But it was our inconsequentiality and stupidity that
especially distresses me when I look back upon that
life in the long ago. Once I found a broken gourd which
happened to lie right side up and which had been filled
with the rain. The water was sweet, and I drank it. I
even took the gourd down to the stream and filled it
with more water, some of which I drank and some of
which I poured over Lop-Ear. And then I threw the
gourd away. It never entered my head to fill the gourd
with water and carry it into my cave. Yet often I was
thirsty at night, especially after eating wild onions
and watercress, and no one ever dared leave the caves
at night for a drink.
Another time I found a dry; gourd, inside of which the
seeds rattled. I had fun with it for a while. But it
was a play thing, nothing more. And yet, it was not
long after this that the using of gourds for storing
water became the general practice of the horde. But I
was not the inventor. The honor was due to old
Marrow-Bone, and it is fair to assume that it was the
necessity of his great age that brought about the
innovation.
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