Page:Myths of the Iroquois.djvu/62

96 rightful owDer of the clothes and they were returned to him, and the impostor was obliged to resume his old rags. The young man was then married to the faithful maiden, and returned to his home in safety, where he became in time a noted chief.

An old man brought up his nephew in a solitary place. One day as they walked through the field the uncle picked an ear of com, but he did not eat it. '^ Strange," thought the bo^^, " that I never see him eating anything ;" and he watched him when the old man thought he was asleep. He saw him go to a hole and take out a kettle and a few grains of corn, which he put into it. Then he took a magic wand and tapped the kettle till it grew big; then he ate some corn and again tapped the kettle till it became small once more.

In the morning when the uncle left home the boy got at the hole and did as he had seen him do, but as he tapped the kettle it grew so large that he could not stop it, and it went on growing until his uncle came home, who was ver^- angry. " You do not know what harm you have been doing," said he ; " we can get no more corn ; it grows in a place that is 80 dangerous that few who go there come back alive." " We have plenty in the house," said the boy. "And when it is gone, what then f " But the boy persisted that he knew where the com grew, and could easily fetch some. " So, uncle," he added, *' tell me how to pro- ceed." " I shall never see you again," moaned the uncle. " Oh, yes, you will," said the boy, and he started. Now, the uncle had warned him that he would come to a lake where the woman witches lived, and that he never could escape them. But he made himself a canoe and picked some peculiar nuts and launched himself upon the water. Then he threw the nuts before him to feed the fowls who guarded the shore, that they might not betray his coming. He landed on the other side safely and filled his pockets with corn, and was hastening to put off in his boat, but before he did so w^as curious to know what was in a lodge on the shore. So he peeped in and stole a bear's leg which ho saw.

Now, all his nuts were gone ; so when he passed the birds they were alarmed and set up their call and out came the witches with their hooks and cords. But he launched his canoe, and when a hook reached him he broke it off, and reached the opposite shore in safety. There he saw a number of ducks, and he stripped a tr^^e of its bark and caught them and started home. As he neared his home he heard his uncle singing a dirge — " My poor nephew, I shall never see him again." The animals had been telling the old man sad tales of his death, so when the boy knocked at the door he did not believe that it was his nephew. But the boy heard the Hi-Wadi, and he knew his uncle. So he said, " Uncle,