The Story of Hiawatha Part 6

At once they changed him into a huge brant, ten times larger than the others, and with loud cries and a clamor of wings they rose in the air and flew high up into the sunlight. As they flew they said to Pau-Puk-Keewis: "Take care that you do not look downward as you fly, or something strange and terrible will happen to you."

But suddenly they heard a sound of shouting far beneath them, and Pau-Puk-Keewis, who recognized the voice of Iagoo and the tones of Hiawatha, forgot the warning about looking downward, and drew in his long black neck to gaze upon the distant village. The swift wind that was blowing behind him caught his mighty tail-feathers, tipped him over, and Pau-Puk-Keewis, struggling in vain to get his balance, fell through the clear air like a heavy stone. He heard the shouting of the people grow louder and louder; he saw the brant become little specks in the air above him, and plunging downward the great goose struck the ground with a heavy, sullen thud and lay there dead.

But Pau-Puk-Keewis still lived in the crushed body of the giant bird, and he swiftly took his own form again and rushed along the sh.o.r.e of the Big-Sea-Water, with Hiawatha close upon his heels. And Hiawatha shouted at him as they ran: "The world is not so rough and wide but I shall catch you, Pau-Puk-Keewis. Hide where you will, but I shall reach you with my anger!" and he was so close to Pau-Puk-Keewis that he shot out his right hand to seize him by the shoulder. Pau-Puk-Keewis spun around in a circle, whirled the dust into the air and leaped into a hollow oak tree, where he changed himself into a serpent and came gliding out among the roots.

Hiawatha broke the tree to pieces with a blow of his magic mittens; but there was no Pau-Puk-Keewis inside of it, and Hiawatha saw him once again in his own form, running like the wind along the beach.

They ran until they came to the painted sand-stone rocks where the Old Man of the Mountain has his home, and the Old Man opened the doorway of the rocks and gave Pau-Puk-Keewis a hiding-place in the gloomy caverns underneath the mountains, shutting the rock doorway with a heavy crash as Hiawatha threw himself upon it. With his magic mittens Hiawatha knocked great holes in the rocks, crying out in tones of thunder: "Open!

Open! I am Hiawatha!" But the Old Man of the Mountain did not answer.

Then Hiawatha raised his hands to the heavens and implored the lightning and the thunder to come to his aid and break the rocks of sand-stone into fragments, and the lightning and the thunder came snarling and rumbling over the Big-Sea-Water at the call of Hiawatha. Together Hiawatha and the lightning split the rock doorway into fragments, and the thunder boomed among the caverns, shouting: "Where is Pau-Puk-Keewis!"

Pau-Puk-Keewis lay dead among the caves of sandstone, killed by Hiawatha and the lightning and thunder. This time he was dead indeed, crushed by the rocks that had fallen upon him, and killed in his own form so he might never rise again.

Hiawatha took the ghost of Pau-Puk-Keewis and changed it into a great eagle that wheels and circles in the air to this day, screaming from the mountain peaks and gliding in great slants over deep and empty valleys.

In winter, when the wind whirled the snow in drifts and eddies around the wigwams, the Indians would say to one another: "There is Pau-Puk-Keewis, come from the mountains to dance once more among the villages," and when we see great hills of sifted snow, heaped high and white by winter wind, we may think of Pau-Puk-Keewis and his dance among the sand dunes.

XVIII

THE DEATH OF KWASIND

THE name and fame of Kwasind, the strong man, had spread among all tribes of Indians, and in all the world there was n.o.body who dared to wrestle or to strive with this mighty friend of Hiawatha. But the little pigmy people, the mischievous Puk-Wudjies, plotted against Kwasind, for they were very much afraid of him, and thought he would destroy them.

"If this great fellow goes on breaking whatever he touches, tearing things to pieces and filling the whole world with wonder at his deeds, what will happen to us?" cried the Little People; "what will become of the Puk-Wudjies? He will step on us as if we were mushrooms; he will drive us into the water, and give our bodies to the wicked _Nee-ba-naw-baigs_ to be eaten." And all the Little People plotted to murder the cruel and wicked, dangerous, heartless Kwasind.

There was one secret about Kwasind that n.o.body on earth knew, except himself and the clever Little People. All his strength and all his weakness came from the crown of his head. Nowhere but on the crown of his head could any weapon do him harm, and even there nothing would hurt him except the blue seed-cone that grows upon the fir-tree. The Little People had discovered this by their great skill in magic, and they gathered together the blue cones of the fir-tree and piled them in great heaps upon the red rock ledges that overhung the river Taquamenaw. There they sat and waited until Kwasind should pa.s.s by in his canoe.

