ELEVENTH CHAPTERPICKING JUNE BERRIES
ELEVENTH CHAPTER
June berry time had come. I was now fourteen years, old and had begun to think myself almost a young woman. Some of the young men even smiled at me as I came up from the watering place. I never smiled back, for I thought: “My father is a chief, and I belong to one of the best families in my tribe. I will be careful whom I choose to be my friends.”
A little north of my father’s, stood the earth lodge of Bear Man’s family. Bear Man was an eagle hunter. He had magic snares of sacred hemp plant which he tossed into the air as he prayed to the eagle spirits. After doing so he was sure to catch many young golden eagles at his eagle pit. We thought him a great medicine man.
Bear Man had a son named Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing, a straight-limbed, rather good-lookinglad, a year older than myself. Bear Man’s father died, and Bear Man cut off his long hair in mourning. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing made a switch of his father’s hair, tastefully spotting it with little lumps of spruce gum mixed with red ochre. He looked quite manly, I thought, wearing this switch, in spite of his fifteen years.
My father’s earth lodge and Bear Man’s both faced eastward, with the lodge of Blue Paint’s family standing between; but, as I stood at my father’s lodge entrance, I could see the flat top of Bear Man’s lodge over Blue Paint’s roof. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing had joined the Stone Hammer Society a short while before, and had begun to paint his face like a young man. He would get up on his father’s roof, painted, and decked out in hair switch, best leggings, and moccasins, and sing his society’s songs. He had a fine voice, I thought; and when I went out with my buck-brush broom to sweep the ground about our lodge entrance, Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing would sing harder than ever. I thought perhaps he didthis so that I would hear him. I was too well-bred to look up at him, but I did not always hurry to finish my sweeping.
There had been plenty of rain, and the June berry trees were now loaded with ripe fruit. We Indians set great store by these berries, and almost every family dried one or more sackfuls for winter. June berries are sweet, and, as we had no sugar, we were fond of them.
We were sitting one evening at our supper. Red Blossom had gone into the woods earlier in the day and fetched home some ripe June berries which we were eating. Perhaps that is why we ended our meal with our kettle half-full of boiled meat. “We will save this meat until morning,” Red Blossom said. “We must breakfast early, for Strikes-Many Woman and I are going with a party to pick June berries. Our daughter may go with us, if she will.”
I was quite happy when I heard this. I had seen my two mothers getting ready their berry sacks; and, looking over to the bench where they lay, I now saw that a small sack had been laid out for me.
Red Blossom dipped her fingers into the kettle for a lump of fat and continued: “The mother of that young man, Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing, said to me to-day, ‘If your daughter goes berrying to-morrow, my son wishes to go with her. He will take his bow and keep off enemies.”
I did not blush, for we Indian girls had dark skins and painted our cheeks; but I felt my heart jump. I looked down at the floor, then gotup and went about my work, humming a song as I did so; for I thought, “I am going berrying in the morning.” I felt quite grown-up to know that a young man wanted to go berrying with me.
We were off the next morning before the sun was up. I walked with my mothers and the other women. The men went a little ahead, armed, some with guns, others with bows. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing walked behind the men. On his back I saw a handsome otter-skin quiver, full of arrows. I felt safer to see those arrows. Enemies might be lurking anywhere in the woods, ready to capture us or take our scalps. We Indian women dared not go far into the woods without men to protect us.
At the woods the men joined us, and our party broke up into little groups, the older men helping their wives, and the younger men their sweethearts. I made my way to a clump of June berry trees bent nearly to the ground with fruit. I did not look to see if Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing was following me. I thought, “If he wants to help me, he may; but I shall not ask him.” I spread a skin under the branches, and I was looking for a stout stick when I saw my boy friend breaking off the laden branches and piling them on the skin, ready to be beaten.
I sat on the ground and with my stick beat off the berries. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing fetchedme fresh branches, and in an hour or two I had enough berries to fill my sack. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing’s arrows lay at my feet. Once, when a near-by bush stirred, my boy friend leaped for his bow and laid an arrow on the string; but it was the wind, I guess.
All the time that we worked together Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing and I spoke not a word. Older couples, I knew, talked together, when they thought of marrying; but I was a young girl yet and did not want to be bothered with a husband.
When my sack was filled, I tied it shut and slung it on my back by my packing strap. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing laid some sweet smelling leaves under the sack that the juices from the ripe berries might not ooze through and stain my dress.
I am sorry to say that I am not sure I even thanked Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing for all he did to help me.
I walked back to the village with the women as I had come. Ahead of us walked a young woman named Pink Blossom, with her chin in the air as if she were angry. The older women, coming after her, were laughing and slyly jesting with one another. I asked my mothers what it was all about.
It seems there was an old man in our party named Old Bear, whose wife had died. He wanted to marry again and smiled at Pink Blossom whenever she passed him; but she did not like Old Bear, and she turned her eyes away whenever he came near.
