Part 2

THE ROBIN, THE CROW AND THE FOX

A robin had its nest in a tree, and there were six pretty blue eggs in the nest.

After a while the eggs broke open and out came six baby robins.

The father robin, whose name was Kaytak, thought them the most beautiful birds in the world, and brought them fine worms and little bugs, and watched over them very carefully.

One day a red fox came by, and looking up into the tree, saw Kaytak standing by his nest.

“Hey, Robin,” called the fox, “I see you up there.”

“What do you want?” said the robin.

“Give me one of your little birds for breakfast,” said the fox.

“No, indeed,” said the robin. “I will not give you one of my babies.”

“Well,” said Red Fox, “you say ‘no.’ If you don’t drop down one to me this minute, I will take them all.”

“You cannot get them,” said the robin.

“Indeed I can,” said Red Fox. “I have an ax, and with my ax I will cut that tree down and then eat up all your little robins.”

When the robin heard that he was terribly frightened. Then, rather than lose all his babies, he took one of them in his beak and dropped it down to the fox, who grabbed the little bird and ran away. After that Red Fox came back twice and did as before, the poor father robin being afraid to refuse to do what was asked. Trembling with fright and very sad, the poor bird looked about for some one to help him. The only living thing in sight was a crow flying by, and he called to him for help. The crow flew down into the tree and said, “What is it you want?”

Then the robin told him all about the wicked red fox, and how there were only three baby robins left, and that he feared the fox would get them all.

The crow laughed. “Haw, haw! Red Fox thinks he is smart, but he is really foolish. He fooled you, though. He really has no ax, and he could not cut down this tree. When he comes again, you say to him, ‘I will give you no more of my baby birds. You have no ax.’ If he says, ‘Who told you that?’ you say, ‘Crow told me,’” and the crow flew away.

The next day Red Fox came back to the tree and demanded a little bird for his breakfast.

“No, no, Mr. Red Fox,” said the robin. “No little bird any more for you out of my nest.”

“You had better give me one quick,” said the fox, “or I will chop the tree right down and eat them all.” But the robin felt very safe and saucy now, so he sang a little song and said, “No, you won’t chop down this tree, because you haven’t any ax, and you are not as smart as you think you are, only foolish.”

“Who told you all that stuff?” asked the fox angrily. The robin sang another teasing song, then said, “Crow told me all that—about the ax and the ‘foolish’ and everything. So you had better get away, for you get no more of my babies.”

Then the red fox was very angry indeed and went off swearing he would get even with the crow for depriving him of the tender baby robins for breakfast and calling him “foolish.” He vowed he would find that crow and kill him.

Pretty soon the summer had passed, and winter with its short dark days had come.

One cold, stormy morning Red Fox was walking about, wondering how he could catch that crow. After thinking about it for a long time, he said, “I know what I will do!” So he lay down in the snow and played “dead,” for he knew that crows like to pick at dead animals.

After a while the crow came flying about, looking for food. He spied the red fox lying there, and slowly flew down nearby. At first he was afraid the fox was not really dead, but the fox lay very still. Then the crow touched the fox a little with his beak. The fox did not move, and the crow grew bolder.

“He is really dead,” said the crow, “and I will go around and have a look at his eyes.”

He walked around the fox and started to peck his eyes, but when he came near the head, Red Fox opened his big mouth and snapped, and snapped the crow in it, tight as a trap.

Crow thought he would die of fright before the fox got a chance to eat him, he was so scared, but Red Fox started up the mountain with Crow in his mouth.

Then Crow gathered his wits together in spite of his terror, and tried to think of some way he could get out of Red Fox’s mouth. “If I can only make him open his mouth to talk,” thought Crow, “then I can get out.” So he said, “O Fox, I know you are going to eat me, but I pray you tell me one thing before I die. Which way is the wind blowing?”

“West wind,” said the fox, and opened his mouth very wide to say “West.”

