“Listen to that!” said Mátsailéma to his brother.
“To use up life, that’s what I’m for,” added the old man, with emphasis; “I’ll show the Háwikuhkwe!”
“Will you come to the council?” asked the two boys.
“Shuathla,” swaggered the old man—which is a very old-fashioned word that our grandfathers used when they said: “Go ye but before me.”
So the boys skipped over to the pool at the wood border. There was their old grandfather, the Turtle, with his eyes squinted up, paddling round in the scum, and stretching his long neck up to bite off the heads of the water-rushes.
“Let’s have some fun with the old Shield-back,” said the boys to one another. “Just you hold a moment, brother elder,” said Mátsailéma as he fitted an arrow to the string and drew it clean to the point. Tsi-i-i-i thle-e-e! sang the arrow as it struck the back of the old Turtle; and although he was as big as the Turtles in the big Waters of the World now are, the force and fright ducked him under the scum like a chip, and he came up with his eyes slimy and his mouth full of spittle, and his legs flying round too fast to be counted. When he spied the two boys, he cursed them harder than their grandmother did, but they hardly heard him, for their arrow glanced upward from his back and came down so straight that they had to run for their lives. “Atiki! troublesome little beasts, who never knew what shame nor dignity was!” exclaimed the old fellow.
“Don’t be angry with us, grandpa,” said the boys. “You must be deaf, for we called and called to you, but you only paddled round and ate rushes; so we thought we would fire an arrow at you, for you know we couldn’t get at you.”
“Oh, that’s it! Well, what may my grandchildren be thinking of, in thus coming to see me? It cannot be for nothing,” reflected the old man, as he twisted his head up toward them and pushed the scum with his tail.
“Quite true, grandfather; we’ve started out sprouting, and had to come to our grandfather for advice.”
“Why, what is it then?” queried the old Shield-back.