everywhere. What was glass, and how did the
pale eyes make things from it?

Even as he was wondering about glass he saw his father take out of his
coat pocket an oval silver case hanging from a purple cord around his
neck. Pierre opened the case and took out yet two more small, round
pieces of glass in a metal frame. To Auguste's bewilderment, he put
these over his eyes, like a transparent mask. He smiled when he saw
Auguste staring.

"Spectacles. I have trouble seeing things that are near to me, and these
help. I like to see what I'm eating."

Last night, as Auguste lay beside the sleeping Star Arrow in the tall
prairie grass, he had thought of quietly climbing on his pony and
fleeing back to Saukenuk, in spite of the tobacco-sealed promise. Now
he was glad he had not run away. The people all looked kindly at him,
except for that man Armand, and there were so many wonders to see. He
could feel his heart beating hard and his hands trembling with
excitement.

When Guichard filled his glass with the red liquid, Auguste drank from
it. The liquid was cool and burned at the same time. It was bitter and
puckered his lips, but was sweet in his throat. He was thirsty, so he
drank more of it.

"Wine," said Pierre. "You've had it before?"

_This must be like that burning water the pale eyes call whiskey that I
tasted at the council last Moon of Falling Leaves on the other side of
the Great River._ The chiefs and braves and warriors had drunk much of
the burning water from a barrel, he remembered, and they had grown
merrier and merrier. The women and boys were each allowed one small sip
and the young girls none at all.

"I have tasted it," he said. Pierre frowned and seemed about to speak,
but he said nothing when Auguste held his empty glass out for more wine
to Guichard, who was going around again with the pitcher.

Men and women brought food to the table on big plates and in bowls.
There was turkey, duck, fresh venison, flat bread and round bread, dark
bread, white bread and yellow corn bread, cooked fruit and raw fruit,
loaves of maple sugar, fruit baked inside crusts, heaps of mashed-up
vegetables. There were slices of fish burned almost black and piles of
boiled crawfish. The food, Auguste saw, was coming from the connected
lodge Marchette had gone into, where the big pot was with all the smoke
and steam.

Auguste watched the way the people at the table with him were eating. He
tried to use his knife and fork as