big skeins at the various stores and trading-posts along the line of the Atlantic and Pacific Railway, which passes some twenty-five miles south of the whole line of their reservation. And remarkably fine blankets they make of it. Their ability as inventors of neat designs is truly remarkable. The cheap blankets are very much of a piece; but when you come up into patterns, it would be difficult to find in the whole territory two blankets exactly alike. The designs are ingenious, characteristic, and admirably worked out. Sometimes the weaver traces the pattern on the sand before beginning her blanket, but as a rule she composes it in her head as the work progresses. Circles or curved lines are never used in these blankets. The prevailing patterns are straight stripes, diagonals, regular zigzags, diamonds and crosses the latter being to the Indians emblems of the morning or evening star.

Scarlet is the favorite
These and the white

The colors used are limited in number. red, and indigo almost the only blue in use. of the bleached wool are the original colors, and the only ones which appear in the very best blankets. It is curious that these savages should have chosen our own "red, white, and blue " long before we did they were weaving already before the first European ever saw America. The Spanish conquerors brought the first sheep to the New World, and soon gave these valuable animals to the Pueblo Indians. So wool came into New Mexico and displaced the Indian cotton, and the Navajos quickly adopted the new material.

But of late there has been a sad deterioration in Navajo weavingthe Indians have learned one of the mean lessons of civilization, and now make their blankets less to wear than to sell. So an abominable combination of colors has crept in, until it is very difficult longer to get a blanket with only the real Indian hues. Black, green, and yellow are sometimes found in superb blankets, and so combined as not to lessen their value; but as a rule these colors are to be avoided. But now some weavers use colors which to an Indian are actually accursed-like violet, purple, dark brown, etc., the colors of witchcraft-and such blankets are worthless to collectors. With any Indian, color is a matter of religion, and red is the most sacred of hues. The amount of it in a blanket largely determines the price. An amusing instance of the Navajo devotion to red was brought to my notice some years ago. A post trader had received a shipment of prepared coffee, half in red papers and half in blue. In a month every red package was gone and every blue package was left on the

shelves; nor would the Indians accept the blue even then until long waiting convinced them that there was no present prospect of getting any more red.

The largest of these Germantown-yarn blankets take several weeks to weave, and are worth from fifteen to fifty dollars.

The very highest grade of Navajo blanket is now very rare. It is a dozen years since one of them has been made; the yarn blankets, which are far less expensive and sell just as well to the ignorant traveler, have entirely supplanted them. Only a few of the precious old ones remain-a few in the hands of wealthy Pueblo Indians and Mexicans and they are almost priceless. I know every such blanket in the southwest, and, outside of one or two private collections, the specimens can be counted on one's fingers. The colors of these choicest blankets are red, white, and blue, or, rarely, just red and white. In a very few specimens there is also a little black. Red is very much the prevailing color, and takes up sometimes four-fifths of the blanket, the other colors merely drawing the pattern on a red ground.

This red material is from a fine Turkish woolen cloth, called balleta. It used to be imported to Mexico, whence the Navajos procured it at first. Later, it was sold at some of the trading-posts in this territory. The fixed price of it was six dollars a pound. The Navajos used to ravel this cloth and use the thread for their finest blankets; and it made such blankets as never have been produced elsewhere. Their durability is wonderful. They never fade, no matter how frequently washed-an operation in which amole, the saponaceous root of the palmilla, should be substituted for soap. As for wear, I have seen balleta blankets which have been used for rugs on the floor of populous Mexican houses for fifty years, which still retain their brilliant color, and show serious wear only at their broken edges. And they will hold water as well as canvas will.

These finest blankets are seldom used or shown except upon festal occasions, such as councils, dances, and races. They are then brought forth with all the silver and beaded buckskin, and in a large crowd of Indians make a truly startling display. Some wear them the middle girt around the waist by a belt of heavy silver disks, the lower end falling below the knees, the upper end thrown loosely over the shoulders. Others have them thrown across the saddle, and others tie them in an ostentatious roll behind.

The Navajos and Pueblos also weave remarkably fine and beautiful belts and garters, from two to eight inches wide and two to nine feet long; and durable and pretty dresses for their women.

The loom for weaving one of the handsome belts worn by Pueblo women is quite as simple as that of the Navajos for weaving blankets. One end of the warp is fastened to a stake driven into the ground in front of the weaver, the other to a rod held in place by a strap around her waist; so to tighten the warp she has only to sit back a little. The device for separating the alternate threads of the warp so that the shuttle can be pushed through looks like a small rolling-pin; and in the weaver's right hand is the oak batten-stick for ramming the threads of the woof tightly together. The weaver sits flat upon the ground; generally upon a blanket to keep her manta clean, for the dress of a Pueblo woman is neat, handsome, and expensive. These belts are always two-ply, that is, the pattern on one side is different from that on the other.

It may also be news to you to learn that both Navajos and Pueblos are admirable silversmiths, and make all their own jewelry. Their silver rings, bracelets, earrings, buttons, belts, dress pins, and bridle ornaments are very well fashioned with a few rude tools. The Navajo smith works on a flat stone under a tree; but the Pueblo artificer has generally a bench and a little forge in a room of his house.

NORA

BY ELIZABETH WEST PARKER

When I came back from Nora's burial

I found the three days' work to do;

The kitchen sink piled high with sticky dishes,
The beds unmade, the pantry bare;

Soiled rugs to sweep, soiled floors to scrub;

Besides, the countless, little, nameless things

The true housekeeper's feet run after all day long
And never overtake,-

The tiny trivial tasks that show only when they
Are left undone;

Yet their accomplishment makes all the difference
Between the comfort and the rub

Of daily living.

Yes, she, the one I loved the best of all,

Who ever turned toward me the brighter side of things,

Who shared with me her beauty and her song,

Was gone;

Gone on to higher life; and there was left for me.

Only the same old toil and fret,—

The dirt that I must fight each hour,

Knowing full well that it would conquer me,

That surely they would lay me down in it at last,—

To rub, and scrub, and scour, and clean,

To bake, and brew, and mend

For those who did not care for me at all.

And she was gone, gone, gone!

Yet I took up the broom and pail with strength

I never felt before.

Lord! How she hated drudgery!

She would not ever talk of it.

How she laughed at those who spent a good time
In telling how much work they'd done that day!
Yet she was tied to drudgery herself

As most of us must always be, it seems.
"It is to do," she said, and kept her thought
Upon the book, the music, and the bit

Of loveliness her flashing needle wrought so cleverly.
She had so little strength; but with it all she loved
The bird, the flower, the sky, the child-so hard
That all who neared her caught her joy in life.

No pain could spoil her smile;

When it was winter out-of-doors, she made you think of spring.