ather goose
said, "We can wait for you no more," for they were eager to reach the
land and find food.

They all arose and flew on, Raven slowly flapping along behind, for
his wings felt heavy. The geese kept steadily on toward the shore,
while he sank lower and lower, getting nearer to the dreaded water.
When the waves were almost touching him he shrieked to his wife:

"Leave me the white stone; it has magical powers. Throw me the white
stone."

Thus he kept crying until suddenly his wings lost their power and he
floated helplessly on the water as the geese gained the shore. He
tried to rise from the water but his wings seemed to be weighted down,
and he drifted back and forth along the beach. The waves arose and one
whitecap after another broke over him till he was soaked, and it was
only with the greatest difficulty that he could get his beak above the
surface to breathe a little between the billows.

After a long time a great wave cast him upon the land, and as it
flowed back he dug his claws into the sand to save himself from being
dragged back into the sea. As soon as he was able he struggled up the
beach, an unhappy looking object. The water ran in streams from his
soaked feathers and his wings dragged on the ground. He fell several
times, and at last, with wide-gaping mouth, he reached some bushes. As
soon as he could get his breath he took off his raven coat and pushed
up his beak, becoming a small, dark-colored man.

"From this time on, forevermore I'm done with being a goose," he
declared.

XXXI

EVEN A GRASS PLANT CAN BECOME SOMEONE IF IT TRIES

Near the mouth of the Yukon grows a tall, slender kind of grass which
the women gather and dry in the fall and use for braiding mats and
baskets and for pads in the soles of skin boots.

One of these grass stalks that had been almost pulled out by the roots
when the women were gathering others, did not like the fate in store
for it.

"Why should I stay on in this shape and never become anything but a
pad in the sole of a boot to be trodden on forever? It must be nicer
to be the one who treads on the pad; but since I cannot be that, I
will at least be something better than grass."

Looking about, it spied a bunch of herbs growing close by, looking so
quiet and unmolested that the grass stem said, "I will be an herb;
that is a higher and safer life than this."

At once it was changed into an herb like those it had envied, and for
a time it remai