INDIAN CORN.
Long ago the Indians lived where we now live.
The Indian house was a tent covered with skins or bark. These tents were called wigwams.
The Indians wore clothes made of deerskin. Often these were covered with pretty beads.
Indian boys played ball, and swam in the rivers. Sometimes they went into the woods to hunt with their bows and arrows.
Indian girls played with dolls made of deerskin. Sometimes they helped their mothers plant the corn or cook the food.
The Indian baby’s cradle was a bag made of skin. It was tied to a board.
The Indian mother carried the baby on her back in this cradle.
Often she hung the cradle on a branch of a tree. The wind rocked the little cradle.
Sometimes the Indian father wore feathers in his hair, and painted his face. This made him look very fierce.
Indian children never cried. More than anything else they wanted to be brave.
One day some white people came over the sea in a ship. They were called Pilgrims.
It was cold, and snow was on the ground.
The Pilgrims sent out some men to walk along the shore.
They were looking for a good place to build their log-houses.
They soon came to a pile of sand. They began to dig, and found a basket full of corn. It belonged to the Indians.
The Pilgrims did not know that the Indians could make such large, strong baskets. It took two men to lift the basket of corn from the ground.
The white men had never seen Indian corn.
“How beautiful it is!” they said.
The Pilgrims took some of the corn to plant in the spring. The next summer they paid the Indians for all they had taken.
A kind Indian taught them how to plant the corn. He also taught them how to cook it.
Indian corn is one of the most useful of all the plants that grow.