When the tree flowered

by John G. Neihardt

“What do you want of these old people, that you have cooked all this good food for them? Surely there is something you must want; but you know very well they cannot give you anything now. Still you feed them. What do you want from them? They cannot repay you, for they have nothing.

“‘Yes, they do have something. Maybe it is the white war bonnet they wear. Maybe that is what you want them to give you. Maybe it is the wrinkled old buckskin they are wearing [their skins]; but that is almost worn out, and would not keep you from freezing on a winter trail. Maybe you want them to give you their canes; but three legs are slower than two.

“‘I think you do not want any of these things now; but maybe this is what you are thinking: I am young and I will look to the old who are worthy. They have seen their days and proven themselves. With the help of Wakon Tonka, they have grown ripe for the world of spirit, and they can see what eyes do not show. What will be, but is not yet, they can tell it; and what comes out of their mouths, it is so, because it is not with their eyes that they see. If I give them of my strength, being young, their power to live will come back to me and my family. So shall we come in our time to where the cane is; so shall we wear the white war bonnet and be ripe for the world of spirit; so we too shall see our children’s children.

“‘I thought all the while, grandsons, that there must be something you wanted for this food; and now you have told me what it is. It is good, and so shall it be.

“‘And now as we sit here together in a sacred manner, smelling all this good meat, we can hear the Food talking. It is talking to you, grandsons, and it says: “I come first, and I am sacred, for without me there is nothing. The Grandfather, Wakon Tonka, has given me to Maka, the mother of all living things, and she has shown mercy to her children that they may live. On her thousand breasts I am grass; in her thousand laps I am meat; and again on her thousand breasts I am grass. The bison’s strength is mine. The great warrior, I have made him strong for his deeds. The greedy-for-me, their days shall be easy to count; but those who are liberal with me, upon me shall they uproot their teeth [grow very old]. Unless the great warrior gives me with his deeds, they shall be as a coward’s. Let any try without me, I will always win. It is I who am the greatest warrior. If I had weapons, who could count my prisoners by now?”

“‘Grandsons, so it is the Food talks, and you have heard. Surely we must thank this sacred one, and how can we do that? Plama yelo is a breath in the mouth; it is easy to say, and no one is the fatter for it. The Food itself has told us how to thank it. We shall give it to the needy and the old.’

“When Blue Spotted Horse was through talking, the old man at his left smiled at us boys and said, ‘Ho, Grandsons! How!’ Then the next and the next spoke to us in the same way, until all the old men and old women had spoken. And when the voices had gone around the hoop from left to right, which is the sacred manner, and come back to Blue Spotted Horse, he said, ‘I am sending the food neither down nor up. The people are hungry and ready, so put it out.’

“Then we boys went around the hoop, left to right, beginning with the first old man who had spoken, and filled all the cups of the old people, Blue Spotted Horse’s last, with soup and tender meat. And this we kept on doing, until no more cups were emptied. Then we ate, and when we had eaten, the meat that was left we divided among the old people, and they went away with it, making songs about the brave young men who had fed them.”

Eagle Voice sat silent for a while, his eyes closed, his hands on his knees. Emerging from his reverie at length, he fixed his crinkled gaze on me and smiled. “You can see,” he said, “that the Food was right when it talked, for I have come to where the cane is. Most of my teeth are uprooted, and I am wearing the wrinkled buckskin and the white war bonnet. When I was young and my head was full of brave deeds and horses and coups and scalps, I have heard old men say, ‘It is good to be young and die on the prairie for the people. It is not good to grow old.’ Maybe they wanted to make us braver. Maybe the black road made them tired where it steepens. When I am all alone, I think and think; and it is about going to visit my relatives in the world of spirit that I think most; but it is good to look back and remember.”

“When you look back, Grandfather,” I said, “you see a girl’s road that you did not walk because you did not see it then. Do you wish you had seen it and walked it?”