LITTLE METACOMET SEES HIMSELF IN A LOOKING-GLASS
Among many wonderful playthings of wood, metal and shell that Little
Metacomet had in his lodge were a bundle of notch-sticks, by which he
numbered the changes of the moon, and rising of the tide. His mother
had shown him how to make these calculations, and she had been taught
by a paniese, or Indian prophet. He came out to the groves one day,
and brought his notch-sticks with him, and he told timid Susan that he
could tell her when the moon was going to change.
"Are you sure?" said she. "I'm powerful uncertain about the planets.
Suppose to-morrow night should be the full moon instead of the new
moon?"
"No, no," said the little prince, "the paniese, he knows."
"How does he know?"
"Because things are always so. The Great Spirit he never changes his
notch-sticks."
Timid Susan raised her hands.
She had a looking-glass. She kept it covered for fear of the dust and
flies, and when the little prince was explaining to her how the Great
Spirit never changed his notch-sticks, a happy thought came to her. She
would show Little Metacomet his own face in the looking-glass.
A tame blue jay came into the door, and lighted upon Little Metacomet's
crown of feathers, and the cat ran toward them with her back up to
drive the audacious bird away.
Just here timid Susan took the curtain from the glass and lowered it,
so that the prince could see his face, and the bird with her pretty
head with its raised crown, and the cat with her humped back and
resentful eyes.
The prince had never seen a looking-glass before. He had seen his
face in the clear water among the lilies, the water glass. But when
he saw himself now with his crown feathers, and the blue jay with her
crown feathers raised, and the resentful cat, he thought that all had
changed into two. He rolled over in surprise, the bird screamed, and
the cat drew back.
The bird flew up to one of the beams under the roof, and expressed her
surprise in a series of shrieks that sounded like the turning of a
rusty crank.
The cat ran down toward the glass, and found what seemed to be another
cat rushing towards her. She drew back and spit, and the other cat
seemed to do the same.
Metacomet leaped up and went toward the other little Indian in the
glass, which seemed to mock him.
"I am two to-day," said he, gazing into the glass. "Where did you get
the water face? I came here to surprise you and you surprised me. I
have a sun glass in the lodge that the English gave to my father. It
draws down the fire from the sun. Don't you think it is all great
conjuring? The notch-sticks they be always the same. Why are the
notch-sticks always the same over and over, why the moon full out and
be sharp again? It was so in the moons ago. Why?"
Susan shook her head.
"It is so because it was always so."
And they knew as much as anybody knew about it--even the hermit.