[Footnote: A want of patience
or of dignity, and restlessness, are more scorned by every Indian than
any other fault. This is not the only story in which people are represented
as being punished for being unable to bide their time. Glooskap was
specially severe on all such sinners.]
And as they sat there and day dawned, men of the different Indian
families went by, and unto all of these they cried for help. It is true
that their star husbands had made for them in the tree, a bed of moss,
but they cared not to rest in the hemlock, for all that. [Footnote: In
another very full version of this legend (M.), the water-wives are
called Weasels (_Uskoolsh_), "from their great whiteness." This,
however, indicates supernatural fairness or beauty. In the same story
the tree is a pine, not a hemlock. Insignificant as these differences
may appear, they are of primary importance in the elucidation of a
myth.] And of all the beasts of the forest or men of the clearing, who
should be the first to appear but Team, or Master Moose, himself. And
to him they cried, "_N'sesenen-apkwahlin, n'sesenen_!" "Oh, our
elder brother, let us free; take us down, and we will be your two dear
little wives, and go home with you." But he, looking up scornfully,
said, "I was married this autumn." And so he went his way.
And he who next came was the shaggy Bear, or _mooin_, to whom they
made the same request, offering themselves for no higher price than to
be taken down safely out of their nest.
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