Now, this girl was surpassingly beautiful, and was looked upon by many a young man as the flower of his heart and the one on whom he would ultimately concentrate his thoughts for life. Amongst these young men, the first to manifest his feelings was a youth from the Village of the Winds.
One day he said to his old people: “I am going courting.” And they observed that he made up a bundle of various precious things for women’s dress and ornamentation—necklaces, snow-white buckskin moccasins and leggings, and embroidered skirts and mantles—and, taking his bundle on his shoulders, he started off for the Village of the Yellow Rocks.
When he reached the village he knew the home of the maiden by the beauty of the house. Among other houses it was alone of its kind. Attached to the ladder was the cross-piece carved as it is in these days, but depending from it was a fringe of black hair (not scalp-locks) with which they still ornament certain houses when they have sacred ceremonies; and among this fringe were hung hollow stalactites from a sacred cave on the Colorado Chiquito, which sounded, when the wind blew them together, like little bells. This fringe was full of them, so that when a stranger came to this important chief-priest’s house he no sooner touched the ladder-rung at the foot than the bells tinkled, and they knew some one was coming.
As he placed his foot on the lowermost rung of the ladder, chi-la-li sang the bells at the top.
Said the people within: “Some one is coming.”
Step after step he went up, and still the bells made music at the top, and as he stepped over on the roof, thud, thud, his footsteps sounded as he walked along; and when he reached the door, those within said: “Thou comest?” And he replied: “I come. Draw me in”; by which expression he meant that he had brought with him a present to the family. Whenever a man has a bundle to hand down, it is the place of the woman to take it; and that is called “drawing a man in,” though she only takes his bundle and he follows. In this case he said “Draw me in,” and the maiden came to the top of the ladder and took the bundle and dropped it on the floor. They knew by the appearance of the bundle what the object of the visit was.
The old man was sitting by the fireplace,—it was night-time,—and as the stranger entered, said, “Thou hast come?”
The young man answered: “Yes.”
Said the old man: “It is not customary for a stranger to visit the house of a stranger without saying something of what may be in his thoughts.”
“It is quite true,” said the youth; “I come thinking of this maiden, your daughter. It has occurred to me that I might happily and without fear rest my thoughts and hopes on her; therefore I come.”