Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/248

 210 You must not cry any more over such a wife as that. You can get a better wife than a block of wood surely. Why don't you take a woman for your wife?" The man stared in amazement at him for a moment, then replied that he knew of no women, had indeed never seen any people in that part of the country. The block of wood was all the wife he had ever had, and now she was burned, and he was all alone; and he began to cry again. "Stop crying," said the boy, "and I will find a wife for you. Have you a stone chisel in the house?" "Yes," replied the man. "Give it to me," said the boy. "Now stay here with my brothers till I return, and I will bring you a better wife than your block of wood." Saying which he climbed the notched pole and passed out through the smoke-hole. When he got outside, he went to the forest and cut down a cotton-wood tree. From this he cut and peeled a log about six feet long, and stepping over it three times said aloud: "One, two, three. Log, get up and be a woman!" And the piece of cotton-wood stood upright and became a beautiful white woman with white hair arid face and body, white as the wood of the cotton-wood tree. Then he cut down an alder-wood tree and did the same as before, and the log of alder-wood became a beautiful red woman with red hair and face and body, red as the wood of the alder-tree when the bark has been stripped from it a little while. Taking these two women with him he returned to the keekwilee-house, and bidding them wait outside till they were called, he climbed down through the smoke-hole again. Returning the man's chisel, he said: "Now I have brought you two proper wives. It is wrong for a man to make a wife of a piece of wood; you must not do so any more." With that he called out to the two women to descend. When they were come down, he took the white woman's hand and put it in the hand of the man and said to the one: "This is your husband," and to the other: "This is your wife." He then did the same with the red woman; and with a parting admonition to the man, he and his brothers climbed through the smoke-hole and left him and his newly-acquired wives to themselves.

Some time after this, as he travelled through the country with his brothers, Benign-face heard of a very powerful one-legged wizard who speared men's shadows as they passed, thus killing and afterwards eating them. "Come brothers," said Benign-face, "I will try my powers against this wicked cannibal. I think I can