down to hide his dark hair, creep up a hill and spy over the top. Being of dull color, like dead grass, the cap was not easily seen on the sky line. A Sioux, spying it, would likely think it a coyote, or wolf, with erect, pointed ears, peering over the hill, as these animals often did. There were many such caps worn by our hunters; but most of them had short pointed ears, like a coyote’s.
My father sometimes hung his cap, wet with snow, on the drying poles over the fire to dry. I would watch it with longing eyes; and, when I thought it well warmed, I would hold up my small hands and say, “Father, let me play with the cap.” I liked to sit in it, my small ankles turned to the right, like an Indian woman’s; for I liked the feel of the warm fur against my bare knees. At other times I marched about the lodge, the big cap set loosely on my head, and my dolly thrust under my robe on my back. In doing this I always made my grandmother laugh. “Hey, hey,” she would cry, “that is a warrior’s cap. A little girl can not be a warrior.”
The winter, if hard, was followed by an early spring. Snow was thawing and flocks of wild geese were flying north a month before their wonted time. The women of the Goose Society called the people for their spring dance, and prayed the gods for good weather for the corn planting. One Buffalo sent a crier through the lodges, warning us to make ready to break camp. On the day set, we all returned to Like-a-Fishhook village, glad to leave our stuffy little winter lodges for our roomy summer homes.
One morning, shortly after our return, my father came into the lodge with two brave men, Flying Eagle and Stuck-by-Fish. My grandfather, Big Cloud, joined them. Big Cloud lighted a pipe, offered smoke to the gods, and passed the pipe to the others. It was a long pipe with black stone bowl. The four men talked together. I heard my father speak of a war party and that he was sure his gods were strong.
Toward evening, Red Blossom boiled meat and set it before the men. When they had eaten, Small Ankle rose and went to his medicine bag, that hung in the rear of the lodge. He held out his hands and I saw his lips move; and I knew he was praying. He opened the medicine bag and took out a bundle which he unrolled. It was a black bear’s skin, painted red. He bore the skin reverently out of the lodge, and came back empty-handed. Flying Eagle and Stuck-by-Fish rose and left the lodge.
My father sat by the fire awhile, silent. Then from a post of his bed he fetched his hunting cap. “I shall need this cap,” he said to Red Blossom. “See if it must be sewed or mended in any place.”
