the people but a Girl and her little brother; and these two were living
in fear in an out-of-the-way place. The Boy was a perfect little pigmy,
and never grew beyond the size of a mere infant; but the Girl increased
with her years, so that the task of providing food and shelter fell
wholly upon her. She went out daily to get wood for the lodge-fire,
and she took her little brother with her that no mishap might befall
them, for he was too little to leave alone. A big bird of a mischievous
disposition might have flown away with him. She made him a bow and
arrows, and one day she said to him: “My little brother, I will leave you
behind where I have been gathering the wood; you must hide yourself, and
you will soon see the snowbirds come and peck the worms out of the logs
which I have piled up. Shoot one of them and bring it home.”
He obeyed her, and tried his best to kill one, but he came home
unsuccessful. His sister told him that he must not despair, but try again
the next day.
She accordingly left him at the gathering place of the wood, and returned
to the lodge. Toward nightfall she heard his little footsteps crackling
through the snow, and he hurried in and threw down, with an air of
triumph, one of the birds which he had killed. “My sister,” said he, “I
wish you to skin it, and stretch the skin, and when I have killed more I
will have a coat made out of them.”
“But what shall we do with the body?” said she; for they had always up to
that time lived upon greens and berries.
“Cut it in two,” he answered, “and season our stew with one half of it at
a time.”
It was their first dish of game, and they greatly relished it.
The Boy kept on in his efforts, and in the course of time he killed ten
birds, out of the skins of which his sister made him a pretty little
coat. As he was small, there was one bird skin to spare.
“Sister,” said he, one day, as he marched up and down before the lodge,
dressed in his new coat and fancying himself the Greatest Little Fellow
in the World—as he was, for there was no other beside him—“My sister, are
we really alone in the world, or are we making believe? Is there nobody
else living? And tell me, was all this great broad earth and this huge
big sky made for a little boy and girl like you and me?”
“By no means,” she said. And then she explained to him that there were
many folks very unlike a harmless girl and boy, such as they were, who
lived in another part of the earth, and that if he would live blameless
and not endanger his life, he must never go where they were. This only
served to inflame the Boy’s curiosity, and he soon took his bow and
arrows and went in that direction. After walking a long while and meeting
no one, he became tired and stretched himself upon a high, green knoll,
where the day’s warmth had melted off the snow.
It was a charming place to lie upon, and he fell asleep. While he slept
the Sun beat so hot upon him that it singed his bird-skin coat and so
shrivelled and shrunk it upon his body as to wake him up.
When he saw the mischief the Sun’s fiery beams had played with the coat
he was so proud of, he flew into a great rage and scolded the Sun in a
terrible way for a little boy no higher than a man’s knee. “Do not think
you are too high for me to get you,” said he; “I shall revenge myself, oh
Sun. I will have you for a plaything yet.”
When he reached home he told his sister how unfortunate he had been, and
bitterly bewailed the spoiling of his new coat. He would not eat, not so
much as a single berry. He lay down, like one who fasts, without changing
his position for ten days, nor could his sister persuade him to get up.
At the end of ten days he turned over on the other side and lay in that
position for ten days.
When he got up he was very pale, but very determined. He ordered his
sister to make him a snare, as he meant to catch the Sun. She said she
had nothing, but presently she brought forward a deer’s sinew, which
their father had left, and made it into a string suitable for a noose.
The moment she showed it to her brother he said it would not do, and
angrily bade her find something else. She said she had nothing else,
but presently remembered the bird’s skin that had been left over when
the coat was made, and this she made into a string. With this the Boy
was more vexed than over the other. “The Sun has had enough of my bird
skins,” he said; “find something else.”
She did not dare to say again that she had nothing, so she went out of
the lodge murmuring to herself, “Was there ever so obstinate a boy?”
Luckily she thought of her hair, and pulling out some of it here and
there from among her beautiful black locks, she quickly braided it into a
fine cord and handed it to her brother.
The moment his eye fell on it he was delighted, and immediately began to
run it back and forth through his hands, trying its strength. Satisfied
that the long, glossy coil was strong enough, he wound it around his
shoulders and set out from the lodge a little after midnight, his object
being to catch the Sun before he rose.
Having fixed his snare firmly at a place where the Sun must strike the
land as it rose above the earth, he waited patiently. The instant it
appeared he drew the cord tight, so that the Sun was held fast and could
not rise.
