ime I found a dry; gourd, inside of which the seeds rattled. I
had fun with it for a while. But it was a play thing, nothing more. And
yet, it was not long after this that the using of gourds for storing
water became the general practice of the horde. But I was not the
inventor. The honor was due to old Marrow-Bone, and it is fair to
assume that it was the necessity of his great age that brought about the
innovation.

At any rate, the first member of the horde to use gourds was
Marrow-Bone. He kept a supply of drinking-water in his cave, which cave
belonged to his son, the Hairless One, who permitted him to occupy
a corner of it. We used to see Marrow-Bone filling his gourd at the
drinking-place and carrying it carefully up to his cave. Imitation
was strong in the Folk, and first one, and then another and another,
procured a gourd and used it in similar fashion, until it was a general
practice with all of us so to store water.

Sometimes old Marrow-Bone had sick spells and was unable to leave the
cave. Then it was that the Hairless One filled the gourd for him. A
little later, the Hairless One deputed the task to Long-Lip, his son.
And after that, even when Marrow-Bone was well again, Long-Lip continued
carrying water for him. By and by, except on unusual occasions, the men
never carried any water at all, leaving the task to the women and larger
children. Lop-Ear and I were independent. We carried water only for
ourselves, and we often mocked the young water-carriers when they were
called away from play to fill the gourds.

Progress was slow with us. We played through life, even the adults, much
in the same way that children play, and we played as none of the other
animals played. What little we learned, was usually in the course of
play, and was due to our curiosity and keenness of appreciation. For
that matter, the one big invention of the horde, during the time I lived
with it, was the use of gourds. At first we stored only water in the
gourds--in imitation of old Marrow-Bone.

But one day some one of the women--I do not know which one--filled a
gourd with black-berries and carried it to her cave. In no time all the
women were carrying berries and nuts and roots in the gourds. The idea,
once started, had to go on. Another evolution of the carrying-receptacle
was due to the women. Without doubt, some woman's gourd was too small,
or else she had forgotten her gourd; but be that as it may, she bent two
great leaves