--even the children of the village, as I pass them at their
sports, cry out, 'A barren woman!' And thus do they incessantly worry
me, till I am compelled to fly to the wilderness for rest and peace!"

"Wouldst thou become the mother of children, Namata-washta?"

"I would."

"Thou shalt have thy wish. Listen to my words. The hill upon which
thou art sitting was once a beautiful woman, as its neighbour, the
other and larger hill, was a man and a warrior. The woman, who is the
hill upon which we now stand, was the first woman that ever lived, and
the first that ever became a mother. I will tell thee, Namata-washta,
who she was. When the Great Spirit determined to people the Island
with human beings, he bade them spring out of the earth, as maize and
vegetables do at this day; and bade each take the quality and nature
of the soil in which he germinated. The red man forced his head out of
a rich and hardy prairie surrounded by lofty trees; the white man took
root in a stony and crabbed hill: and both have retained their first
natures.

"The woman who became this hill sprung up in a deep and very fat soil,
and thence became very fruitful--the most fruitful woman ever known.
She came out of the earth on the first day of the Moon of Buffaloes,
and, ere it hung in the skies like a bended bow, she had a child at
her breast. Every moon, she bestowed upon her husband a son or a
daughter, and these sons and daughters were all equally fertile with
their mother. The Great Spirit, seeing that if mankind continued thus
prolific, the Island would soon be overstocked with inhabitants,
determined to take away from the pair the breath he had given them,
and with it the power of unlimited procreation and fecundity imparted
to their descendants. He changed them into these two hills. But, that
the faculty they possessed in so remarkable a degree might not be lost
to the world, but might continue to be dispensed to those who wanted
it, and should seek it in a proper manner, he said to the hill, which
was the fruitful woman: 'Whenever a barren woman approaches thee,
lamenting in sincerity her hard fate, and duly supplicating mercy,
thou shalt listen to her with pity and compassion. I endow thee with
power to grant her prayers. Thou shalt bid her return to her village
and repair to the couch of her husband. When twelve suns shall have
passed, she shall return to thee soon after the dawning of day. Upon a
near approach to thee, she shall see a