Out flew Mr. Crow as fast as he could, much to the surprise of Red Fox.

As he flew away the crow lingered a little over the head of Red Fox. “Haw, haw, Mr. Fox,” laughed he, “haw, haw! I saved myself from your mouth. You cannot fool me. No animal can fool me.” Then he flew off flapping his wings and laughing “Haw, haw!” Red Fox slunk away with his tail dragging on the ground. He was very much ashamed of how the crow had fooled him twice, and he did not like to be beaten, for he and Crow are considered the two smartest animals at trickery and deceit; but no one can beat the crow.

THE PROUD MOUSE

There was once a mouse who thought a great deal of himself and was always longing for a chance to do something which would show how great he was.

One night while he was asleep in a corner of the kasga, under the shelf, he was startled by a strange noise and woke up with a jump. He looked about him, but could see nothing; then he crept very quietly toward the door, and there he saw a great fire burning.

“Now I am going to be burned up,” said the mouse. “What shall I do to save myself?”

The fire was growing bigger and brighter every minute, and in despair he gave up all hope of getting out of the door, for he could never pass through those terrible flames. He sat down and began to think and think what he had better do.

“Well,” he thought, “I will burn up if I stay in here, so I might as well try to get out. If the fire burns me while I am getting out, I can’t help it.”

Then he made a dash through the flames to the door.

He was soon out, but he was much surprised that he did not feel burned at all. He looked himself over very carefully but his fur was not even singed.

“Now I know that I am very great indeed, because fire does not burn me,” said the mouse, and he walked about proudly whisking his little tail and thinking how great he was; then he looked back at the kasga, and saw that there was really no fire at all. What he had taken for fire was just the sunshine at the door. The proud mouse felt very much ashamed and said, “What a poor fool I am! What can I do now to show that I am really great?”

He looked about for a long time. At last he said, “I know what I shall do. I shall jump over that high bank.”

So he started to walk to the bank, and when he got there, he looked up, and it seemed very high indeed.

“If I jump over this bank,” said he, “I shall be great.”

He ran, and then sprang as high as he could into the air, and came down on top of the bank.

“Surely I am great now, since I can jump so high.” When he looked back he saw that the bank was not high at all, only a little heap of sand.

“Shame on me!” groaned the mouse. “Now I must do something this time. I shall swim across that great lake.”

He started for the lake and at last, after walking a long time, he got there.

“That lake is very big,” he thought, for he could see only part way across.

Then the little mouse began to feel proud once more.

“If I swim across that lake, all the animals will call me great.”

He swam, and he swam, and it took him all day to swim over. Before he reached the other side, he was so tired he could only swim very slowly. Looking back, he saw all kinds of fishes on his tail. He shook them off, and at last he reached land.

“Now,” thought he, “I am really great, for I swam across that lake;” and he lay down for a good rest. When he got up he looked proudly back to see the wonderful lake, and there was no lake at all. What he had thought was a big lake was only a man’s footprint full of muddy water, that he had taken all day to cross, and the fishes he had seen on his tail were the little bugs swimming about in the mud-puddle.

“Now, I am surely ashamed of myself!” he cried. But he would not give up trying to be great, though he was beginning to see that he was really not as great as he supposed.

Far on the horizon, he saw something tall and slender.

“I must go cut down that pole that reaches from earth to sky,” said he, and off he started for the pole. When he reached it he walked all around the pole, looking up, but he could not see the top.

“That high pole holds up the sky,” thought he, “and if I cut it, the sky will fall down upon the earth, and everybody will be killed. I will cut that pole because I am ashamed of myself.”

First he dug a hole in the ground, to get into when the pole was cut. When the hole was finished he said, “I will do like this when the sky falls down,” and he ran as fast as he could into the hole. He came out then and started to cut the pole with his sharp little teeth.

He worked very hard, until at last the pole was cut, when he ran into the hole as fast as he could scamper, to listen for the falling of the pole.

