trouble," she went on. "When it was ripe the priests and Caciques went
into the fields to select the seed for next year. Then it was laid up in
the god-houses for the priestess of the Corn to keep. That was in case
of an enemy or a famine when the people might be tempted to eat it.
After it was once taken charge of by the priestess of the Corn they
would have died rather than give it up. Our women did not know how they
should get the seed to bring away from the Stone House except to ask for
it as the price of their year's labor."

"But couldn't you have just taken some from the field?" inquired Dorcas.
"Wouldn't it have grown just the same?"

"That we were not sure of; and we were afraid to take it without the
good-will of the Corn Goddess. Centcotli her name was. Waits-by-the-Fire
made up her mind to ask for it on the first day of the Feast of the Corn
Harvest, which lasts four days, and is a time of present-giving and
good-willing. She would have got it, too, if it had been left to the
Corn Women to decide. But the Cacique of the Sun, who was always
watching out for a chance to make himself important, insisted that it
was a grave matter and should be taken to Council. He had never forgiven
the Shaman, you see, for that old story about the Corn Maiden.

"As soon as the townspeople found that the Caciques were considering
whether it was proper to give seed corn to the strangers, they began to
consider it, too, turning it over in their minds together with a great
many things that had nothing to do with it. There had been smut in the
corn that year; there was a little every year, but this season there was
more of it, and a good many of the bean pods had not filled out. I
forgot," said the Corn Woman, "to speak of the beans and squashes. They
were the younger sisters of the corn; they grew with the corn and twined