MICHELSON. ] AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FOX WOMAN. 335 
forget your last husband for a long time. The men will begin to 
court you. Do not think of beginning to respond to them right 
away. For four years try not to forget your husband of whom you 
have sight. For you are still young. It will be nothing if you do 
not marry any one for a long time. Your next husband will not be 
as good. That is why I have come to tell you how sorry I am for 
your husband. So you must try to do that. And I am very proud 
that you believed me when I told you to do what was right. Some 
(women) become immoral when their mothers die, as they cease to 
be guided by any one. And they do not listen to others when they 
are instructed. That is also why I think my niece will watch out 
for herself. Well, my niece, I have finished instructing you. If you 
do that, you will lead a straight life.” 
I did as he told me. None of the men who were courting me was 
able to get my consent. I sharply scolded any one who courted me. 
For four years I remained (single), (showing) how sorry I was for 
my husband. If I had had a child I should have never married 
again. As it was, I was too much alone all the time. “That is 
why,” I thought, “I am always lonely.” When more than four 
years were up, I again began to be kind to one man. Soon he asked 
that we should marry. ‘Now I began to be kind to you so that 
we should be married. Your husband was my friend. We used to 
talk together a great deal. He said to me, ‘if I die first, you must 
court the one with whom I live, so as to marry her. She behaves 
very well. She is your sister-in-law as we are friends.**° It is because 
I do not want other men to marry her as she is too good. That 
really is why I say it to you. It might happen that I should die 
first, for we do not know when we are to die,’ he said to me, ‘and 
you must treat her nicely as I love her dearly as she is good,’ he said 
tome. So I am trying to get you (to agree) for us to do so. As I 
was told, ‘you must treat her well,’ I could not begin to treat you 
meanly. I should try (to treat you) as my friend treated you,” he 
said tome. Then I consented. 
Oh, he never became angry, but he was rather lazy. He was slow 
in making anyching. And he was a gambler. I did not love him 
as much as I did the one who was dead. 
And I began to wish to have a child again. “If I had a child L 
should have it do things for me. Surely they will not all die,” I 
thought. Soon I asked an old woman who knew about medicine. 
