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"If I stand in one
place all day," retorted the artichoke, "at least I don't swim around
in stagnant water, and build my lodge in the mud."
"You are jealous of
my fine fur," sneered the muskrat. "I may build my lodge in the
mud, but I always have a clean coat. But you are half buried in
the ground, and when men dig you up, you are never clean."
"And your fine coat
always smells of musk," jeered the artichoke.
"That is true," said
the muskrat. "But men think well of me, nevertheless. They
trap me for the fine sinew in my tail; and handsome young women bite
off my tail with their white teeth and make it into thread."
"That's nothing,"
laughed the artichoke. "Handsome young warriors, painted and
splendid with feathers, dig me up, brush me off with their shapely
hands and eat me without even taking the trouble to wash me off."
The
Forgotten Ear Of Corn
 An
Arikara woman was once gathering corn from the field to store away for
winter use. She passed from stalk to stalk, tearing off the ears
and dropping them into her folded robe. When all was gathered
she started to go, when she heard a faint voice, like a child's,
weeping and calling:
"Oh, do not leave me! Do not go away without me."
The woman was
astonished. "What child can that be?" she asked herself. "What babe can be lost in the cornfield?"
She set down her robe in which she had
tied up her corn, and went back to search; but she found nothing.
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