American fairy tales

Front matter

Class PZ % Book & 73 Copyright N°_ Art

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

.I3w A m\

Contents

LITTLE THUNDER AND DARK CLOUD.

DEW DRDP AND BREEZE.

THE TAN-RAH5 AND THE PEETDDT5.

PART II. The Peetoots* New Home

When the herd of white antelopes, guided by the Black Eagle, galloped away with the Peetoots seated upon their backs, they first took an easterly course, then, after traveling for a day and a night, they whirled about and made toward the north. On the afternoon of the second day, just as the sun was sinking behind the tall mountain peaks in the west, the sight of a beautiful valley, through which a winding river coursed swiftly towards the sea, burst upon their view, and, with one accord, they joyfully clapped their hands while their faces beamed with marks of delight at the prospect.

Even the antelopes seemed to enjoy the scene that lay before them. They sniffed the pure air, so rich with perfume of sweet clover and elder blossoms, and quickened their pace. Arriving at the banks of the river, the Black Eagle perched upon a low limb of a tall sycamore and commanded the Peetoots to dismount. When that had been done the eagle said to the white antelopes:

“Back to the Genius of the Mountains.”

The whole herd capered across the valley and soon disappeared in the dense green-wood that skirted the foothills. The Black Eagle then informed the Peetoots that the beautiful valley — afterwards named Shennandoah — which spread out before them, would henceforth be their home, and that there they could build their huts, and some day, perhaps, become a great race, even though they were so small.

The little men worked with a will, and it was not long before they had comfortable quarters and were living in great happiness. The river supplied them with delicious fish, and the valley was always dotted with herds of buffaloes and antelopes, grazing on the sweet and succulent grasses. Thus we see how comfortable were the Peetoots when the second army of Tah-rahs, numbering two hundred men, started on the war-path in search of them.

The giants roamed over the mountains, looking into every cave, and prying up big rocks, here and there, with the hope of finding the hiding place of the Peetoots. Nearly two months had been vainly spent in that way when one day they suddenly came upon a huge She-Bear in a marrow mountain pass. Grasping a tree, and jerking it out of the ground, one of the giants advanced upon the bear to kill her; but to his amazement, she sat upon her haunches, and said:

“Spare me, spare me, mighty Tar-rah,and I will reward you by showing you the land of the Peetoots.”

This speech caused the giant to put down his club, and, right there in the narrow pass, the Tah-rahs entered into a solemn agreement with the She-Bear. They promised never to molest her or any of her cubs ; and agreed to set a sign upon her, which was to be a slit in the left ear, that would always save her from harm at the hands of the Tah-rahs. The She-Bear agreed, on her part, to pilot the Tah-rahs into the new land of the Peetoots, failing in which they were to kill her. The Tah-rahs even went so far as to promise the old She- Bear as many Peetoots as she and her cubs could eat. That pleased her immensely. She had seven hungry cubs at home and if she could get a Peetoot apiece for them, what a feast they would have !

“Follow me,” said the bear, and she trotted off, the giants stalking close behind her.

After marching steadily for two whole days, they came in sight of the stream upon which the Peetoots were located, and the old She- Bear, pointing one of her fore paws down the river, said:

“Mighty Tah-rahs! one more day and one more night, and we shall be among the Peetoots, whose houses are scattered along the banks of this river.”

So delighted were the hungry Tah-rahs at this speech that they ran along smacking their mouths and singing:

“Tee rah rah, tee rah rum,

Peetoot’s meat is so sweet;

Tee rah rah, tee rah rum,

Peetoot’s meat we will eat!”

So terribly frightened were the birds that nested in the trees on the river banks, and the beasts that usually browsed in the valleys, that they fled wildly before the approach of the giants.

The Black Eagle knew from the commotion of the birds that passed, screaming over the Peetoot village, that something unusual had happened. Flying rapidly up the river the Tah-rahs were soon discovered, and the eagle returned with a feeling of fear it had never known before. Something must be done and done quickly, or the Peetoots would be lost — utterly wiped off the face of the earth by the surging army of mad giants.

The eagle thought of a friend he had met long years before. Going to a bend in the river, where the waters eddied and foamed, he found the sweet River Fairy seated upon a poplar leaf, a forget-me-not blossom by her side, whirling around in the bubbling water. The Black Eagle briefly told her about the Tah-rahs and begged her to save the Peetoots. The fairy was kind and gracious to her old friend, and said :

“I will try. Come again to-morrow at sunrise.”

When the eagle had gone, the River Fairy rose from her floatingleaf and sat upon the limb of a large willow. Immediately the willow quivered and thousands of little branches dropped into the water. Scarcely a minute elapsed before the river was alive with beavers, otters and muskrats, which had answered to the sign of the willow branches. Fully fifty thousand poked their shiny noses out of the water, and struggled to get near the River Fairy, who spoke to them in this way:

“Ho, my men of the river! There is work, work, work, work for you to-night! There is danger to some whom I have promised to protect, and before the sun again peeps over the hill tops, you must dig for me a tunnel, fifty feet wide and one hundred feet deep, running from the bank to the foot of yonder mountain. You must not, O,

* *

•* *

r-

• •

• V

•-*

* • r my men of the river, disturb the crust of the earth, but leave a thin cover of verdant sod, so that none can know of your work.”

“Creek, creek, creek,” said the beavers.

“Whee, whee, whee,” exclaimed the otters.

“Blub, blub, blub,” blurted the muskrats.

This is about what they all meant to say:

“We are ever ready to obey our mistress, the lovely River Fairy.”

Off they went to their work; and, oh, such digging under the ground; such cutting away of roots, such scratching out of dirt, was never seen since the world began! Long before day the beavers, the otters and the muskrats, were again spluttering in the river, gathering about the fairy, telling her the task had been finished.

“Go now,” said the River Fairy, “O, my men of the river, and feast on the dainty fish.”

The next morning, just as the rising sun fell upon the willow in which the River Fairy had spent the night, the Black Eagle came and perched close to her, looking as though he expected good news.

“All is finished,” said the fairy. “Remain here and see what happens to the Tah-rahs.”

The Black Eagle did not have to wait long. The giants had risen early, and, now, as they tramped along the banks of the river, crushing with their ugly feet the stately iris and the shy forget-me-nots, their rude songs rang out and floated on the water, even to the ears of the Black Eagle and the River Fairy.

On they came ; some carrying clubs that would have loaded down a horse; others with stones weighing hundreds of pounds. Soon the Peetoot village burst upon their sight and a shout went up from their big, hungry mouths that made the hearts of the little people stand still. A vision of their expected prey seemed to madden them; they sniffed the air like ravenous beasts and broke into a trot.

t

Wildly they rushed forward, whooping and surging in ecstacy of fiendish delight, at the prospect of grinding the flesh of the Peetoots between their yellow teeth, when suddenly the earth gave way under their heavy weight, and they sank, pell-mell, one upon another, deep into the tunnel which the beavers and the otters and the muskrats had dug; and every one of them perished.

The Black Eagle had seen it all ; and after thanking the fairy and promising to come to her whenever needed, he flew away, carrying the good news to the terror-stricken Peetoots.

The cunning old She-Bear had kept well in the rear, and when she saw the giants fall into the hidden ditch, she tucked her tail and ran away; but she had not escaped the notice of the ever-watchful Black Eagle, who suspected her of having told the Tah-rahs where the Peetoots had taken up their new home.

PART III. Second Expedition of the Tah-rahs

Keeping a sharp watch over the movements of the sly old She- Bear, it was not long before the Black Eagle discovered her den. Waiting until she had gone out, he swooped down upon the cubs and began to carry them off, one at a time, to the land of the Peetoots. Just as the last one was being stolen, the old bear came up and slapped at the eagle with terrific force. The eagle dropped the cub, which caught the blow of its angry mother, and was killed instantly.

So furious was the She-Bear at the loss of her cubs that she gnawed down small trees and tore the bark with her long nails. She knew the Black Eagle was in the service of the Peetoots, and she resolved to be revenged. Going to the King of the T ah-rahs, she showed the slit in her left ear and told him of the misfortune that had befallen the two hundred; how they had gone to their death in a tunnel which the bear said had been dug by the Peetoots.

The old Tah-rah King gnashed his teeth and snorted with rage. He was more determined than ever to wipe from the face of the earth the whole race of Peetoots. Calling his tribe together, he ordered every man able to go on the war-path to come forward at once, and follow him. Led by the king, with the old She-Bear as guide, the whole tribe started off, leaving behind only women and children and a few decrepit old men.

For six days the great host marched towards the north, sometimes killing and eating as many as two thousand antelopes in a single day. They traveled through a sterile country where there was no water; and, on the sixth day, they were so nearly famished that loud threats were made to kill the bear and return to their own country. The bear entreated them to continue their journey, and assured them that an abundance of water was but a little way off. Pushing forward with renewed hope they soon came upon that deep, clear stream, on the banks of which, many miles below, the Peetoots had settled ; and rushing into the river, like thirsty steers, they drank it dry.

When the beavers and the otters and the muskrats saw only slimy pools, in which the fishes were dying, they complained to the River Fairy, and the Black Eagle was immediately sent for, and asked to go up the river and find out why the waters had ceased to come down. He was not gone long, and upon returning told the River Fairy that the Tah-rahs, with a stronger force than ever, were marching down the valley, and drinking dry the branches that fed the river. The River Fairy became very angry, and calling a large brook trout, hitched it to the cup of a lily in which she sat, saying:

“Away to the spouting spring.’’

The strong trout darted off, shooting the little cataracts where, here and there, the sparkling waters poured over a fallen log, stopping, once in a while, in the cool, foaming eddies under mosscovered driftwood; then, frisking off, jumping high, now and again, to catch the unwary fly that flitted over the stream. After quite a long journey, the spring was reached. At the bottom the water bubbled up, stirring the white sand on which a small wise looking crawfish sat, intently watching a little hole.

“O, cousin of the spring, the purest and best of all fairies, come, come to me!” called the River Fairy, in a sweet, musical voice.

Out of the depths of the spring, out of the dancing sand by which the silent crawfish sat, came the radiant Spring Fairy and joined her cousin of the river. Seated on a spreading leaf of the lily, the River Fairy told her cousin that the wicked Tah-rahs had drunk her river dry; that her people, the beavers, the otters and the muskrats, were suffering for water, and that perhaps to-morrow those dreaded giants would even dry up the branches so bounteously fed by the Spring Fairy.

“Help me, O, sweet cousin!” exclaimed the River Fairy. “Help me to utterly destroy the Tah-rahs, who are the cause of so much trouble and suffering in our lovely world.”

The Spring Fairy stood, quietly thinking for a moment, and then, addressing her cousin, said:

“Be cheerful, my dear. I shall supply your people with cool, sweet water, and ere another sun shall set I shall have the giants in my power.”

The Spring Fairy waved her wand, and, forthwith, the pods on the forget-me-not bushes that lined the banks, burst with a cracking noise, emptying their seeds in the swift-flowing brook. Instantly millions of crawfish appeared ; some coming from the spring, others from the bed of the brook, and yet others from the marshy spots where grew the tall cat-tails and thick bulrushes.

What a noise they made, crawling over each other, backward now, then forward, rubbing their big arms together, falling over rocks, logs and sticks, in hot haste to reach the Spring Fairy. When they had all assembled, the fairy stood on the leaf of the lily, blew a shrill whistle, and every crawfish was silent.

“Go,” said she, “my men of the spring, and bore holes in the mountains; bore them quickly, and bore them deep.”

Then began a scramble; and a noise arose like cracking egg shells, as the crawfish rubbed together in their haste to do their tasks. Such a boring as they did that night was never seen before! The whole mountain was honey-combed, and on the steep sides were millions of little piles of dirt that showed how faithfully the excavations had been made by the trusty people of the Spring Fairy.

When morning dawned the crawfish had all disappeared in the spring, or in the brook, or under the bulrushes that lined the marshes at the mountain’s base, carrying with them the blessings of the Spring Fairy.

Tramp, tramp, tramp! came the great army of Tah-rahs — the last that was ever mustered — maching along, crushing down the beautiful flowers that decked the valley, and frightening away the frisky thrush and gay red bird that had nested in the willows on the river bank. When they reached the sparkling brook, that wended its way from the home of the Spring Fairy to the river, suddenly a fog began to rise, which grew thicker and thicker, until the face of the beautiful sun was shut out and there was blackness of midnight.

The great, burly giants could not see a foot before their eyes, and, while thus lost in utter darkness, the Spring Fairy made the waters to bubble up from the bowels of the earth, and pour out in myriads of streams from the little crawfish holes, completely overflowing the valley and washing the confused and turbulent mass of giants into the bed of the river, drowning every single one of them.

When the work had been finished, and the Spring Fairy knew that not a single Tah-rah had been left alive, she plugged up the crawfish holes in the mountain side, and the brook retreated within its banks; the waters in the valleys dried up, and little sprigs of grass popped out of the ground; again the full river surged and eddied, buoying up the leafy craft of the River Fairy; and the perch gaped lazily in the shade of the overhanging bushes; and the beavers and the otters and the muskrats skipped upon the fallen trees, and soused their furry bodies in the rollicking current.

The Peetoots made offerings to the fairies. To the River Fairy, they carried blossoms and leaves of sweet gum, casting them into the river; to the Spring Fairy, they took pure white blossoms of the dogwood, scattering them over the spring.