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father was a brave man, killed fighting bravely against the enemy. I want
you to grow up to be a brave man and a good man. You must love your
relations, and must do everything that you can for them. If the enemy
should attack the village, do not run away; think always first of defending
your own people. You have a mother, and sisters, who will depend on you for
their living, and for their credit. They love you, and you must always try
to do everything that you can for them. Try to learn about hunting, and to
become a good hunter, so that you may support them. But, above all things,
try to live bravely and well, so that people will speak well of you and
your relations will be proud.
"You are only a boy now, but the time will come when you will be a man, and
must act a man's part. Now your relations all respect you. They do not ask
you to do woman's work; they treat you well. You have a good bed, and
whenever you are hungry, food is given you. Do you know why it is that you
are treated in this way? I will tell you. Your relations know that you are
a man, and that you will grow up to go to war, and fight; perhaps often to
be in great danger. They know that perhaps they may not have you long with
them; that soon you may be killed. Perhaps even to-night or to-morrow,
before we get back to the camp, we may be attacked, and may have to fight,
and perhaps to die. It is for this cause that you are treated better than
your sisters; because at any moment you may be taken away. This you should
understand."
After we had eaten it began to grow dark, and pretty soon my uncle stood up
and tied up his waist again, and we set out once more, going up the river.
I wanted to ask my uncle where we were going, but I knew that he had some
reason for moving away from the camp, and before I had spoken to him about
it we had gone a mile or two, and it was quite dark, and we stopped again
in another clump of bushes. Here we sat down, and my uncle said to me: "My
son, here we will sleep. Where we stopped and ate, just before the sun set,
was a good place to camp, but it may be that an enemy was watching from the
top of some hill, and may have seen us go into those bushes. If he did,
perhaps he will creep down there to-night, hoping to kill us; and if there
were several persons they may go down there and surround those bushes. I
did not want to stop there where we might have been seen, and so when it
grew dark we came on here. We will sleep here
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