suppose her mother draws her in a tiny cart?

You can never guess unless you know how Indian mothers contrive to take
their babies with them when they are carrying heavy loads. White Cloud
is laced in her strange cradle and bound securely to her mother's back.

On the bent strip of board that arches over the head of the cradle are
fastened playthings made of carved wood and bone. The bright toys
jingle and rattle, and the baby laughs.

To-day the little arms and hands are firmly laced inside the beaded
bag. So the child can not reach out and play with the noisy images as
she loves to do.

Laced, bound, and protected, the baby is safe even when her mother
pushes through the thickest forest.

[Illustration]

The boys, who run everywhere, have brought good news to the camp. "The
June berries are ripe in the forest," they say. So the mothers are
starting with children and bags for the berry picking.

It is not yet sunrise; but it is the custom of the Indians to rise
early. The men, with bows and arrows, knives and spears, have already
gone away to their daily business--the hunt.

The older lads are with their fathers, and the little boys have begun a
long summer's day of shouting, swimming, mud throwing, and mischief.
Among them is White Cloud's brother, a sturdy boy of four years.

Here and there are old men sitting in front of their lodges and
smoking their long pipes. Inside, the grandmothers are busy preparing
food and dressing skins for clothing.

Most of the women, like Good Bird, carry their babies and berry sacks
upon their backs; but some of them have large dogs trained as burden
carriers.

Here comes Two Joys, the mother of twins. She is followed by a pair of
dogs, each dragging a strapping brown baby boy.

One by one, the women and girls wade the streams and climb the hills,
following the trail that leads to the forest. There they separate,
each to make her own choice of bushes.

White Cloud's mother chooses a thicket where the berries are large and
abundant. She fastens her baby's cradle to the top of a low tree. The
wind swings the cradle, and, like the Mother Goose baby, the Indian
papoose rocks on the tree top. Let us hope that the bough will not
break.

The birds chirp and sing in the branches. A squirrel comes near to see
what strange object is hanging in his tree. The baby wakes and cries
with fright, and the squirrel scampers away.

Good Bird is filling her bags of woven grass with pur