ou." So saying, he went to
the side of the little maiden Musk-rat, and whispered certain words in
her ear. When he had done this, he went to the forest near them, cut
down a young pine-tree, dug up a root of the hemlock, took a spruce
cone, an oak acorn, a hickery nut, and a birch-leaf, and laid them all
in the fire which the Nanticoke had kindled. While they were burning,
he walked round the fire muttering many words in an unknown tongue,
and striking the earth repeatedly with the stone staff which he held
in his hand. When the different things he had put in the fire were
reduced to ashes, he gathered the ashes into the hollow of his hand,
dropped upon them seven drops of a kind of green water, and seven
times cried aloud to his master, with his mouth applied to the ear of
the earth. Ere the echo of the last cry had died away among the hills,
a little red man crept out of the hole which had been dug by the chief
of the Musk-rats, and stood before them. He was shaped like a
Nanticoke, but he was exceeding small. His face was very beautiful,
his eyes shone like the blue of the sky, and his hair like the blush
of sunset. When he came, all the Musk-rats, as well as the genius who
presided over them, bowed themselves to the earth, and remained with
their eyes hidden, while he addressed them thus:

"What would you with the Master of Life, Musk-rats, that you summon
him from his house of shining stone, in the bowels of the earth, to
smell the tainted breezes of the upper air?"

The Spirit told his master what was wanted by the Musk-rats. "It shall
be done," said the kind and beneficent Master. "Man of the Six
Nanticokes, who found themselves, all at once, they knew not how, nor
by what means, sitting upon the shores of the Great Lake, upon a sunny
day in the Frog-Moon, rise, take thy bride, and lead her to the border
of the lake. When thou shalt come to the water, bid her dip her feet
in the water, while thou, standing over her, shalt pronounce these
words: "For the last time as a Musk-rat, for the first time as a
woman. Go in a beast--come out a human being. In the name of the
Master of Life, I command thee to wear no more the form of an animal,
but to assume that shape which is appointed by Him to be the ruler,
the head chief, the governor of all. This do, and thou shalt see the
change that will come.""

The Master ceased speaking, and the Nanticoke did as he was bid. He
took the glossy little maiden Musk-rat by the paw,