Said the mouse to himself, “Now the sky has come down and killed every living thing.”

Pretty soon he began to wonder how it would look with the sky fallen down, and he peeped out of his hole; but everything seemed to be the same as before. He looked up where the sky used to be, and there it still was, all blue and shining. Then he looked down at the pole on the ground, and saw that it was only a tall blade of grass.

“Shame on me, shame on me! Now I am truly ashamed of myself. Because I am so ashamed of myself, I will pack that great mountain across the tundra.” So he journeyed to the mountain, and at last he got there.

First he dug all around with his little claws, then he lifted one grain of sand and packed it over the tundra. Back and forth he went for many weary days, carrying a grain of sand at a time, until he had carried the whole mountain across.

“Now,” said the little mouse, no longer proud, “I know that no one can be great unless he is willing to work hard and patiently.”

So that is the way the mountain got there, far out over the tundra, and the little mouse was rewarded at last for his perseverance.

THE CROW AND THE DAYLIGHT

Long, long ago, when the world was new, there was no daylight in Alaska. It was dark all the time, and the people in Alaska were living in the dark, just doing the best they could. They used to quarrel about whether it was day or night. Half of the people slept while the other half worked; in fact, no one really knew when it was time to go to bed, or if in bed when to get up, because it was dark all of the time.

In one village lived a crow. The people liked this crow because they thought him very wise; in fact he told them so himself; so they let him live in their kasga.

The crow used to talk a lot too, and tell of all the wonderful things he had seen and done, when he had spread his wings and flown away on his long journeys to distant lands.

The people of Alaska had no light but the flame of their seal-oil lamps.

One evening the crow seemed very sad and did not speak at all. The people wondered what was the matter, and felt sad too because they missed their lively crow, so they asked him: “Crow, what makes you so sad?”

“I am sorry for the people of Alaska,” said the crow, “because they have no daylight.”

“What is daylight?” said they. “What is it like? We have never heard of daylight.”

“Well,” said the crow, “if you had daylight in Alaska you could go everywhere and see everything, even animals from far away.”

This seemed very wonderful to them all, and they asked the crow if he would try to get them that “daylight.”

At first the crow refused all their entreaties. “I know where it is,” said he, “but it would be too hard for me to get it here.”

Then they all crowded around and begged him to go to the place where daylight was and bring them some.

Still the crow refused, and said he could not possibly get that light; but they coaxed him nicely, and the chief said, “O Crow, you are so clever and so brave, we know you can do that.”

At last the crow said, “Very well, I will go.”

The next day he started on his journey. Of course it was dark, but it was not stormy, and when he had said goodby to all the people he spread his wings and flew away toward the East, for the sun comes from the East.

He flew on and on in the dark, until his wings ached and he was very tired, but he never stopped.

After many days he began to see a little bit, dimly at first, then more and more, until the sky was flooded with light.

Perching on the branch of a tree to rest, he looked about him to see if he could find where the light came from. At last he saw that it was shining from a big snow house in a village nearby.

Now in that snow house lived the chief of the village, and that chief had a daughter who was very beautiful. This daughter came out of the house every day to fetch water from the ice hole in the river; which is the only way the Eskimos can get fresh water in winter. After she had come out, the crow slipped off his skin and hid it in the entrance of the house; then he covered himself with dust, and said some magic words, which sounded something like this:

“Ya-ka-ty, ta-ka-ty, na-ka-ty-O. Make me little that I won’t show. Only a tiny speck of dust, No one will notice me, I trust.”

Then he hid on a sunbeam in a crack near the door, and waited for the chief’s daughter.

When she had filled her seal-skin water-bag, she came back from the river, and the crow, who looked like nothing but a speck of dust floating on the sunbeam, lighted on her dress and passed with her through the door into the house where the daylight came from.

Inside, the place was very bright and sunny, and there was a dear little dark-eyed baby playing on the floor, on the skin of a polar bear which had recently been killed.

