Then all the players pointed their fingers
at him and grunted in scorn. Again Nopal rolled the hoop, and this time
the boy threw through the ring, and all the boys, and Payuchi too, gave
whoops of delight.
The children watched the game until Gesnip said that they must go on,
for their mother would be home and want them. When they returned, Macana
was warming herself by the fire where the men were sitting.
"See our tule; is it not a great deal?" asked the children, showing
their bundles.
"Yes, but not enough," replied their mother. "You will have to go out
another day."
The women, who had been working all the morning gathering acorns, now
squatted near the fire and began grinding up the nuts which had been
already dried.
"Gesnip," called her mother, "bring me the grinding stones." The girl
went to the jacal and brought two stones, one a heavy bowlder with a
hollow in its top, which had been made partly by stone axes, but more by
use; the other stone fitted into this hollow.
"Now bring me the basket of roasted grasshoppers," said the mother.
Taking a handful of grasshoppers, Macana put them into the hollow in the
larger stone, and with the smaller stone rubbed them to a coarse powder.
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