The summers passed, and Hanging-flower was a baby no longer. Her mother
taught her the art of cooking; she also began to help when the corn was
pounded in large, wooden mortars. Soon she learned how to embroider.
And as her fingers grew nimble and her eyes fond of the colored beads
and wampum shells, she began to feel that the world of buds and
flowers and leaves was her own, hers and her mother’s and of the other
women;—the men knew nothing of such things.
Once, when Rising-sun’s brother was staying for a visit, Hanging-flower
overtook him at work on a small False Face; for a long time she watched
him unobserved, and when he was gone, she practiced carving on bits of
wood and bark until she felt that she was as good at it as any man. But
of this she never spoke nor did she show her work to any one, as she
had been taught that carving was not woman’s work.