In this manner things went on for a whole week, and then his parents begged him not to go back to the woods to sleep, but to stay with them, which he did gladly. And every day before it was light, he woke his father and they went off to fish together, and each time the canoe came back full, so that at length they had great stores of food laid up in the outhouse.
At first, as we know, he was only a voice; then he would not let them see his face, but little by little his body grew plain to them and his features distinct, and they noticed that his hair had grown long and reached his waist. At first, too, he could only whistle, but now he could talk freely, and always was ready to help either his father or his mother, and she used to go with them in the boat whenever she had time, for she loved the fishing. Very soon, no longer fearing starvation, they packed up their store of food and placed it in the canoe and pushed off, for they were going back to Silka where they lived with their tribe. And as they drew near the landing-place, the woman beheld the shadow of her son's hands paddling, and wondered to herself, for his hands she could not see.
'What is the matter with my son?' she asked her husband at last. 'I can only see his shadow,' and she rose to find out if he was asleep or had fallen into the water. But he was not in the boat, neither was there any trace of him. Only the blanket, which had been across his knees, remained in the bottom.
So they rowed on to Silka.
[From Tlingit Myths and Texts, recorded by John R.
Swanton, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American
Ethnology. Bulletin 39.]
THE DISINHERITING OF A SON
Near a large town in England there lived in the last century a gentleman with his son and daughter. His wife died when her children were quite young, leaving a large fortune behind her, and in a few years her husband married again. Now, though the new lady of the manor had seemed gentle and amiable as long as she was a girl, she soon grew jealous of her stepson and his sister, and treated them very harshly and unkindly. She thought that anything was good enough for them, but that the moment she wished for anything she was to have it—quite forgetting that the money which bought her horses and diamonds belonged of right to the children. When she began to have babies of her own, matters grew worse, and as soon as her husband's eldest son declared that he wished to leave England and pass some years in foreign countries, the stepmother broke into a furious rage, and declared that he must stop at home, for there was no money to waste on him.
The young man saw that no help was to be expected from his father, who was always afraid of his wife's temper, so he said no more, but wrote at once to his own mother's brother to beg his assistance. This was at once given, and thus it came about that very soon Alexander started off to see the world.
In the beginning, the allowance which his father had agreed to make him was paid regularly, and as regularly the son wrote home to tell where he was and what he was doing. Then gradually the payments were delayed, for the stepmother had always some good reason why the money could not be forthcoming at that particular date, and at length they ceased altogether. And when the payments ceased, the letters ceased also.