“He always hears, doesn’t He?”
“He hears and answers. But sometimes the answers are what He sees is best, not what we want.”
“Don’t sigh that way, Other Mother! S’posin’ your little boy did go away. Haven’t you got Gaspar and Kitty?”
“Yes, little one.”
“Go on, then. About the little maid—just like me.”
“So she put her own two tiny hands up toward the sky and asked the Great Spirit to put soft shoes on her tired little feet.”
“And He did, didn’t He?”
“Surely. First the pain eased and that made her look down. And there she saw a pair of the softest moccasins that ever were made. They were of pale pink and yellow, and all dotted with dark little bead-spots; and they fitted as easily as her own dainty skin. Then the girl papoose was grateful, and she begged the Great Spirit that He would make many and many another pair of just such comfortable shoes for every other little barefoot maid in all the world. That not one single child should ever suffer what the girl papoose had suffered.”
“Did He?” asked Gaspar, as interested as Kitty.