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Weendigoes And The Bone-Dwarf
by
Suddenly again the youngest said, “Your father is coming, I must leave.”
He again exacted a promise of secresy, and went back to his tree. The eldest took his seat near the fire.
When the hunter came in he was surprised to see the ashes scattered about. “Why, my son,” he said, “you must have played very hard to day to raise such a dust all alone.”
“Yes,” the boy answered, “I was very lonesome, and I ran round and round–that is the cause of it.”
The next day the hunter made ready for the chase as usual. The boy said, “Father, try and hunt all day, and see what you can kill.”
He had no sooner set out than the boy called his friend, and they played and chased each other round the lodge. They had great delight in each other’s company, and made merry by the hour. The hunter was again returning, and came to a rising ground, which caught the winds as they passed, and he heard his son laughing and making a noise, but the sounds as they reached him on the hill-top, seemed as if they arose from two persons playing.
At the same time the younger boy stopped, and after saying “Your father is coming,” he stole away, under cover of the high grass, to his hollow tree, which was not far off.
The hunter, on entering, found his son sitting by the fire, very quiet and unconcerned, although he saw that all the articles of the lodge were lying thrown about in all directions.
“Why, my son,” he said “you must play very hard every day; and what is it that you do, all alone, to throw the lodge in such confusion?”
The boy again had his excuse. “Father,” he answered, “I play in this manner: I chase and drag my blanket around the lodge, and that is the reason you see the ashes spread about.”
The hunter was not satisfied until his son had shown him how he played with the blanket, which he did so adroitly as to set his father laughing, and at last drive him out of the lodge with the great clouds of ashes that he raised.
The next morning the boy renewed his request that his father should be absent all day, and see if he could not kill two deer. The hunter thought this a strange desire on the part of his son, but as he had always humored the boy, he went into the forest as usual, bent on accomplishing his wish, if he could.
As soon as he was out of sight, his son hastened to his young companion at the tree, and they continued their sports.
The father on nearing his home in the evening, as he reached the rising ground, again heard the sounds of play and laughter; and as the wind brought them straight to his ear, he was now certain that there were two voices.
The boy from the tree had no more than time to escape, when the hunter entered, and found his son, sitting as usual, near the fire. When he cast his eyes around, he saw that the lodge was in greater confusion than before. “My son,” he said, “you must be very foolish when alone to play so. But, tell me, my son; I heard two voices, I am sure;” and he looked closely on the prints of the footsteps in the ashes. “True,” he continued, “here is the print of a foot which is smaller than my son’s;” and he was now satisfied that his suspicions were well founded, and that some very young person had been the companion of his son.
The boy could not now refuse to tell his father what had happened.
“Father,” he said, “I found a boy in the hollow of that tree, near the lodge, where you placed my mother’s bones.”
Strange thoughts came over the mind of the hunter; did his wife live again in this beautiful child?