Well, these creatures did as they said they
would and the result was that lots of men died, and also the women and
children, that did the creatures no harm, were getting different kinds of
sicknesses and many of them were dying.
"Were there no diseases among them before these times?" inquired Minnehaha.
"No; not what you might call diseases," replied Mary. "The people lived
such simple lives that, with the exception of accident, such as being
drowned in great storms or killed by falling trees, or something that way,
nearly all the people died of old age."
"Then they had no doctors in those days?" asked Sagastao.
"No; there were no medicine men in those times. Although there were those
skillful to set broken limbs or attend to any who happened to be
accidentally wounded, but that was nearly all. Then all at once these
diseases sent by the angry animals began to appear among them, and, of
course, there was much alarm. The people did not know what had brought
them, nor how to get rid of them. Many people were sick and numbers of them
died.
"You see, the animals held their councils in secret, and away from the
presence of men, and so it would never have been known if the ground
squirrel, called by some the chipmunk, had not gone and told all about the
councils to the men. He had always been friendly to the human race. He had
attended a number of the councils and was the only animal that had ventured
to say anything in the favor of man.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120