She had lingered later than usual; it was time to go. The new moon swung low in the western sky, with its points turned upwards to the heavens. An Indian would say he could hang his powder horn upon it, and that it meant dry weather, when the leaves crackled under the hunter's feet, and the animals fled before him, so that he was unable to come near-enough to shoot. And Neen-i-zu was glad of this. In the Happy Land, she declared no one would suffer, and no life would be taken.
Yet it was a hunter that her mother wished her to marry, a man who spent his whole life in slaying the red deer of the forest; who thought and talked of almost nothing else.
This came into her mind as she rose from her seat in the meadow, and cast a farewell glance at the pines. The rays of the crescent moon touched them with a faint light; and again her fancy came into play. What was it that seemed to move along the edge of the mysterious woods? Something with the dim likeness of a youth—taller than the Puk-Wudjies—who glided rather than walked, and whose garments of light green stood out against the darker green of the pines. Neeni-zu looked again; but the moon hid behind the hills. All was black to the eye; to the ear came no sound but the creepy cry of the whip-poor-will. She hastened home.
That night she heard from her mother's lips what she had long expected and feared. "Neen-i-zu," said her mother. "I named you 'My dear Life,' and you are as dear as life to me. That is why I wish you to be safe and happy. That is why I wish you to marry a good man who will take the best care of you now, and will protect and comfort you when I am gone. You know the man I mean."
"Yes, mother," answered Neen-i-zu. "I know him well
enough—as well as ever I want to know him. He hunts the deer, he kills the deer, he skins the deer. That is all he does, that is all he thinks, that is all he talks about. It is perhaps well that someone should do this, lest we starve for want of meat. Yet there are many other things in the world, and this hunter of yours is content if he does but kill."
"Poor child!" said her mother. "You are too young to know what is best for you."
"I am old enough, mother dear," answered Neen-i-zu, "to know what my heart tells me. Besides, this hunter you would have me marry is as tall as a young oak, while I am not much taller than one of the Puk-Wudjies. When I stand up very straight, my head comes little higher than his waist. A pretty pair we would make!"
What she said was quite true. Neen-i-zu had never grown to be much larger than a child. She had a graceful, slender body, little hands and feet, eyes black as midnight, and a mouth like a meadow flower. One who saw her for the first time, passing upon the hills, her slight figure sketched against the sky, might have thought that she herself was a fairy.