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MICHELSON. ] AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FOX WOMAN. 301 
Soon, moreover, I was told, “This is your little ax,’ when a little 
ax was brought. I was glad. “This is your wood-strap,” I was 
told. My mother and I would go out to cut wood; and I carried the 
little wood that I had cut on my back. She would strap them for 
me. She instructed me how to tie them up. Soon I began to go a 
little ways off by myself to cut wood. 
And when I was eleven years old I likewise continually watched 
her as she would make bags. ‘‘ Well, you try to make one,” she said 
to me.’ She braided up one little bag for me. She instructed me 
how to make it. Sure enough, I nearly learned how to make it, but 
I made it very badly. I was again told, ‘You make another.” It 
was somewhat larger. And soon I knew how to make it very well. 
Then surely I was unwilling to make them. At first I was willing 
to make them as I did not know how to make them very well. But 
I was constrained to keep on making them. During the winters [ 
kept on making them. Moreover, at that time a little rush mat was 
woven forme. ‘Make this,” I was told. I tried to make it. Later 
on I finished it. I made it extremely poorly. Soon I began to help 
my mother after I knew how to make rush mats.® 
She would be very proud after I had learned to make anything. 
“There, you will make things for yourself after you take care of 
yourself. That is why I constram you to make anything, not to 
treat you meanly. I let you do things so that you may make some- 
thing. If you happen to know how to make everything when you 
no longer see me, you will not have a hard time in any way. You 
will make your own possessions. My father’s sister, the one who 
took care of me, treated me so. That is why I know how to make 
any little thing. ‘She is in the habit of treating me meanly,’ I 
thought, when she ordered me to make something all the time. Now 
as a matter of fact she treated me well. When I knew about it; f 
would think, ‘why she must have treated me very well.’ And that 
is why I treat you so to-day. So very likely when you think of me, 
you think, ‘she treats me meanly.’ It is because I am fond of you 
and wish you to know how to make things. If I were not fond of 
you, I would not order you around (to do things). (If I were not 
fond of you) I would think, ‘I don’t care what she does.’ If you 
are intelligent when you are grown and recollect how I treated you, 
you will think, ‘I declare! My mother treated me well.’ Or if you 
are bad you will not remember me when I am gone. And this. 
Though you know how to make things you will not make anything. 
That is what you will do if you are bad. I do not wish you to be 
that way. I desire that you take care of yourself quietly,’ my mother 
told me. 
