other makes for her little daughter a miniature copy of every
rude tool that she uses in her daily tasks. There is a little scraper of
elk-horn to scrape rawhides preparatory to tanning them, another scraper
of a different shape for tanning, bone knives, and stone mallets for
pounding choke-cherries and jerked meat.

While her mother is bending over a large buffalo-hide stretched and
pinned upon the ground, standing upon it and scraping off the fleshy
portion as nimbly as a carpenter shaves a board with his plane, Winona,
at five years of age, stands upon a corner of the great hide and
industriously scrapes away with her tiny instrument! When the mother
stops to sharpen her tool, the little woman always sharpens hers
also. Perhaps there is water to be fetched in bags made from the dried
pericardium of an animal; the girl brings some in a smaller water-bag.
When her mother goes for wood she carries one or two sticks on her back.
She pitches her play teepee to form an exact copy of her mother's. Her
little belongings are nearly all practical, and her very play is real!

Thus, before she is ten years old, Winona begins to see life honestly
and in earnest; to consider herself a factor in the life of her
people--a link in the genealogy of her race. Yet her effort is not
forced, her work not done from necessity; it is normal and a development
of the play-instinct of the young creature. This sort of training leads
very early to a genuine desire to serve and to do for others. The little
Winona loves to give and to please; to be generous and gracious. There
is no thought of trafficking or economizing in labor and in love.

"Mother, I want to be like the beavers, the ants, and the spiders,
because my grandmother says those are the people most worthy of
imitation for their industry. She also tells me that I should watch the
bee, the one that has so many daughters, and allows no young men to come
around her daughters while they are at work making sweets," exclaims the
little maiden.

"Truly their industry helps us much, for we often take from their
hoard," remarks the mother.

"That is not right, is it mother, if they do not wish to share with us?"
asks Winona. "But I think the bee is stingy if she has so much and will
not share with any one else! When I grow up, I shall help the poor! I
shall have a big teepee and invite old people often, for when people get
old they seem to be always hungry, and I think we ought to feed them.