United States or Solomon Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Pulling his capote tightly about him, he assumed a dignified attitude, slowly looked round the room to see that he had the attention of all present, and began to address the assemblage: "The step which Shing-wauk has taken is a very serious one. Now he will have to think for two. Now he must supply the wants of two. Now he will realize what trouble is.
No wonder Shing-wauk The Little Pine sang his love song, too, for was not his heart aflame with the spring time of life? Perched high among the branches of a pine the youth was relieving the monotony of his drumming by occasionally chanting. At the foot of the thickly wooded hillside upon which the pine stood the indolent waters of Muskrat Creek meandered toward Bear Lake.
At sunset that evening Oo-koo-hoo and his wife sat smoking beside their fire; and when the hermit thrush was singing, the whippoorwill whippoorwilling, the owl oo-koo-hooing, the fox barking, the bull frog whoo-wonking, the gander honking, the otter whistling, the drake quacking, the squirrel chattering, the cock grouse drumming, and the wolf howling each to his own chosen mate, the hunter turned to me and smiled: "Do you hear Shing-wauk singing?"
Shing-wauk The Little Pine had come that day, and had been invited to sleep in Amik's tepee; yet he spent the greater part of his time sitting with Neykia in her grandmother's lodge. As there are no cozy corners in a tepee, it is the Ojibway custom for a lover to converse with his sweetheart under cover of a blanket which screens the lovers from the gaze of the other occupants of the lodge.
"My son, it is ever thus, when spring is on the way," smiled Oo-koo-hoo, as Granny entered with glee and displayed a new deerskin work-bag, containing needles, thread, thimble, and scissors; a present from Shing-wauk The Little Pine Neykia's lover.
At every chance Shing-wauk The Little Pine was shyly whispering to her and she was looking very happy. Even I rose to the occasion and had for my first partner our host's swarthy wife, a wonderful performer, who, after her husband's retirement from the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, became the most popular dancer in all Winnipeg.
Shing-wauk The Little Pine as the Indians called him, stayed three days, but I did not see much of him, for I left early the following morning on another round of another trapping-path.
Word Of The Day