“It was a good road that we walked together, Grandson. Sometimes we were hungry, but it was a good road. Our children came to us, and when we were old, we saw our grandchildren too. It was a good road.”
At this point it seemed that I had suddenly dropped out of the old man’s world, and a great distance lay between us. He sat with closed eyes, making low, plaintive sounds on his eagle-bone whistle. When he had sat thus over long, I said, “Grandfather, you still have your eagle-bone whistle; but what became of the sacred quirt?”
Slowly he returned to awareness of my presence, the smile and glow warm upon his time-carved face.
“When she died—” he said in a low, gentle voice that quavered a bit—“when she died, I just put it down beneath her dress, between her breasts. I would not need it any more.”
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Here the word signifies white man; but see page 36.
[2] Sioux.
[3] This prayer was given to me by my old friend and teacher, Black Elk, the Oglala Sioux holy man.