To which the boy-man replied:
"Go, take hold of it, swallow it as fast as you can; it is a great
delicacy."
The fish darted toward the old shoe and swallowed it, making of it a
mere mouthful.
The boy-man laughed to himself but said nothing, till the fish was
fairly caught; when he took hold of the line and began to pull himself
ashore in his fish-carriage.
The sister, who was watching all this time, opened wide her eyes as the
huge fish came up and up upon the shore; and she opened them still
more when the fish seemed to speak, and she heard from within a voice,
saying, "Make haste and release me from this nasty place."
It was her brother's voice, which she was accustomed to obey; and she
made haste with her knife to open a door in the side of the fish, from
which the boy-man presently leaped forth. He lost no time in ordering
her to cut up the fish and dry it; telling her that their spring supply
of meat was now provided.
The sister now began to believe that her brother was an extraordinary
boy; yet she was not altogether satisfied in her mind that he was
greater than the rest of the world.
They sat one evening in the lodge, musing with each other in the dark,
by the light of each other's eyes, when the sister said:
"My brother, it is strange that you, who can do so much, are no wiser
than the Ko-ko, who gets all his light from the moon; which shines or
not, as it pleases."
"And is not that light enough?" asked the little spirit.
"Quite enough," the sister replied. "If it would but come within the
lodge and not sojourn out in the tree-tops and among the clouds."
"We will have a light of our own, sister," said the boy-man; and,
casting himself upon a mat by the door, he commenced singing:=
```Fire-fly, fire-fly, bright little thing,
```Light me to bed and my song I will sing;
```Give me your light, as you fly o'er my head,
```That I may merrily go to my bed.=
```Give me your light o'er the grass as you creep,
```That I may joyfully go to my sleep;
```Come, little fire-fly, come little beast,
```Come! and I'll make you to-morrow a feast.=
```Come, little candle, that flies as I sing,
```Bright little fairy-bug, night's little king;
```Come and I'll dream, as you guide me along;
```Come and I'll pay you, my bug, with a song.=
As the boy-man chanted this call, the fire-flies came into the lodge,
first one by one, then in couples, till at last, swarming in little
armies, they lighted the lodge with a thousand sparkling lamps, just as
the stars were lighting the mighty hollow of the sky without.
The faces of the sister and brother shone upon each other from their
opposite sides of the lodge with a kindly gleam of mutual trustfulness;
and never more from that hour did a doubt of each other darken their
little household.