questioned him as to the extent of his injuries, "an accident has
befallen me, but let not this prevent your going to a warmer climate.
Winter is rapidly approaching, and you can not remain here. It is better
that I alone should die, than for you all to suffer on my account."
"No, no," they replied, with one voice. "We will not forsake you. We
will share your sufferings; we will abandon our journey, and take care
of you as you did of us before we were able to take care of ourselves.
If the chill climate kills you, it shall kill us. Do you think we can so
soon forget your brotherly care, which has equaled a father's, and even
a mother's kindness? Whether you live or die, we will live or die with
you."
They sought out a hollow tree to winter in, and contrived to carry their
wounded nest-mate thither; and before the rigor of the season had set
in, they had, by diligence and economy, stored up food enough to carry
them through the winter months.
To make the provisions they had laid in last the better, it was agreed
among them that two of their number should go south; leaving the other
three to watch over, feed, and protect their wounded brother. The
travelers set forth, sorry to leave home, but resolved that the first
promise of spring should bring them back again. At the close of day, the
three brothers who remained, mounting to the very peak of the tree, and
bearing Gray Eagle in their arms, watched them, as they vanished away
southward, till their forms blended with the air and were wholly lost to
sight.
Their next business was to set the household in order, and this, with
the judicious direction of Gray Eagle, who was propped up in a snug
fork, with soft cushions of dry moss, they speedily accomplished. One of
the sisters, for there were two of these, took upon herself the charge
of nursing Gray Eagle, preparing his food, bringing him water, and
changing his pillows when he grew tired of one position. She also looked
to it that the house itself was kept in a tidy condition, and that the
pantry was supplied with food. The second brother was assigned the duty
of physician, and he was to prescribe such herbs and other medicines as
the state of the health of Gray Eagle seemed to require. As the second
brother had no other invalid on his visiting-list, he devoted the time
not given to the cure of his patient, to the killing of game wherewith
to stock the house-keeper's larder; so that, whatever he did, he was
always busy in the line of professional duty--killing or curing. On his
hunting excursions, Doctor Falcon carried with him his youngest brother,
who, being a foolish young fellow, and inexperienced in the ways of the
world, it was not thought safe to trust alone.
In due time, what with good nursing, and good feeding, and good air,
Gray Eagle recovered from his wound, and he repaid the kindness of his
brothers by giving them such advice and instruction in the art of
hunting as his age and experience qualified him to impart. As spring
advanced, they began to look about for the means of replenishing their
store-house, whose supplies were running low; and they were all quite
successful in their quest except the youngest, whose name was Peepi, or
the Pigeon-Hawk, and who had of late begun to set up for himself. Being
small and foolish, and feather-headed, flying hither and yonder without
any set purpose, it so happened that Peepi always came home, so to
phrase it, with an empty game-bag, and his pinions terribly rumpled.
At last Gray Eagle spoke to him, and demanded the cause of his ill-luck.
"It is not my smallness nor weakness of body," Peepi answered, "that
prevents my bringing home provender as well as my brothers. I am all the
time on the wing, hither and thither. I kill ducks and other birds every
time I go out; but just as I get to the woods, on my way home, I am met
by a large ko-ko-ho, who robs me of my prey; and," added Peepi, with
great energy, "it's my settled opinion that the villain lies in wait for
the very purpose of doing so."
"I have no doubt you are right, Brother Peepi," rejoined Gray Eagle. "I
know this pirate--his name is White Owl; and now that I feel my strength
fully recovered, I will go out with you to-morrow and help you look
after this greedy bush-ranger."
The next day they went forth in company, and arrived at a fine
fresh-water lake. Gray Eagle seated himself hard by, while Peepi started
out, and soon pounced upon a duck.
"Well done!" thought his brother, who saw his success; but just as
little Peepi was getting to land with his prize, up sailed a large white
owl from a tree where he, too, had been watching, and laid claim to it.
He was on the point of wresting it from Peepi, when Gray Eagle, calling
out to the intruder to desist, rushed up, and, fixing his talons in both
sides of the owl, without further introduction or ceremony, flew away
with him.
