. Stephen of Philadelphia; a story of Penn's colony . find these even when you are on theseashore. The Indians go in their canoes near to MAKING WAMPUM 73 an hundred miles after the shells, and a dozen menmay be away two weeks or more to get twenty of theright sort. Jethro and I have watched an Indian, seated onhis blanket made of fiber from the wild hemp, working half the day to borea hole in one of thesebits of wampum,using no other toolthan a tiny bit offlint rock fastenedto a thin stick ofwood. Not only do thebrown men use thiswampum as money,but they sew thestrands together to make belts,
. Stephen of Philadelphia; a story of Penn's colony . find these even when you are on theseashore. The Indians go in their canoes near to MAKING WAMPUM 73 an hundred miles after the shells, and a dozen menmay be away two weeks or more to get twenty of theright sort. Jethro and I have watched an Indian, seated onhis blanket made of fiber from the wild hemp, working half the day to borea hole in one of thesebits of wampum,using no other toolthan a tiny bit offlint rock fastenedto a thin stick ofwood. Not only do thebrown men use thiswampum as money,but they sew thestrands together to make belts, which are used asgifts when something very valuable is belts are sent from one settlement toanother in token of friendship, or to bind some greatbargain, as was the case when one was given to ourWilliam Penn, as I will set down later. Perhaps I am spending too many words in tellingyou about the Indians; but if you had come to havethem as neighbors, with whom it was necessary for yourvery lifes sake to live on friendly terms, you would. 74 STEPHEN OF PHILADELPHIA have been likely to watch them closely, as did Jethro andI, and to be interested in all their odd ways. THE BEEHIVE HUTS It was not until we had been in this land of Americanearly a year that Jethro and I could make out whythree little huts, shaped much like an acorn when placedwith the big end down, had been built near the riverat a considerable distance from the Indian village. These huts were hardly more than large enough toadmit of three people sitting very closely together inthem, and so low in height that whoever was insidecould not rise more than to his knees. They wereformed of many layers of reeds, and plastered thick withmud until you would say that no air could get through,save at the very bottom, where was a hole about thesize of a mans body. But one day Jethro and I came to know for whatuse these beehive-like huts were intended. A bigfire was built outside one of these odd structures, andin i
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