The half-starved little girl came down again a remarkably pretty woman, and when Old Crow returned with a few grains of corn in her beak, she was astonished to find so beautiful a girl sitting and making moccasins before the largest and handsomest lodge she had ever seen.
When the Mole poked his long nose through the earth to look at Pretty Woman, she ordered him back, saying, “I am not the light.”
Three times the Hummingbird circled round her head with buzzing wings, but she drove him away. “I am not a flower,” said she. He went home and told all the people that he had seen the most beautiful woman in the world, and the woods were soon full of suitors.
Since Old Crow Woman was the girl’s chaperon, they all appealed to her. One said: “I will lay down the richest of bear skins for her to walk on, all the way to my village.”
“That will never do,” replied the old woman. “She might slip on the skins and hurt herself.”
The second lover offered to lay down a line of mortars all the way. “You must not do that,” said Old Crow. “The mortars might roll and trip her up.”
The third man declared: “My people shall lie down on the ground, and she may tread upon them as she comes to me a bride!”
To this the old woman made no objection, and Pretty Woman walked all the way to her future home upon the bodies of the people.
THE CRANE AND THE HUMMINGBIRD
Once there was a beautiful girl who had many suitors, and among the most persistent were the Crane and the Hummingbird. She rather fancied the latter, since the Crane was a long-legged, awkward fellow, not at all to her taste. In order to rid herself of his pretensions once and for all, she told them that they might fly round the world, and the first one to return should be her husband. As the Hummingbird is very swift, she had no doubt of the result.