SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAPPENS
For days Bah's chief delight was her new corn ear doll. She kept it
with her constantly. It went to bed with her, sat at meals with her,
and watched the daily weaving lesson.
But one day a terrible thing happened. She was sitting by her mother's
side outside the hogan, her little fingers flying through the strings
of her loom, and one eye watching Mother's more experienced fingers as
they made a beautiful new pattern.
Cornelia had been carefully dressed in her blanket, her beads hung
about her neck and fondly kissed by her devoted parent, and was now
lying at Bah's feet while the little girl worked hard at her lesson.
[Illustration: THE WEAVING LESSON]
"Pull your wool tighter, Bah," said Mother, in Navajo.
Bah's fingers and tongue worked together. Children's tongues have a
habit of moving with whatever else is in motion.
And as Bah worked, some sheep came wandering in from the field. They
were tame sheep and often nosed about the hogan for a bit of human
company or food, as the case might be, and this morning I fear the
reason was food.
Father sheep was very large and therefore hungrier than the rest. His
hunger made him bold. But Bah was a particular friend of his, and I
doubt whether even his appetite could have driven him to do what he did
that morning, had he been able to guess the great sorrow he was to
cause.
"You have left out a stitch, my child, and there will be a hole in the
work."
Bah's fingers stopped and so did her tongue.
"Oh dear, must I do that all over again, Mother?" she asked.
"If you wish to weave perfectly so that you may some day sell your
work, then you must learn to rip and go over many times."
Ripping is deadly work, as everyone who has ever ripped knows. And Bah
was not as interested in ripping as she had been in making her pattern.
So her thoughts naturally turned to her precious Cornelia lying at her
feet.
Her eyes turned at the same time, and horror upon horrors, what did
she see? The big black sheep was there chewing contentedly, but
Cornelia was gone. The little blanket was there--so were the beads and
some of the cornsilk hair. But Cornelia was gone. The sheep went on
chewing and couldn't understand why Bah did not caress him as usual.
"Bah, do pay attention to your work!"
Mother was annoyed. Bah turned around and Mother saw a very sad sight.
She saw before her another mother--a stricken little mother whose child
had just provided a meal for a hungry animal. She rocked an empty
blanket back and forth, and the tears were beginning to gather. Mother
understood what had happened, and now her voice sounded soft and kind.
[Illustration: "GO AWAY, MR. SHEEP!"]
"Poor Bah! Your doll is gone!"
The little girl was crying as she continued to hug the empty blanket.
"Do not cry, my little one," said Mother. "Are there not many more corn
ears in the field?"
"Yes, my Mother," sobbed the child, "but no more Cornelias!"
And that was final. Never again could Bah go back to the cornfield.
Never again! How could Mother even have suggested such a thing! Didn't
she know that Cornelia, since the day of her birth, had been different
from all other ears of corn?
Why, Cornelia was a doll--she and Billy had decided that--and the rest
were vegetables! Oh, didn't Mother understand? Perhaps Mother did, for
her next remark showed it.
"One day, Bah, when I went to the Trading Post near Tuba I saw a most
beautiful doll. She was an Indian baby--a papoose--and she was strapped
upon the prettiest little laced baby cradle you ever saw. She was
dressed in a bright blanket and she had real hair and such lovely beads
around her neck."
A smile was trying to chase away the tears on the face of the little
mother as she listened to her own mother's recital of something too
wonderful to imagine. She said sorrowfully: "Some white child will buy
her, and how happy she will be. Ah, how I should like to have her."
Mother said: "And so you shall, if you will work to have her."
Bah's eyes asked the question: "How?" and her mother went on: "You
know, Bah, that Mother sells or trades blankets, and that Father sells
or trades his beautiful silver and matrix jewelry to the Trading Post.
We do this so that we may have, in return, things which we want and
need. Now, you want and need a little doll. Why not sell your work? Bah
must weave a little blanket and take it to the store where they will
perhaps trade with you for the papoose doll."
"Do you really think they will, Ma Shima?" asked Bah as if she could
hardly believe it, and she wiped away her tears.
[Illustration: HOW BAH LONGED FOR THE PAPOOSE DOLL!]
"Yes, I do," answered Mother. "But your blanket must be well made and
of a pretty pattern--else they will not take it, for they, in turn,
must sell it to the tourists."
"Then I shall make the most beautiful blanket which has ever been
made," laughed Bah, now thoroughly interested in her new task with its
wonderful object.
She worked all through the morning on her little blanket, with happy
thoughts of a real-haired Indian doll flying through her mind as her
fingers flew through her work. It was not until she heard Mother
grinding the corn for lunch that she looked up, and not until then that
she thought again of the morning's sorrow. But then she did think of
it, and her parents wondered why she could not eat her corn bread.