BILLY STARTS HIS STORY
The next morning found Billy fully dressed and ready to leave before
his parents were even awake. He could hardly wait for them to be astir
and as soon as he heard his mother's step in her room he knocked at the
door. Mother opened it and stood amazed.
"Why, Billy--at this hour! What do you mean?"
"I'm going out, Mother, and I didn't want to leave before you were
awake."
"But, dear, you can't go so early, and without your breakfast."
"Oh, that's all right. Peanuts and I will go to the Trading Post and
get breakfast. You see, Mother, I have to--"
Just then there came a growl from within the room. It came from Father.
"What is the commotion? And at such an hour! Billy, what's the
excitement?"
"Nothing, Father--only it's such a fine morning and I want a ride."
"Let him go, Mother. He is only keeping me from my hard-earned rest.
When one works one needs sleep. Billy will never need it!"
Billy was sharp enough to understand his father's words and, smiling
shrewdly to himself, he clutched a paper which reposed in his pocket,
but he only called out, "Goodby, Father."
His mother kissed him with the parting words: "Do be careful, Billy,
and don't go too far."
"No further than usual, Mother," answered Billy.
And then, afraid that Mother might ask something, he ran off, waving
his hand and sighing a deep sigh of relief.
Billy had spent some restless hours during the night, thinking about
the story he was to write. As he was only a little boy and couldn't
write very well, and as this was his very first story, he was a little
bit afraid of the results.
But the determination to surprise Father and Mother had grown within
him ever since the idea had come to him yesterday at Bah's home. Father
thought Billy couldn't do it! Well, he'd show him! He'd listen while
Mrs. Fighting Bull told him things, and hadn't he already learned lots
about them?
[Illustration: BAH'S MOTHER WEAVING NAVAJO BLANKET]
In fact, he'd started his story! He'd started it with a poem (at least
he thought it a poem) and that is what he clutched in his pocket when
Father chided him. He was going to show it to Bah and her mother.
He was going to ask them what they thought of it and he was going to
tell them all about the contest, and how he'd planned to win the radio
without telling his parents!
How astonished they'd be, and how Father would stare when he saw the
radio arrive with his son's name engraved thereon--
"Winner of Composition Contest."
His dreams accompanied Billy all the way to the Trading Post. There he
had a hurried breakfast of milk and crackers, allowed Peanuts to graze
a bit in the clover, and after buying some funny chocolates in the
forms of objects, animals, birds and fishes which he thought would
amuse Bah, he was off in search of his new-made friends--and
information.
[Illustration: BAH'S FATHER STRETCHING A SKIN]
Upon arriving at the hogan he found Bah's mother already seated at her
loom. Fighting Bull was stretching a goat's skin outside the hogan
door.
After greeting the Indians, Billy looked around for Bah. She was
nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Bah?" he asked of her mother. The woman shook her head, the
usual amused smile playing over her features. "Not here."
The Indians had not seemed particularly pleased to see him, he thought,
and his heart was beginning to sink. But then Bah's mother pointed
towards the play hogan. "Over there. She play mother and papoose.
See?"
With these words, Mrs. Fighting Bull laughed out loud, a sort of
chuckle it was, but nevertheless she did laugh, and Billy felt
reassured. He looked and saw Bah.
She was emerging from her play hogan, and there was something on her
back. He couldn't tell what it was, but as she approached he saw that
it was a large board with a blanket strapped around it. Something was
in the blanket, and that something was heavy, too, for Bah was
obviously weighted down.
"What's that?" asked Billy, puzzled.
"That my papoose," laughed Bah, and turning her back towards Billy he
saw, strapped cozily to the papoose cradle, a baby sheep! It was
bleating, "Baa, Baa--"
[Illustration: BAH'S PAPOOSE]
"He knows your name," laughed Billy, stroking the small woolly head.
Bah sat down with her burden on her back and Billy sat beside her. The
Indian mother continued to smile to herself as she went on weaving.
"Me glad you come," said Bah, smiling her friendly smile.
"Are you?" questioned Billy. "I couldn't wait to get here. You know,
I've started to write a story--a real story like Father writes. It's
going to be all about you!"
"Me?" the little girl pointed to herself. She realized that this was
something important, for the white boy was excited and although the
affair was very vague to her, she mustered up the enthusiasm necessary.
"I've written a poem to start it with. Want to hear it?"
"Oh, yes," Bah's eyes grew big. Just what a poem was didn't matter. It
was important to know that Billy had written one. So he read--
"Bah, Bah Indian girl,
Have you any bread?
Yes sir, yes sir,
That's what I was fed.
When I was a papoose
I cried to my ma,
So she gave me bread,
And now my name is 'Bah'!"
There was a loud explosion from the corner where Mrs. Fighting Bull was
weaving. Billy's face grew red. Mrs. Fighting Bull was laughing at him.
Oh, now he knew he must have done something wrong!
The Indian woman composed herself and beckoning the boy over, she
said: "You write good words. Tell me more."
Billy had a great deal to learn about Indians; he was beginning to
realize that. Evidently Bah's mother was kindly disposed towards him
but she had a queer way of laughing at everything, which was hard for
Billy to understand.
Still, he thought, it was better to laugh at everything than to be
cross and angry. Mrs. Fighting Bull was a jolly woman, that was all,
and Billy moved up close to her and smiled up into her face.
"Gee, I'm glad you like it. I thought, when you laughed, you were
making fun of me. You see, I never wrote anything before, and this
story has just got to be good, because----"
And then he told Bah and her mother of his desire to win the contest
and the prize attached to it.
"You like I tell you more?" asked the Indian woman.
"That's just what I'd like to have you do, if you would," answered the
boy writer.
"Well, I tell you."
With no more ado, Mrs. Fighting Bull started talking as Billy sat and
listened to her words.