Whispering-leaves did her part to perfection; everything she made or produced was of the very best, which made me feel my shortcomings all the more. And she would not let me touch the garden—the only thing I knew anything about. “Garden work is not manly,” she would say. “I will not endure hearing the neighbors talk about my mate doing woman’s work. How would you feel if you saw me going out of the village with a long bow on my shoulder? Or burning out a log for a canoe? Would you not feel shame to see your mate do an unwomanly thing? In our life, the man and woman must do each his or her part and neither is harder than the other. Surely to hunt all day and every day, good weather and bad, is fully as hard as wielding the hoe! How would you like to hear the neighbors say, ‘Whispering-leaves ought to give Flying-wolf the skirt, and she put on his long leggings and breechclout?’”