Firelight--what a charm it adds to story-telling. How its moods seem
to keep pace with situations pictured by the oracle, offering shadows
when dread is abroad, and light when a pleasing climax is reached; for
interest undoubtedly tends the blaze, while sympathy contributes or
withholds fuel, according to its dictates.
The lodge was alight when I approached and I could hear the children
singing in a happy mood, but upon entering, the singing ceased and
embarrassed smiles on the young faces greeted me; nor could I coax a
continuation of the song.
Seated beside War Eagle was a very old Indian whose name was Red Robe,
and as soon as I was seated, the host explained that he was an honored
guest; that he was a Sioux and a friend of long standing. Then War
Eagle lighted the pipe, passing it to the distinguished friend, who in
turn passed it to me, after first offering it to the Sun, the father,
and the Earth, the mother of all that is.
In a lodge of the Blackfeet the pipe must never be passed across the
doorway. To do so would insult the host and bring bad luck to all who
assembled. Therefore if there be a large number of guests ranged about
the lodge, the pipe is passed first to the left from guest to guest
until it reaches the door, when it goes back, unsmoked, to the host, to
be refilled ere it is passed to those on his right hand.
Briefly War Eagle explained my presence to Red Robe and said:
"Once the Moon made the Sun a pair of leggings. Such beautiful work
had never been seen before. They were worked with the colored quills
of the Porcupine and were covered with strange signs, which none but
the Sun and the Moon could read. No man ever saw such leggings as they
were, and it took the Moon many snows to make them. Yes, they were
wonderful leggings and the Sun always wore them on fine days, for they
were bright to look upon.
"Every night when the Sun went to sleep in his lodge away in the west,
he used the leggings for a pillow, because there was a thief in the
world, even then. That thief and rascal was OLD-man, and of course the
Sun knew all about him. That is why he always put his fine leggings
under his head when he slept. When he worked he almost always wore
them, as I have told you, so that there was no danger of losing them in
the daytime; but the Sun was careful of his leggings when night came
and he slept.
"You wouldn't think that a person would be so foolish as to steal from
the Sun, but one night OLD-man--who is the only person who ever knew
just where the Sun's lodge was--crept near enough to look in, and saw
the leggings under the Sun's head.
"We have all travelled a great deal but no man ever found the Sun's
lodge. No man knows in what country it is. Of course we know it is
located somewhere west of here, for we see him going that way every
afternoon, but OLD-man knew everything--except that he could not fool
the Sun.
"Yes--OLD-man looked into the lodge of the Sun and saw the leggings
there--saw the Sun, too, and the Sun was asleep. He made up his mind
that he would steal the leggings so he crept through the door of the
lodge. There was no one at home but the Sun, for the Moon has work to
do at night just as the children, the Stars, do, so he thought he could
slip the leggings from under the sleeper's head and get away.
"He got down on his hands and knees to walk like the Bear-people and
crept into the lodge, but in the black darkness he put his knee upon a
dry stick near the Sun's bed. The stick snapped under his weight with
so great a noise that the Sun turned over and snorted, scaring OLD-man
so badly that he couldn't move for a minute. His heart was not
strong--wickedness makes every heart weaker--and after making sure that
the Sun had not seen him, he crept silently out of the lodge and ran
away.
"On the top of a hill OLD-man stopped to look and listen, but all was
still; so he sat down and thought.
"'I'll get them to-morrow night when he sleeps again'; he said to
himself. 'I need those leggings myself, and I'm going to get them,
because they will make me handsome as the Sun.'
"He watched the Moon come home to camp and saw the Sun go to work, but
he did not go very far away because he wanted to be near the lodge when
night came again.
"It was not long to wait, for all the OLD-man had to do was to make
mischief, and only those who have work to do measure time. He was
close to the lodge when the Moon came out, and there he waited until
the Sun went inside. From the bushes OLD-man saw the Sun take off his
leggings and his eyes glittered with greed as he saw their owner fold
them and put them under his head as he had always done. Then he waited
a while before creeping closer. Little by little the old rascal
crawled toward the lodge, till finally his head was inside the door.
