XIII
BLESSING THE CORNFIELDS
MANY were the pleasant days that followed the wedding of Minnehaha and Hiawatha. All the tribes were at peace with one another, and the hunters roved wherever they chose, built their birch canoes, hunted and fished and trapped the beaver without once hearing the war-cry or the hiss of a hostile arrow. The women made sugar from the sap of the maple-trees, gathered the wild rice and dressed the skins of the deer and beaver, while all around the peaceful village waved green and sunny fields of corn.
Once, when the corn was being planted by the women, the wise and thoughtful Hiawatha said to Minnehaha: "To-night you shall bless the cornfields, and draw around them a magic circle to keep out the mildew and the insects. In the night, when everybody is asleep and none can hear you or see you, rise from your bed, lay aside your clothes and walk in the darkness around the fields of corn that you have planted. Do this and the fields shall be more fruitful and the magic circle of your footsteps cannot be crossed by either worm or insect; for the dragon-fly and the spider, and the grasshopper and the caterpillar all will know that you have walked around the cornfields, and they will not dare to enter."
While Hiawatha spoke, Kahgahgee, King of the Ravens, sat with his band of black robbers in the tree-tops near at hand, and they laughed so loud at the words of Hiawatha that the tree-tops shook and rattled. "Kaw!" shouted the ravens. "Listen to the wise man! Hear the plots of Hiawatha! We will fly over the magic circle and eat just as much corn as we can hold."
When night had fallen dark and black over the fields and woodlands, and when all the Indians were sleeping fast, Minnehaha rose from her bed of branches, laid aside her garments and walked safely among the cornfields, drawing the magic circle of her light footsteps closely around them. No one but the midnight saw her, and no one but the whippoorwill heard the panting of her bosom, for the darkness wrapped its cloak closely about her as she walked. And the dragon-fly and the grasshopper, the spider and the caterpillar, all knew that they could not cross the magic circle of Minnehaha's footsteps.
When the morning came, however, Kahgahgee gathered about him all his black and rascally crew of ravens and jays and crows and blackbirds, shrieking with laughter, and with harsh cries and raucous clamor they all left the tree-tops and flapped eagerly down upon the cornfields. "Kaw! Kaw!" they shrieked, "we will dig up the corn from the soft earth, and we will eat all we can hold, in spite of Minnehaha and her foolish circle!"
But Hiawatha had overheard the ravens as they laughed at him from among the tree-tops. He had risen before day-*break and had covered the cornfields with snares, and at that moment he was hiding in the woods until all the evil birds should alight on the fields and begin their wicked feast.
They came with a rush of wings and hungry cries, settled down upon the cornfields and began to dig and delve and scratch in the earth for the corn that had been planted there, and with all their skill and cunning, they did not see that anything was amiss until their claws were caught in Hiawatha's snares and they were helpless.
Then Hiawatha left his hiding-place among the bushes and strode toward the captive ravens, and his appearance was so awful that the bravest of them hopped and shrieked and flapped their wings in terror. He walked among them, and killed them to the right and left in tens and twenties without mercy; and he hung their dead bodies on poles, to serve as scarecrows and to frighten away all other thieves and robbers from the sacred fields of corn. Only one of the ravens was spared by Hiawatha and that was Kahgahgee, the ruler of them all. Hiawatha tied him with a string and fastened him to the ridge-pole of his wigwam, saying: "Kahgahgee, you are the cause of all this mischief, and I am going to hold you as a warning to all the ravens left alive. If they light upon the cornfields and begin again their wicked thieving, I will kill you and hang your body on a pole as an example." And Hiawatha left Kahgahgee tied fast to the ridge-pole of the wigwam, hopping and tugging angrily at his string and croaking in vain for his friends to come and set him free.
The summer passed, and all the air became warm and soft with the haze of early autumn. The corn had grown tall and yellow, and the ears were almost bursting from their sheaths, when old Nokomis said to Minnehaha: "Let us gather the harvest and strip the ripe ears of all their husks and tassels," and Minnehaha and Nokomis went through the village, calling on the women and the maidens and the young men to come forth and help them with the husking of the corn. All together they went to the cornfields, and the old men and the warriors sat in the shade at the edges of the forest and smoked and looked on in approval, while the young men and maidens stripped the ears of corn and laughed and sang merrily over their labor. Whenever a youth or a maiden found a crooked ear, they all laughed even louder, and crept about the cornfields like weak old men bent almost double with age. But when some lucky maiden found a blood-red ear in the husking, they all cried out: "Ah, Nushka! You shall have a sweetheart!" And the old men nodded in approval as they smoked beneath the pine-trees.