The Strange Story Book Part 12

So ashamed was the chief that he did not wish his people to look upon his face, therefore he bade his slave go down to the village and tell them to depart to some other place before morning. The people heard what the slave said and obeyed, and by sunrise they were all in their canoes--all, that is, except the chief's daughter, and the poor little boy and his grandmother. Now the grandmother had some pieces of dried salmon which she ate; but the chief's daughter would not eat, and the poor little boy would not eat either. The princess slept in a room at the back of the house and the poor little boy lay in the front, near the fire. All night long he lay there and thought of their poverty, and wondered if he could do anything to help them to grow richer. 'At any rate,' he said to himself, 'I shall never become a chief by lying in bed,' and as soon as some streaks of light were to be seen under the door, he dressed himself and left the house, running down to the bank of the great river which flowed by the town. There was a trail by the side of the river, and the poor little boy walked along the trail till he came to the sh.o.r.e of a lake; then he stopped and shouted. And as he shouted a wave seemed to rise on the top of the water, and out of it came the great frog who had charge of the lake, and drew near to the place where the poor little boy was standing. Terrible it was to look upon, with its long copper claws which moved always, its copper mouth and its shiny copper eyes. He was so frightened that his legs felt turned to stone; but when the frog put out its claws to fasten them in his shoulders, fear gave him wings, and he ran so fast that the frog could not reach him, and returned to the lake. On and on ran the poor little boy, till at last he found himself outside the woods where his grandmother and the chief's daughter were waiting for him. Then he sat still and rested; but he was very hungry, for all this time he had had nothing to eat, and the grandmother and the chief's daughter had had nothing to eat either.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOW THE BOY SHOT THE WHITE BEAR.]

'We shall die if I cannot find some food,' said the poor little boy to himself, and he went out again to search the empty houses in the village, lest by chance the people might have left some dried salmon or a halibut behind them. He found neither salmon nor halibut, but he picked up in one place a stone axe, and in another a handle, and in a third a hammer. The axe and the handle he fastened together, and after sharpening the blade of the axe he began to cut down a tree. The tree was large, and the poor little boy was small, and had not much strength, so that dusk was approaching before the tree fell. The next thing he did was to split the tree and make a wide crack, which he kept open by wedging two short sticks across it. When this was done he placed the tree on the trail which led to the lake, and ran home again.

Early in the morning he crept safely out, and went to the sh.o.r.e of the lake and shouted four times, looking up as he shouted at the sky. Again there arose a wave on the water, and out of it came the frog, with the copper eyes and mouth and claws. It hopped swiftly towards him, but now the poor little boy did not mind, and waited till it could almost touch him. Then he turned and fled along the trail where the tree lay. Easily he slipped between the two sticks, and was safe on the other side, but the great frog stuck fast, and the more it struggled to be free the tighter it was held.

As soon as the poor little boy saw that the frog was firmly pinned between the bars, he took up his stone hammer which he had left beside the tree and dealt two sharp blows to the sticks that wedged open the crack. The sticks flew out and the crack closed with a snap, killing the frog as it did so. For awhile the poor little boy sat beside the tree quietly, but when he was sure the great frog must be quite dead, he put back the sticks to wedge open the crack and drew out the frog.

'I must turn it on its back to skin it,' said he, and after a long time he managed to do this: But he did not take off the claws on the skin, which he spread on the ground to dry. After the skin was dried he put his arms and legs into it, and laced it firmly across his chest.

'Now I must practise,' he said, and he jumped into the lake just as a frog would do, right down to the bottom. Then he walked along, till a trout in pa.s.sing swished him with its tail, and quickly he turned and caught it in his hands. Holding the trout carefully, he swam up to the surface, and when he was on sh.o.r.e again he unlaced the skin and hung it on the branch of a tree, where no one was likely to see it.

After that he went home and found his grandmother and the princess still sleeping, so he laid the trout on the beach in front of the house and curled himself up on his mat.

By and bye the princess awoke, and the first thing she heard was the sound of a raven crying on the beach. So she quickly got out of bed and went to the place where the poor little boy was lying, and said to him:

'Go down to the beach, and see why the raven is crying.'

The poor little boy said nothing, but did her bidding, and in a few minutes he came back holding out the trout to the princess.

'The raven brought this,' he said to her. But it was the trout which he himself had caught in the bottom of the lake; and he and his grandmother ate of it, but the princess would not eat. And every morning this same thing happened, but the princess would eat nothing, not even when the raven--for it was he, she thought--brought them a salmon.

At last a night came when the princess could not sleep, and hearing a movement she rose softly and peeped through her curtain of skins. The poor little boy was getting ready to go out, and as she watched him she saw that he was a poor little boy no longer, but a tall youth. After a long, long time he crept in again and lay down, but the princess did not sleep; and when daylight broke and the raven called, she went to the beach herself, and beheld a large salmon on the sand. She took up the salmon, and carried it into the house, and stood before the poor little boy.