It was a hot summer afternoon when Kwasind, the strong man, in his birch canoe came floating slowly down the Taquamenaw. The air was very still and very warm; the insects buzzed and hummed above the silent water, and the locust sang from the dry, sweet-smelling bushes on the sh.o.r.e.

In Kwasind's ears there was a drowsy murmur, and he felt the spirits of sleep beat upon his forehead with their soft little war-clubs. At the first blow his head nodded with slumber; at the second blow his paddle trailed motionless in the water, and at the third his eyes closed and he went fast asleep, sitting bolt upright in his canoe. The warm air quivered on the water, the midges and the gnats sang in tiny voices, and the locust once more struck up his shrill tune from the river bank, when the sentinels of the Little People went scampering down the beach, calling out shrilly that Kwasind was sound asleep in his canoe and drifting nearer and nearer to the fatal red rocks that overhung the river. And all the Little People climbed the rocks and peered down upon the water, waiting until Kwasind should pa.s.s beneath.

At last the canoe swung sideways around a bend in the river and came drifting down the slow-moving current as lightly as an alder-leaf, and the Little People moved the fir-cones nearer to the edge and crouched there waiting.

"Death to Kwasind!" they shouted in little voices as the canoe glided underneath the rocks, "Death to Kwasind!" and they rained down showers of blue fir-cones right on the defenseless head of the sleeping giant.

As a great boulder is tipped into a stream, Kwasind tottered sideways from his canoe, struck the water with a sullen plunge that tossed the spray high in the air, and the waters closed above him with a mighty sob. Bottom upward his canoe drifted down the river, and nothing was seen or heard of Kwasind from that day to this. But his memory lived long among the Indians, who would tell their children of his great feats of strength, and show to them the boulder that Kwasind had pitched into the swift Pauwating River when he was little more than a boy.

When the gales of winter tossed the pine-trees and roared among the branches until they groaned and split with a terrible noise of rending wood, the Indians would say to one another, as they sat in their warm wigwams and listened to the wind shake the forest to its roots: "There goes Kwasind, gathering his firewood!" and in the country where he lived near the Big-Sea-Water there are still many marks of his great strength that will show, to any who care to see, what a mighty man this Kwasind was.

XIX

THE GHOSTS

THE vulture never drops from the heavens to seize his prey upon the desert but some other vulture views his plunge and follows swiftly.

Other vultures see the second, and in a few minutes their victim finds a row of them before him and the air dark with their wings.

Just so do troubles come upon human beings, not one at a time but together, until the unhappy man or woman finds the air as black as midnight with their shadows, and in this way did troubles pursue the unfortunate Hiawatha. First Chibiabos died--murdered by the evil spirits. Then Kwasind was killed as he drifted down the stream asleep in his canoe; and then in the dark winter, when the ice had bound the rivers and the trees were naked in the bitter air, another sorrow came upon Hiawatha. But before it came he had a strange adventure, and from this he knew that he would be forced to undergo some mighty trial.

One black, wintry evening after the sun had set, Nokomis and Minnehaha were sitting together in their wigwam waiting for Hiawatha to return from the hunt, when they heard light and measured footsteps on the snow, and the curtain that hung in the doorway of their lodge was slowly lifted. Two shadowy figures entered--two women, who seemed strangers in the village; and, without a word, they took their seats in the darkest corner of the wigwam and crouched there silently and sadly, shivering with cold. Their faces were very white, their clothes were thin and torn, and they would not answer anything that Nokomis or Minnehaha said to them.

Was it the wind blowing down the smoke-flue, or was it the hooting of the owl that made both Minnehaha and Nokomis think that they heard a voice come out of the darkness and say to them: "These are dead people that sit before you and share your fire! They are ghosts from the Land of the Hereafter, who have come to haunt you!" At all events they thought that such a voice cried out to them, and they were very much afraid when Hiawatha entered, fresh from hunting, and laid the red deer he had been carrying at the feet of Minnehaha.

Never before did Hiawatha appear so handsome, and Minnehaha thought him even n.o.bler than when he came to woo her by the waterfall in the land of the Dacotahs.

Turning Hiawatha saw the two strange guests who had not said a word when he had entered, but crouched silently in the darkest corner of the wigwam, with their hoods drawn over their white faces. Only their eyes gleamed like dull coals as they gazed upon the firelight. But Hiawatha did not ask a single question, although he wondered greatly, and he set about preparing the deer for their evening meal.

When the meat was ready, the two guests, still without saying a word, sprang like wolves from their corners, seized upon the choicest parts, the white fat that Hiawatha had saved for Minnehaha, and retreated with their portions back to the shadow of their corner. And although Hiawatha and Minnehaha and Nokomis were amazed by the strange actions of their guests, they did not show it by word or look, but acted as if nothing had happened. Only Minnehaha found time to whisper to Hiawatha: "They are famished; let them eat of what they will."

