The boys rolled over, rubbed their eyes, and began to stretch.
“Get up, get up! the day is warmed long ago; fine warriors, you!” reiterated the old woman, giving them another shaking.
The boys sat up, stretched, gaped, rubbed their eyes, and scratched their heads—the dirtiest little fellows ever seen—but they were only making believe. Their arms were crusty with dirt, and their hair stood out like down on a wild milkweed after a rainstorm, and yet these boys were the handsomest children that ever lived—only they were fooling their old grandmother, you see.
“You’d better be down at the spring washing your eyes at sunrise, instead of scratching your heads here with the sun shining already down the sky-hole”; croaked the old woman.
“What! is the sun out?” cried the boys in mock surprise; but they knew what time it was as well as the old crone did.
“Out! I should say it was! You boys might as well go to sleep again. A fine bundle of sticks you could get today, with the sun done climbing up already.”
So the boys pretended to be in a great hurry and, grabbing up their bows and quivers, never stopped to half dress nor heeded the old woman’s offer of food, but were jumping down the crags like mountain goats before the old woman was up the ladder.
“Atiki!” exclaimed the grandmother; “these beasts that cause meditation!” Then she climbed the terrace and watched and watched and watched; but the boys liked nothing better than to worry their old grandmother, so they ran up Master Canyon and into the woods and so across to Rain-pond Basin, leaving the old woman to look as she would.
“Uhh!” groaned the old woman; “they are down among the rocks playing. Fine warriors, they!” and with this she went back to her cooking.
By-and-by the boys came to the edge of the basin where the pod plant grew. Sure enough, there was the Rainbow-worm, eating leaves as though he were dying of hunger—a great fat fellow, as big as the boys themselves; for long, long ago, in the days I tell you of, the Rainbow-worm was much bigger than he is now.
“Hold on,” said the younger brother. “Let’s frighten the old fellow.”
So they sneaked up until they were close to the grandfather, and then they began to tickle him with a stalk. Amiwili—that was his name—twitched his skin and bit away faster and faster at the leaves, until Áhaiyúta shouted at the top of his voice, “Ha-u-thla!” which made the old man jump and turn back so quickly that he would have broken his back had he a backbone.
“Shoma!” he exclaimed. “It’s my grandchildren, is it? I am old and a little deaf, and you frightened me, my boys.”
“Did we frighten you, grandfather? That’s too bad. Well, never mind; we’ve come to you for advice.”
“What’s that, my grandchildren?” looking out of his yellow eyes as though he were very wise, and standing up on his head and tail as though they had been two feet.
“Why, you see,” said the boys, “we had a big drove of Turkeys, and we let them out to feed yesterday, but the fools got too near Háwikuh and the people there killed many, many of them; so we have decided to get back our winnings and even the game with them, the shameless beasts!”
“Ah ha!” exclaimed old Amiwili. “Very well!” and he lay down on his belly and lifted his head into the air like a man resting on his elbows. “Ah ha!” said he, with a wag of his head and a squint of his goggle. “Ah ha! Very well! I’ll show them that they are not to treat my grandchildren like that. I’m a warrior, every direction of me—and there are a great many directions when I get angry, now, I can tell you! I’m just made to use up life,” said he, with another swagger of his head.
“Listen to that!” said Mátsailéma to his brother.
“To use up life, that’s what I’m for,” added the old man, with emphasis; “I’ll show the Háwikuhkwe!”
“Will you come to the council?” asked the two boys.
“Shuathla,” swaggered the old man—which is a very old-fashioned word that our grandfathers used when they said: “Go ye but before me.”
So the boys skipped over to the pool at the wood border. There was their old grandfather, the Turtle, with his eyes squinted up, paddling round in the scum, and stretching his long neck up to bite off the heads of the water-rushes.
“Let’s have some fun with the old Shield-back,” said the boys to one another. “Just you hold a moment, brother elder,” said Mátsailéma as he fitted an arrow to the string and drew it clean to the point. Tsi‑i‑i‑i thle‑e‑e! sang the arrow as it struck the back of the old Turtle; and although he was as big as the Turtles in the big Waters of the World now are, the force and fright ducked him under the scum like a chip, and he came up with his eyes slimy and his mouth full of spittle, and his legs flying round too fast to be counted. When he spied the two boys, he cursed them harder than their grandmother did, but they hardly heard him, for their arrow glanced upward from his back and came down so straight that they had to run for their lives. “Atiki! troublesome little beasts, who never knew what shame nor dignity was!” exclaimed the old fellow.
“Don’t be angry with us, grandpa,” said the boys. “You must be deaf, for we called and called to you, but you only paddled round and ate rushes; so we thought we would fire an arrow at you, for you know we couldn’t get at you.”
“Oh, that’s it! Well, what may my grandchildren be thinking of, in thus coming to see me? It cannot be for nothing,” reflected the old man, as
