I do not know whether I or the puppies’ mother cuddled them more, the next few days. One puppy I came to love dearly. He was a wriggling little thing, with a bob tail for all the world like a rabbit’s, except that it hung down. There were ten or more bobtailed dogs in the village all of them born so. My puppy was black, so I named him Sheepeesha,[16] or Blackie.
[16] Shēē´ pēē shä
It must have been a funny sight to see me take my puppy out for a walk. Stooping, I would lay the puppy between my shoulders and draw my tiny robe up over his back; and I would walk off proud as any Indian mother of her new babe. The old mother dog would creep half out of her kennel, following me with her gentle eyes. I was careful not to go out of her sight.
When the puppies were ten days old my grandmother brought in some fresh sage, the kind we Indians use in a sweat lodge. She laid the sage by the fireplace and fetched in the puppies, barring the door so that the mother dog could not come in. I could hear the poor dog whining pitifully.
“What are you going to do, grandmother?” I asked.
“I am going to smoke the puppies.”
“Why, grandmother?” I cried.
“Because the puppies are old enough to eat cooked meat, for their teeth have come through. The sage is a sacred plant. Its smoke will make the puppies hungry, so that they will eat.”
While she was speaking, she opened my little pet’s jaws. Sure enough, four white teeth were coming through the gums.
Turtle raked some coals from the ashes, and laid on them a handful of the sage. A column of thick white smoke arose upward to the smoke hole.