“Just an Injun story,” he returned, reaching out the book.
“Hiawatha,” she read; “What’s it about?”
“I hardly know; it seems to be a number of old Indian tales the poet has woven together about some big chief. The story is strange, but I rather like it.”
“Read some to me,” she requested.
“I’d rather hear you read,” he half objected.
“That’s not fair; you know the story. Won’t you, please? I’m hungry to hear something good.”
“Yes,” he responded, “if you really wish it.”
They sat down on the grassy bank together and he began by telling her briefly the beginnings of the poem, the stories of the peace pipe and the four winds.
“This myth of the morning star and the east wind is rather charming, I think,” and he read with appreciative feeling these lines:
Young and beautiful was Wabun,
He it was who brought the morning,
He it was whose silver arrows
Chased the dark o’er hill and valley,
He it was whose cheeks were painted
With the brightest streaks of crimson,
And whose voice awoke the village,
Called the deer and called the hunter.
Lonely in the sky was Wabun,
Though the birds sang gayly to him,
Though the flowers of the meadow
Filled the air with fragrance for him,
Yet his heart was sad within him,
For he was alone in heaven.
But one morning gazing earthward
While the village still was sleeping,
And the fog lay on the river
Like the ghost that goes at sunrise,
He beheld a maiden walking
All alone upon the meadow,
Gathering water flags and rushes
By the river in the meadow.
Every morning gazing earthward
Still the first thing he beheld there
Was her blue eyes looking at him,
Two blue lakes among the rushes.
And he loved this lonely maiden,
Who thus waited for his coming;
For they both were solitary,
She on earth and he in heaven.
And he wooed her with caresses,
Wooed her with his smiles of sunshine,
With his flattering words he wooed her,
Gentlest whispers in the branches,
Softest music, sweetest odors,
Till he drew her to his bosom,
Folded in his robes of crimson,
Till into a star he changed her,
Trembling still upon his bosom;
And forever in the heavens
They are seen together walking,
Wabun and the Wabun-Annung,
Wabun and the star of morning.