“Very well,” replied the girl.
“Will you surely do it?” inquired the young man.
“Yes,” said she, and lo! the young man reached out his hand and there was a great heap of flowers already plucked before him! And while they were yet talking, the Sun rose; and as its first rays touched him he began to sink, until there before the girl was nothing but a hideous old skull.
“Oh, dear!” cried she; “but I promised to take it, and I suppose I must.” So she took the skull up with the tips of her fingers and put it into the blanket among the flowers, and started for home. Then she entered an inner room of the house, and taking the skull carefully out of the blanket, placed some cotton in a large new water-jar, and laid the skull upon it. Then she covered the jar with a flat stone and went to work grinding meal.
When the Sun was setting, a voice came from the jar.
“Take me down, quick!” And the girl took the skull down and placed it on the floor, and as it grew dark there stood the same handsome young man as before, magnificently clothed, with precious stones and shells all about him, just as the Sun-father had dressed him. And the girl was very happy, and told him she would marry him.
Next morning, just as the Sun rose, the young man vanished, and nothing but the old white skull lay on the floor. So the girl placed it in the jar again, and taking up another water-jar went out toward the spring. Now, her younger sister went into the room and espied the jar. “I wonder what sister has covered this jar up so carefully for,” said she to herself; and she stepped up to the jar and took the lid off.
“Ati!” cried she. “O dear! O dear!” she screamed. For when she looked down into the jar there was a great rattlesnake coiled up over the smooth white skull.
So she ran and called her father and told him in great fright what she had seen.
“Ah!” said the father, for he was a very wise priest-chief, “thou shouldst not meddle with things. Thou shouldst keep quiet,” said he. He then arose and went into the room. Then he approached the jar, and, looking down into it, said: “Have mercy upon us, my child, my father. Become as thou art. Disguise not thyself in hideous forms, but as thou hast been, be thou.” And the skull rattled against the sides of the jar in assent.