Soon there was a great commotion among the animals who ruled the earth.
They had no light, and ran to and fro, calling out to each other and
asking what had happened. They called together a council to discuss the
matter. An old Dormouse, suspecting what was the trouble, proposed that
some one should be appointed to go out and cut the cord. This was a bold
thing to do, as the rays of the Sun would surely burn whoever ventured
near them. No one seemed willing to run the risk, so the Dormouse himself
undertook to go. The Dormouse was, at this time, the largest animal in
the world. When he stood up he looked like a mountain.
He made haste to the place where the Sun lay ensnared, and as it came
nearer and nearer its back began to smoke and burn with the heat, and the
whole top of its huge body was turned in a very short time to enormous
heaps of ashes. The Dormouse did succeed, however, in cutting the cord
with its teeth, and the Sun blazed up into the high, blue sky, as
beautiful as ever.
The poor Dormouse paid the price of his bravery. So great was the heat of
the Sun, that he found himself, when it was all over, shrunk to a little
bit of a thing, and that is the reason why the Dormouse is one of the
tiniest creatures on the earth.
The Little Boy returned home, when he discovered that the Sun had escaped
his snare and devoted himself entirely to hunting. “If the beautiful hair
of my sister would not hold the Sun fast, nothing in the world could,” he
said. “I was not born, a little fellow like me, to look after the Sun. It
takes some one greater and wiser than I to do that.”
Whereupon he went out and shot ten more snowbirds, for at that he was
very expert, and had a new bird-skin coat made, which was prettier than
the one he had worn before.
THE BIRD LOVER
By Cornelius Mathews
In a region of country where the forest and the prairie strived which
should be the most beautiful—the open plain, with its free sunshine and
winds and flowers, or the closed wood, with its delicious twilight-walks
and enamored haunts—there lived a wicked manito in the disguise of an old
Indian.
Although the country furnished an abundance of game, and whatever else
a good heart could wish for, it was the study of this wicked genius to
destroy such as fell into his hands. He made use of all his arts to decoy
men into his power, for the purpose of killing them. The country had been
once thickly peopled, but the Mudjee Monedo had so thinned it by his
cruel practices, that he now lived almost solitary in the wilderness.
The secret of his success lay in his great speed. He had the power to
assume the shape of any four-footed creature, and it was his custom to
challenge such as he sought to destroy, to run with him. He had a beaten
path on which he ran, leading around a large lake, and he always ran
around this circle so that the starting and the winning post was the same.
Whoever failed, as every one had, yielded up his life at this post;
and although he ran every day, no man was ever known to beat this evil
genius; for whenever he was pressed hard, he changed himself into a fox,
wolf, deer, or other swift-footed animal, and was thus able to leave his
competitor behind.
The whole country was in dread of this same Mudjee Monedo, and yet the
young men were constantly running with him; for if they refused, he
called them cowards, which was a reproach they could not bear. They would
rather die than be called cowards.
To keep up his sport, the manito made light of these deadly foot-matches,
and instead of assuming a braggart air, and going about in a boastful
way, with the blood of such as he had overcome upon his hands, he adopted
very pleasing manners, and visited the lodges around the country as any
other sweet-tempered and harmless old Indian might.
His secret object in these friendly visits was to learn whether the young
boys were getting old enough to run with him; he kept a very sharp eye
upon their growth, and the day he thought them ready, he did not fail to
challenge them to a trial on his racing-ground.
There was not a family in all that beautiful region which had not in this
way been visited and thinned out; and the manito had quite naturally come
to be held in abhorrence by all the Indian mothers in the country.
It happened that there lived near him a poor widow woman, whose husband
and seven sons he had made away with; and she was now living with an only
daughter, and a son of ten or twelve years old.
This widow was very poor and feeble, and she suffered so much for lack
of food and other comforts of the lodge, that she would have been glad
to die, but for her daughter and her little son. The Mudjee Monedo had
already visited her lodge to observe whether the boy was sufficiently
grown to be challenged to the race; and so crafty in his approaches and
so soft in his manners was the Monedo, that the mother feared that he
would yet decoy the son and make away with him as he had done with his
father and his seven brothers, in spite of all her struggles to save him.