Many days pa.s.sed, and the two strange women still sat cowering in their corner of the wigwam; but at night, when everybody slept, they went out into the gloomy forest and brought back wood and pine-cones for the fire. Whenever Hiawatha returned from hunting or fishing, and the evening meal had been prepared, they would leap from their dark corner, seize the very choicest portions that had been set aside for Minnehaha, and without any question being asked them, or any blame for their strange conduct, they would flit back into the darkest shadow and devour their food like hungry wolves.

Never once did Nokomis or Minnehaha or Hiawatha reprove them by a single word or look, preferring to endure the insult rather than to break in any way the law of hospitality and the sacred custom of free-giving; and through it all the pale, sad women never said a word.

One night, however, Hiawatha lay awake, watching the embers of the fire, when he heard loud groans and sobbing, and saw the two strange guests sitting bolt upright on their couches, weeping bitterly. And Hiawatha asked them: "O my guests, why is it that you are so unhappy and weep together in the middle of the night? Has old Nokomis or Minnehaha wronged you in any way or failed to treat you with proper courtesy?"

The two women left off weeping, and answered in low and gentle voices: "Hiawatha, we are spirits. We are the souls of those who once lived here on earth, and we have come from the kingdom of Chibiabos to warn you.

"Every cry of sorrow for the dead is heard in the Land of Spirits, and calls back those of us for whom you mourn. We are much saddened by this useless sorrow, and we have come from the Blessed Islands to ask you to tell all your people what we say. Do not vex our ears with weeping, and do not lay upon our graves so many robes, and kettles, and wampum-belts, for the spirits find these a heavy burden. Only give us food to carry with us on our journey, and see that a fire is lighted for us on the four nights following our death. For the journey to the Land of Spirits takes four days and four nights, and the cheerful firelight saves us from groping in the darkness. Now farewell, Hiawatha. We have put you to a great trial and have found you brave and n.o.ble. Do not fail in the greater trial and the harder struggle that you will shortly have to suffer."

Their voices died away, and sudden darkness filled the wigwam. Hiawatha heard the rustle of their garments as they pa.s.sed him, saw a gleam of starlight as they lifted the curtain from the doorway; and when he rekindled the fire he found that the pale, sad women, his strange guests, had disappeared.

XX

THE FAMINE

OH, the cruel and bitter winter that followed! The ice on the rivers and lakes became thicker and harder than ever before; the snow on the fields and in the forests was so deep that the Indians could hardly force their way out of their buried wigwams. No game ran through the frozen thickets, no birds flew among the trees. In the level snow the starving hunters could not find a single track of deer or rabbit, and the corn in the village became less and less until it was all gone. Then the children began to cry with hunger, the women went about with faces pinched and drawn, and the men drew their belts tighter day by day. At night the stars in the heavens seemed to glare like the eyes of famished wolves, and the cold wind moaned among the trees as if the very air were suffering from want. It was an evil time.

When the famine was at its worst, two more strange guests came to the wigwam of Hiawatha; nor did they linger at the doorway and wait to be invited in. They entered without a word, and with sunken eyes they gazed at Minnehaha, and one of them said in a hollow voice: "Look on me! My name is Famine," and the other one cried out: "I am Fever!"

The lovely Minnehaha shivered when she saw them, and a great chill came over her. She lay down on her bed and hid her face, and as the wicked guests continued to gaze she felt first burning heat, then icy coldness dart like arrows through her body. Hiawatha rushed into the forest to find some food for Minnehaha and to drive away the awful visitors; but the forest was bleak and empty, and there was no food to be had. "Ah Great Manito!" cried out Hiawatha, "give me food for my dying Minnehaha, before the Fever and Famine tear her from me forever!" But the Great Manito did not answer, and the silent forest only murmured dully, echoing the words of Hiawatha. With his bow and arrows he strode for miles through the deserted woods where he had once led his young bride homeward from the land of the Dacotahs. But now no animals peeped at him from amid the tree trunks, and there was no cheerful fluttering and singing from the branches; everything was deathly silent, m.u.f.fled in a mighty cloak of snow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SEVEN LONG DAYS AND NIGHTS HE SAT THERE"--_Page 293_]

While he was searching in vain for food, the two dark figures in the wigwam drew closer and closer to Minnehaha, until they crouched at either side of her bed of branches, and one of them said in hollow tones: "My name is Famine," and the other cried out: "I am Fever!" and they leaned over the bed and fixed their sunken eyes on Minnehaha, and Nokomis could not frighten them away.

"Hark!" said Minnehaha as the Fever gazed upon her, "I hear a rushing and a roaring. I hear the falls of Minnehaha calling to me from the land of the Dacotahs!"