Djinaenda inquired where his uncle lived but no one knew. Finally an old man said, “An old man such as you describe lived in the woods with his nephew near this place more than a hundred years ago.”
The couple now tried to live contentedly but could not understand the ways of the people, and so, in time the two returned to the sky. The wife rejoined her sisters but she had lost her brightness, and Djinaenda roamed the sky world hunting game which he captured by running it down.
My grandmother told me that they are up there yet.
7. THE COMING OF SPRING.[[19]]
In the ancient times when this world was new an old man wandered over the land in search of a suitable camping spot. He was a fierce old man and had long white flowing hair. The ground grew hard like flint where his footsteps fell, and when he breathed the leaves and grasses dropped and dried up red, and fell. When he splashed through the rivers the water stopped running and stood solid.
On and on the old man journeyed until at last on the shores of a great lake by a high mountain he halted. He gathered the trees that had been uprooted by hurricanes and made a framework for a dwelling. He built the walls of ice and plastered the crevices with branches and snow. Then, to guard his lodge against the intruder, he placed uprooted stumps about on every side. Not even bad animals cared to enter this house. Everything living passed by it at a distance. It was like a magician’s house.
The old man had but one friend. It was North Wind, and it was he alone who might enter the door of the stronghold and sit by the fire. Very wonderful was this fire and it gave flames and light but no heat! But even North Wind found little time to enter and smoke with the old man, for he took greater pleasure in piling high the snow and driving hail, like flints, against the shivering deer or hungry storm bound hunter. He liked to kill them. There came times, however, when North Wind needed new tricks and so he sought the advice of the old man,—how he might pile up the snow banks higher, how he might cause famine or make great snow-slides to bury Indian villages.
One very dismal night both North Wind and the old man sat smoking, half awake and half dreaming. North Wind could think of nothing new and the old man could give no more advice. So, sitting before the fire, both fell asleep. Towards morning each sprang to his feet with a cry. Not their usual cries, either, were their startled yells, for instead of a shrill “agēē! agēē! agēē!” the North Wind only gasped hoarsely and the old man’s jaw opened with a smack and his tongue, thick and swollen rolled out on his chin. Then spoke the North Wind:
“What warm thing has bewitched me? The drifts are sinking, the rivers breaking, the ice is steaming, the snow is smoking!”
The old man was silent, too sleepy to speak. He only thought, “My house is strong, very strong.” Still the North Wind called loudly: