Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/250

] "They like little doves."

"Then I will turn into a little dove."

He did this and she carried him home in her basket. The Apaches: asked, "What is that?" and she replied, "The young of a dove; so I brought it home." But when the Apaches left the room they could hear her talking to it, and when they came in she would be still. They could not understand the words but knew she was speaking her own language, so they said, "This thing belongs to her tribe. Let us kill it."

So they went in and the chief took it in one hand and smashed it hard with the other and the pieces came through between his fingers. These pieces then flew up out of the smoke hole and turned into a flock of hawks, and they fell upon the Apaches and beat them all to death with their wings.

Then they turned back into the boy again and he and his mother started home. But when they reached the place where the grandmother had turned back they could go no farther. They turned into saguaros, one on each side of the road.

When the waters covered all the earth two birds were hanging onto the sky with their beaks. The larger was gray with a long tail and beak; the smaller was the tiny bird that builds its nest like an olla, with only a very small opening to get in. The larger one cried and cried, but the other just held on tight and said, "Don't cry. You see that I'm littler than you, but I'm very brave. I don't give up so easily as you do. I trust in God; He will take care of those in danger if they trust in Him."

After the waters had gone down Elder Brother said to Coyote, "Don't touch that black bug, and do not eat the mesquite beans; it is dangerous to harm anything that came safe through the flood." So Coyote went on, but presently he came to the bug, and he stopped and ate it up. Then he went on to the mesquite beans and looked at them and said, "I will just taste one, and that will be all." But he stood there and ate and ate till they were all gone. And the beans swelled up in his stomach and killed him.

The bluebird was once a very ugly color. But there was a lake where no river flowed in or out, and the bird bathed in this four times every morning for four mornings. Every morning it sang: