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Blue Cornflower At Home
Blue Cornflower was playing with her baby brother, Strong Boy, in front of their home. Their home was in a large Indian village where the houses stood one on top of one another. They were made of mud bricks. These mud bricks, dried in the sun, are called adobe.
The children played on the roof of the house below their own. Their adobe house was the highest one of all. It seemed to Blue Cornflower and her brother that it reached almost to the sky.
Their mother came up a ladder from the roof below. She had to climb one, two, three, four, five long ladders up from the ground. But she was not afraid. She carried a jar of fresh water on her head.
The children ran to meet her. Their black eyes were shining. Blue Cornflower knew that their mother was going to grind corn and make bread. It would be bread with honey in it, and the children liked it.
Blue Cornflower helped to grind the corn into flour for their bread. She had to grind it between two flat stones. It was hard work. She rubbed and rubbed the corn between the stones until the flour was soft and fine.
When the fine flour was ready, Blue Cornflower carried it to the fireplace in the corner of the adobe house. Her mother stirred water and honey into the flour until it was like paste, She also stirred in wild flowers that had been dried in the sun. Then she put the paste over a hot stone in the fireplace. It baked very quickly.
The bread was as thin as paper. Blue Cornflower and Strong Boy were glad when the paper bread was ready to eat. Blue Cornflower took some bread to her grandmother, who was busy making bowls and jars. She made them from clay that she brought from a mountain far away.
Grandmother rubbed the clay between stones until it was as fine as flour. Then she put water with the clay to make it soft, and she made the clay into a long smooth rope. Next she curled the clay rope around and around until it looked like a bowl or a jar, Then she smoothed it with her hands and rubbed it with a round piece of stone.
When the bowls and jars were ready, Blue Cornflower put some crumbs of paper bread in each one. That was to keep the dishes from ever being hungry. Then they were dried in the sun and baked in a fire. Some of them were painted with beautiful colors,
School Time
Blue Cornflower was seven years old. One day her father said that it was time for her to go to the Big Rock School. This is a big school where Indian children learn the things all children learn.
Blue Cornflower's father and mother were sorry to have their little girl go away, but they wanted her to go to school. Her mother made her a new dress with a red belt. She tied silver flowers and blue beads to her ears. Her father made high white boots of soft deerskin for her.
When the day came for Blue Cornflower to go away, her mother gave her some paper bread to take with her. Her grandmother gave her a bright red shawl to keep her warm. Strong Boy wanted to give her his lamb, but Blue Cornflower could not take a lamb to school with her.
Blue Cornflower's grandfather told her never, never to forget the ways of her people. Grandfather was a medicine man. He knew many stories about the Indians who had lived in their adobe village in times before. He knew when to plant corm and also the best way to plant it. He knew all the ways of his people.
A big car came to take Blue Cornflower to school. She wore her new dress and red shawl and deerskin boots. She had never been in a car before. It went so very fast that it seemed to be flying like an eagle.
In the car were other children going to the Big Rock School. The man who drove the car was very kind to them.
After a long trip they reached the school. There were trees and grass at the school. There were straight-up-and-down brick houses, but no adobe houses. Everything was very strange to Blue Cornflower.
Inside the brick school there were no sheepskins on which to sit. There was a furnace, but no fireplace at which to warm her hands. There were no grinding stones. The place was not like home.
At first Blue Cornflower could not understand what was said to her. Everyone was kind, but she was very homesick. One night at bedtime Blue Cornflower shaw the new moon peeping in at her window. She knew that when the new moon comes before the snow, it is feather-planting time for the Indians.
They believe that if they tie a prayer-wish to a feather, it will fly to
Those Above. It will fly just as an eagle flies up to the sky.
Feather-Planting Time
Blue Cornflower remembered what her grandfather had told her. She must never, never forget the ways of her people. But what could she do? The people in the big brick school buildings did not know about feather planting time. Her kind grandfather was far away. He could not bring her eagle feathers and help her
to plant them.
Blue Cornflower was very shad. Her grandfather was a medicine man, but she could do nothing about feather-planting time.
One of the teachers was sorry that Blue Cornflower was homesick. That day she took the little girl home with her.
"Take off your pretty shawl, Blue Cornflower," she said. "You may look at the pictures in this book. When I come back, I will tell you a story."
The teacher went out and closed the door, but Blue Cornflower did not hear her go. She had seen a feather, a beautiful feather, on the teacher's hat!
Quickly she pulled it off. But where was she to find a colored prayer stick? She hunted and hunted around the room. She could not find a prayer stick. When the teacher came back, Blue Cornflower looked as if she wanted to cry, but Indian girls do not cry.
The teacher shaw her pretty feather in Blue Cornflower's hand. Her hat looked strange without its feather. But she did not care, because she was sorry for the homesick little Indian girl.
"What is the matter?" she asked. "Why do you want my feather ?"
"I need a stick, teacher, a stick with color, please," Blue Cornflower said. But she would not tell why she needed it.
The teacher thought and thought. Where was she to find a colored stick? At last she thought of something, She brought out a new blue pencil and also some bright red tape.
Blue Cornflower was happy! She tied the feather to the pencil with the bright red tape, It made the most beautiful prayer stick she had ever seen, Softly she said her prayer-wish to it: "Winter snows, sleep! Growing time, come soon, That I may go back to my mother's house."
Swiftly she ran out under the stars to plant her beautiful prayer stick. Then she went to bed and to sleep. Blue Cornflower was happy once more. Those Above would hear her prayer-wish, and she could tell her grandfather that she had remembered the ways of her people.
"How lonely is the night without the howl of a wolf."
~ Unknown
Wolf packs could be found in all the forests of Europe, and in 1420 and 1438, wolves roamed the streets of Paris.
