Part 29

When Ambo was King of Calabar, the Elephant was not only a very big animal, but he had eyes in proportion to his bulk. In those days men and animals were friends, and all mixed together quite freely. At regular intervals King Ambo used to give a feast, and the Elephant used to eat more than any one, though the Hippopotamus used to do his best; however, not being as big as the Elephant, although he was very fat, he was left a long way behind.

As the Elephant ate so much at these feasts, the Tortoise, who was small and very cunning, made up his mind to put a stop to the Elephant eating more than a fair share of the food provided. He, therefore, placed some dry kernels and shrimps, of which the Elephant was very fond, in his bag, and went to the Elephant’s house to make an afternoon call.

When the Tortoise arrived the Elephant told him to sit down, so he made himself comfortable, and, having shut one eye, took one palm kernel and a shrimp out of his bag and commenced to eat them with relish.

When the Elephant saw the Tortoise eating, he said, as he was always hungry himself, “You seem to have some good food there; what are you eating?”

The Tortoise replied that the food was sweet but was rather painful, as he was eating one of his eyes; and he lifted up his head, showing one eye closed.

The Elephant said, “If the food is so good, take out one of my eyes and give me the same food.”

The Tortoise, who was waiting for this, knowing how greedy the Elephant was, said, “I cannot reach your eye, you are so big.” So the Elephant took the Tortoise in his trunk and lifted him up, and with one quick scoop he had the Elephant’s eye out. The Elephant trumpeted with pain, but the Tortoise gave him some of the dried kernels and shrimps, and they so pleased the Elephant that he soon forgot the pain.

Soon the Elephant said, “That food is so sweet I must have some more;” but the Tortoise told him that before he could have any the other eye must come out. To this the Elephant agreed, and soon the Elephant was quite blind. The Elephant then began to make a great noise, and started pulling trees down and doing much damage, calling out for the Tortoise. The Tortoise had slid down the Elephant’s trunk to the ground, and hid himself.

The next morning when the Elephant heard the people passing, he asked them what the time was, and the Bush Buck, who was nearest, shouted out, “The sun is now up, and I am going to market to get some yams and fresh leaves for my food.”

Then the Elephant perceived that the Tortoise had deceived him, and began to ask all the passers-by to lend him a pair of eyes, as he could not see, but every one refused, as they wanted their eyes themselves. At last the Worm grovelled past, and seeing the big Elephant, greeted him in his humble way. He was much surprised when the King of the Forest returned his salutation, and very much flattered also.

The Elephant said, “Look here, Worm, I have mislaid my eyes. Will you lend me yours for a few days? I will return them next market-day.”

The Worm was so flattered at being noticed by the Elephant that he gladly consented, and took his eyes out—which, as every one knows, were very small—and gave them to the Elephant. When the Elephant had put the Worm’s eyes into his own large eye-sockets, the flesh immediately closed round them so tightly that when the market-day arrived it was impossible for the Elephant to get them out again to return to the Worm; and although the Worm repeatedly made applications to the Elephant to return his eyes, the Elephant always pretended not to hear, and sometimes used to say in a very loud voice, “If there are any Worms about, they had better get out of my way, as they are so small I cannot see them, and if I tread on them they will be squashed.”

Ever since then the Worms have been blind, and for the same reason Elephants have such small eyes, quite out of proportion to the size of their huge bodies!

THE BOY WHO SET A SNARE FOR THE SUN

By H. R. Schoolcraft

At the time when the animals reigned on the earth, they had killed all the people but a Girl and her little brother; and these two were living in fear in an out-of-the-way place. The Boy was a perfect little pigmy, and never grew beyond the size of a mere infant; but the Girl increased with her years, so that the task of providing food and shelter fell wholly upon her. She went out daily to get wood for the lodge-fire, and she took her little brother with her that no mishap might befall them, for he was too little to leave alone. A big bird of a mischievous disposition might have flown away with him. She made him a bow and arrows, and one day she said to him: “My little brother, I will leave you behind where I have been gathering the wood; you must hide yourself, and you will soon see the snowbirds come and peck the worms out of the logs which I have piled up. Shoot one of them and bring it home.”

He obeyed her, and tried his best to kill one, but he came home unsuccessful. His sister told him that he must not despair, but try again the next day.

She accordingly left him 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 them.”

“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 stew with one half of it at a time.”

It was their first dish of game, and they greatly relished it.

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 pretty little coat. As he was small, there was one bird skin to spare.

“Sister,” said he, one day, as he marched up and down before the lodge, dressed in his new coat and fancying himself the Greatest Little Fellow in the World—as he was, for there was no other beside him—“My sister, are we really alone in the world, or are we making believe? 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?”

