Page:Nattie Nesmith (1870).pdf/121

 potatoes for the evening meal, or prepare wood for the fire.

One day, when she was working a long piece of lettering on black cloth, with white beads, she suddenly sprang to her feet, and pressing her hands against her eye lids, cried out:

"My work looks like a sheet of fire. Send me to the forest, mammy, where I can dip my head in the cool spring."

Nattie was never permitted to go anywhere alone, not even to the hovel, to milk the long-horned cow. So the squaw turned to Fox Heart and Light-foot, and said:

"Go with Tulip to the spring down by the beech tree, and bring her back safely when she has bathed her head."

The two lads led out the girl, who staggered as she went.

When they were gone, Black-bird said to her mother:

"The white beads are doing their work on