PREPARING HIDES AND TALLOW
AS Oshda grew older, he learned to throw the lasso. By the time he was grown he could lasso almost any of the cattle, no matter how fast his horse or the cattle were going.
He took the skin off every animal he killed and cut holes around the edge. Then he put stakes through the holes, drove the stakes into the ground as far apart as the skin would stretch, and left the skin to dry. Sometimes there were large places in the hills near the Mission, where the skins were laid so close together you could not see the ground.
Every time Oshda killed one of the cattle, he built a fire, hung some big iron kettles over it, and threw the fat parts of the cattle into these. Soon the kettles were full of boiling grease.
Docas had two more children besides Oshda,—a boy named Pantu and a little girl named Colla. Pantu and Colla liked to go with Oshda when he melted the fat. Oshda always said, though, that if they went with him they must work. There were many things they could do to help. They could bring wood and build the fire, and they could keep it going after it was built.
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Oshda
Oshda
When the fire was built, and the fat meat was sizzling in the kettles, Oshda went off a little way and dug a hole in the black adobe. Then he said to Pantu, “Run and get me some clay from the clay bank.” The clay was wet and sticky. When Pantu brought it, it stuck to his fingers until his hands looked as if he had been making bricks.
Oshda took the clay and plastered the sides and bottom of the hole he had dug, smoothing them off until they were shiny. Docas came up just then with some long sticks.
Docas stuck one of the sticks in the middle of the hole.
Oshda then said to the children, “Make some more holes just like this one and stick the rest of the sticks up in them.”
After the fire had burned for a long time and the grease was cooked out of the fat meat, Oshda and Docas took one of the kettles off the fire. They brought it over by the edge of the first hole and tipped it on its side. Pantu and Colla wanted to see what was going on, so they crowded up close.
“Look out! The grease is very hot. It will burn you if you are not careful,” said Docas. So Pantu and Colla stepped back.
Then Docas and Oshda began to pour the hot grease into the hole. They poured until the hole was full; then they carried the kettle on to the next hole.
“What are you pouring the grease out on the ground for?” asked Pantu.
“So that it may get hard and we shall have a cake of tallow to sell,” answered Docas.
Next morning Pantu and Colla woke up very early. As soon as breakfast was over, they ran out to look at the grease in the holes. Pantu could run faster than Colla, so he got there first.
“Somebody has taken out the grease and put in some white stuff,” he said.
Colla took up a long stick. She stood off a little way and poked the white stuff with one end of the stick.
“It doesn’t move. It’s hard,” she said. She poked harder, but still nothing happened. Then Colla went close to the hole, stretched out her arm, and touched the white stuff with the tip of her finger. “It feels greasy anyway, if it doesn’t look like grease,” said she.
Pantu came up also and touched it. “It’s cold, too. Perhaps it is the grease and the cold has made it like this. You know Oshda said the grease would harden,” he said.
After a little, Docas and Oshda came along.
“Come, see how hard our grease is,” said Pantu.
“Yes, it is ready to put into the cart,” said Oshda.
Then Colla went close to the holeThen Colla went close to the hole.
Then Colla went close to the hole.
Then Colla went close to the hole.
Oshda took hold of the upper end of the stick and gave a big pull. The cake of tallow came out of the hole with a jerk. Docas took hold of the other end of the stick on the other side of the cake of tallow, and between them they carried it away to the cart.