Sing Down the Moon by Scott O’Dell Read Free Book Online

by the door. "Plant the seeds deep," she said, "for the earth is very dry."
    Walking along in the hot sun, with the bag heavy on my shoulder, I made deep holes with a stick and dropped the seeds in, three seeds in each hole. But my thoughts were not there in the field. Even when I tried thinking of my sheep, I was unhappy.
    I did not care, not for myself, whether Tall Boy would ever be able to hunt again or ride with the warriors. But my sister and my mother did care and there was nothing they would not do to keep me from marrying a cripple. It was my father who would decide and he had said nothing. Yet this did not give me any comfort, for he usually did what they wanted him to do.
    When the squash and beans were planted, I helped with the shearing and drove my flock to pastures by the river. The grass was not so good as it was on the mesa, but we were afraid to go too far from the village. Every week my mother and I went to visit Tall Boy and his family. She never again said anything about his arm and when he had trouble, when it was awkward for him to do something, she always looked away in pity.
    By the time the hot days came we did not go to see Tall Boy anymore. Once in a while he rode down to see us, but he did not stay long or have much to say. Then other boys began to visit. They came and sat under the trees in front of our hogan and joked with each other and played stick games.
    One night my mother said, "It is time for the girl to become a woman. Tomorrow I will send word of the Womanhood Ceremony."

13
    O N THE FIRST DAY of Kin-nadl-dah, twenty-one relatives and many friends came to our hogan, also Bitter Water, the medicine man, and his singers. My mother dressed me in my best tunic and gave me all her turquoise and silver jewelry to wear. She combed my hair so that it fell loose around my shoulders and tied it in the middle with a string of sacred buckskin.
    Everyone told me how handsome I looked. My aunt, who was very old and never had been married,
said that I was too pretty for any man she had ever seen. I walked back and forth in front of the hogan, so all my relatives and friends could look at me.
    I walked there for only a short time, because my mother brought four sacks of corn from the storehouse and led me to the big grinding stone.
    "The Womanhood Ceremony lasts four days," she said, "so we need lots of flour to eat. You are not good at the grinding stone, but now you must put your mind to it and make four full sacks of fine meal."
    In my best clothes and my borrowed jewelry, I knelt and began to grind the corn. I worked for only a short time.
    My cousin came to me and said, "Wood is scarce."
    I laid my grinding tool aside and went to the bottom of the orchard and chopped an armload of wood and stacked it in front of the fire. Then I began grinding corn again. After a while, one of the neighbors handed me an empty jar.
    "Your mother tells me," she said, "that goat's milk is needed."
    I jumped up and ran down to the river and found a goat and milked it and brought the jar back. Again I began to grind the corn.
    Then my uncle came. "Your aunt wishes a blanket," he said.
    It went on in such a fashion all that day. Everyone
wanted something. Everyone gave me orders. I was flying here and there and between times I knelt at the grinding stone. This was to make me industrious and obedient, my mother said.
    During these four days, early each morning I had to run east, south, west, and north, as though I was running a race. This was to make me a good runner. Furthermore, I could not eat sweet things nor anything with salt in it, nor drink too much water. Nor was I allowed to scratch myself. And I was told to sleep as little as possible. These things were to make me comely.
    The fourth morning men relatives dug a large hole in front of the hogan and kept a fire burning there all day. Toward evening when the fire died down, the women lined the hole with corn husks and poured in a lot of mush, covering it over