'I know the truth now,' she said. 'It was you and not the raven who found the trout,' and the poor little boy answered:

'Yes; it was I. My uncle deserted us all, and I had to get food. The frog lived in the lake, and when I called it, it came, and I set a trap for it and killed it; and by the help of its skin I dived into the lake likewise, and now I am great, for you have taken notice of me.'

'You shall marry me,' said the princess, and he married her, for he had ceased to be a poor little boy, and was grown to be a man. And whenever he went out to hunt or to fish, luck was with him, and he killed all that he sent his spear after, even whales and porpoises.

Time pa.s.sed and they had two children, and still his hunting prospered and he grew rich. But one day he suddenly felt very tired and he told his wife, who feared greatly that some evil should befall him.

'Oh, cease hunting, I pray you!' said she. 'Surely you are rich enough'; but he would not listen, and hunted as much as ever.

Now most of the people who had left the town at the chief's bidding were dead, and the chief never doubted but that his daughter and the poor little boy and the old grandmother were dead also. But at length some of those who survived, wished to behold their homes once more, and they set out in four canoes to the old place. As they drew near, they saw many storehouses all full of spoils from the sea, and four whales laid up outside. Greatly were they amazed, but they got out of their canoes and went up to speak to the young man who stood there, and he spread food before them, and gave them gifts when in the evening they said farewell.

They hastened to tell their chief all that they had seen and heard, and he was glad, and bade his people move back to the town and live in their old houses. So the next day the canoes put to sea again, and the poor little boy opened his storehouses and feasted the people, and they chose him for their chief.

'It grows harder every day to take off the frog blanket,' he said to his wife, and at his words she cried and would not take comfort. For now her husband could not rest contented at home, but hunted elks and bought slaves and was richer than any other chief had ever been before him. At length he told his uncle he wished to give a pot-latch or a great banquet, and he invited to it the Indians who dwelt many miles away.

When they were all gathered together he called the people into the house, for in the centre of it he had placed his slaves and elk-skins and the other goods that he possessed.

'You shall distribute them,' he said to his uncle, and his uncle bade him put on his head the great copper he had knocked down from the tree, and the skin of the white bear which he had killed when he was still a poor little boy. Thus with the copper on his head and the bear-skin on his shoulders he walked to the pile of elk-skins in the middle of the house and sang, for this was part of the ceremony of giving him a name to show that he was grown up. And after the song was ended the chief said:

'Now I will call you by your name,' and the name that he gave him was Growing-up-like-one-who-has-a-grandmother, because his grandmother had always been so kind to him. After that the poor little boy took off the great copper and the bear-skin, and gave gifts to his guests, and they departed.

The chief and his wife were left alone and he put on his frog blanket, for he was going to catch seals for the people to eat. But his face was sad and he said to his wife:

'I shall return safely this time, but when next I put on that blanket I may not be able to take it off, and if I can't, perhaps I may never come home again. But I shall not forget you, and you will always find the seals and halibut and the salmon, which I shall catch for you, in front of the house.'

He did not leave them quite as soon as he expected. For several days his wife who was always watching for him, saw him walk up the beach; then one day she watched in vain, for though salmon and whales were there, the poor little boy was not. Each morning she took her two children down to the sh.o.r.e and they stood looking over the waves crying bitterly as the tide went out, because they knew he could not come till it was high again.

Food in plenty they had, and enough for the people of the town also, but the poor little boy never came home any more, for he had grown to be a frog, and was obliged to live in the sea.

[_From the Bureau of American Ethnology: Tsimshian Texts by Franz Boas._]

_THE HANDLESS BRIGADE_

Have you ever thought what it would be like to have no arms, and be obliged to use your toes for everything? If not, try it on a wet day, and see how much you can manage to do. Yet, there are plenty of true stories of people born without hands, who have contrived by practice to teach their toes not only to supply the place of _ordinary_ fingers, but of very clever fingers, which is quite another matter! I myself once saw a young man in a Belgian gallery busily engaged in copying a picture, and as he had no arms he painted with his toes, seated on a high stool, to place him on the level he wanted. It was near the hour of closing when I happened to notice him, and after a few minutes during which I had watched him spellbound, he got down from his stool, kicked off one shoe, disclosing a stocking neatly cut across the toes, leaving them free. He then shut up his paint box, and picking up his brushes one by one dabbled them in a gla.s.s of water that stood near, and wiped them on a cloth, after which he put them carefully in their case, lying on a table.

At the sight of this, I forgot my manners and uttered a cry of amazement, which I think rather pleased the painter, for everyone likes to feel that he can do something better than his fellows. At all events he knew I did not mean to be rude, for he went to his box on the floor, opened it, took up the top card printed with his name, Charles le Felu, from a packet, and presented it to me. Then he put on his hat which was hanging on a peg, bowed and walked away, the sleeves of his coat being so fastened that he looked like a man with his hands in his pockets.

I kept that card till I was married, and obliged to throw away many of my treasures.