And yet she strove with all her might to strengthen her son in every good
course. She taught him, as best she could, what was becoming for the
wise hunter and the brave warrior. She remembered and set before him all
that she could recall of the skill and the craft of his father and his
brothers who were lost.
The widow woman also instructed her daughter in whatever should make her
useful as a wife; and in the leisure time of the lodge, she gave her
lessons in the art of working with the quills of porcupine, and bestowed
on her such other accomplishments as should make her an ornament and a
blessing to her husband’s household. The daughter, Minda by name, was
kind and obedient to her mother, and never failed in her duty. Their
lodge stood high up on the banks of a lake, which gave them a wide
prospect of country, embellished with groves and open fields, which waved
with the blue light of their long grass, and made, at all hours of sun
and moon, a cheerful scene to look upon.
Across this beautiful prairie, Minda had one morning made her way to
gather dry limbs for their fire; for she disdained no labor of the lodge.
And while enjoying the sweetness of the air and the green beauty of the
woods, she strolled far away.
She had come to a bank, painted with flowers of every hue, and was
reclining on its fragrant couch, when a bird, of red and deep-blue
plumage softly blended, alighted on a branch near by, and began to pour
forth its carol. It was a bird of strange character, such as she had
never before seen. Its first note was so delicious to the ear of Minda,
and it so pierced to her young heart, that she listened as she had
never before to any mortal or heavenly sound. It seemed like the human
voice, forbidden to speak, and uttering its language through this wild
wood-chant with a mournful melody, as if it bewailed the lack of the
power or the right to make itself more plainly intelligible.
The voice of the bird rose and fell, and circled round and round, but
whithersoever floated or spread out its notes, they seemed ever to have
their center where Minda sat; and she looked with sad eyes into the sad
eyes of the mournful bird, that sat in his red and deep-blue plumage just
opposite to the flowery bank.
The poor bird strove more and more with his voice, and seemed ever more
and more anxiously to address his notes of lament to Minda’s ears, till
at last she could not refrain from saying: “What aileth thee, sad bird?”
As if he had but waited to be spoken to, the bird left his branch, and
alighting upon the bank, smiled on Minda, and, shaking his shining
plumage, answered:
“I am bound in this condition until a maiden shall accept me in marriage.
I have wandered these groves and sung to many and many of the Indian
girls, but none ever heeded my voice till you. Will you be mine?” he
added, and poured forth a flood of melody which sparkled and spread
itself with its sweet murmurs over all the scene, and fairly entranced
the young Minda, who sat silent, as if she feared to break the charm by
speech.
The bird, approaching nearer, asked her, if she loved him, to get her
mother’s consent to their marriage. “I shall be free then,” said the
bird, “and you shall know me as I am.”
Minda lingered and listened to the sweet voice of the bird in its
own forest notes, or filling each pause with gentle human discourse;
questioning her as to her home, her family, and the little incidents of
her daily life.
She returned to the lodge later than usual, but she was too timid to
speak to her mother of that which the bird had charged her. She returned
again and again to the fragrant haunt in the wood; and every day she
listened to the song and the discourse of her bird admirer with more
pleasure, and he every day besought her to speak to her mother of the
marriage. This she could not, however, muster heart and courage to do.
At last the widow began herself to have a suspicion that her daughter’s
heart was in the wood, from her long delays in returning, and the little
success she had in gathering the fire-branches for which she went in
search.
In answer to her mother’s questions, Minda revealed the truth, and
made known her lover’s request. The mother, considering the lonely and
destitute condition of her little household, gave her consent.
The daughter, with light steps, hastened with the news to the wood. The
bird lover of course heard it with delight, and fluttered through the air
in happy circles, and poured forth a song of joy which thrilled Minda to
the heart.
He said that he would come to the lodge at sunset, and immediately took
wing, while Minda hung fondly upon his flight, till he was lost far away
in the blue sky.
With the twilight the bird lover, whose name was Monedowa, appeared at
the door of the lodge, as a hunter, with a red plume and a mantle of blue
upon his shoulders.
He addressed the widow as his friend, and she directed him to sit down
beside her daughter, and they were regarded as man and wife.
Early on the following morning, he asked for the bow and arrows of those
who had been slain by the wicked manito, and went out a-hunting. As
soon as he had got out of sight of the lodge, he changed himself into
the wood-bird, as he had been before his marriage, and took his flight
through the air.