That baby had a lot of little toys, carved out of walrus ivory. There were tiny dogs and foxes, and little walrus heads, and kayaks (Eskimo canoes). He kept putting the toys into an ivory box with a cover, then spilling them out again.

The chief was watching the baby very proudly, but the little one did not seem satisfied with his toys.

When the chief’s daughter came in she stooped to pick the baby from the floor, and a little speck of dust drifted from her dress to the baby’s ear. The dust was the crow, of course.

The baby began to cry and fuss, and the chief said, “What you want?” and the crow whispered into his ear, “Ask for the daylight to play with.”

The baby asked for the daylight, and the chief told his daughter to give the baby a small, round daylight to play with.

The woman unwound the rawhide string from his hunting bag and took out a small wooden chest covered with pictures, which told the story of the brave things the chief had done. From the chest she took a shining ball, and gave it to the child.

The baby liked the shining ball, and played with it a long time; but the crow wanted to get that daylight, so he whispered in the little one’s ear to ask for a string to tie to his ball. They gave him a string, and tied the daylight to it for him; then the chief and his daughter went out, leaving the door open behind them, much to the delight of Crow, who was waiting for just that chance.

When the little boy got near to the door in his play, the crow whispered again in his ear, and told him to creep out into the entrance with his daylight.

The baby did as the crow told him, and as he passed the spot where the crow’s skin was hidden, the speck of dust slipped out of the child’s ear, back into the crow’s skin and the crow was himself again. Seizing the end of the string in his beak, away flew Mr. Crow, leaving the howling baby on the ground.

The child’s cries brought the chief and his daughter and all the people of the village rushing to the spot; and they saw the crow flying away with their precious daylight.

In vain they tried to reach him with their arrows, but he was too quickly out of sight.

When the crow came near the land of Alaska he thought he would try the daylight to see how it worked, so when he passed over the first dark village, he scratched a little bit of the brightness off, and it fell on the village and lighted it up beautifully. Then every village he came to he did the same thing, until at last he reached his home village, where he had started from. Hovering over it, he shattered the daylight into little bits, and scattered them far and wide.

The people greeted him with shouts of delight. They were so happy they danced and sang, and prepared a great feast in his honor. They were so grateful to him they couldn’t thank him enough for bringing that daylight.

The crow told them that if he had taken the big daylight, it would never be dark in Alaska, even in winter, but he said that the big daylight would have been too heavy for him to carry.

The people have always been thankful to the crow since then, and never try to kill him.

THE ORPHAN BOY

Long ago, in a big village on Shismarief Inlet, lived a chief who had one child, a daughter.

The chief’s brother died and left a little boy, without any one to take care of him, so the chief took the boy to live with him.

The boy and girl were cousins, and they had very happy times playing together.

One day they had been out making snowballs, and stopped to shake the snow off their parkas before coming into the house. The Eskimo parka is a sort of middy blouse with a hood attached to it. In winter these parkas are usually made of reindeer skin, with a big ruff of fur around the edge of the hood to protect the face. The best fur to trim the hood is that of the wolverine, for it does not collect moisture from the breath.

The children stamped their feet and brushed the snow from each other with small flat ivory sticks shaped for that purpose. In doing this the boy broke the beautiful string of beads which the girl wore around her neck.

Now these were very precious beads; and the boy was afraid of his uncle, and did not like to tell what he had done, but he bravely took his little cousin by the hand and went into the house trembling with fear. Walking up to the chief he said, “Uncle, I am sorry but I broke the precious beads.”

His uncle was furious. “How did you do it?” he asked, and the boy told him.

“Now,” said the uncle, “I am going to kill you for that. Those beads were my sign of chief. Now you have broken the beads, the people will say I am no longer chief, and will make some one else chief instead of me. You will have to die.”

