Girl in a Buckskin

Dawn-of-the-sky did not know how to giggle; her laugh when it came was delightful and full-throated, as if she found the world a marvelous place. As indeed it was, thought Becky, looking around at the mountains and the sky.
    When they had shaken themselves dry and put on their clothes again Becky sat down on the bank and with some surprise watched Dawn-of-the-sky dress her face. From one bag she removed bear grease which she mixed with red ochre from a smaller bag and rubbed with ritualistic strokes upon her cheeks and forehead. With more bear grease she dressed her hair until it was sleek and shining, then gathered 11 into a beaver tail behind her, tying it with a deerskin thong. With a stick of vermilion she colored the thin part in her hair and then tied an embroidered band around her head.
    “You’re lovely—even with all that paint,” Becky said suddenly.
    Dawn-of-the-sky paused and looked at her questioningly but Becky only smiled and shook her head. “You’re lovely,” she repeated softly to herself, and a queer little feeling tugged at her heart because Dawn-of-the-sky was lovely and had a man of her own while she had no one. Except her brother, of course.
    “A thomback, that’s what I’ll be,” she told herself, knowing full well that she would reach twenty without marrying, and the queer little feeling turned into envy and she had to look away.
     
    Blue Feather and Dawn-of-the-sky stayed for six days and six nights. Each day Blue Feather and Eseck went into the mountains hunting and soon there was no time for swimming, for the shore was full of drying frames stretched with rawhide. The men brought home beaver and bear as well and the knives were scarcely idle a minute as Becky and Dawn-of-the-sky skinned and cut and scraped.
    “But half belongs to them,” Becky told Eseck one day when he said they would put away the skins for the autumn and trade them with Black Eagle for a winter’s supply of corn.
    Eseck shook his head. “Blue Feather leaves soon on a great hunt. When the corn has been gathered and the leaves turn red the hunters of his village shoot meat for the winter. He has come to help us because we are his cousins.”
    “Cousins?” Becky echoed.
    He nodded, giving her a faint smile. “His friends, if you prefer.”
    “Oh,” she said, coloring, and walked past him to the door of the cave. Outside the sky was gray and a thin mist filled the air. For the first time in many days the lake was calm, without so much as a ripple to stir the surface. The mountains were hidden by clouds and the island was hidden by mist but in spite of the paleness of lake, trees and sky it was not drab to Becky. The gray had a pearly quality and there was a great stillness that was soothing to her ear. To shield them from the rain Blue Feather had made a wigwam for him and Dawn-of-the-sky on the beach, and as Becky stood at the entrance to the cave she saw Dawn-of-the-sky sitting at the door of the hut, her head bent over her sewing. Hearing her Dawn-of-the-sky looked up and smiled and pointed to the buckskins in her lap. Becky saw that they were hers, and ran to her and sat down. “Are they almost finished?”
    Dawn-of-the-sky understood and answered in Indian.
    “Only a few more stitches,” Eseck said, translating for her. “She has pleaded with Blue Feather to stay until she can see you wearing the strange clothes.”
    “Not so strange,” insisted Becky.
    “No?” laughed Eseck. “A girl in buckskin trousers and shirt?”
    “Never mind,” Becky said comfortably, “I should look even stranger dressed like Dawn-of-the-sky, and in a gown even the squirrels would laugh at me for I would trip over every stump and rock.”
    Suddenly Dawn-of-the-sky gave a triumphant little cry and held up the lapful of skins. Silently Becky took them from her and held them, feeling their softness against her hand. Then she ran back into the cave and stripping off the tom breeches and shirt she made haste to put on her new clothes. The trousers fitted her legs snugly so that she need never stumble again, and Dawn-of-the-sky had added fringe to the shirt so that it had elegance. It was the very first new garment Becky could remember wearing, so accustomed was she to Adah Ann’s hand-me-downs, and she felt a surge of gratitude to Dawn-of-the-sky for helping her cut and sew them. Now she would know exactly how to shape winter buckskins for Eseck as well.
    “You are no longer full of holes,” Eseck said when she