Plate III.—“With horn spoon she filled her mouth with water.”
My dogs were sleeping without, snugged against the tent for warmth. At midnight one of them stirred, pointed his nose at the moon and broke into a howl. The howl soon grew to a chorus, for every dog in the camp joined in. Far out on the prairie rose the wailing yip-yip-yip-yip-ya-a-ah![29] of a coyote. The dogs grew silent again, and curled up, nose-in-tail, to sleep.
[29] yĭp yĭp yĭp yĭp yä´ ä äh
And my little son came into the world.
The morning sky was growing light when Son-of-a-Star came into the tent. His eyes were smiling as he stepped to the fireplace, for they saw a pretty sight. Red Blossom was giving my baby a bath.
She had laid him on a piece of soft skin, before the fire. With horn spoon she filled her mouth with water, held it in her cheeks until it was warm, and blew it over my baby’s body. I do not think he liked his bath, for he squalled loudly.
My husband laughed. “It is a lusty cry,” he said. “I am sure my son will be a warrior.”
Having bathed my baby, Red Blossom bound him in his wrapping skins. She had a square piece of tent cover, folded and sewed along the edges of one end into a kind of sack. Into this she slipped my baby, with his feet against the sewed end. About his little body she packed cattail down.
On a piece of rawhide, she put some clean sand, which she heated by rolling over it a red-hot stone. She packed this sand under my baby’s feet; and, lest it prove too hot, she slipped a piece of soft buckskin under them.