the trees kept off the rain.
The thick underbrush kept off the cold winds.
When the fire clan moved to a new place, it was always Sharptooth who
chose the spot for the fire.
She knew the best sheltered places.
Sometimes she chose a spot near an oak or a birch.
Their tops were well thatched with leaves.
They shed rain almost as well as a roof.
But when the oak and the birch trees dropped their leaves, Sharptooth
carried her fire to a fir or a spruce.
These evergreen trees had needle-like leaves.
They gave some protection from the rain and the snow.
But sometimes a drizzling rain kept up for many days.
Sometimes the cold winds blew.
Then the fire clan shivered with the wet and the cold.
Mothers were anxious about their children.
They wanted to keep them safe from harm.
So they tried to keep off the cold wind and the rain.
They had not yet learned many ways of working, but they long had known
how to weave cradles of vines.
So the women now tried to weave a shelter.
They broke off large armfuls of evergreens.
They carried them to some saplings that grew near the fire.
Then they bent down the tops of the small growing saplings.
They tied them together and began to weave.
They wove branches of evergreens among them.
They piled larger branches against the wall.
At last the shelter was done.
It was the first shelter that they had made.
There was not one like it on the wooded hills.

THINGS TO DO

_Make a playhouse that will shelter you from the wind and the rain._
_Find trees that give a good shelter from the sun and the rain._

[Illustration: "_So the women now tried to weave a shelter_"]

_Notice trees that do not give good shelter. See if you can find out
why some trees give a better shelter than others._
_When do oaks and birches drop their leaves?_
_Do evergreen trees ever drop their leaves?_
_Find out why we call them evergreen trees._

XXVI.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

What do we use baskets for?
What are they made of?
Do you think that the Tree-dwellers made baskets before they had fire?
When do you think that they would first need baskets?
How do you think that they might have made them?

_How Sharptooth Made a Basket_

Before the Tree-dwellers had fire they did not need baskets.
For a long time afterwards they did not make them.
They ate fruits from the trees and cracked the nuts where they foun