“By no means,” she said. And then she explained to him that there were many folks very unlike a harmless girl and boy, such as they were, who lived in another part of the earth, and that if he would live blameless and not endanger his life, he must never go where they were. This only served to inflame the Boy’s curiosity, and he soon took his bow and arrows and went in that direction. After walking a long while 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 upon, and he fell asleep. While he slept the Sun beat so hot upon him that it singed his bird-skin coat and so shrivelled and shrunk it upon his body as to wake him up.

When he saw the mischief the Sun’s fiery beams had played with the coat he was so proud of, he flew into a great rage and scolded the Sun in a terrible way for a little boy no higher than a man’s knee. “Do not think you are too high for me to get you,” said he; “I shall revenge myself, oh Sun. I will have you for a plaything yet.”

When he reached home he told his sister how unfortunate he had been, and bitterly bewailed the spoiling of his new coat. He would not eat, not so much as a single berry. He lay down, like one who fasts, without changing his position for ten days, nor could his sister persuade him to get up. At the end of ten days he turned over on the other side and lay in that position for ten days.

When he got up he was very pale, but very determined. He ordered his sister to make him a snare, as he meant to catch the Sun. She said she had nothing, but presently she brought forward a deer’s sinew, which their father had left, and made it into a string suitable for a noose. The moment she showed it to her brother he said it would not do, and angrily bade her find something else. She said she had nothing else, but presently remembered the bird’s skin that had been left over when the coat was made, and this she made into a string. With this the Boy was more vexed than over the other. “The Sun has had enough of my bird skins,” he said; “find something else.”

She did not dare to say again that she had nothing, so she went out of the lodge murmuring to herself, “Was there ever so obstinate a boy?” Luckily she thought of her hair, and pulling out some of it here and there from among her beautiful black locks, she quickly braided it into a fine cord and handed it to her brother.

The moment his eye fell on it he was delighted, and immediately began to run it back and forth through his hands, trying its strength. Satisfied that the long, glossy coil was strong enough, he wound it around his shoulders and set out from the lodge a little after midnight, his object being to catch the Sun before he rose.

Having fixed his snare firmly at a place where the Sun must strike the land as it rose above the earth, he waited patiently. The instant it appeared he drew the cord tight, so that the Sun was held fast and could not rise.

Soon there was a great commotion among the animals who ruled the earth. They had no light, and ran to and fro, calling out to each other and asking what had happened. They called together a council to discuss the matter. An old Dormouse, suspecting what was the trouble, proposed that some one should be appointed to go out and cut the cord. This was a bold thing to do, as the rays of the Sun would surely burn whoever ventured near them. No one seemed willing to run the risk, so the Dormouse himself undertook to go. The Dormouse was, at this time, the largest animal in the world. When he stood up he looked like a mountain.

He made haste to the place where the Sun lay ensnared, and as it came nearer and nearer its back began to smoke and burn with the heat, and the whole top of its huge body was turned in a very short time to enormous heaps of ashes. The Dormouse did succeed, however, in cutting the cord with its teeth, and the Sun blazed up into the high, blue sky, as beautiful as ever.

The poor Dormouse paid the price of his bravery. So great was the heat of the Sun, that he found himself, when it was all over, shrunk to a little bit of a thing, and that is the reason why the Dormouse is one of the tiniest creatures on 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 me, to look after the Sun. It takes some one greater and wiser than I to do that.”

Whereupon he went out and shot ten more snowbirds, for at that he was very expert, and had a new bird-skin coat made, which was prettier than the one he had worn before.

THE BIRD LOVER

By Cornelius Mathews

In a region of country where the forest and the prairie strived which should be the most beautiful—the open plain, with its free sunshine and winds and flowers, or the closed wood, with its delicious twilight-walks and enamored haunts—there lived a wicked manito in the disguise of an old Indian.

Although the country furnished an abundance of game, and whatever else a good heart could wish for, it was the study of this wicked genius to destroy such as fell into his hands. He made use of all his arts to decoy men into his power, for the purpose of killing them. The country had been once thickly peopled, but the Mudjee Monedo had so thinned it by his cruel practices, that he now lived almost solitary in the wilderness.

The secret of his success lay in his great speed. He had the power to assume the shape of any four-footed creature, and it was his custom to challenge such as he sought to destroy, to run with him. He had a beaten path on which he ran, leading around a large lake, and he always ran around this circle so that the starting and the winning post was the same.

