"Did he always bring your grandmother a present?" I enquired.

"No, my son, not always, he was too stingy," replied the old woman,
"but he did once in a while, I must grant him that."

"What was it?"

"Oh, just a few coils of tripe."

But Granny, of course, was joking, that was why she did not explain
that deer tripe filled with blood was as great a delicacy as a suitor
could offer his prospective grandmother-in-law; for among certain
forest tribes, it is the custom that a marriageable daughter leaves the
lodge of her parents and takes up her abode with her grandmother--that
is, if the old lady is living within reasonable distance.

Shing-wauk--The Little Pine--had come that day, and had been invited to
sleep in Amik's tepee; yet he spent the greater part of his time
sitting with Neykia in her grandmother's lodge. As there are no cozy
corners in a tepee, it is the Ojibway custom for a lover to converse
with his sweetheart under cover of a blanket which screens the lovers
from the gaze of the other occupants of the lodge. Early in the
evening the blanket always hung in a dignified way, as though draped
over a couple of posts set a few feet apart. Later, however, the posts
frequently lost their balance and swayed about in such a way as to come
dangerously near colliding. Then, if the old grandmother did not speak
or make a stir, the blanket would sometimes show that one support had
given away. Accordingly, the old woman was able to judge by the
general contour of the blanket just how the courtship was progressing,