an artist arranges the paints upon his palette. On a lapboard she
smoothed out a double sheet of soft white buckskin; and drawing from a
beaded case that hung on the left of her wide belt a long, narrow blade,
she trimmed the buckskin into shape. Often she worked upon small
moccasins for her small daughter. Then I became intensely interested in
her designing. With a proud, beaming face, I watched her work. In
imagination, I saw myself walking in a new pair of snugly fitting
moccasins. I felt the envious eyes of my playmates upon the pretty red
beads decorating my feet.

Close beside my mother I sat on a rug, with a scrap of buckskin in one
hand and an awl in the other. This was the beginning of my practical
observation lessons in the art of beadwork. From a skein of finely
twisted threads of silvery sinews my mother pulled out a single one.
With an awl she pierced the buckskin, and skillfully threaded it with
the white sinew. Picking up the tiny beads one by one, she strung them
with the point of her thread, always twisting it carefully after every
stitch.

It took many trials before I learned how to knot my sinew thread on the
point of my finger, as I saw her do. Then the next difficulty was in
keeping my thread stiffly twisted, so that I could easily string my
beads upon it. My mother required of me original designs for my lessons
in beading. At first I frequently ensnared many a sunny hour into
working a long design. Soon I learned from self-inflicted punishment to
refrain from drawing complex patterns, for I had to finish whatever I
began.

After some experience I usually drew easy and simple crosses and
squares. These were some of the set forms. My original designs were not