“Let us run!” cried the people. “Let us run!” Even as they spoke there was a great burst of fire and smoke, and huge stones were thrown high in the air, and a stream came pouring down the side of the mountain—a stream that looked like liquid fire.
Then the Indians ran, indeed, and there was no time to save anything but their own lives!
Many streams followed the first one, coming like fiery serpents down the mountain side, and above were heavy smoke clouds, shot with bursting rocks.
Far away the Indian people ran, crying, “The Fire Spirit is angry! What have we done that he should destroy our homes?”
At last they stopped, and turned to look back at the fire mountain. The flames were gone: only a cloud of smoke hung about. But the fiery streams had burned all that was in their way; and rocks and ashes had buried what the fire streams had not destroyed.
Then the people prayed to the Great Spirit, and as the Great Spirit looked down upon the mountain and saw what destruction had been wrought, he said, “Your flames shall be put out; your fires shall be quenched.” And even as the Great Spirit spoke, the fires grew ashen in color, and the flames trembled and sank away.
But in the center of the great bowl of the mountain, where the fires had been, one little flame hung quivering. The Great Spirit saw it, and he said, “Little flame, you alone shall stay. But I will give to you a new form. You shall have wings, and live among the earth’s people, and drink the honey of its flowers. Little flame, you shall carry the color of the fire upon your throat. You shall be known as the Humming Bird, and every child will love you.”
THE GIFT OF INDIAN CORN
(Chippewa)
IN the far back days, before the white men lived upon this side of the earth, a young Indian lad stood at the door of his father’s tepee and gazed out over the far-waving prairie grass.