Whoever failed, as every one had, yielded up his life at this post; and although he ran every day, no man was ever known to beat this evil genius; for whenever he was pressed hard, he changed himself into a fox, wolf, deer, or other swift-footed animal, and was thus able to leave his competitor behind.

The whole country was in dread of this same Mudjee Monedo, and yet the young men were constantly running with him; for if they refused, he called them cowards, which was a reproach they could not bear. They would rather die than be called cowards.

To keep up his sport, the manito made light of these deadly foot-matches, and instead of assuming a braggart air, and going about in a boastful way, with the blood of such as he had overcome upon his hands, he adopted very pleasing manners, and visited the lodges around the country as any other sweet-tempered and harmless old Indian might.

His secret object in these friendly visits was to learn whether the young boys were getting old enough to run with him; he kept a very sharp eye upon their growth, and the day he thought them ready, he did not fail to challenge them to a trial on his racing-ground.

There was not a family in all that beautiful region which had not in this way been visited and thinned out; and the manito had quite naturally come to be held in abhorrence by all the Indian mothers in the country.

It happened that there lived near him a poor widow woman, whose husband and seven sons he had made away with; and she was now living with an only daughter, and a son of ten or twelve years old.

This widow was very poor and feeble, and she suffered so much for lack of food and other comforts of the lodge, that she would have been glad to die, but for her daughter and her little son. The Mudjee Monedo had already visited her lodge to observe whether the boy was sufficiently grown to be challenged to the race; and so crafty in his approaches and so soft in his manners was the Monedo, that the mother feared that he would yet decoy the son and make away with him as he had done with his father and his seven brothers, in spite of all her struggles to save him.

And yet she strove with all her might to strengthen her son in every good course. She taught him, as best she could, what was becoming for the wise hunter and the brave warrior. She remembered and set before him all that she could recall of the skill and the craft of his father and his brothers who were lost.

The widow woman also instructed her daughter in whatever should make her useful as a wife; and in the leisure time of the lodge, she gave her lessons in the art of working with the quills of porcupine, and bestowed on her such other accomplishments as should make her an ornament and a blessing to her husband’s household. The daughter, Minda by name, was kind and obedient to her mother, and never failed in her duty. Their lodge stood high up on the banks of a lake, which gave them a wide prospect of country, embellished with groves and open fields, which waved with the blue light of their long grass, and made, at all hours of sun and moon, a cheerful scene to look upon.

Across this beautiful prairie, Minda had one morning made her way to gather dry limbs for their fire; for she disdained no labor of the lodge. And while enjoying the sweetness of the air and the green beauty of the woods, she strolled far away.

She had come to a bank, painted with flowers of every hue, and was reclining on its fragrant couch, when a bird, of red and deep-blue plumage softly blended, alighted on a branch near by, and began to pour forth its carol. It was a bird of strange character, such as she had never before seen. Its first note was so delicious to the ear of Minda, and it so pierced to her young heart, that she listened as she had never before to any mortal or heavenly sound. It seemed like the human voice, forbidden to speak, and uttering its language through this wild wood-chant with a mournful melody, as if it bewailed the lack of the power or the right to make itself more plainly intelligible.

The voice of the bird rose and fell, and circled round and round, but whithersoever floated or spread out its notes, they seemed ever to have their center where Minda sat; and she looked with sad eyes into the sad eyes of the mournful bird, that sat in his red and deep-blue plumage just opposite to the flowery bank.

The poor bird strove more and more with his voice, and seemed ever more and more anxiously to address his notes of lament to Minda’s ears, till at last she could not refrain from saying: “What aileth thee, sad bird?”

As if he had but waited to be spoken to, the bird left his branch, and alighting upon the bank, smiled on Minda, and, shaking his shining plumage, answered:

“I am bound in this condition until a maiden shall accept me in marriage. I have wandered these groves and sung to many and many of the Indian girls, but none ever heeded my voice till you. Will you be mine?” he added, and poured forth a flood of melody which sparkled and spread itself with its sweet murmurs over all the scene, and fairly entranced the young Minda, who sat silent, as if she feared to break the charm by speech.

The bird, approaching nearer, asked her, if she loved him, to get her mother’s consent to their marriage. “I shall be free then,” said the bird, “and you shall know me as I am.”

Minda lingered and listened to the sweet voice of the bird in its own forest notes, or filling each pause with gentle human discourse; questioning her as to her home, her family, and the little incidents of her daily life.

She returned to the lodge later than usual, but she was too timid to speak to her mother of that which the bird had charged her. She returned again and again to the fragrant haunt in the wood; and every day she listened to the song and the discourse of her bird admirer with more pleasure, and he every day besought her to speak to her mother of the marriage. This she could not, however, muster heart and courage to do.

