The Boy Who Snared the Sun

DEEP, crusted snow covered the earth, and sparkled in the light of a

wintry moon. The wind had died away; it was very cold and still. Not a

sound came from the forest; the only noise that broke the perfect quiet

of the night was the cracking of the ice on the Big-sea-water, Gitche

Gumee, which was now frozen solid.

But inside old Iagoo's teepee it was warm and cheerful. The teepee, as

the Indians call a tent, was covered with the thick, tough skin of the

buffalo; the winter coat of Muk-wa, the bear, had now become a pleasant

soft rug for Iagoo's two young visitors, Morning Glory and her little

brother, Eagle Feather. Squatting at their ease on the warm fur, they

waited for the old man to speak.

Suddenly a white-footed mouse crept from his nest in a corner, and,

advancing close to the children, sat up on his hind-legs, like a dog

that begs for a biscuit. Eagle Feather raised his hand in a threatening

way, but Morning Glory caught him by the arm.

"No, no!" she said. "You must not harm him. See how friendly he is, and

not a bit afraid. There is game enough in the forest for a brave boy's

bow and arrow. Why should he spend his strength on a weak little mouse?"

Eagle Feather, pleased with anything that seemed like praise of his

strength, let his hand fall.

"Your words are true words, Morning Glory," he answered. "Against

Ahmeek, the beaver, or Wau-be-se, the wild swan, it is better that I

should measure my hunter's skill."

At this, Iagoo, turning around, broke his long silence. "There was

a time," he said, mysteriously, "when a thousand boys such as Eagle

Feather would have been no match at all for that mouse as he used to

be."

"When was that?" asked Eagle Feather, looking uneasily at his sister.

"In the days of the great Dormouse," answered Iagoo. "In the days, long

ago, when there were many more animals than men on the earth, and the

biggest of all the beasts was the Dormouse. Then something strange

happened--something that never happened before or since. Shall I tell

you about it?"

"O, please do!" begged Morning Glory.

"The story I am going to tell you," began Iagoo, "is not so much a story

about the Dormouse as it is a story about a little boy and his sister.

Yet had it not been for the Dormouse, I would not be here to tell

about it, and you would not be here to listen.

"To begin with, you must understand that the world in those days was a

different sort of place from what it is now.

O yes, a different sort of place. People did not eat the flesh of

animals. They lived on berries, and roots, and wild vegetables. The

Great Spirit, who made all things on land, and in the sky and water, had

not yet given men Mon-da-min, the Indian corn. There was no fire to give

them heat, or to cook with. In all the world there was just one small

fire, watched by two old witches who let nobody come near it; and until

Coyote, the prairie wolf, came along and stole some of this fire, the

food that people could manage to get was eaten raw, the way it grew."

"They must have been pretty hungry," said Morning Glory..

"O, yes, they were hungry," agreed Iagoo. "But that was not all. There

were so many animals, and so few men, that the animals ruled the earth in their own way. The biggest of them

all was Bosh-kwa-dosh, the Mastodon. He was higher than the highest

trees, and he had an enormous appetite. But he did not stay long on

earth, or there would not have been food enough even for the other

animals."

"I thought you said the Dormouse was the biggest," interrupted Eagle

Feather.

Iagoo looked at him severely.

"At the time I speak of," he continued, "Bosh-kwa-dosh, the Mastodon,

had just gone away. He had not gone a bit too soon, either; for, by this

time, the only people left on the whole earth were a young girl and her

little brother."

"Like Eagle Feather and me?" asked Morning Glory. "The girl was much

like you," said Iagoo, patiently. "But the boy was a dwarf, who never

grew to be more than three feet high. Being so much stronger and larger

than her brother, she gathered all the food for both, and cared for him

in every way. Sometimes she would take him along with her, when she went

to look for berries and roots. 'He's such a very little boy,' she said

to herself, 'that if I leave him all alone, some big bird may swoop

down, and carry him off to its nest.'

"She did not know what a strange boy he was, and how much mischief he

could do when he set his mind upon it. One day she said to him: 'Look,

little brother! I have made you a bow and some arrows. It is time you

learned to take care of yourself; so when I am gone, practice

shooting, for this is a thing you must know how to do.'

"Winter was coming, and to keep himself from freezing the boy had

nothing better than a light garment woven by his sister from the

wild grasses. How could he get a warm coat? As he asked himself that

question, a flock of snow birds flew down, near by, and began pecking at

the fallen logs, to get the worms. 'Ha!' said he. 'Their feathers would make me a fine coat.' Bending his bow, he let an arrow fly; but he

had not yet learned how to shoot straight. It went wide of the mark. He

shot a second, and a third; then the birds took fright, and flew away.

"Each day he tried again--shooting at a tree when there was nothing

better to aim at. At last he killed a snow bird, then another and

another. When he had shot ten birds, he had enough. 'See, sister,' he

said, 'I shall not freeze. Now you can make me a coat from the skins of

these little birds.'

"So his sister sewed the skins together, and made him the coat, the

first warm winter coat he had ever had. It was fine to look at, and the

feathers kept out the cold. Eh-yah! he was proud of it! With his bow

and arrows, he strutted up and down, like a little turkey cock. 'Is it

true?' he asked, 'that you and I are the only persons living on earth?

Perhaps if I look around, I may find someone else. It will do no harm

to try.'

"His sister feared he would come to some harm; but he had made up his

mind to see the world for himself, and off he went. But his legs were

short, he was not used to walking far, and he soon grew tired. When

he came to a bare place, on the edge of a hill, where the sun had melted

the snow, he lay down, and was soon fast asleep.

