Then he told them the tale also.
“Listen!” said the Beings of Water. “Long have men neglected their duties, and the Beloved of the Clouds need payment of due no less than ourselves, the Trees, the Food-maker, the Dog, and the Old Woman. Behold! no plumes are set about our border! Now, therefore, pay to them of thy feathers—four floating plumes from under thy wings—and set them close over us, that, seen in our depths from the sky, they will lure the Beloved of the Clouds with their rain-laden breaths. Thus will our stream-way be replenished and the Trees watered, and their Winds in the Trees will drop thee dead branches wherewith thou mayest make payment and all will be well.”
Forthwith the Tâkâkâ plucked four of his best plumes and set them, one on the northern, one on the western, one on the southern, and one on the eastern border of the Pool. Then the Winds of the Four Quarters began to breathe upon the four plumes, and with those Breaths of the Beloved came Clouds, and from the Clouds fell Rain, and the Trees threw down dry branches, and the Wind placed among them Red-top Grass, which is light and therefore lightens the load it is among. And when the Cock returned and gathered a little bundle of fagots, lo! the Red-top made it so light that he easily carried it to the Food-maker, who gave him bread, for which the Dog gave him four bristles, and these he took to the old Grandmother.
“Ha!” exclaimed she. “Now, child, I will cure thee, but thou hast been so long that thy head will always be welted and covered with proud-flesh, even though healed. Still, it must ever be so. Doing right keeps right; doing wrong makes wrong, which, to make right, one must even pay as the sick pay those who cure them. Go now, and bide whither I bid thee.”
When, after a time, the Cock became well, lo! there were great, flabby, blood-red welts on his head and blue marks on his temples where they were bruised so sore. Now, listen:
It is for this reason that ever since that time the medicine masters of that people never give cure without pay; never, for there is no virtue in medicine of no value. Ever since then cocks have had no bristles on their breasts—only little humps where they ought to be;—and they always have blood-red crests of meat on their heads. And even when a hen lays an egg and a tâkâkâ cock sees it, he begins to tâ-kâ-kâ-â as the ancient of them all did when he saw the brown nut. And sometimes they even pick at and eat these seeds of their own children, especially when they are cracked.
As for mice, we know how they went into the meal-bags in olden times and came out something else, and, getting smoked, became tsothliko-ahâi, with long, bare tails. But that was before the Cock cut the tail of the tsothliko Mouse off. Ever since he cried in agony: “Weh tsu yii weh tsu!” like a child with a burnt finger, his children have been called Wehtsutsukwe, and wander wild in the fields; hence field-mice to this day have short tails, brown-stained and hairy; and their chops are all pink, and when you look them in the face they seem always to be crying.
Thus shortens my story.