At last the widow began herself to have a suspicion that her daughter’s heart was in the wood, from her long delays in returning, and the little success she had in gathering the fire-branches for which she went in search.

In answer to her mother’s questions, Minda revealed the truth, and made known her lover’s request. The mother, considering the lonely and destitute condition of her little household, gave her consent.

The daughter, with light steps, hastened with the news to the wood. The bird lover of course heard it with delight, and fluttered through the air in happy circles, and poured forth a song of joy which thrilled Minda to the heart.

He said that he would come to the lodge at sunset, and immediately took wing, while Minda hung fondly upon his flight, till he was lost far away in the blue sky.

With the twilight the bird lover, whose name was Monedowa, appeared at the door of the lodge, as a hunter, with a red plume and a mantle of blue upon his shoulders.

He addressed the widow as his friend, and she directed him to sit down beside her daughter, and they were regarded as man and wife.

Early on the following morning, he asked for the bow and arrows of those who had been slain by the wicked manito, and went out a-hunting. As soon as he had got out of sight of the lodge, he changed himself into the wood-bird, as he had been before his marriage, and took his flight through the air.

Although game was scarce in the neighborhood of the widow’s lodge, Monedowa returned at evening, in his character of a hunter, with two deer. This was his daily practice, and the widow’s family never more lacked for food.

It was noticed, however, that Monedowa himself ate but little, and that of a peculiar kind of meat, flavored with berries, which, with other circumstances, convinced them that he was not as the Indian people around him.

In a few days his mother-in-law told him that the manito would come to pay them a visit, to see how the young man, her son, prospered.

Monedowa answered that he should on that day be absent. When the time arrived, he flew upon a tall tree, overlooking the lodge, and took his station there, as the wicked manito passed in.

The Mudjee Monedo cast sharp glances at the scaffolds so well laden with meat, and as soon as he had entered, he said, “Why, who is it that is furnishing you with meat so plentifully?”

“No one,” she answered, “but my son; he is just beginning to kill deer.”

“No, no,” he retorted; “some one is living with you.”

“Kaween, no indeed,” replied the widow; “you are only making sport of my hapless condition. Who do you think would come and trouble themselves about me?”

“Very well,” answered the manito, “I will go; but on such a day I will again visit you, and see who it is that furnishes the meat, and whether it is your son or not.”

He had no sooner left the lodge and got out of sight, than the son-in-law made his appearance with two more deer. On being made acquainted with the conduct of the manito, “Very well,” he said, “I will be at home the next time, to see him.”

Both the mother and the wife urged Monedowa to be aware of the manito. They made known to him all of his cruel courses, and assured him that no man could escape from his power.

“No matter,” said Monedowa; “if he invites me to the race-ground, I will not be backward. What follows may teach him, my mother, to show pity on the vanquished, and not to trample on the widow and those who are without fathers.”

When the day of the visit of the manito arrived, Monedowa told his wife to prepare certain pieces of meat, which he pointed out to her, together with two or three buds of the birch-tree, which he requested her to put in the pot. He directed also that the manito should be hospitably received, as if he had been just the kind-hearted old Indian he professed to be. Monedowa then dressed himself as a warrior, embellishing his visage with tints of red, to show that he was prepared for either war or peace.

As soon as the Mudjee Monedo arrived, he eyed this strange warrior whom he had never seen before; but he dissembled, as usual, and, with a gentle laugh, said to the widow, “Did I not tell you that some one was staying with you, for I knew your son was too young to hunt.”

The widow excused herself by saying that she did not think it necessary to tell him, inasmuch as he was a manito, and must have known before he asked.

The manito was very pleasant with Monedowa, and after much other discourse, in a gentle-spoken voice, he invited him to the racing-ground, saying it was a manly amusement, that he would have an excellent chance to meet there with other warriors, and that he should himself be pleased to run with him.

Monedowa would have excused himself, saying that he knew nothing of running.

“Why,” replied the Mudjee Monedo, trembling in every limb as he spoke, “don’t you see how old I look, while you are young and full of life. We must at least run a little to amuse others.”

“Be it so, then,” replied Monedowa. “I will oblige you. I will go in the morning.”

Pleased with his crafty success, the manito would have now taken his leave, but he was pressed to remain and partake of their hospitality. The meal was immediately prepared. But one dish was used.

Monedowa partook of it first, to show his guest that he need not fear, saying at the same time, “It is a feast, and as we seldom meet, we must eat all that is placed on the dish, as a mark of gratitude to the Great Spirit for permitting me to kill animals, and for the pleasure of seeing you, and partaking of it with you.”