Masequah would always deny that he had any mysterious powers. Over and over again, he would remind his friends that no storm covers all the earth, and that every storm has its edges just as the lake does, or like the shadow of a fleecy cloud on a sunny day.
No matter how often he told them that the edge of the storm had moved away from the lake, most of his friends still insisted that it was a miracle. Even Pyan, who believed that his father was wise and truthful, sometimes wondered.
This story was told to the author by Barney Mason, a Canadian Scout, who had learned it from living descendants of the Algonquin Tribe.
5. CHARACTER
SLEEPING BEAR MAKES A MISTAKE
The Montagnais village of the great Northern forest was large with many fine wigwams. The village had been built in a meadow near a great lake, and the smell of woodfires was always in the air, as the smoke curled skyward from each wigwam. It was a busy time of year for the Montagnais because winter would soon be upon them. Families were repairing their homes and making new clothing for the winter months.
It was on one of these busy days that Bald Eagle informed his family that he believed they should build a new wigwam. So the work was organized. First Bald Eagle selected a good place to build it. Then he scratched lines on the ground to show where the frame would be set. Having cut saplings and put them in place, bending the ends to make arches for the roof, he bound them together with withes made from a peeled basswood sapling about three fingers thick that bent very easily. The making of these withes had fallen to Sleeping Bear, Bald Eagle’s son. It is about this job that our story is concerned.
When Sleeping Bear was asked to make the withes, he was proud. This was the first time his father had ever asked him to do such an important job. Dashing off into the forest, he came upon a young basswood sapling about three fingers thick. Taking his knife from its beaded sheath, he proceeded to cut the sapling. The flint blade of his knife did a very neat job and he soon had the young sapling down and trimmed.
Then Sleeping Bear set to work to strip the bark from the sapling. When he had all the bark peeled away, he dashed home to show his father what good work he had done.