flute player
from a painting by j. h. sharp
But she was very lazy as well as proud, and she took the cloth to her youngest sister, and said: “Embroider a beautiful strip, a hand’s-breadth wide, from end to end of the cloth.”
Now the chief’s youngest daughter was very beautiful; so her sisters were jealous and made her live in the dark corner at the back of the lodge, where no man could see her; but her eyes were very bright, and by the light of her eyes she arranged the beads and sewed them on so that the pattern was like the flowers of the earth and the stars of heaven, it was so beautiful. But when the youngest daughter had fallen asleep at night her eldest sister came softly and took away the cloth and picked off the beads.
In the morning she went to her youngest sister and said, “Show me the work you did yesterday.”
And the youngest sister cried, and said, “Truly I worked as well as I could, but some evil one has picked out the beads.”
Then her sister scolded her, and pricked her with the needle, and said, “You are lazy! Embroider this cloth, and do it beautifully, or I shall beat you!”
This she did day after day, and whenever the young man came to see if she was dressed for the wedding she showed him the cloth, and it was not finished.
Now there was another brave young man in that village, and he came and asked the chief for his second daughter.
The second daughter was as proud as the first, and said to herself, “One day a great chief’s son will come, and I will marry him.” But she said to the young man, “If you want me for your wife, you must build me a new lodge, and cover the door of it with a curtain of beaver-skins.”