When she came to the June berry woods, Pink Blossom set her sack under a tree, while she picked berries. Old Bear saw the sack. He folded his robe under his arm into a kind of pocket, picked it full of berries, and emptied them into Pink Blossom’s sack.
This vexed Pink Blossom. She went to her sack and poured Old Bear’s berries out on the ground. “I do not want that old man to smile at me,” she told the other women.
It was because the women were laughing at her and Old Bear, that Pink Blossom walked ahead with her chin in the air. The others were having a good deal of fun with one another at her expense.
“I think Pink Blossom did wrong to waste the berries,” said one, a clan cousin. “If she did not want them herself, she should have given them back to Old Bear, for him to eat.”
“Old Bear’s is a sad case,” said Elk Woman. “But I knew a man in a worse case.”
“Tell us of it,” said Red Blossom.
“Years ago,” said Elk Woman, “I went berrying with some others on the other side of the Missouri. In the party was a young man named Weasel Arm. He was a good singer, and he liked to sing so that his sweetheart couldhear his voice. His sweetheart was also in the party. Weasel Arm helped her fill her sack; and when she went back with the other women and they were waiting for some that had not yet come in, Weasel Arm lay down on the grass a little way off and sang, beating time on the stock of his gun.
“As he lay there he heard some one riding toward him, but thought it was one of his party. It was a Sioux; and right in the midst of the song—poh!—the Sioux fired, wounding Weasel Arm in the hip. Luckily the wound was slight, and Weasel Arm sprang for the near-by woods. The Sioux dared not follow him, for he saw that Weasel Arm had a gun.”
“I do not think Weasel Arm’s case as sad as Old Bear’s,” said one of the women. “Weasel Arm was wounded in his body, but Old Bear is wounded in his heart.”
Elk Woman laughed. “Have no fear for Old Bear,” she said. “He is an old man and has had more than one sweetheart. His heart will soon heal.”
“But I am sorry for the spilled berries,” she continued. “Pink Blossomshould not waste good berries, even if Old Bear does look like an old man.”
All laughed at this but Pink Blossom.
“I knew a young woman who once wasted good rose berries, just as Pink Blossom wasted the June berries,” said Old-Owl Woman.
“Tell us the story,” said one of my mothers.
“When I was a girl,” said Old-Owl Woman, “Ear-Eat, a Crow Indian, married Yellow Blossom, a Hidatsa girl. They went to live with the Crows, but after a year they came back to visit our tribe at Five Villages.
“It was in the fall, when the rose berries are ripe. Now the Crow Indians like to eat rose berries, and gather them to dry for winter as we dry squashes. We Hidatsas eat rose berries sometimes, but we never dry them for winter. We think they are food for wild men.
“Ear-Eat was riding in the woods near our villages, when he found a thicket of rose bushes bending over with their load of ripe berries. ‘Ey,’ he cried, ‘how many berries are here! I never saw it thus in our Crow country.’ And he got off his horse and began to pick the berries.
“He had no basket to put them in, so he drew off his leggings, tied the bottoms shut with his moccasin strings, and, when he had filled the leggings with berries, he slung them over his horse’s back like a pair of saddle bags.
“He rode home happy, for he thought, ‘My wife will be glad to see so many berries.’
“When Yellow Blossom saw her husband riding home without his leggings, and with thetops of his moccasins loose and flapping, she could hardly believe her eyes. As she stood staring, Ear-Eat got off his horse and handed her his bulging leggings. ‘Here, wife,’ he cried, ‘look at these fine berries. Now we shall have something good to eat.’
“The village women, hearing what Ear-Eat said, crowded close to look. When they saw that his leggings were filled with rose berries, they cried out with laughter.
“Yellow Blossom was angry. ‘You are crazy,’ she cried to her husband. ‘We Hidatsas raise corn, beans, sunflower seed, and good squashes to eat. We are not starving, that we must eat rose berries.’
“‘The Crow Indians eat rose berries,’ said Ear-Eat. ‘My mother used to dry them for winter food.’
“His words but vexed Yellow Blossom more.
“‘I am a Hidatsa woman, not a Crow,’ she cried. ‘We Hidatsas are not wild people. We live in earth lodges and eat foods from our gardens. When we go berrying we put our berries into clean baskets, not into our leggings.’ And she turned the leggings up and poured the rose berries out on the ground.”
We all laughed at Old-Owl Woman’s story.
“We had other use for rose berries when I was a girl,” said Red Blossom. “If a young man went at evening to talk with his sweetheart, he put a ripe rose berry in his mouth to make his breath sweet.”
“I wonder if Old Bear put a rose berry in his mouth,” said Old-Owl Woman.
“I think he put two rose berries in his mouth,” said Red Blossom, smiling.
All laughed again but Pink Blossom; she walked on, saying nothing.