The boy pondered in the black silence.
“I not unders’and. Yesterday I think that bear he come to help the Crane. Now all is dark—like this.”
“Yes, it’s pretty dark. But the world will be just as beautiful in the morning. After they have put the sand over the last of your family and my family, the sun will rise just as beautifully as it ever did.”
Shinguakonse was not unacquainted with this curious form of comfort. His dear teacher had dealt it out to him before, but it took him a long time to see any sense in it.
He felt along the shore until he found her dory, and launched it and held it while she stepped in.
“Tell me how he come up, the sun.”
“Why, first there is a color like miakodeed, the spring beauty. It touches the pines on the hill and makes them glow like the lodge of the reindeer, where Penaycee is now. Then the dark blue grows lighter, as if you could see the Bluebird again. Then the stars go out, because the Yellowbird that is coming is so much brighter. Then the thrushes begin to sing. Then—”
“My rifle he go peep peep!”
Jean laughed and pushed out into the dark.