The little Pigeon-Hawk followed closely, with the duck under his wing,
rejoiced and happy to think that he had something to carry home at last.
He was naturally much vexed with the owl, and had no sooner delivered
over the duck to his sister, the housekeeper, than he flew in the owl's
face, and, venting an abundance of reproachful terms, would, in his
passion, have torn the very eyes out of the White Owl's head.
"Softly, Peepi," said the Gray Eagle, stepping in between them. "Don't
be in such a huff, my little brother, nor exhibit so revengeful a
temper. Do you not know that we are to forgive our enemies? White Owl,
you may go; but let this be a lesson to you, not to play the tyrant over
those who may chance to be weaker than yourself."
So, after adding to this much more good advice, and telling him what
kind of herbs would cure his wounds, Gray Eagle dismissed White Owl, and
the four brothers and sisters sat down to supper.
The next day, betimes, in the morning, before the household had fairly
rubbed the cobwebs out of the corners of their eyes, there came a knock
at the front door--which was a dry branch that lay down before the
hollow of the tree in which they lodged--and being called to come in,
who should make their appearance but the two nest-mates, who had just
returned from the South, where they had been wintering. There was great
rejoicing over their return, and now that they were all happily
re-united, each one soon chose a mate and began to keep house in the
woods for himself.
Spring had now revisited the North. The cold winds had all blown
themselves away, the ice had melted, the streams were open, and smiled
as they looked at the blue sky once more; and the forests, far and wide,
in their green mantle, echoed every cheerful sound.
But it is in vain that spring returns, and that the heart of Nature is
opened in bounty, if we are not thankful to the Master of Life, who has
preserved us through the winter. Nor does that man answer the end for
which he was made who does not show a kind and charitable feeling to all
who are in want or sickness, especially to his blood relations.
The love and harmony of Gray Eagle and his brothers continued. They
never forgot each other. Every week, on the fourth afternoon of the week
(for that was the time when they had found their wounded elder brother),
they had a meeting in the hollow of the old sycamore-tree, when they
talked over family matters, and advised with each other, as brothers
should, about their affairs.
VIII.
THE TOAD-WOMAN.
Great good luck once happened to a young woman who was living all alone
in the woods with nobody near her but her little dog; for, to her
surprise, she found fresh meat every morning at her door. She was very
curious to know who it was that supplied her, and watching one morning,
just as the sun had risen, she saw a handsome young man gliding away
into the forest. Having seen her, he became her husband, and she had a
son by him.
One day, not long after this, he did not return at evening, as usual,
from hunting. She waited till late at night, but he came no more.
The next day, she swung her child to sleep in its cradle, and then said
to her dog, "Take care of your brother while I am gone, and when he
cries, halloo for me."
The cradle was made of the finest wampum, and all its bandages and
ornaments were of the same precious stuff.
After a short time, the woman heard the cry of the dog, and running home
as fast as she could, she found her child gone, and the dog too. On
looking around, she saw scattered upon the ground pieces of the wampum
of her child's cradle, and she knew that the dog had been faithful, and
had striven his best to save her child from being carried off, as he had
been, by an old woman, from a distant country, called Mukakee Mindemoea,
or the Toad-Woman.
The mother hurried off at full speed in pursuit, and as she flew along,
she came, from time to time, to lodges inhabited by old women, who told
her at what time the child-thief had passed; they also gave her shoes
that she might follow on. There was a number of these old women who
seemed as if they were prophetesses, and knew what was to come long
beforehand. Each of them would say to her that when she had arrived at
the next lodge, she must set the toes of the moccasins they had given
her pointing homeward, and that they would return of themselves. The
young woman was very careful to send back in this manner all the shoes
she borrowed.
She thus followed in the pursuit, from valley to valley, and stream to
stream, for many months and years; when she came at length to the lodge
of the last of the friendly old grandmothers, as they were called, who
gave her the last instructions how to proceed. She told her that she
was near the place where her son was to be found; and she directed her
to build a lodge of cedar-boughs, hard by the old Toad-Woman's lodge,
and to make a little bark dish, and to fill it with the juice of the
wild grape.
"Then," she said, "your first child (meaning the dog) will come and find
you out."
These directions the young woman followed just as they had been given to
her, and in a short time she heard her son, now grown up, going out to
hunt, with his dog, calling out to him, "Peewaubik--Spirit-Iron--Twee!
Twee!"
The dog soon came into the lodge, and she set before him the dish of
grape-juice.
"See, my child," she said, addressing him, "the pretty drink your mother
gives you."
Spirit-Iron took a long draught, and immediately left the lodge with his
eyes wide open; for it was the drink which teaches one to see the truth
of things as they are. He rose up when he got into the open air, stood
upon his hind legs, and looked about. "I see how it is," he said; and
marching off, erect like a man, he sought out his young master.
Approaching him in great confidence, he bent down and whispered in his
ear (having first looked cautiously around to see that no one was
listening), "This old woman here in the lodge is no mother of yours. I
have found your real mother, and she is worth looking at. When we come
back from our day's sport, I'll prove it to you."
They went out into the woods, and at the close of the afternoon they
brought back a great spoil of meat of all kinds. The young man, as soon
as he had laid aside his weapons, said to the old Toad-Woman, "Send some
of the best of this meat to the stranger who has arrived lately."
The Toad-Woman answered, "No! Why should I send to her, the poor widow!"
The young man would not be refused; and at last the old Toad-Woman
consented to take something and throw it down at the door. She called
out, "My son gives you this." But, being bewitched by Mukakee Mindemoea,
it was so bitter and distasteful, that the young woman immediately cast
it out of the lodge after her.
In the evening the young man paid the stranger a visit at her lodge of
cedar-boughs. She then told him that she was his real mother, and that
he had been stolen away from her by the old Toad-Woman, who was a
child-thief and a witch. As the young man appeared to doubt, she added,
"Feign yourself sick when you go home to her lodge; and when the
Toad-Woman asks what ails you, say that you wish to see your cradle; for
your cradle was of wampum, and your faithful brother the dog, in
striving to save you, tore off these pieces which I show you."
They were real wampum, white and blue, shining and beautiful; and the
young man, placing them in his bosom, set off; but as he did not seem
quite steady in his belief of the strange woman's story, the dog
Spirit-Iron, taking his arm, kept close by his side, and gave him many
words of encouragement as they went along. They entered the lodge
together; and the old Toad-Woman saw, from something in the dog's eye,
that trouble was coming.
"Mother," said the young man, placing his hand to his head, and leaning
heavily upon Spirit-Iron, as if a sudden faintness had come upon him,
"why am I so different in looks from the rest of your children?"
"Oh," she answered, "it was a very bright, clear blue sky when you were
born; that is the reason."
He seemed to be so very ill that the Toad-Woman at length asked what she
could do for him. He said nothing could do him good but the sight of his
cradle. She ran immediately and brought a cedar cradle; but he said:
"That is not my cradle."
She went and got another of her own children's cradles, of which there
were four; but he turned his head, and said:
"That is not mine; I am as sick as ever."
When she had shown the four, and they had been all rejected, she at last
produced the real cradle. The young man saw that it was of the same
stuff as the wampum which he had in his bosom. He could even see the
marks of the teeth of Spirit-Iron left upon the edges, where he had
taken hold, striving to hold it back. He had no doubt, now, which was
his mother.
To get free of the old Toad-Woman, it was necessary that the young man
should kill a fat bear; and, being directed by Spirit-Iron, who was very
wise in such a matter, he secured the fattest in all that country; and
having stripped a tall pine of all its bark and branches, he perched the
carcass in the top, with its head to the east and its tail due west.
Returning to the lodge, he informed the old Toad-Woman that the fat bear
was ready for her, but that she would have to go very far, even to the
end of the earth, to get it. She answered:
"It is not so far but that I can get it;" for of all things in the
world, a fat bear was the delight of the old Toad-Woman.
She at once set forth; and she was no sooner out of sight than the young
man and his dog, Spirit-Iron, blowing a strong breath in the face of the
Toad-Woman's four children (who were all bad spirits, or bear-fiends),
they put out their life. They then set them up by the side of the door,
having first thrust a piece of the white fat in each of their mouths.
