astonished. "What child can that be?" she asked herself.
"What babe can be lost in the cornfield?"

She set down her robe in which she had tied up her corn, and went back
to search; but she found nothing.

As she started away she heard the voice again:

"Oh, do not leave me. Do not go away without me."

She searched for a long time. At last in one corner of the field, hidden
under the leaves of the stalks, she found one little ear of corn. This
it was that had been crying, and this is why all Indian women have since
garnered their corn crop very carefully, so that the succulent food
product should not even to the last small nubbin be neglected or wasted,
and thus displease the Great Mystery.

THE LITTLE MICE

Once upon a time a prairie mouse busied herself all fall storing away a
cache of beans. Every morning she was out early with her empty cast-off
snake skin, which she filled with ground beans and dragged home with her
teeth.

The little mouse had a cousin who was fond of dancing and talk, but who
did not like to work. She was not careful to get her cache of beans and
the season was already well gone before she thought to bestir herself.
When she came to realize her need, she found she had no packing bag. So
she went to her hardworking cousin and said:

"Cousin, I have no beans stored for winter and the season is nearly
gone. But I have no snake skin to gather the beans in. Will you lend me
one?"

"But why have you no packing bag? Where were you in the moon when the
snakes cast off their skins?"

"I was here."

"What were you doing?"

"I was busy talking and dancing."

"And now you are punished," said the other. "It is always so with lazy,
careless people. But I will let you have the snake skin. And now go, and
by hard work and industry, try to recover your wasted time."

THE PET RABBIT

A little girl owned a pet rabbit which she loved dearly. She carried it
on her back like a babe, made for it a little pair of moccasins, and at
night shared with it her own robe.

Now the little girl had a cousin who loved her very dearly and wished to
do her honor; so her cousin said to herself:

"I love my little cousin well and will ask her to let me carry her pet
rabbit around;" (for thus do Indian women when they wish to honor a
friend; they ask permission to carry about the friend's babe).

She then went to the little girl and said:

"Cousin, let me carry your pet rabbit about on my ba