"By and bye the children of the village went every day to the hut of the old woman to play.
"They teased and tormented her. If she raised the bearskin curtain at the doorway and spoke to them they did not heed her.
"'Short neck! Short neck!' the rude children shouted. Then they stood and laughed at her.
"So it came that the poor old woman grew more and more unhappy. To escape her tormentors she often climbed to the cliff tops and sat on the edges of high rocks where it was difficult to follow.
"Here, safe and quiet, she would sit for hours. Sometimes in her loneliness she raised her arms above her head and cried aloud.
"The people of the tiny Eskimo village often saw the lonely figure on the cliffs. They noticed that the old woman stayed less and less in her little snow hut in the village.
"Then one morning an Eskimo child, looking up, thought she saw the old woman sitting as usual on the rocks. But the child's brother said that he saw only a strange bird with a very short neck.
"At that moment the bird raised its wings and flapped them above its head.
"'Kea! Kea! Kea!' cried the strange new bird. 'Kea! Kea! Kea! who was it called me short neck?'
"'Ah,' said the children's father, looking up from his fishing-nets, 'I think you both were right.'"