The Strange Story Book Part 19

'No; I have not been bidden, but I am going.' So she got ready some food and tied it up in a small package for him, and gave him the clean shirt and what he wanted for his hair.

He was the last to reach the canoe, and the men who were seated in it cried when they beheld him:

'Don't let him come! Don't let him come!' But Blackskin was determined to get in, and seized the canoe as they were pushing it off. In vain they struck his fingers to force him to let go; and to their amazement he easily dragged back the canoe, till it was near enough for him to jump in. Finding they could not keep him out, the men began to speak rudely to him, till the chief stopped them.

'Let him alone,' he said; 'he can bale out the water if it should come in;' so Blackskin sat in the seat of the man that bales, wondering within himself if his uncle had suspected anything when he had pulled back the canoe with the men in it. But as the chief said nothing, Blackskin supposed he had been thinking of something else at the time.

When they were close to the island, the chief waited till the canoe was lifted by a wave, and then he leaped on sh.o.r.e. He seized one sea-lion and killed it, and managed to seat himself on the back of another; but the sea-lion gave a sudden spring and threw the chief high into the air, and he fell down heavily striking his head against a rock, so that he died at once.

Blackskin had seen it all, and was sorry. He opened his bundle of clothes and put on his shirt and his hair ornament, while the rest stood round watching.

'I am the man who pulled out that branch and twisted that tree,' he said, 'and now, bring the canoe closer in!' As he spoke he walked the length of it upon the seats, which broke under him, so that those who were sitting on them were thrown to the bottom. Very frightened they all were when they heard the crash, lest he should revenge himself on them for the way they had treated him. But he did not even look at them, only jumped ash.o.r.e as his uncle had done, and climbed straight up the tall cliff, hitting some sea-lions on the head as he pa.s.sed. When he reached the big one which had killed his uncle, he slew that also, and carried them all to the sh.o.r.e, piling them up in the canoe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOW THE CHIEF'S DEATH WAS AVENGED.]

There was enough meat to last them many months, and Blackskin was still piling, when suddenly the men in the canoe pushed off, and paddled home again, and this was because of their dread of Blackskin. They made the canoe fast and told the people of the town that it was Blackskin who pulled out the branch and twisted the tree, and that for very fear they had left him on the island of the sea-lions.

'Why did you do that?' asked the people. 'Trouble may come of it.'

So Blackskin found himself alone on the island, and as there was nothing to make a fire with, he rolled himself, head and all in his blanket, and went to sleep. After a time he was wakened by a noise which sounded like the beating of sticks, and someone called out:

'I have come after you.' He sat up and looked round, but only saw a black duck swimming towards him.

'I have seen you already,' said he, and the black duck answered:

'I was bidden to fetch you. Get on my back and be sure to keep your eyes tight shut till I tell you to open them.' And Blackskin kept his eyes tight shut till the duck called out:

'Now you may open them,' and he opened them and found that he was in a fine house, though he did not guess it was the house of the sea-lions.

Of course, the people of the town knew nothing of the black duck, and they mourned for the chief and for Blackskin, who had been left to perish on the island, and the chief's wife mourned most of all.

'Why did you do it?' she asked many times, and the townspeople repeated,'Why did you do it? A strong man like that is scarce.'

Then the chief's wife begged some of the young men to cross to the island and bring back her husband's body; and this they did at last, but they could not find Blackskin's.

'Where can he be?' they said. 'Can the tide have taken him, or a wild beast have eaten him? We must consult the wise man.'

And the wise man told them that Blackskin was not dead, but would come back again some day; and this troubled them more than ever.

All this time Blackskin was quite happy in the house of the sea-lions.

He had grown so used to them that they seemed to him quite like human beings, though when he thought about it, he knew of course they were not. One day he heard a young sea-lion crying with pain, and his people could not tell what was the matter. Then Blackskin came and examined him, and declared that he had a barbed spear-point sticking in his side.

'This wise medicine man has found out why he cries,' said one; and Blackskin answered:

'I am not a medicine man, but all the same I can take out that spear-head!' And after it was out, he washed the place with warm water.

The young sea-lion was very grateful, and as he belonged to a powerful tribe they wished to reward Blackskin for his kindness, and said to him:

'Anything that belongs to us, you may have if you will.'

'Give me, then,' answered Blackskin, 'that box that hangs overhead.' Now the box was a magic box which could bring the wind out of whichever quarter you wanted it, and this was what happened. The sea-lions pushed the box up and down the surface of the sea, and whistled, and called to the wind as you would call to a dog, saying:

'Come to this box! Come to this box!'

They were sad at parting with it, and would have wished him to ask for anything else, but they would not break their word and showed Blackskin how to get into it, and bade him on no account to take it near whatever was unclean.

Then they said farewell to each other, and Blackskin packed himself carefully into the box (which was rather small for a tall man), and in a minute he was blown far out to sea.

'West wind! West wind! Come to this box,' he cried, and the west wind came, and blew and blew, till it blew him to the sh.o.r.e, not far from his own town. And when he saw where he was, he got out and shook himself and stretched his arms and legs, and hid the box away in the branches of a tree. After that he walked home.