"As he slept, the sun played him a trick. It was a mild winter's day.

The bird skins of which the coat was made were still fresh and tender,

and under the full glare of the sun they began to shrivel and shrink.

'Eh-yah! What's wrong?' he muttered in his sleep, feeling the coat

become tighter and tighter. Then he woke, stretched out his arms, and

saw what had happened.

"The sun was nearly sinking now. The boy stood up and faced it, and

shook his small fist. 'See what you have done!' he cried, with a stamp

of his foot. 'You have spoiled my new birdskin coat. Never mind! You

think yourself beyond my reach, up there; but I'll be revenged on you. Just wait and see!'"

"But how could he reach the sun?" asked Morning Glory, her eyes growing

rounder and rounder.

"That is what his sister asked, when he told her about it," said Iagoo.

"And what do you think he did? First, he did nothing at all but stretch

himself out on the ground, where he lay for ten days without eating or

moving. Then he turned over on the other side, and lay there for ten

days more. At last he rose to his feet. 'I have made up my mind,' he

said. 'Sister, I have a plan to catch the sun in a noose. Find me some

kind of a cord from which I can make a snare.' "She got some tough

grass, and twisted it into a rope. 'That will not do,' he said. 'You

must find something stronger.' He no longer talked like a little boy,

but like one who was to be obeyed. Then his sister thought of her hair.

She cut enough from her head to make a cord, and when she had plaited it

he was much pleased, and said it would do. He took it from her, and drew

it between his lips, and as he did this it turned into a kind of metal,

and grew much stronger and longer, till he had so much that he wound it

around his body.

"In the middle of the night he made his way to the hill, and there he

fixed a noose at the place where the sun would rise. He had to wait a

long time in the cold and darkness. But at last a faint light came into

the sky. As the sun rose it was caught fast in the noose, and there it

stayed."

Iagoo stopped talking, and sat looking into the fire. One might have

supposed that when he did this he saw pictures in the flames, and in

the red coals, and that these pictures helped him to tell the story. But

Morning Glory was impatient to hear the rest.

"Iagoo," she said, timidly, at last. "Did you forget about the

Dormouse?"

"Eh-yah! the Dormouse! No. I have not forgotten," answered the old man,

rousing himself. "When the sun did not rise as usual, the animals could

not tell what had happened. Ad-ji-dau-mo, the squirrel, chattered and

scolded from the branch of a pine tree. Kah-gah-gee, the raven, flapped

his wings, and croaked more hoarsely than ever, to tell the others that

the end of the world had come. Only Muk-wa, the bear, did not mind. He

had crept into his cave for the winter, and the darker it was the better

he liked it.

"Wa-bun, the East Wind, was the one who brought the news. He had drawn

from his quiver the silver arrows with which he chased the darkness from

the valleys. But the sun had not risen to help him, and the arrows fell

harmless to the earth. 'Wake, wake!' he wailed. 'Someone has caught the

sun in a snare. Which of all the animals will dare to cut the cord?'

"But even Coyote, the prairie wolf, who was the wisest of them all,

could think of no way to free the sun. So great was the heat thrown out

by its rays that he could not come within an arrow's flight of where it

was caught fast in the magical noose of hair.

"'Leave it to me!' screamed Ken-eu, the war-eagle, from his nest on the

cliff. 'It is I alone who soar to the sky, and look the sun in the face,

without winking. Leave it to me!'

"Down he darted through the darkness, and up he flew again, with his

eagle feathers singed. Then they woke the Dormouse. They had a hard time

doing it, because when he once went to sleep he stayed asleep for six

months, and it was almost impossible to arouse him. Coyote crept close

to his ear, and howled with all his might. It would have split the

eardrum of almost any other animal. But Kug-e-been-gwa-kwa, the Dormouse,

only groaned and turned over on the other side, and Coyote had a narrow escape from being mashed flat, like a corn-cake.

"'There is only one thing that will wake him,' said Coyote, getting up

and shaking himself. 'I will run to the mountain cave of An-ne-mee-kee,

the Thunder. His voice is even more terrible than mine.' So off he went

at a gallop.

"Soon they could hear An-ne-mee-kee coming. Boom, boom! When he shouted

in the ear of the Dormouse, the biggest beast on earth rose slowly to

his feet. In the darkness he looked bigger than ever, almost as big as

a mountain. An-ne-mee-kee, the Thunder, shouted once more, to make

sure that the Dormouse was really wide awake, and would not go to sleep

again.

"'Now,' said Coyote to the Dormouse, 'it is you that will have to free

the sun. If he burned one of us, there would be little left but bones.

But you are so big that if part of you is burned away there will still

be enough. Then, in that case you would not have to eat so much, or work

so hard to get it.'

"The Dormouse was a stupid animal, and Coyote's talk seemed true talk.

Besides, as he was the biggest animal, he was expected to do the biggest

things. So he made his way to the hill, where the little boy had snared

the sun, and began to nibble at the noose. As he nibbled away, his back

got hotter and hotter. Soon it began to burn, till all the upper part of

him burned away, and became great heaps of ashes. At last, when he had

cut through the cord with his teeth, and set the sun free, all that

was left of him was an animal no larger than an ordinary mouse. What he

became then, so he is today. Still, he is big enough for a mouse; and

perhaps that is what Coyote really meant. Coyote, the prairie wolf, is

a cunning beast, up to many tricks, and it is not always easy to tell

exactly what he means."