The Toad-Woman spent a long time in finding the bear which she had been
sent after, and she made at least five and twenty attempts before she
was able to climb to the carcass. She slipped down three times where she
went up once. When she returned with the great bear on her back, as she
drew near her lodge she was astonished to see the four children standing
up by the door-posts with the fat in their mouths. She was angry with
them, and called out:
"Why do you thus insult the pomatum of your brother?"
She was still more angry when they made no answer to her complaint; but
when she found that they were stark dead, and placed in this way to mock
her, her fury was very great indeed. She ran after the tracks of the
young man and his mother as fast as she could; so fast, indeed, that she
was on the very point of overtaking them, when the dog, Spirit-Iron,
coming close up to his master, whispered to him--"Snakeberry!"
"Let the snakeberry spring up to detain her!" cried out the young man;
and immediately the berries spread like scarlet all over the path, for a
long distance; and the old Toad-Woman, who was almost as fond of these
berries as she was of fat bears, could not avoid stooping down to pick
and eat.
The old Toad-Woman was very anxious to get forward, but the
snakeberry-vines kept spreading out on every side; and they still grow
and grow, and spread and spread; and to this day the wicked old
Toad-Woman is busy picking the berries, and she will never be able to
get beyond to the other side, to disturb the happiness of the young
hunter and his mother, who still live, with their faithful dog, in the
shadow of the beautiful wood-side where they were born.
IX.
THE ORIGIN OF THE ROBIN.
An old man had an only son, named Iadilla, who had come to that age
which is thought to be most proper to make the long and final fast which
is to secure through life a guardian genius or spirit. The father was
ambitious that his son should surpass all others in whatever was deemed
wisest and greatest among his people. To accomplish his wish, he thought
it necessary that the young Iadilla should fast a much longer time than
any of those renowned for their power or wisdom, whose fame he coveted.
He therefore directed his son to prepare with great ceremony for the
important event. After he had been several times in the sweating-lodge
and bath, which were to prepare and purify him for communion with his
good spirit, he ordered him to lie down upon a clean mat in a little
lodge expressly provided for him. He enjoined upon him at the same time
to endure his fast like a man, and promised that at the expiration of
twelve days he should receive food and the blessing of his father.
The lad carefully observed the command, and lay with his face covered,
calmly awaiting the approach of the spirit which was to decide his good
or evil fortune for all the days of his life.
Every morning his father came to the door of the little lodge and
encouraged him to persevere, dwelling at length on the vast honor and
renown that must ever attend him, should he accomplish the full term of
trial allotted to him.
To these glowing words of promise and glory the boy never replied, but
he lay without the least sign of discontent or murmuring until the ninth
day, when he addressed his father as follows:
"My father, my dreams forbode evil. May I break my fast now, and at a
more favorable time make a new fast?"
The father answered:
"My son, you know not what you ask. If you get up now, all your glory
will depart. Wait patiently a little longer. You have but three days
more, and your term will be completed. You know it is for your own good,
and I encourage you to persevere. Shall not your aged father live to see
you a star among the chieftains and the beloved of battle?"
The son assented; and covering himself more closely, that he might shut
out the light which prompted him to complain, he lay till the eleventh
day, when he repeated his request.
The father addressed Iadilla as he had the day before, and promised that
he would himself prepare his first meal, and bring it to him by the dawn
of the morning.
The son moaned, and the father added:
"Will you bring shame upon your father when his sun is falling in the
west?"
"I will not shame you, my father," replied Iadilla; and he lay so still
and motionless that you could only know that he was living by the gentle
heaving of his breast.
At the spring of day, the next morning, the father, delighted at having
gained his end, prepared a repast for his son, and hastened to set it
before him. On coming to the door of the little lodge, he was surprised
to hear his son talking to himself. He stooped his ear to listen, and,
looking through a small opening, he was yet more astonished when he
beheld his son painted with vermilion over all his breast, and in the
act of finishing his work by laying on the paint as far back on his
shoulders as he could reach with his hands, saying at the same time, to
himself:
"My father has destroyed my fortune as a man. He would not listen to my
requests. He has urged me beyond my tender strength. He will be the
loser. I shall be forever happy in my new state, for I have been
obedient to my parent. He alone will be the sufferer, for my guardian
spirit is a just one. Though not propitious to me in the manner I
desired, he has shown me pity in another way--he has given me another
shape; and now I must go."
