The Indian Fairy Book Part 4

"Yes," they replied, at once; for the brant is a bird of a very obliging disposition.

"But I want to be very large," he said. There was no end to the ambition of little Gra.s.shopper.

"Very well," they answered; and he soon found himself a large brant, all the others standing gazing in astonishment at his great size.

"You must fly as leader," they said.

"No," answered Gra.s.shopper; "I will fly behind."

"Very well," rejoined the brant; "one thing more we have to say to you, brother Gra.s.shopper" (for he had told them his name). "You must be careful, in flying, not to look down, for something may happen to you."

"Well, it is so," said he; and soon the flock rose up into the air, for they were bound north. They flew very fast--he behind. One day, while going with a strong wind, and as swift as their wings could flap, as they pa.s.sed over a large village the Indians raised a great shout on seeing them, particularly on Gra.s.shopper's account, for his wings were broader than two large mats. The village people made such a frightful noise that he forgot what had been told him about looking down. They were now scudding along as swift as arrows; and as soon as he brought his neck in and stretched it down to look at the shouters, his huge tail was caught by the wind, and over and over he was blown. He tried to right himself, but without success, for he had no sooner got out of one heavy air-current than he fell into another, which treated him even more rudely than that he had escaped from. Down, down he went, making more turns than he wished for, from a height of several miles.

The first moment he had to look about him, Gra.s.shopper, in the shape of a big brant, was aware that he was jammed into a large hollow tree. To get backward or forward was out of the question, and there, in spite of himself, was Gra.s.shopper forced to tarry till his brant life was ended by starvation, when, his spirit being at liberty, he was once more a human being.

As he journeyed on in search of further adventures, Gra.s.shopper came to a lodge in which were two old men, with heads white from extreme age.

They were very fine old men to look at. There was such sweetness and innocence in their features that Gra.s.shopper would have enjoyed himself very much at their lodge, if he had had no other entertainment than such as the gazing upon the serene and happy faces of the two innocent old men with heads white from extreme age afforded.

They treated him well, and he made known to them that he was going back to his village, his friends and people, whereupon the two white-headed old men very heartily wished him a good journey and abundance of comfort in seeing his friends once more. They even arose, old and infirm as they were, and tottering with exceeding difficulty to the door, were at great pains to point out to him the exact course he should take; and they called his attention to the circ.u.mstance that it was much shorter and more direct than he would have taken himself. Ah! what merry deceivers were these two old men with very white heads.

Gra.s.shopper, with blessings showered on him until he was fairly out of sight, set forth with good heart. He thought he heard loud laughter resounding after him in the direction of the lodge of the two old men; but it could not have been the two old men, for they were, certainly, too old to laugh.

He walked briskly all day, and at night he had the satisfaction of reaching a lodge in all respects like that which he had left in the morning. There were two fine old men, and his treatment was in every particular the same, even down to the parting blessing and the laughter that followed him as he went his way.

After walking the third day, and coming to a lodge the same as before, he was satisfied from the bearings of the course he had taken that he had been journeying in a circle, and by a notch which he had cut in the door-post that these were the same two old men, all along; and that, despite their innocent faces and their very white heads, they had been playing him a sorry trick.

"Who are you," said Gra.s.shopper, "to treat me so? Come forth, I say."

They were compelled to obey his summons, lest, in his anger, he should take their lives; and they appeared on the outside of the lodge.

"We must have a little trial of speed, now," said Gra.s.shopper.

"A race?" they asked. "We are very old; we can not run."

"We will see," said Gra.s.shopper; whereupon he set them out upon the road, and then he gave them a gentle push, which put them in motion.

Then he pushed them again--harder--harder--until they got under fine headway, when he gave each of them an astounding shock with his foot, and off they flew at a great rate, round and round the course; and such was the magic virtue of the foot of Gra.s.shopper, that no object once set agoing by it could by any possibility stop; so that, for aught we know to the contrary, the two innocent, white-headed, merry old men, are trotting with all their might and main around the circle in which they beguiled Gra.s.shopper, to this day.

