t can't stop crying,' said the baby, and he
cried harder and harder.
"'Well,' the big coyote said, 'if you don't sing for me I'm going to
eat you right up.' The coyote was mad, and he was very hungry. 'All
right, then, I'll just eat you,' he said.
Now the little turtle thought of something. So he said, 'Well, I can't
sing, so I guess you'll have to eat me. But that's all right, for it
won't hurt me any; here inside of my shell I'll go right on living
inside of you.'
"Now the coyote thought about this a little bit and didn't like the idea
very well.
"Then the baby turtle said, 'You can do anything you want with me, just
so you don't throw me into the river, for I don't want to drown.'
"Now the old coyote was pretty mad and he wanted to be as mean as
possible. So he just picked that baby up in his mouth and carried him
over to the river and threw him in.
"Then the baby turtle was very happy; he stuck his little head out of
his shell and stretched out his feet and started swimming off toward the
middle of the river. And he said, 'Goodbye, Mr. Coyote, and thank you
very much for bringing me back to my house so that I didn't have to walk
back.' And the little turtle laughed at the old coyote, who got madder
and madder because he had let the little turtle go. But he couldn't get
him now, so he just went home. And the baby turtle was still laughing
when his mother got home, and she laughed too. And those turtles are
still living in that water. (Note: Here is manifest all the subtlety of
"The Tar Baby," though generations older. H.G.L.)
=The Frog and the Locust,= as told by Guanyanum Sacknumptewa
"Qowakina was a place where Paqua, the frog, lived. One day he was
sitting on a little wet ground singing a prayer for rain, for it was
getting very hot and dry and that was Paqua's way of bringing the rain,
so he had a very good song like this. (Note: Here she sang a pretty
little song, very rhythmic, and her body swayed gently in time to the
music. It occurred to the writer that this would make a good bedtime
story and the little song, a lullaby, for it went on and on with
pleasing variation. H.G.L.)
"Not far away Mahu, the locust, was sitting in a bush, and he was
singing too, for he was getting pretty dusty and the weather was very
hot, and so he, too, was praying for rain. He has a very nice song for
rain, and it goes this way. (Note: Here came a lovely little humming
song whose words could not be interpreted
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