Although game was scarce in the neighborhood of the widow’s lodge,
Monedowa returned at evening, in his character of a hunter, with two
deer. This was his daily practice, and the widow’s family never more
lacked for food.
It was noticed, however, that Monedowa himself ate but little, and that
of a peculiar kind of meat, flavored with berries, which, with other
circumstances, convinced them that he was not as the Indian people around
him.
In a few days his mother-in-law told him that the manito would come to
pay them a visit, to see how the young man, her son, prospered.
Monedowa answered that he should on that day be absent. When the time
arrived, he flew upon a tall tree, overlooking the lodge, and took his
station there, as the wicked manito passed in.
The Mudjee Monedo cast sharp glances at the scaffolds so well laden with
meat, and as soon as he had entered, he said, “Why, who is it that is
furnishing you with meat so plentifully?”
“No one,” she answered, “but my son; he is just beginning to kill deer.”
“No, no,” he retorted; “some one is living with you.”
“Kaween, no indeed,” replied the widow; “you are only making sport of my
hapless condition. Who do you think would come and trouble themselves
about me?”
“Very well,” answered the manito, “I will go; but on such a day I will
again visit you, and see who it is that furnishes the meat, and whether
it is your son or not.”
He had no sooner left the lodge and got out of sight, than the son-in-law
made his appearance with two more deer. On being made acquainted with
the conduct of the manito, “Very well,” he said, “I will be at home the
next time, to see him.”
Both the mother and the wife urged Monedowa to be aware of the manito.
They made known to him all of his cruel courses, and assured him that no
man could escape from his power.
“No matter,” said Monedowa; “if he invites me to the race-ground, I will
not be backward. What follows may teach him, my mother, to show pity on
the vanquished, and not to trample on the widow and those who are without
fathers.”
When the day of the visit of the manito arrived, Monedowa told his wife
to prepare certain pieces of meat, which he pointed out to her, together
with two or three buds of the birch-tree, which he requested her to
put in the pot. He directed also that the manito should be hospitably
received, as if he had been just the kind-hearted old Indian he professed
to be. Monedowa then dressed himself as a warrior, embellishing his
visage with tints of red, to show that he was prepared for either war or
peace.
As soon as the Mudjee Monedo arrived, he eyed this strange warrior whom
he had never seen before; but he dissembled, as usual, and, with a gentle
laugh, said to the widow, “Did I not tell you that some one was staying
with you, for I knew your son was too young to hunt.”
The widow excused herself by saying that she did not think it necessary
to tell him, inasmuch as he was a manito, and must have known before he
asked.
The manito was very pleasant with Monedowa, and after much other
discourse, in a gentle-spoken voice, he invited him to the racing-ground,
saying it was a manly amusement, that he would have an excellent chance
to meet there with other warriors, and that he should himself be pleased
to run with him.
Monedowa would have excused himself, saying that he knew nothing of
running.
“Why,” replied the Mudjee Monedo, trembling in every limb as he spoke,
“don’t you see how old I look, while you are young and full of life. We
must at least run a little to amuse others.”
“Be it so, then,” replied Monedowa. “I will oblige you. I will go in the
morning.”
Pleased with his crafty success, the manito would have now taken his
leave, but he was pressed to remain and partake of their hospitality. The
meal was immediately prepared. But one dish was used.
Monedowa partook of it first, to show his guest that he need not fear,
saying at the same time, “It is a feast, and as we seldom meet, we must
eat all that is placed on the dish, as a mark of gratitude to the Great
Spirit for permitting me to kill animals, and for the pleasure of seeing
you, and partaking of it with you.”
They ate and talked, on this and that, until they had nearly dispatched
the meal, when the manito took up the dish and drank off the broth at a
breath. On setting it down he immediately turned his head and commenced
coughing with great violence. The old body in which he had disguised
himself was well nigh shaken in pieces, for he had, as Monedowa expected,
swallowed a grain of the birch-bud, and this, which relished to himself
as being of the bird nature, greatly distressed the old manito, who
partook of the character of an animal or four-footed thing.
He was at last put to such confusion of face by his constant coughing,
that he was enforced to leave, saying, or rather hiccoughing as he left
the lodge, that he should look for the young man at the racing-ground in
the morning.
