Part 12
“But I see the Esquimaux,” answered the north wind, “in their strange skin dresses, living in houses of snow. They fight the fierce walrus on the ice, and spear the fur-covered seal from their little boats that dance on the waves. I watch the Northern Lights, so red and beautiful, shooting up like bright flames in the sky, and the night is almost as light as the day. Then the Esquimaux harnesses his dogs, and the Laplander his reindeer, and they travel swiftly over the frozen plain.”
“Yesterday I blew with all my might until I loosed a field of ice and sent it out to sea. A white bear was on it, and he sailed on his ice-boat across the sea to Iceland. As I passed the steep, high rocks on the shores of Greenland I saw the eider-ducks brooding there. Each one had lined her nest with soft down plucked off of her own breast. Then I frightened them with my hoarse voice, and thousands—yes, hundreds of thousands—rose up in the air like a cloud.”
“But let me ask you,” murmured the south wind, “did you ever hear among your icebergs and your frozen wastes the song of the oriole and the mocking-bird, that I hear every day in the woods where I live? You look at your Esquimaux in their snow houses, but I peep in at the hut of the Indian that stands under the forest shade, or I blow against the sail of his canoe and waft it up some quiet river where the trees grow thick on each side and meet overhead. The red flamingo wades out into the water, and the monkeys and parrots chatter among the branches.
“I see the boa-constrictor coiled among the roots on the shore, or watch the alligator floating down the stream. My home is among the orange trees and in the fields where the sugar-cane grows. There I lie still and sleep, or awake to go forth on my journeys over the earth—not to freeze up the ground and make it barren and bare, but to cover it with green and bring out the buds and flowers on every bush and tree.”
While the winds were talking in this way, the river, that had been listening to them, said:
“Why do you thus boast and provoke one another? Why not speak gently and kindly of the wonderful things you have seen? You would not change homes, would you?”
“No, indeed!” each one replied; “I love my own the best!”
“Then,” said the river, “what good can come of disputing when both are satisfied? As for me, I love you both. I am glad for the north wind to blow cold, and cover me with ice in the winter, so that the merry skaters can come and glide swiftly over my smooth surface.
“And I love the south wind to breathe softly in the spring, and make my banks green again, and waken the frogs along my shore, and bring the fisherman in his boat, and the boys to swim.
“Let us all be friends, then, and love each other, and be satisfied with what our kind Creator has given us, and happy in doing what will please Him.”
Then the north wind said:
“I am willing to be friends again. It is true that the spring is your time, gentle south wind; I will not stay to nip your opening flowers, but will fly away to my cold home.”
And the south wind said:
“Forgive me if I was rude, brother. When November shall come once more, I will leave the fields and woods to you. Take this sprig of evergreen to remember me by, and may it not fade till we meet again! Farewell!”
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Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 172, “lookod” changed to “looked” (Peter looked around the)
Page 457, “ou” changed to “on” (but on looking around)
End of Project Gutenberg's New Lights on Old Paths, by Charles Foster