"The wigwam trembled once again and floated through the sky until at last it alighted on the Evening Star as gently as thistledown drops to the water, and the ruler of the Evening Star, the father of Osseo, came forward to greet his son.
"'My son,' he said, 'hang the cage of birds that you bring with you at the doorway of my wigwam, and then do you and Oweenee enter,' and Osseo and Oweenee did as they were told, entered the wigwam and listened to the words of Osseo's father.
"'I have had pity on you, my Osseo,' he began. 'I have given back to you your youth and beauty; and I have changed into birds the sisters of Oweenee and their husbands, because they laughed at you and could not see that your spirit was beautiful. When you were an ugly old man, only Oweenee knew your heart. But you must take heed, for in the little star that you see yonder lives an evil spirit, the Wabeno; and it is he who has brought all this sorrow upon you. Take care that you never stand in the light of that evil star. Its gleams are used by the Wabeno as his arrows, and he sits there hating all the world and darting forth his poisonous beams of baleful light to injure all who stray within his reach.'
"For many years Osseo and his father and Oweenee lived happily together upon the Evening Star. Oweenee bore a son to Osseo, and the boy had beauty and courage. Osseo, to please his son, made little bows and arrows for him, and when the boy had learned to shoot, Osseo opened the door of the silver bird-cage and let out all the birds. They darted through the air, singing for joy at their freedom, until the boy bent his bow and struck one of them with a fatal arrow, so that the bird fell wounded at his feet. But when it touched the ground the bird underwent a great change; and there lay at the boy's feet a beautiful young woman with the arrow in her breast.
"As soon as her blood dripped upon the sacred Evening Star, all the magical charms that Osseo's father had used to keep his son and Oweenee with him in the happy dwelling far above the earth were broken, and the boy hunter with his bow and arrow felt himself held by unseen hands, but sinking downward through the blue sky and the empty air until he rested on a green and grassy island in the Big-Sea-Water. Falling and fluttering after him came all the bright birds; and the lodge, with Osseo and Oweenee in it, sailed lightly downward and landed on the island.
"When the bright birds touched the earth, another change came over them, and they became men and women once again as they were before; only they remained so small in size—so tiny, that they were called the Little People, the Puk-Wudjies. And on summer nights, when the stars shone brightly above them, they would dance hand in hand about the island, and sometimes in the starlight they dance there even now."
When the story was finished, Iagoo looked about him at the assembled guests, and added very solemnly: "There are many great men at whom their own people often scoff and jeer. Let these people take warning from the story of Osseo, so that they too may not be changed to birds for laughing at their betters;" and the wedding guests all whispered to each other, "I wonder if he means himself and us." Then Chibiabos sang another sweet and tender love-song, and the guests all went away, leaving Hiawatha alone and happy with Minnehaha.