e performed with much skill and devotion. She
made all my scanty garments and my tiny moccasins with a great deal of
taste. It was said by all that I could not have had more attention had
my mother been living.

Uncheedah (grandmother) was a great singer. Sometimes, when Hakadah
wakened too early in the morning, she would sing to him something like
the following lullaby:

Sleep, sleep, my boy, the Chippewas
Are far away--are far away.
Sleep, sleep, my boy; prepare to meet
The foe by day--the foe by day!
The cowards will not dare to fight
Till morning break--till morning break.
Sleep, sleep, my child, while still 'tis night;
Then bravely wake--then bravely wake!

The Dakota women were wont to cut and bring their fuel from the woods
and, in fact, to perform most of the drudgery of the camp. This of
necessity fell to their lot because the men must follow the game during
the day. Very often my grandmother carried me with her on these
excursions; and while she worked it was her habit to suspend me from a
wild grape vine or a springy bough, so that the least breeze would
swing the cradle to and fro.

She has told me that when I had grown old enough to take notice, I was
apparently capable of holding extended conversations in an unknown
dialect with birds and red squirrels. Once I fell asleep in my cradle,
suspended five or six feet from the ground, while Uncheedah was some
distance away, gathering birch bark for a canoe. A squirrel had found
it convenient to come upon the bow of my cradle and nibble his hickory
nut, until he awoke me by dropping the crumbs of his meal. It was a
common thing for birds to alight on my cradle in the woods.

After I left my cradle, I almost walked away from it, she told me. She
then began calling my attention to natural objects. Whenever I heard
the song of a bird, she would tell me what bird it came from, something
after this fashion:

"Hakadah, listen to Shechoka (the robin) calling his mate. He says he
has just found something good to eat." Or "Listen to Oopehanska (the
thrush); he is singing for his little wife. He will sing his best."
When in the evening the whippoorwill started his song with vim, no
further than a stone's throw from our tent in the woods, she would say
to me:

"Hush! It may be an Ojibway scout!"

Again, when I waked at midnight, she would say:

"Do not cry! Hinakaga (the owl) is watching you from the tree-top."

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