James Caulfield, about the beginning of the last century, collected many stories of handless people--who were 'handless' in a very different sense from what _we_ mean, when we use the word. He tells us of a German called Valerius, who was born when Charles II. was on the throne of England, and like my friend the painter, had no arms. This would have seemed a terrible calamity if it had come alone, but before he was out of his boyhood both his parents died, and left him penniless. Happily for Valerius, his mother had been a sensible woman, and insisted that her son should learn to make his toes as useful as fingers. Perched on his high stool, he did his copies like another child, and in later life, when he became famous, often wrote lines round his portraits. But much better than writing copies, he loved to beat a drum. Now beating a drum does not sound nearly so difficult as writing copies, and perhaps he was allowed to do it as a treat when he had said his lessons without a mistake, but with practice he was able to play cards and throw dice as well as any of his friends. He certainly always shaved himself when he grew to be a man, but it is rather hard to believe that in fencing he used his rapier, which he held between his big toe and the next, 'with as much skill as his adversary,' standing on his left leg the while.

The admiration of his playfellows at his cleverness filled him with pride, and Valerius was always trying fresh feats to show off to his audience.

When it became necessary for him to earn his own living, he was able to support himself in comfort, travelling from one country to another, and always drawing crowds who came to see this Eighth Wonder of the world--for so they thought him. In his leisure hours he practised some of his old tricks, or learnt new ones, and in 1698 he came to England where he stayed for seven years. Many are the tales told of him during this time. Sometimes he would raise a chair with his toes, and put it in a different place; sometimes with the help of his teeth he would build towers made of dice, or he would lie on his back and, taking a gla.s.s of water in his toes, would carry it to his mouth. He could fire a pistol with his toes when seated on a stool, and using both feet he could discharge a musket. This must have been the hardest thing of any, for the musket of those times was a clumsy, heavy weapon, and it was not easy to keep your balance when it went off.

Then we have all of us heard of the famous Miss Biffin, who lived at the time when James Caulfield wrote his book. She went to the big fairs round London, and had a little booth all to herself. There, on payment of a small sum, visitors were admitted to see her sewing with a needle held by her toes, and sewing much more neatly than many of those who came to look at her would have been capable of doing with their fingers.

And if they paid a little extra she would draw them, roughly, anything they wanted; or cut them out houses or dogs, or even likenesses of themselves on paper.

Miss Biffin, it is pleasant to think, thoroughly enjoyed her life, and, far from feeling that she was to be pitied because she had no hands, was quite convinced that she was much superior to anybody with two.

Perhaps the most wonderful of all the 'Handless Brigade' was a man called William Kingston, who was living in a village near Bristol in 1788. In that year a Mr. Walton happened to be staying in Bristol and was taken to see this marvel, of whom he writes an account to his friend John Wesley.

On the entrance of the two gentlemen into his house Kingston did not lose a moment in giving them their money's worth. He was having breakfast, and after inviting them to sit down, took up his cup between his big toe and the next, and drank off his tea without spilling a drop.

After waiting till he had b.u.t.tered his toast and eaten as much as he wanted, Mr. Walton then 'put half a sheet of paper upon the floor, with a pen and an ink-horn. Kingston threw off his shoes as he sat, took the ink-horn in the toes of his left foot, and held the pen in those of his right. He then wrote three lines as well as most ordinary writers, and as swiftly. He writes out,' continues Walton, 'his bills and other accounts. He then showed how he shaves with a razor in his toes, and how he combs his own hair. He can dress and undress himself, except b.u.t.toning his clothes,' which really does not sound half as difficult as many of his other performances. 'He feeds himself and can bring both his meat and his broth to his mouth, by holding the fork or spoon in his toes. He cleans his own shoes; can clean the knives, light the fire, and do almost every domestic business as well as any other man. He can make his hen-coops. He is a farmer by occupation; he can milk his cows with his toes, and cut his own hay, bind it up in bundles, and carry it about the field for his cattle. Last winter he had eight heifers constantly to fodder. The last summer he made all his own hay-ricks. He can do all the business of the hay-field (except mowing) as fast and as well with only his feet, as others can with rakes and forks; he goes to the field and catches his horse; he saddles and bridles him with his feet and toes. If he has a sheep among his flock that ails anything, he can separate it from the rest, drive it into a corner, and catch it when n.o.body else can; he then examines it, and applies a remedy to it. He is so strong in his teeth that he can lift ten pecks of beans with them; he can throw a great sledge-hammer with his feet as other men can with their hands. In a word, he can do nearly as much without, as other men can with, their hands.'

'He began the world with a hen and chicken; with the profit of these he purchased an ewe. The sale of these procured him a ragged colt and then a better; after this he raised a few sheep, and now occupies a small farm.'

It would be interesting to know how many of these astonishing feats Mr.

Walton actually saw Kingston perform. But at any rate we put down his letter with the impression that to be born _with_ fingers is a distinct disadvantage.