en you have learned it I will be faithful and
will return to you again. Only remember, however long we may be parted,
and whatever winds blow ill-fortune up to your door, Gamma-gata will
watch over you. For in deed and truth you are the wife of the West Wind
now, and truly he loves you, Katipah!"

"Oh, Gamma-gata!" cried Katipah, "tell the other winds, when they come,
to blow courage into me, and to blow me back to you; and do not let that
be long!"

"I will tell them," said Gamma-gata; and suddenly he was gone. Katipah
saw a drift of white petals borne over the treetops and away to sea,
and she knew that there went Gamma-gata, the beautiful windy youth who,
loving her so well, had made her his wife between the showers of the
plum-blossom and the sunshine, and had promised to return to her as soon
as she was fit to receive him.

So Katipah gathered up her field-sorrel, and went away home and ate her
solitary midday meal with a mixture of pride and sorrow in her
timid little breast. "Some day, when I am grown brave," she thought,
"Gamma-gata will come back to me; but he will not come yet."

In the evening Bimsha looked over the fence and jeered at her. "Do not
think, Katipah," she cried, "that you will ever get a husband, for all
your soft looks! You are too poor and unprofitable."

Katipah folded her meek little body together like a concertina when
it shuts, and squatted to earth in great contentment of spirit. "Silly
Bimsha," said she, "I already have a husband, a fine one! Ever so much
finer than yours!"

Bimsha turned pale and cold with envy to hear her say that, for she
feared that Katipah was too good and simple to tell her an untruth, even
in mockery. But she put a brave face upon the matter, saying only, "I
will believe in that fine husband of yours when I see him!"

"Oh, you will see him," answered Katipah, "if you look high enough! But
he is far away over your head, Bimsha; and you will not hear him beating
me at night, for that is not his way!"

At this soft answer Bimsha went back into her house in a fury, and
Katipah laughed to herself. Then she sighed, and said, "Oh, Gamma-gata,
return to me quickly, lest my word shall seem false to Bimsha, who hates
me!"

Every day after this Bimsha thrust her face over the fence to say:
"Katipah, where is this fine husband of yours? He does not seem to come
home often."

Katipah answered slily; "He comes home late, when it is dark, and he
goes away very early