Continuing his journey, Gra.s.shopper, although his head was warm and buzzing with all sorts of schemes, did not know exactly what to do until he came to a big lake. He mounted a high hill to try and see to the other side, but he could not. He then made a canoe, and sailed forth.

The water was very clear--a transparent blue--and he saw that it abounded with fish of a rare and delicate complexion. This circ.u.mstance inspired him with a wish to return to his village, and to bring his people to live near this beautiful lake.

Toward evening, coming to a woody island, he encamped and ate the fish he had speared, and they proved to be as comforting to the stomach as they were pleasing to the eye. The next day Gra.s.shopper returned to the main land, and as he wandered along the sh.o.r.e he espied at a distance the celebrated giant, Manabozho, who is a bitter enemy of Gra.s.shopper, and loses no opportunity to stop him on his journeyings and to thwart his plans.

At first it occurred to Gra.s.shopper to have a trial of wits with the giant, but, on second thoughts, he said to himself, "I am in a hurry now; I will see him another time."

With no further mischief than raising a great whirlwind of dust, which caused Manabozho to rub his eyes severely, Gra.s.shopper quietly slipped out of the way; and he made good speed withal, for in much less time than you could count half the stars in the sky of a winter night, he had reached home.

His return was welcomed with a great hubbub of feasting and songs; and he had scarcely set foot in the village before he had invitations to take pot-luck at different lodges, which would have lasted him the rest of his natural life. Pipe-bearer, who had some time before given up the cares of a ruler, and fallen back upon his native place, fairly danced with joy at the sight of Gra.s.shopper, who, not to be outdone, dandled him affectionately in his arms, by casting him up and down in the air half a mile or so, till little Pipe-bearer had no breath left in his body to say that he was happy to see Gra.s.shopper home again.

Gra.s.shopper gave the village folks a lively account of his adventures, and when he came to the blue lake and the abundant fish, he dwelt upon their charms with such effect that they agreed, with one voice, that it must be a glorious place to live in, and if he would show them the way they would shift camp and settle there at once.

He not only showed them the way, but bringing his wonderful strength and speed of foot to bear, in less than half a day he had transported the whole village, with its children, women, tents, and implements of war, to the new water-side.

Here, for a time, Gra.s.shopper appeared to be content, until one day a message came for him in the shape of a bear, who said that their king wished to see him immediately at his village. Gra.s.shopper was ready in an instant; and mounting upon the messenger's back, off he ran. Toward evening they climbed a high mountain, and came to a cave where the bear-king lived. He was a very large person; and puffing with fat and a sense of his own importance, he made Gra.s.shopper welcome by inviting him in to his lodge.

As soon as it was proper, he spoke, and said that he had sent for him on hearing that he was the chief who was moving a large party toward his hunting-grounds.

"You must know," said the bear-king with a terrible growl, "that you have no right there, and I wish you would leave the country with your party, or else the strongest force will take possession. Take notice."

"Very well," replied Gra.s.shopper, going toward the door, for he suspected that the king of the bears was preparing to give him a hug.

"So be it."

He wished to gain time, and to consult his people; for he had seen as he came along that the bears were gathering in great force on the side of the mountain. He also made known to the bear-king that he would go back that night that his people might be put in immediate possession of his royal behest.

The bear-king replied that Gra.s.shopper might do as he pleased, but that one of his young men was at his command; and, jumping nimbly on his back, Gra.s.shopper rode home.

He a.s.sembled the people, and ordered the bear's head off, to be hung outside of the village, that the bear-spies, who were lurking in the neighborhood, might see it and carry the news to their chief.

The next morning, by break of day, Gra.s.shopper had all of his young warriors under arms and ready for a fight. About the middle of the afternoon the bear war-party came in sight, led on by the pursy king, and making a tremendous noise. They advanced on their hind-legs, and made a very imposing display of their teeth and eyeb.a.l.l.s.

The bear-chief himself came forward, and with a majestic wave of his right hand, said that he did not wish to shed the blood of the young warriors; but that if Gra.s.shopper, who appeared to be the head of the war-party, consented, they two would have a race, and the winner should kill the losing chief, and all his young men should be servants to the other.

