|The boy came home unsuccessful. Then his sister told him that he must
not despair, but try again the next day.
She accordingly left him again 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 the skins."
"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 pottage with one half of
it at a time."
It was their first dish of game, and they relished it greatly.
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 little coat. Being
very small, he had a very pretty coat, and a bird-skin to spare.
"Sister," said he one day, as he paraded up and down before the lodge,
enjoying his new coat and fancying himself the greatest little fellow
in the world--as he was, for there was no other besides him--"My sister,
are we really alone in the world, or are we playing at it? 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?"
"Ah, no," answered the sister, "there are many others, but not harmless
as you and I are. They live in a certain other quarter of the earth, and
if we would not endanger our lives we must keep away from there. They
have killed off all our kinsfolk and will kill us, too, if we go near
where they are."
To this the boy was silent; but his sister's words only served to
inflame his curiosity the more, and soon after he took his how and
arrows and went in the forbidden direction.
After walking a long time 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, and he soon fell
asleep. While he slept, the sun heat upon him. It not only singed his
bird-skin coat, but so shrivelled and shrunk and tightened it on the
little boy's body as to wake him up. And then when he felt how the sun
had seared the coat he was so proud of, and saw the mischief its fiery
beams had played, he flew into a great passion. He vowed fearful things,
and berated the sun in a terrible way for a little boy no higher than a
man's knee.
"Do not think you are too high," said he; "I shall revenge myself. Oh,
sun! I will have you for a plaything yet."
On coming home he gave an account of his misfortune to his sister, and
bitterly bewailed the spoiling of his new coat. He would not eat--not so
much as a single berry. He lay down as one that fasts; nor did he move
or change his manner of lying for ten full days, though his sister
strove to prevail on him to rise. At the end of ten days he turned over,
and then he lay full ten days on the other side.
When he got up he was very pale, but very resolute too. He bade his
sister make a snare.
"For," said he, "I mean to catch the sun."
"I have nothing strong to make a snare of," objected the sister. But on
his insisting, she brought forward a deer's sinew which their father
had left, and soon made it into a string suitable for a noose. But the
brother was not pleased with it; he told her that it would not do and
directed her to find something else. She said she had nothing--nothing
at all; but at last she thought of the bird-skin that was left over
when the coat was made, and she wrought this into a string. And now the
little boy was more vexed than before.
"The sun has had enough of my bird-skins," he said; "find something
else."
She went out of the lodge, saying to herself, "Was there ever so
obstinate a boy?" She did not dare to answer this time that she had
nothing. Then luckily she thought of her own beautiful hair, and pulling
some of it from among her locks, she quickly braided it into a cord,
and, returning, handed it to her brother. The moment his eye fell upon
the jet black braid he was delighted.
"This will do," he said, and he immediately began to run it back and
forth through his hands as swiftly as he could; and as he drew it forth,
he tried its strength. He said again, "This will do," and winding it in
a glossy coil about his shoulders, he set out a little after midnight.
His object was to catch the sun before it rose. He fixed his snare
firmly on a spot just where the sun must strike the land as it rose
above the earth; and sure enough, he caught the sun, so that it was held
fast in the cord and did not rise.
The animals who ruled the earth were immediately put into great
commotion. They had no light; and they ran to and fro, calling out to
one another and inquiring what had happened. They summoned a council
to debate upon the matter, and an old dormouse, suspecting where the
trouble lay, proposed that some one should be appointed to go and cut
the cord. This was a bold thing to undertake, as the rays of the sun
could not fail to burn whoever should venture so near to them.
At last the venerable dormouse himself undertook it, for the very good
reason that no one else would. But all were glad to accept his offer, so
he hastened to the spot where the sun lay ensnared.
Now at this time the dormouse was the largest animal in the world. When
he stood up he looked like a mountain, and when he walked the earth
trembled. His courage was great in proportion, but as he came nearer and
nearer to the sun his back began to smoke and burn with the heat, and
soon the whole top of his huge bulk was turned to enormous heaps of
ashes. He succeeded, however, in cutting the cord with his teeth, and
the sun, free, as round and beautiful as ever, rolled up again into the
wide blue sky. But the dormouse--or blind woman as it is called--was
shrunk away to a very small size; and that is the reason why it is now
one of the tiniest creatures upon 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
myself, to look after the sun. It requires one greater and wiser than I
to regulate that."
So he went out and shot ten more snow-birds; for in this business he was
very expert; and he had a new bird-skin coat made, which was prettier
than the one he had worn before.
[Illustration: 0022]