“Yes, alas! yes; I alone am left,” moaned the young Turkey.
“Oh, no!” broke in the elder brother, “there will yet many return, for this is but a Long-leg, and surely when he could save himself others and older ones could.” Even then they heard some of the Turkeys calling to one another, out of breath over the low hills. “U-kwa-tchi!” (“Didn’t I tell you!”) exclaimed Áhaiyúta, and they started toward the mountain.
One by one, or in little bunches, the Turkeys came fleeing in, scared, weary, and bedraggled; and the boys knew by this, and that only a few after all returned, that the Long-leg had not been for nothing taught to fear. They betook themselves to their house. There they sat down to eat with their grandmother, and after the eating was finished, they poked little sticks into the blazing fire on the hearth, and cried out to their grandmother: “Tomorrow, grandmother, we will gather fagots.”
“Foolish, foolish boys!” crooned the old grandmother.
“Aye, tomorrow we will gather sprouts. Where do they grow thickest and straightest, grandmother?”
“Now, you boys had better let sprouts and war alone,” retorted the grandmother.
“But we must win back our losing,” cried the boys, with so much vehemence that the grandmother only shook her head and exclaimed: “A-ti-ki! (‘Blood!’) Strange creatures, my grandchildren, both!” whereupon the two boys poked one the other and laughed.
“Well,” added the grandmother, “I have warned you; now act your own thoughts”;—and the boys looked at her as earnestly as though they knew nothing of what she would say. “Fine warriors, indeed, who do not know where to look for arrow-sticks! But if you will go sprouting, why, over there in the Rain-pond Basin are plenty of sprouts, and then north on Scale Ridge grow more, and over in Oak Canyon are fine oak-sprouts, more than ten boys like you could carry, and above here around Great Mountain are other kinds, and everywhere grow sprouts enough, if people weren’t beasts passing understanding; and, what’s more, I could tell you boys something to your advantage if you would ever listen to your old grandmother, but—”
“What is it? What is it?” interrupted the boys excitedly, just as if they knew nothing of what she would say.
“Why, over there by the Rain-pond Basin lives your grandfather—”
“Who’s that? Who’s that?” interrupted the boys again.
“I’ve a mind not to tell you, you shameless little beasts, another word,” jerked out the old grandmother, sucking her lips as if they were marrowbones, and digging into the pudding she was stirring as though it were alive enough to be killed—“just as though I were not telling you as fast as I could; and, besides, anything but little beasts would know their grandfather—why, the Rainbow-worm, of course!”18
“The Rainbow-worm our grandfather, indeed!” persisted the boys; and they would have said more had not their grandmother, getting cross, raised the pudding-stick at them, and bid them “shut up!” So they subsided, and the old woman continued: “Yes, your grandfather, and for shame!—You may sit there and giggle all you please, but your grandfather the Rainbow-worm is a great warrior, I can tell you, and if you boys will go sprouting, why, I can tell you, you will fare but with poverty the day after, if you do not get him to help you, that’s all!”
“Indeed,” replied the boys, quite respectfully.
“Yes, that I tell you; and, moresoever, over there beyond at the wood border, in a pond, is your other grandfather, and he is a great warrior, too.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the boys, as though they did not know that already, also.
“Yes, and you must go to see him, too; for you can’t get along without him any more than without the other. Now, you boys go to sleep, for you will want to get up very early in the morning, and you must go down the path and straight over the little hills to where your grandfathers live, and not up into the Master Canyon to gather your sticks, for if you do you will forget all I’ve told you. You are creatures who pass comprehension, you two grandchildren of mine.”
So the two boys lay down in the corner together under one robe, like a man and his wife, for they did not sleep apart like our boys. But, do you know, those two mischievous boys giggled and kicked one another, and kept turning about, just as though they never dreamed of the morning. Then they fell to quarrelling about who could turn over the quicker.
“I can,” said the elder brother.
“You can’t!”
“I can!”
“No, you can’t!”
“Yes, I can, and I’ll show you”; and he was about to brace himself for the trial when the old grandmother strode over with her pudding-stick, lifting it in the air, with her usual expression of “Blood! my grandchildren both,” when they quieted down and pretended to sleep; but still they kept giggling and trying to pull the cover off each other.
“Stop that gaping and fooling, will you? And go to sleep, you nasty little cubs!” cried the irritated old woman; and laughing outright at their poor old grandmother, they put their arms around each other and fell asleep.
Next morning the sun rose, till he shone straight over the mountain, but still the two boys were asleep. The old grandmother had gone out to water her garden, and now she was sitting on the housetop shading her eyes and looking down the trail she had told the boys to follow, to see them come out of the shadow.
After she had strained her poor old eyes till they watered, she grew impatient: “Did I ever see such boys! Now they’ve gone and played me another trick. They’ll rue their pranks some day.” Then she thought she would go down and get some mush for breakfast. As she climbed down the ladder, she heard a tremendous snoring. “Ho, ho!” exclaimed the old grandmother; and striding across the room she shook the boys