When the morning came, Monedowa was early astir, oiling his limbs and
enameling his breast and arms with red and blue, resembling the plumage
in which he had first appeared to Minda. Upon his brow he placed a tuft
of feathers of the same shining tints.
By his invitation his wife, Minda, the mother and her young son, attended
Monedowa to the manito’s racing-ground.
The lodge of the manito stood upon a high ground, and near it stretched
out a long row of other lodges, said to be possessed by wicked kindred of
his, who shared in the spoils of his cruelty.
As soon as the young hunter and his party approached, the inmates
appeared at their lodge-doors and cried out:
“We are visited.”
At this cry, the Mudjee Monedo came forth and descended with his
companions to the starting-post on the plain. From this the course could
be seen, winding in a long girdle about the lake; and as they were now
all assembled, the old manito began to speak of the race, belted himself
up and pointed to the post, which was an upright pillar of stone.
“But before we start,” said the manito, “I wish it to be understood
that when men run with me I make a wager, and I expect them to abide by
it—life against life.”
“Very well—be it so,” answered Monedowa. “We shall see whose head is to
be dashed against the stone.”
“We shall,” rejoined the Mudjee Monedo. “I am very old, but I shall try
and make a run.”
“Very well,” again rejoined Monedowa; “I hope we shall both stand to our
bargain.”
“Good!” said the old manito; and he at the same time cast a sly glance at
the young hunter, and rolled his eyes toward where stood the pillar of
stone.
“I am ready,” said Monedowa.
The starting shout was given, and they set off at high speed, the manito
leading, and Monedowa pressing closely after. As he closed upon him, the
old manito began to show his power, and changing himself into a fox he
passed the young hunter with ease, and went leisurely along.
Monedowa now, with a glance upward, took the shape of the strange bird of
red and deep-blue plumage, and with one flight, lighting at some distance
ahead of the manito, resumed his mortal shape.
When the Mudjee Monedo espied his competitor before him, “Whoa! whoa!” he
exclaimed; “this is strange;” and he immediately changed himself into a
wolf, and sped past Monedowa.
As he galloped by, Monedowa heard a noise from his throat, and he knew
that he was still in distress from the birch-bud which he had swallowed
at his mother-in-law’s lodge.
Monedowa again took wing, and, shooting into the air, he descended
suddenly with great swiftness, and took the path far ahead of the old
manito.
As he passed the wolf he whispered in his ear:
“My friend, is this the extent of your speed?”
The manito began to be troubled with bad forebodings, for, on looking
ahead, he saw the young hunter in his own manly form, running along at
leisure. The Mudjee Monedo, seeing the necessity of more speed, now
passed Monedowa in the shape of a deer.
They were now far around the circle of the lake, and fast closing in upon
the starting-post, when Monedowa, putting on his red and blue plumage,
glided along the air and alighted upon the track far in advance.
To overtake him, the old manito assumed the shape of a buffalo; and he
pushed on with such long gallops that he was again the foremost on the
course. The buffalo was the last change he could make, and it was in this
form that he had most frequently conquered.
The young hunter, once more a bird, in the act of passing the manito, saw
his tongue lolling from his mouth with fatigue.
“My friend,” said Monedowa, “is this all your speed?”
The manito made no answer. Monedowa had resumed his character of a
hunter, and was within a run of the winning-post, when the wicked manito
had nearly overtaken him.
“Bakah! bakah! nejee!” he called out to Monedowa; “stop, my friend, I
wish to talk to you.”
Monedowa laughed aloud as he replied:
“I will speak to you at the starting-post. When men run with me I make a
wager, and I expect them to abide by it—life against life.”
One more flight as the blue bird with red wings, and Monedowa was so near
to the goal that he could easily reach it in his mortal shape. Shining
in beauty, his face lighted up like the sky, with tinted arms and bosom
gleaming in the sun, and the parti-colored plume on his brow waving in
the wind, Monedowa, cheered by a joyful shout from his own people, leaped
to the post.
The manito came on with fear in his face.
“My friend,” he said, “spare my life;” and then added, in a low voice, as
if he would not that the others should hear it, “Give me to live.” And he
began to move off as if the request had been granted.
“As you have done to others,” replied Monedowa, “so shall it be done to
you.”