thirsty at night, especially after eating wild onions
and watercress, and no one ever dared leave the caves
at night for a drink.

Another time I found a dry; gourd, inside of which the
seeds rattled. I had fun with it for a while. But it
was a play thing, nothing more. And yet, it was not
long after this that the using of gourds for storing
water became the general practice of the horde. But I
was not the inventor. The honor was due to old
Marrow-Bone, and it is fair to assume that it was the
necessity of his great age that brought about the
innovation.

At any rate, the first member of the horde to use
gourds was Marrow-Bone. He kept a supply of
drinking-water in his cave, which cave belonged to his
son, the Hairless One, who permitted him to occupy a
corner of it. We used to see Marrow-Bone filling his
gourd at the drinking-place and carrying it carefully
up to his cave. Imitation was strong in the Folk, and
first one, and then another and another, procured a
gourd and used it in similar fashion, until it was a
general practice with all of us so to store water.

Sometimes old Marrow-Bone had sick spells and was
unable to leave the cave. Then it was that the
Hairless One filled the gourd for him. A little later,
the Hairless One deputed the task to Long-Lip, his
son. And after that, even when Marrow-Bone was well