The first person he saw was his uncle's wife, who welcomed him gladly, for next to the chief she loved Blackskin better than anybody. He then sent a messenger to beg all the townspeople to a.s.semble together, and they obeyed; but those who had been cruel to him came unwillingly, for they feared his wrath always, and hoped he had disappeared for ever. And when they lifted their glance and beheld him strong and tall and able to force men to do his will, even though they liked it little, they trembled more than before for the doom he might p.r.o.nounce on them. As for Blackskin, his eyes shone with an angry light; but he said to himself:

'It is my own fault. If I had not let them do as they like, they would never have dared to treat me in that way. It is not just to punish them: I will forgive them.' But before he had time to tell them so, the men who had left him on the island had run away in terror, and hid themselves in the woods; thus they were not present at the a.s.sembling of the people, nor heard of the welcome given him by many. Then Blackskin looked round him, and spoke these words, and some who listened to him hung their heads with shame:

'You know of yourselves what cruelty you showed me, and you do well to be ashamed of it; and those who are cruel to people because they think they are weaker than themselves will always have reason to feel shame.

Remember this, and do not make fun of poor people any more, as you did in the days when my uncle was chief.'

This is what Blackskin said.

[_Tlingit Myths and Texts, recorded by John R. Swanton._]

_THE PETS OF AURORE DUPIN_

During the years in which Napoleon and his armies were fighting in Spain, in Germany, and in Russia, a little girl might be seen running wild in the province of Berry, which is almost in the very centre of France. In those days if you had asked her name she would have answered that it was 'Aurore Dupin'; but by and bye she took another, which by her books she made famous--nearly as famous, indeed, in its own way as that of her great ancestor, the general Count Maurice de Saxe.

But it is not the celebrated writer who called herself 'George Sand'

with whom we have to do now, but the child Aurore Dupin, and her friends the birds and beasts, dwellers like herself in the bare and desolate plains that surrounded her grandmother's chateau of Nohant. Maurice Dupin, father of Aurore, was a soldier like his grandfather, Maurice de Saxe; but her mother was the daughter of a bird-seller, who, curiously enough, lived in the 'Street of the Birds' (Quai des Oiseaux) in Paris.

To this fact Aurore always declared that she owed her powers of fascination over the chaffinches, robins, or starlings that would sit on her shoulders or perch on her hands as she walked with her mother in the garden. And far from being frightened at the presence of a grown-up person, the birds often seemed to prefer Madame Maurice Dupin to Aurore herself.

Aurore became very learned about birds and their ways, considering them far cleverer than men or animals, and endowed with finer qualities than either. Warblers she held superior to any other small bird, and says that at fifteen days a warbler is as old in the feathered world as a child of ten is in that which speaks instead of chirping. When she was a little girl at Nohant, she brought up by hand two baby warblers of different sorts and different nests.

The one with a yellow breast she named Jonquil; while the other, who had a grey waistcoat, was called Agatha. Jonquil was as much as a fortnight older than Agatha, and when under the care of Aurore she was a slim, gentle young creature, inclined to be thin, and with scarcely enough feathers to cover her skin, and not yet able to fly with certainty from one branch to another, or even to feed herself. This Aurore knew was her own fault, because if Jonquil had remained at home she would have learned these things far earlier, for bird-mothers are much better teachers than _our_ mothers, and insist that their children shall find out how to get on by themselves.

Agatha was a most tiresome child. She would never be quiet for a moment, but was always hopping about, crying out and tormenting Jonquil, who was beginning to wonder at all she saw around her, and would sit thinking with one claw drawn up under her wing, her eyes half shut, and her head sunk between her shoulders. But Agatha, who never thought at all, did not see why anybody else should do so either, and would peck at Jonquil's legs and wings in order to attract attention, unless Aurore happened to be in the room and glance at her. Then Agatha would dance up and down the branch uttering plaintive cries, till some bread or biscuit was given to her. For Agatha was always hungry, or always greedy; you did not quite know which.

One morning Aurore was absorbed in writing a story, and her two little friends were seated on a green branch some distance away. It was rather cold, and Agatha, whose feathers still only half covered her, was cuddling for warmth against Jonquil. They had actually been quiet for half an hour--a very rare occurrence--but at length they made up their minds it must be time for dinner, and if Aurore did not know it, she must be told.

So Jonquil hopped on to the back of a chair and from that to the table, and finally planted her claws upon the writing paper, making a great mess of the words; while Agatha, who was afraid to leave the branch by herself, flapped her wings and opened her beak, screaming with hunger.

Aurore was just in the middle of the great scene in her story, where the hero and heroine had found out the wicked uncle, and fond though she was of Jonquil, she felt for the first time very much provoked by her behaviour. She pointed out to her that by now she really was old enough to feed herself, and that close by was an excellent pasty in a pretty saucer, only she was too lazy to eat it, and expected her mistress to put it in her mouth. Jonquil was not accustomed to be scolded, and did not like it, and to show her displeasure hopped sulkily back to her branch. Agatha, however, had no mind to go without her dinner, and, turning to Jonquil, insisted that she should return at once and help her to that delicious dish. And she was so eloquent in her pleading that Jonquil seemed really moved, though she hesitated as to whether she should do as Agatha desired, or if she should keep her dignity and remain on her branch.