d to ask me to go down to
the stream and fetch her a skin of water; and I would whine, and say to
her, "Grandmother, I do not want to carry water; men do not carry water."
Then she would tell us some story about the bad things that had happened to
boys who refused to carry water for their grandmothers; and when I was
little these stories frightened me, and I would go for the water. So
perhaps I helped her a little in some things after she was old. Yet she
lived until I was a grown man; and so long as she lived she worked hard;
except when she had these pains.
Sometimes my mother and some of her relations would go off and camp
together for a long time; and then perhaps they would join a larger camp,
and stay with them for a while. In these larger camps we children had much
fun, playing our different games. We had many of these. Some, like those I
have spoken of, we played in winter, and some we played in summer. Often
the little girls caught some of the dogs, and harnessed them to little
travois, and took their baby brothers and sisters, and others of the
younger children, and moved off a little way from the camp, and there
pitched their little lodges. The boys went too, and we all played at living
in camp. In these camps we did the things that older people do. A boy and
girl pretended to be husband and wife, and lived in the lodge; the girl
cooked and the boy went out hunting. Sometimes some of the boys pretended
that they were buffalo, and showed themselves on the prairie a little way
off, and other boys were hunters, and went out to chase the buffalo. We
were too little to have horses, but the boys rode sticks, which they held
between their legs, and lashed with their quirts to make them go faster.
Among those who played in this way was a girl smaller than I, the daughter
of Two Bulls--a brave man, a friend to my uncle. The little girl's name was
Standing Alone; she was pretty and nice, and always pleasant; but she was
always busy about something--always working hard, and when she and I played
at being husband and wife, she was always going for wood, or pretending to
dress hides. I liked her, and she liked me, and in these play camps we
always had our little lodge together; but if I sat in the lodge, and
pretended to be resting longer than she thought right, she used to scold
me, and tell me to go out and hunt for food, saying that no lazy man could
be her husband. When she said this I did not answer and seemed to pay
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