The Middle Five: Indian Boys at School

by Francis La Flesche

As we were going to bed that night Edwin said, "Ka-gae'-ha [Friend], let you and me sleep together; I don't want to sleep with any one else."

Lester too wanted to sleep with me; so it was arranged among us that Brush and Warren should have the double bed, and Edwin, Lester, and I were to have the wide bed for three.

After we had settled down, Edwin began talking, "When we finished eating," he said, "we turned around and the old man began to talk, then you all sang. I like to hear you sing; you've got a good voice. Then we went down on our knees, just as though we were hiding in the grass; what did we do that for? The old man talked a long time; was he telling a story? I know a great many of them; I know one about a dog. He was a man, but he was turned into a dog. I'll tell it to you."

I didn't say anything, so Edwin began:

"Far back in the earliest times there dwelt in a little village a man and his wife. They had only one child living, a son whom they loved to adoration. He was so handsome a youth that whenever he walked through the village all eyes were turned upon him with admiration. One day he asked his mother to make him a separate tent. When it was done he went into it, and there spent four days and nights in solitude, neither eating nor drinking. Then he came out and spoke to his father and mother and said, "I am going away to be gone a long time, perhaps never to return. I go to meet the White-swan, the magician who sent my brothers to the abode of shadows, and, in conflict, with magic opposing his magic, I will destroy him or die as my brothers have died." The father and mother, remembering the fate of their other children, wept and pleaded with their son not to leave them, but he was determined to go.

The young man travelled many days, when one morning he beheld a maiden sitting on the brow of a hill. He went to her and asked why she sat there all alone. Without lifting her eyes, modesty forbidding her to return his gaze, the maiden replied, "I go to marry Hin-hpe'-ah-gre." The youth was seized with fear lest the young woman might be the White-swan transformed to beguile him; but being struck by her maidenly bearing, and becoming enamoured of her beauty, he turned aside from suspicion and permitted himself to be persuaded that the fair creature before him was in reality one of his own kind. And so he spoke and said, "I am he, Hin-hpe'-ah-gre, the man whom you seek to follow." In reply the maiden said, "It makes my heart throb with delight to meet and to see with my own eyes the man I am to marry. Sit down and rest your head in my lap, and when the weariness of travel has left you, I shall follow you wherever you may lead." Joy filling the heart of the youth, and no longer troubled with misgivings, he laid his head upon the lap of the maiden and soon fell fast asleep.

"Tha! Tha!" exclaimed the woman, using a word of magic, and four times, in quick succession, she pulled the ears of the young man. He awoke with a start and attempted to rise, but a transformation had taken place, instead of a man standing upright, he found himself to be a four-footed beast. His body had changed, but his reason was still that of a man. He turned to see his companion, and lo! he beheld, not the beautiful maiden in whose lap he had fallen asleep, but one who looked down upon him with contempt, and whom he knew to be the White-swan. The thought that he had been outwitted came to the young man like a flash, and as swiftly his magic word returned to his mind. He tried to utter it, but he only yelped and gave a dismal howl like that of a dog. A cringing, mangy, lop-eared dog, he now followed the White-swan and—Are you asleep?"

I was almost asleep, so I did not answer him, then he became silent. When I awoke Edwin was gone; I called him but he did not answer. Brush and I went downstairs and called softly in the school-room, but the boy was not there, then we went to the large door of the hall and found it unbolted. We returned to the dormitory and went to bed, and I soon fell asleep again.

Toward morning I was awakened by strange sounds on the stairs leading up to our dormitory. I recognized the footsteps of a human being, but there were other footsteps that were like those of a four-footed beast. They approached my bed; they came near, and a voice said in Indian in a loud whisper, "Lie down, lie down!"