THE STORM-CHILD
There was tranquillity in the warm lodge of Waumdisapa, chief of the Tetons. It was always peaceful there for it is the duty of a head man to render his people harmonious and happy—but it was doubly tranquil on this midwinter day, for a mighty tumult had arisen in the tops of the tall willows, and across the grass of the bleak plain an icy dust was wildly sliding. Nearly all the men of the band were in camp, so fierce was the blast.
Waumdisapa listened tranquilly to the streams of snow lashing his tepee’s cap and felt it on his palm as it occasionally sifted down through the smoke-vent, and said, “The demons may howl and the white sands slide—my people are safe here behind the hills. With food and plenty of blankets we can wait.”
Hour by hour he smoked, or gravely meditated, his mind filled with the pursuits and dangers of the past. Now and again as an aged wrinkled warrior lifted the door-flap he was invited to enter to partake of tobacco and to talk of the gathering spirits of winter.
In a neighboring lodge the chief’s wife was at work beside her kettle singing a low song as she minded her fire, and through the roaring, whistling, moaning riot of the air-sprites other women could be heard cheerfully beating their way from fire to fire. A few hunters were still abroad, but no one was alarmed about them. The tempest was a subject of jest and comparison with other days. No one feared its grim power. Was it not a part of nature, an enemy always to be met!
Suddenly the sound of a moaning cry broke in upon the chief’s meditation. The tent-door was violently thrown up and with a hoarse wail, Oma, a young widow, entered the lodge, and threw herself before the feet of Waumdisapa. “My baby! My little boy is lost in the snow. O father, pity me—help me!”
Quickly the chief questioned her. “Where?”
“Out there!” she motioned with her hand—a wild gesture toward the bleak remorseless north. “I was with my brothers hunting the buffalo—the storm came on—my baby wandered away from the camp. We could not find him. They came away—taking me, too. They would not let me stay. Send hunters—find him. Take pity on me, my father!”
The chief turned to her brothers (who had followed her and were looking on with sad faces) and said, “Is this true?”
“It is!” they said. “We were in temporary camp. We were resting. The tempest leaped upon us. All was in confusion. The baby wandered away—the snow must have covered him quickly. We could not find him though we searched hard and long. The storm grew. Some of us came on to bring the women and children to camp. Three of us, my brothers and I, remained to look for the boy. We could not find him. He is buried deep in the snow.”
The chief, touched by the woman’s agony, rose in reproof. “Go back!” he said, sternly. “Take other of the young men. Cover every foot of ground near your camp.”
“The night is coming.”
“No matter—search!” commanded the chief.
A party of braves was soon made up. As they rode away into the blast Oma wished to go with them, but the chief prevented her.
All the afternoon she remained in the chief’s lodge crowding close to his feet—listening, moaning, waiting. She was weak with hunger, and shivering with cold, but she would not eat, would not go to her silent and lonely fireplace.
“No, no, father, I will stay with you,” she said.
Swiftly the darkness fell upon the camp. The cold intensified. The tempest increased in violence, howling above the willows like an army of flying demons. The snows beat upon the stout skins of the lodges and fell in heaps which grew ever higher, but the mothers of the camp came one by one, young and old, to comfort the stricken one, speaking words of cheer.
“They will bring him.”
“The brave hunters will find your boy.”
“They know no fear.”
“They have sharp eyes.”
“Their hearts are warm.”
“They will rescue him.”
Nevertheless, two by two the hardy trailers returned, cold, weary, covered with ice, their faces sad, their eyes downcast. “Blackness is on the plain,” they reported. “Nothing moves but the snow. We have searched hard. We have called, we have listened close, no voice replies. Nothing is to be seen, or heard.”
With each returning unsuccessful scout the mother’s grief and despair deepened. Heartbroken, she lay prone on the ground, her face in the dust, while the sorrowful songs of the women went on around her. Truly hers was a piteous plight.
“To lose one’s only child is sad. She has no man. She is alone.”
“The sun-god has forsaken her,” said one old woman. “He is angry. She has neglected some sacrifice.”
At last Hacone, the bravest, most persistent scout of all, one who loved Oma, came silently in and dropped exhausted beside the chieftain’s fire.
“Night, black stranger, has come,” he said, “I can search no longer. Twice I lost my way, twice my horse fell. Blinding was the wind. My breath was taken. Long I looked for the camp. The signal fires guided me. Dead is the child.”
With a whimper of anguish the poor mother fell back upon the floor and lay as one dead, hearing no sound. All night long her low moans went on—and the women who lifted and bore her away sang songs of grief with intent to teach her that sorrow was the lot of all women and that happiness was but a brief spot of sunlight in a world of shadow.