ll go with you!"

The girl's aunt came down to the river, wondering what kept her niece so
long. In the mud she found two pairs of moccasin tracks close together;
at the edge of the water stood an empty keg.

THE SIMPLETON'S WISDOM

There was a man and his wife who had one daughter. Mother and daughter
were deeply attached to one another, and when the latter died the mother
was disconsolate. She cut off her hair, cut gashes in her cheeks and sat
before the corpse with her robe drawn over her head, mourning for her
dead. Nor would she let them touch the body to take it to a burying
scaffold. She had a knife in her hand, and if anyone offered to come
near the body the mother would wail:

"I am weary of life. I do not care to live. I will stab myself with this
knife and join my daughter in the land of spirits."

Her husband and relatives tried to get the knife from her, but could
not. They feared to use force lest she kill herself. They came together
to see what they could do.

"We must get the knife away from her," they said.

At last they called a boy, a kind of simpleton, yet with a good deal of
natural shrewdness. He was an orphan and very poor. His moccasins were
out at the sole and he was dressed in wei-zi (coarse buffalo skin,
smoked).

"Go to the tepee of the mourning mother," they told the simpleton, "and
in some way contrive to make her laugh and forget her grief. Then try to
get the knife away from her."

The boy went to the tent and sat down at the door as if waiting to be
given something. The corpse lay in the place of honor where the dead
girl had slept in life. The body was wrapped in a rich robe and wrapped
about with ropes. Friends had covered it with rich offerings out of
respect to the dead.

As the mother sat on the ground with her head covered she did not at
first see the boy, who sat silent. But when his reserve had worn away
a little he began at first lightly, then more heavily, to drum on the
floor with his hands. After a while he began to sing a comic song.
Louder and louder he sang until carried away with his own singing he
sprang up and began to dance, at the same time gesturing and making all
manner of contortions with his body, still singing the comic song. As he
approached the corpse he waved his hands over it in blessing. The mother
put her head out of the blanket and when she saw the poor simpleton
with his strange grimaces trying to do honor to the corpse by his solemn