He took the boy out of the house and led him to the kasga. There were many people in the kasga, but he drove them all out; then he took off the little boy’s clothes, and went away, leaving him all alone to die of cold and hunger. That cruel uncle closed the door, putting heavy pieces of wood against it, so that the little fellow could not push it open, and then went up to the top of the kasga, where he took the skin cover off from the round window hole, to let the cold air in. After that he went away.

When left alone in the cold without any clothes on, the little fellow started to run quickly around and around on the floor to keep warm.

Now in that village lived a man and wife who were very sad because they had no children of their own. These two people loved the little ones very dearly, and were good to all the children in the village; and the children were very fond of them in return for all their kindness.

Long after the chief had gone away from the kasga, and the little boy had run about until he was too tired to run any more, and could no longer keep warm, that kind man who loved little children came on top of the hut, put his head through the window hole, and called, “Hello,” and the little boy answered, “Hello.”

The man said, “You are alive yet?” Then he put his head through the window hole and handed a bundle of things to the boy.

“I have brought you some food and some water in a bag, a little oil and a good warm sleeping-bag. Put the sleeping-bag under the floor, and get into it and keep warm.”

When the kind man had gone away, the boy put the sleeping-bag through the hole which is in the middle of the floor of every kasga, then, after eating some of the food and drinking some of the water, he fell fast asleep inside the nice, warm bag.

Early in the morning the boy crept out of the hole on to the floor, like a little rat without any fur, and began to run around and around again, to keep warm. It was still dark because the sun is lazy, way up there in Alaska, and gets up very late. It was cold, too, icy cold.

With the first rays of daylight came the uncle’s footsteps on top of the kasga; then the surprised and angry face peering down at the boy through the window hole.

Now the chief had come up there expecting to find his nephew frozen stiff, and was not at all pleased to see him skipping about all bare and so lively. It made him more angry than ever, and he called down in a big, fierce voice, “You are alive yet?” as though he could not believe his own eyes.

The boy looked up without a word, and kept on running; then the uncle called him all kinds of names, and said, “You try to keep alive as hard as you can. This is the last day for you. I’ll fix you.” Then he went away.

The boy crept back into his warm bag. When it was getting dark again, he heard some one at the window hole calling, “Hello.”

The boy answered, “Hello.” Then the kind man said, “Listen, your uncle is determined to kill you. He sent for the shaman and told him that he must kill you tonight. I cannot save you this time, for the shaman is more powerful than I. You must try your best to save yourself.” So saying, the kind man went away.

It was night; dark, quiet and cold. The little boy stood shivering and wondering what was going to happen to him. Suddenly he heard a sound, a strange rustling sound. He was terrified, and thought of what the kind man had told him about the shaman, who was very powerful, and knew all kinds of magic.

The strange sound came nearer, and he could see by a light at the door that a big snake was coming near to him. Now, while there is a kind of water serpent in one part of the North, there are no real snakes in Alaska, so the boy had never seen one, and did not know what it was.

The big snake hissed at him and said, “I will eat you up.”

The boy was terribly frightened, but he was a brave little fellow, so he answered, “All right, I am ready.”

All the time he was looking desperately about for a weapon of some sort; but the only thing he saw was the skin of the flipper of a seal. This he pulled quickly onto his own right hand, which it fitted like a glove.

“Come on, Snake, and eat me up,” said he.

The big snake opened his mouth very wide, and quickly the boy thrust his hand with the seal claws on it down the snake’s long throat, and pulled out the snake’s stomach. Such an angry hissing as there was! Then the snake glided away very fast.

Early in the morning, knowing that his uncle would come to see if the shaman had killed him, the boy got out of his bag, and started to run around on the floor to keep warm.

Soon the uncle climbed to the top of the kasga and peered down through the window hole to see if the boy was there. When he saw his nephew running about, he was more angry than ever, and called down in a loud voice, “Try as hard as you can to live, I will kill you.” Then the boy heard the footsteps going away over the snow, and crept back into the sleeping-bag.