An Indian Tale
The mother of Scar Face the Youth was Feather Woman, who had fallen in love with Morning Star, and vowed that she would marry none other. To this she held true, despite the laughter and jibes of her friends. And one morning when she walked in the fields very, very early, that she might see Morning Star before the sun hid his brightness, she met a handsome youth who told her that he was Morning Star, and that he had come to earth for a day, impelled by her love.
So Feather Woman went back to Skyland with Morning Star, and by-and-by a little son was born to her. At first she had been very happy in Skyland, but there were times when she was sad because of the camp of the Blackfeet, which she had left.
Now, in Skyland Feather Woman often dug in the garden, and she had been cautioned not to uproot the turnip, lest evil befall. After she was given this charge she looked long at the turnip and wondered what evil might come from its uprooting. At last she took her flint and dug around the least bit, not wanting to uproot it; but hardly had she loosened the turnip when it came out of the ground, and she looked down through the hole which it had made in the sky and saw the camp of the Blackfeet spread before her.
Suddenly she began to weep for her friends; and when her father-in-law, the Sun, saw her weeping, he said: “You have dug up the turnip and have looked down at the camp of the Blackfeet. Now must you return thither.”
So the star-weavers made a net, and Feather Woman and her child, the son of Morning Star, were let down into the camp of the Blackfeet.
At first she was very happy, but soon she began to grieve for Morning Star, and at last she died of sorrow because she could not return to Skyland. Morning Star could not come to earth, for it had been given to him to come but that one time when impelled by her love.
And so the little son of Feather Woman and Morning Star was left all alone. And across his face was a great scar, which had been made there when he had been let down from Skyland in the net woven by the star-weavers. Because of this scar he was named, and because of it he was very ugly, so that the children of the tribe were afraid of him, and the older folks hated him; they said that evil must be in his heart that he should have so ugly a face.
But there was no evil in the heart of Scar Face, and he hunted and fished alone, and became a great hunter, bringing home much meat to the tribe.
But he was not happy, because of the unfriendliness of the tribe. The Chief had a very beautiful daughter, and all the young men of the tribe loved her; and Scar Face, too, loved her, and longed to marry her.