“Yes, that is all, answered the Young Woodpecker; “we have nothing else.”
“Tell your father,” continued Manabozho, “to come and visit me, and let him bring a sack. I will give him what he shall eat with his raccoon meat.”
When the young one returned and reported this message to his father the Old Woodpecker turned up his nose at the invitation. “I wonder,” he said “what he thinks he has got, poor fellow!” He was bound, however, to answer the offer of hospitality, and he went accordingly, taking along a cedar-sack, to pay a visit to Manabozho.
Manabozho received the Old Red-Headed Woodpecker with great ceremony. He had stood at the door awaiting his arrival, and as soon as he came in sight Manabozho commenced, while he was yet far off, bowing and opening wide his arms, in token of welcome; all of which the Woodpecker returned in due form, by ducking his bill and hopping to right and left, extending his wings to their full length and fluttering them back to his breast.
When the Woodpecker at last reached the lodge Manabozho made several remarks upon the weather, the appearance of the country, and especially spoke of the scarcity of game. “But we,” he added—“we always have enough. Come in, and you shall not go away hungry, my noble birds!”
Manabozho had always prided himself on being able to give as good as he had received; and to be up with the Woodpecker he had shifted his lodge so as to inclose a large dry tamarack tree.
“What can I give you?” said he to the Woodpecker; “as we eat so shall you eat.”
With this he hopped forward and, jumping on the tamarack tree, he attempted to climb it just as he had seen the Woodpecker do in his own lodge. He turned his head first on one side and then on the other, as the Woodpecker does, striving to go up the tree, but as often slipping down. Every now and then he would strike the tree with his nose, as if it was a bell, and draw back as if to pull something out of the tree, but he pulled out no raccoons. He dashed his nose so often against the trunk that at last the blood began to flow, and he tumbled down senseless on the ground.
The Woodpecker started up with his drum and rattle to restore him, and by beating them violently he succeeded in bringing him to.
As soon as he came to his senses, Manabozho began to lay the blame of his failure upon his wife, saying to his guest: “Nemesho, it is this woman relation of yours—she is the cause of my not succeeding. She has made me a worthless fellow. Before I married her I also could get raccoons.