“Stop that gaping and fooling, will you? And go to sleep, you nasty little cubs!” cried the irritated old woman; and laughing outright at their poor old grandmother, they put their arms around each other and fell asleep.
Next morning the sun rose, till he shone straight over the mountain, but still the two boys were asleep. The old grandmother had gone out to water her garden, and now she was sitting on the house-top shading her eyes and looking down the trail she had told the boys to follow, to see them come out of the shadow.
After she had strained her poor old eyes till they watered, she grew impatient: “Did I ever see such boys! Now they’ve gone and played me another trick. They’ll rue their pranks some day.” Then she thought she would go down and get some mush for breakfast. As she climbed down the ladder, she heard a tremendous snoring. “Ho, ho!” exclaimed the old grandmother; and striding across the room she shook the boys soundly. “Get up, get up! you lazy creatures; fine sprouters, you!”
The boys rolled over, rubbed their eyes, and began to stretch.
“Get up, get up! the day is warmed long ago; fine warriors, you!” reiterated the old woman, giving them another shaking.
The boys sat up, stretched, gaped, rubbed their eyes, and scratched their heads—the dirtiest little fellows ever seen—but they were only making believe. Their arms were crusty with dirt, and their hair stood out like down on a wild milkweed after a rain-storm, and yet these boys were the handsomest children that ever lived—only they were fooling their old grandmother, you see.
“You’d better be down at the spring washing your eyes at sunrise, instead of scratching your heads here with the sun shining already down the sky-hole”; croaked the old woman.
“What! is the sun out?” cried the boys in mock surprise; but they knew what time it was as well as the old crone did.
“Out! I should say it was! You boys might as well go to sleep again. A fine bundle of sticks you could get today, with the sun done climbing up already.”
So the boys pretended to be in a great hurry and, grabbing up their bows and quivers, never stopped to half dress nor heeded the old woman’s offer of food, but were jumping down the crags like mountain goats before the old woman was up the ladder.