Gra.s.shopper agreed, of course--how little Pipe-bearer, who stood by, grinned as they came to terms!--and they started to run before the whole company of warriors who stood in a circle looking on.

At first there was a prospect that Gra.s.shopper would be badly beaten; for although he kept crowding the great fat bear-king till the sweat trickled from his s.h.a.ggy ears, he never seemed to be able to push past him. By and by, Gra.s.shopper, going through a number of the most extraordinary maneuvers in the world, raised about the great fat bear-king such eddies and whirlwinds with the sand, and so danced about, before and after him, that he at last got fairly bewildered, and cried out for them to come and take him off. Out of sight before him in reaching the goal, Gra.s.shopper only waited for the bear-king to come up, when he drove an arrow straight through him, and ordered them to take the body away and make it ready for supper; as he was getting hungry.

He then directed all of the other bears to fall to and help prepare the feast; for in fulfillment of the agreement they had become servants.

With many wry faces the bears, although bound to act becomingly in their new character, according to the forfeit, served up the body of their late royal master; and in doing this they fell, either by accident or design, into many curious mistakes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BEAR SERVANTS. Page 59.]

When the feast came to be served up, and they were summoned to be in attendance, one of them, a sprightly young fellow of an inquisitive turn of mind, was found upon the roof of the lodge, with his head half way down the smoke-hole, with a view to learn what they were to have for dinner. Another, a middle-aged bear with very long arms, who was put in charge of the children in the character of nurse, squeezed three or four of the most promising young papooses to death, while the mothers were outside to look after the preparations; and another, when he should have been waiting at the back of his master, had climbed a shady tree and was indulging in his afternoon nap. And when, at last, the dinner was ready to be served, they came tumbling in with the dishes, heels over head, one after the other, so that one half of the feast was spread upon the ground, and the other half deposited out of doors, on the other side of the lodge.

After a while, however, by strict discipline, and threatening to cut off their provisions, the bear-servants were brought into tolerable control.

Yet Gra.s.shopper, with his ever restless disposition, was uneasy; and, having done so many wonderful things, he resolved upon a strict and thorough reform in all the affairs of the village. To prevent future difficulty, he determined to adopt new regulations between the bears and their masters.

With this view, he issued an edict that henceforward the bears should eat at the first table, and that the Indians were to wait upon them; that in all public processions of an honorable character the bears should go first; and that when any fighting was to be done, the Indians should have the privilege reserved of receiving the first shots. A special exemption was made in behalf of Gra.s.shopper's favorite and confidential adviser, the Pipe-bearer (who had been very busy in private, recommending the new order of things), who was to be allowed to sit at the head of the feast, and to stay at home with the old women in the event of battle.

Having seen his orders strictly enforced, and the rights of the bears over the Indians fairly established, Gra.s.shopper fixed his mind upon further adventures. He determined to go abroad for a time, and having an old score to settle with Manabozho, he set out with a hope of soon falling in with that famous giant. Gra.s.shopper was a blood relation of Dais Imid, or He of the Little Sh.e.l.l, and had heard of what had pa.s.sed between that giant and his kinsman.

After wandering a long time he came to the lodge of Manabozho, who was absent. He thought he must play him a trick; and so he turned every thing in the lodge upside down, and killed his birds, of which there was an extraordinary attendance, for Manabozho is master of the fowls of the air, and this was the appointed morning for them to call and pay their court to him. Among the number was a raven, accounted the meanest of birds, which Gra.s.shopper killed and hung up by the neck, to insult him.

He then went on till he came to a very high point of rocks running out into the lake, from the top of which he could see the country, back as far as the eye could reach. While sitting there, Manabozho's mountain chickens flew around and past him in great numbers. Out of mere spite to their master, Gra.s.shopper shot them by the score, for his arrows were very sure and the birds very plenty, and he amused himself by throwing the birds down the rocks. At length a wary bird cried out:

"Gra.s.shopper is killing us; go and tell our father."

Away sped a delegation of the birds which were the quickest of wing, and Manabozho soon made his appearance on the plain below. Gra.s.shopper, who, when he is in the wrong, is no match for Manabozho, made his escape on the other side. Manabozho, who had in two or three strides reached the top of the mountain, cried out: