me?'

'He has come from Tacoma down, down, down,--
Down to the salmon-pot and thee,'

shouted the reformed miser, rushing forward to supper with his
faithful wife."

"And how did Penelope explain the mystery?" I asked.

"If you mean the old lady," replied Hamitchou, "she was my
grandmother, and I'd thank you not to call names. She told my
grandfather that he had been gone many years;--she could not tell
how many, having dropped her tally-stick in the fire by accident
that very day. She also told him how, in despite of the entreaties
of many a chief who knew her economic virtues, and prayed her to
become the mistress of his household, she had remained constant to
the Absent, and forever kept the hopeful salmon-pot boiling for his
return. She had distracted her mind from the bitterness of sorrow
by trading in kamas and magic herbs, and had thus acquired a
genteel competence. The excellent dame then exhibited with great
complacency her gains, most of which she had put in the portable
and secure form of personal ornament, making herself a resplendent
magazine of valuable frippery.

"Little cared the repentant sage for such things. But he was
rejoiced to be again at home and at peace, and near his own early
gains of hiaqua and treasure, buried in a place of security. These,
however, he no longer overesteemed and hoarded. He imparted
whatever he possessed, material treasures or stores of wisdom and
experience, freely to all the land. Every dweller by Whulge came to
him for advice how to chase the elk, how to troll or spear the
salmon, and how to propitiate Tamanous. He became the Great
Medicine Man of the Siwashes, a benefactor to his tribe and his
race.

"Within a year after he came down from his long nap on the side of
Tacoma, a child, my father, was born to him. The sage lived many
years, beloved and revered, and on his death-bed, long before the
Boston tilicum or any blanketeers were seen in the regions of
Whulge, he told this history to my father, as a lesson and a
warning. My father, dying, told it to me. But I, alas! have no
son; I grow old, and lest this wisdom perish from the earth, and
Tamanous be again obliged to interpose against avarice, I tell the
tale to thee, O Boston tyee. Mayest thou and thy nation not disdain