Then he waited a long, long time, even after the Sun was snoring.
"The strange noises of the night bothered him, for he knew he was doing
wrong, and when a Loon cried on a lake near by, he shivered as with
cold, but finally crept to the sleeper's side. Cautiously his fingers
felt about the precious leggings until he knew just how they could best
be removed without waking the Sun. His breath was short and his heart
was beating as a war-drum beats, in the black dark of the lodge.
Sweat--cold sweat, that great fear always brings to the
weak-hearted--was dripping from his body, and once he thought that he
would wait for another night, but greed whispered again, and listening
to its voice, he stole the leggings from under the Sun's head.
"Carefully he crept out of the lodge, looking over his shoulder as he
went through the door. Then he ran away as fast as he could go. Over
hills and valleys, across rivers and creeks, toward the east. He
wasted much breath laughing at his smartness as he ran, and soon he
grew tired.
"'Ho!' he said to himself, 'I am far enough now and I shall sleep.
It's easy to steal from the Sun--just as easy as stealing from the Bear
or the Beaver.'
"He folded the leggings and put them under his head as the Sun had
done, and went to sleep. He had a dream and it waked him with a start.
Bad deeds bring bad dreams to us all. OLD-man sat up and there was the
Sun looking right in his face and laughing. He was frightened and ran
away, leaving the leggings behind him.
"Laughingly the Sun put on the leggings and went on toward the west,
for he is always busy. He thought he would see OLD-man no more, but it
takes more than one lesson to teach a fool to be wise, and OLD-man hid
in the timber until the Sun had travelled out of sight. Then he ran
westward and hid himself near the Sun's lodge again, intending to wait
for the night and steal the leggings a second time.
"He was much afraid this time, but as soon as the Sun was asleep he
crept to the lodge and peeked inside. Here he stopped and looked
about, for he was afraid the Sun would hear his heart beating. Finally
he started toward the Sun's bed and just then a great white Owl flew
from off the lodge poles, and this scared him more, for that is very
bad luck and he knew it; but he kept on creeping until he could almost
touch the Sun.
"All about the lodge were beautiful linings, tanned and painted by the
Moon, and the queer signs on them made the old coward tremble. He
heard a night-bird call outside and he thought it would surely wake the
Sun; so he hastened to the bed and with cunning fingers stole the
leggings, as he had done the night before, without waking the great
sleeper. Then he crept out of the lodge, talking bravely to himself as
cowards do when they are afraid.
"'Now,' he said to himself, 'I shall run faster and farther than
before. I shall not stop running while the night lasts, and I shall
stay in the mountains all the time when the Sun is at work in the
daytime!'
"Away he went--running as the Buffalo runs--straight ahead, looking at
nothing, hearing nothing, stopping at nothing. When day began to break
OLD-man was far from the Sun's lodge and he hid himself in a deep gulch
among some bushes that grew there. He listened a long time before he
dared to go to sleep, but finally he did. He was tired from his great
run and slept soundly and for a long time, but when he opened his
eyes--there was the Sun looking straight at him, and this time he was
scowling. OLD-man started to run away but the Sun grabbed him and
threw him down upon his back. My! but the Sun was angry, and he said:
"'OLD-man, you are a clever thief but a mighty fool as well, for you
steal from me and expect to hide away. Twice you have stolen the
leggings my wife made for me, and twice I have found you easily. Don't
you know that the whole world is my lodge and that you can never get
outside of it, if you run your foolish legs off? Don't you know that I
light all of my lodge every day and search it carefully? Don't you
know that nothing can hide from me and live? I shall not harm you this
time, but I warn you now, that if you ever steal from me again, I will
hurt you badly. Now go, and don't let me catch you stealing again!'
"Away went OLD-man, and on toward the west went the busy Sun. That is
all.
"Now go to bed; for I would talk of other things with my friend, who
knows of war as I do. Ho!"