A RATTLE.
THE GHOST WIFE.
ONE time there were living together a man and his wife. They had a young child. The woman died. The man was very sad, and mourned for his wife.
One night he took the child in his arms, and went out from the village to the place where his wife was buried, and stood over the grave, and mourned for his wife. The little child was very helpless, and cried all the time. The man’s heart was sick with grief and loneliness. Late in the night he fell asleep, fainting and worn out with sorrow. After a while he awoke, and when he looked up, there was a form standing by him. The form standing there was the one who had died. She spoke to her husband, and said, “You are very unhappy here. There is a place to go where we would not be unhappy. Where I have been nothing bad happens to one. Here, you never know what evil will come to you. You and the child had better come to me.”
The man did not want to die. He said to her, “No; it will be better if you can come back to us. We love you. If you were with us we would be unhappy no longer.”
For a long time they discussed this, to decide which one should go to the other. At length the man by his persuasions overcame her, and the woman agreed to come back. She said to the man, “If I am to come back you must do exactly as I tell you for four nights. For four days the curtain must remain let down before my sleeping place; it must not be raised; no one must look behind it.”
The man did as he had been told, and after four days had passed, the curtain was lifted, and the woman came out from behind it. Then they all saw her, first her relations, and afterward the whole tribe. Her husband and her child were very glad, and they lived happily together.
A long time after this, the man took another wife. The first wife was always pleasant and good-natured, but the new one was bad-tempered, and after some time she grew jealous of the first woman, and quarreled with her. At length, one day the last married became angry with the other, and called her bad names, and finally said to her, “You ought not to be here. You are nothing but a ghost, anyway.”
That night when the man went to bed, he lay down, as was his custom, by the side of his first wife. During the night he awoke, and found that his wife had disappeared. She was seen no more. The next night after this happened, the man and the child both died in sleep. The wife had called them to her. They had gone to that place where there is a living.