The Story of Hiawatha, Adapted from Longfellow

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Winston Stokes

THE time came when Hiawatha felt that he must show the tribes of Indians that he would do them some great service, and he went alone into the forest to fast and pray, and see if he could not learn how to help his fellow-men and make them happy. In the forest he built a wigwam, where nobody might disturb him, and he went without food for seven nights and seven days. The first day, he walked in the forest; and when he saw the hare leap into the thicket and the deer dart away at his approach he was very sad, because he knew that if the animals of the forest should die, or go and hide where the Indians could not hunt them, the Indians would starve for want of food. "Must our lives depend on the hare and on the red deer?" asked Hiawatha, and he prayed to the Great Manito to tell him of some food that the Indians might always be able to find when they were hungry.

The next day, Hiawatha walked by the bank of the river, and saw the wild rice growing and the blueberries and the wild strawberries and the grape-vine that filled the air with pleasant odors; and he knew that when cold winter came, all this fruit would wither and the Indians would have no more of it to eat. Again he prayed to the Great Manito to tell him of some food that the Indians might enjoy in winter and summer, in autumn and in spring.

The third day that Hiawatha fasted, he was too weak to walk about the forest, and he sat by the shore of the lake and watched the yellow perch darting about in the sunny water. Far out in the middle of the lake he saw Nahma, the big sturgeon, leap into the air with a shower of spray and fall back into the water with a crash; and every now and then the pike would chase a school of minnows into the shallow water at the edges of the lake and dart among them like an arrow. And Hiawatha thought of how a hot summer might dry up the lakes and rivers and kill the fish, or drive them into such deep water that nobody could catch them; and he called out to the Great Manito, asking a third time for some food that the Indians could store away and use when there was no game in the forest, and no fruit on the river banks or in the fields, and no fish in any of the lakes and rivers.

On the fourth day that Hiawatha fasted, he was so weak from hunger that he could not even go out and sit beside the lake, but lay on his back in his wigwam and watched the rising sun burn away the mist, and he looked up into the blue sky, wondering if the Great Manito had heard his prayers and would tell him of this food that he wished so much to find. And just as the sun was sinking down behind the hills, Hiawatha saw a young man with golden hair coming through the forest toward his wigwam, and the young man wore a wonderful dress of the brightest green, with silky yellow fringes and gay tassels that waved behind him in the wind.

The young man walked right into Hiawatha's wigwam and said: "Hiawatha, my name is Mondamin, and I have been sent by the Great Manito to tell you that he has heard your prayers and will give you the food that you wish to find. But you must work hard and suffer a great deal before this food is given you, and you must now come out of your wigwam and wrestle with me in the forest."

Then Hiawatha rose from his bed of leaves and branches, but he was so weak that it was all he could do to follow Mondamin from the wigwam. He wrestled with Mondamin, and as soon as he touched him his strength began to return. They wrestled for a long time and at last Mondamin said: "It is enough. You have wrestled bravely, Hiawatha. To-morrow I will come again and wrestle with you." He vanished, and Hiawatha could not tell whether he had sunk into the ground or disappeared into the air.

"DEAD HE LAY THERE IN THE SUNSET"—[Page 153]

On the next day, when the sun was setting, Mondamin came again to wrestle with Hiawatha, and the day after that he came also and they wrestled even longer than before. Then Mondamin smiled at Hiawatha and said to him: "Three times, O Hiawatha, you have bravely wrestled with me. To-morrow I shall wrestle with you once again, and you will overcome me and throw me to the earth and I shall seem to be dead. Then, when I am lying still and limp on the ground, do you take off my gay clothes and bury me where we have wrestled. And you must make the ground above the place where I am buried soft and light, and take good care that weeds do not grow there and that ravens do not come there to disturb me, until at last I rise again from the ground more beautiful than ever."

True to his word, Mondamin came at sunset of the next day, and he and Hiawatha wrestled together for the last time. They wrestled after evening had come upon them, until at last Hiawatha threw Mondamin to the ground, who lay there as if dead.