At this moment the old man broke in, exclaiming:
"My son! my son! I pray you leave me not!"
But the young man, with the quickness of a bird, had flown to the top of
the lodge and perched himself on the highest pole, having been changed
into a beautiful robin red-breast. He looked down upon his father with
pity beaming in his eyes, and addressed him as follows:
"Regret not, my father, the change you behold. I shall be happier in my
present state than I could have been as a man. I shall always be the
friend of men, and keep near their dwellings. I shall ever be happy and
contented; and although I could not gratify your wishes as a warrior, it
will be my daily aim to make you amends for it as a harbinger of peace
and joy. I will cheer you by my songs, and strive to inspire in others
the joy and lightsomeness of heart I feel in my present state. This will
be some compensation to you for the loss of glory you expected. I am now
free from the cares and pains of human life. My food is spontaneously
furnished by the mountains and fields, and my pathway of life is in the
bright air."
Then stretching himself on his toes, as if delighted with the gift of
wings, Iadilla caroled one of his sweetest songs, and flew away into a
neighboring wood.
X.
WHITE FEATHER AND THE SIX GIANTS.
There was an old man living in the depth of a forest, with his grandson,
whom he had taken in charge when quite an infant. The child had no
parents, brothers, or sisters; they had all been destroyed by six large
giants, and he had been informed that he had no other relative living
beside his grandfather. The band to whom he had belonged had put up
their children on a wager in a race against those of the giants, and had
thus lost them. There was an old tradition in the tribe, that, one day,
it would produce a great man, who would wear a white feather, and who
would astonish every one by his feats of skill and bravery.
The grandfather, as soon as the child could play about, gave him a bow
and arrows to amuse himself with. He went into the edge of the woods one
day, and saw a rabbit; but not knowing what it was, he ran home and
described it to his grandfather. He told him what it was, that its flesh
was good to eat, and that if he would shoot one of his arrows into its
body he would kill it. The boy went out again and brought home the
little animal, which he asked his grandfather to boil, that they might
feast on it. He humored the boy in this, and he encouraged him to go on
in acquiring the knowledge of hunting, until he could kill deer and the
larger kinds of game; and he became, as he grew up, an expert hunter.
As they lived alone, and away from other Indians, the curiosity of the
stripling was excited to know what was passing in the world. One day he
came to the edge of a prairie, where he saw ashes like those at his
grandfather's lodge, and lodge-poles left standing.
He returned, and inquired whether his grandfather had put up the poles
and made the fire. He was answered, No. Nor did he believe that he had
seen any thing of the kind. He must have lost his senses to be talking
of such things.
Another day the young man went out to see what there was, within a day's
hunt, that was curious; and on entering the woods he heard a voice
calling out to him, "Come here, you destined wearer of the White
Feather. You do not wear it, yet, but you are worthy of it. Return home
and take a short nap. You will dream of hearing a voice, which will tell
you to rise and smoke. You will see in your dream a pipe, a
smoking-sack, and a large white feather. When you awake you will find
these articles. Put the feather on your head, and you will become a
great hunter, a great warrior, and a great man, able to do any thing. As
a proof that these things shall come to pass, when you smoke, the smoke
will turn into pigeons."
The voice then informed the young man who he was, and made known the
character of his grandfather, who was imposing upon him to serve his own
ends.
The voice-spirit then caused a vine to be laid at his side, and told him
that he was now of an age to avenge the wrongs of his kindred. "When you
meet your enemy," the spirit added, "you will run a race with him. He
will not see the vine, because it is enchanted. While you are running,
you will throw it over his head and entangle him, so that you will win
the race."
Long before this speech was ended the young man had turned to the
quarter from which the voice proceeded, and he was astonished to behold
a man; for as yet he had never seen any human being beside his
grandfather.