THE LITTLE SPIRIT, OR BOY-MAN. : Folk Tales India

THE LITTLE SPIRIT, OR BOY-MAN.


In a little lodge at a beautiful spot on a lake shore, alone with his
sister, lived a boy remarkable for the smallness of his stature. Many
large rocks were scattered around their habitation, and it had a very
wild and out-of-the-way look.

The boy grew no larger as he advanced in years, and yet, small as he
was, he had a big spirit of his own, and loved dearly to play the master
in the lodge. One day in winter he told his sister to make him a ball to
play with, as he meant to have some sport along the shore on the clear
ice. When she handed him the ball, his sister cautioned him not to go
too far.

He laughed at her, and posted off in high glee, throwing his ball before
him and running after it at full speed, and he went as fast as his ball.
At last his ball flew to a great distance; he followed as fast as he
could. After he had run forward for some time, he saw what seemed four
dark spots upon the ice, straight before him.

When he came up to the shore he was surprised to see four large, tall
men, lying on the ice, spearing fish. They were four brothers, who
looked exactly alike. As the little boy-man approached them, the nearest
looked up, and in his turn he was surprised to see such a tiny being,
and turning to his brothers, he said:

"Tia! look! see what a little fellow is here."

The three others thereupon looked up too, and seeing these four faces,
as if they had been one, the little spirit or boy-man said to himself:

"Four in one! What a time they must have in choosing their
hunting-shirts!"

After they had all stared for a moment at the boy, they covered their
heads, intent in searching for fish. The boy thought to himself:

"These four-faces fancy that I am to be put off without notice because I
am so little, and they are so broad and long. They shall find out. I may
find a way to teach them that I am not to be treated so lightly."

After they were covered up, the boy-man, looking sharply about, saw that
among them they had caught one large trout, which was lying just by
their side. Stealing along, he slyly seized it, and placing his fingers
in the gills, and tossing his ball before him, he ran off at full speed.

They heard the pattering of his little steps upon the ice, and when the
four looked up all together, they saw their fine trout sliding away, as
if of itself, at a great rate, the boy being so small that he could not
be distinguished from the fish.

"See!" they cried out, "our fish is running away on the dry land!"

When they stood up they could just see, over the fish's head, that it
was the boy-man who was carrying it off.

The little spirit reached the lodge, and having left the trout at the
door, he told his sister to go out and bring in the fish he had brought
home.

She exclaimed, "Where could you have got it? I hope you have not stolen
it."

"Oh," he replied, "I found it on the ice. It was caught in our lake.
Have we no right to a little lake of our own? I shall claim all the fish
that come out of its waters."

"How," the sister asked again, "could you have got it there?"

"No matter," said the boy; "go and cook it."

It was as much as the girl could do to drag the great trout within
doors. She cooked it, and its flavor was so delicious that she asked no
more questions as to how he had come by it.

The next morning the little spirit or boy-man set off as he had the day
before.

He made all sorts of sport with his ball as he frolicked along--high
over his head he would toss it, straight up into the air; then far
before him, and again, in mere merriment of spirit, he would send it
bounding back, as if he had plenty of speed and enough to spare in
running back after it. And the ball leaped and bounded about, and glided
through the air as if it were a live thing, and enjoyed the sport as
much as the boy-man himself.

When he came within hail of the four large men, who were fishing there
every day, he cast his ball with such force that it rolled into the
ice-hole about which they were busy. The boy, standing on the shore of
the lake, called out:

"Four-in-one, pray hand me my ball."

"No, indeed," they answered, setting up a grim laugh which curdled their
four dark faces all at once, "we shall not;" and with their
fishing-spears they thrust the ball under the ice.

"Good!" said the boy-man, "we shall see."

Saying which he rushed upon the four brothers and thrust them at one
push into the water. His ball bounded back to the surface, and, picking
it up, he ran off, tossing it before him in his own sportive way.
Outstripping it in speed he soon reached home, and remained within till
the next morning.

The four brothers, rising up from the water at the same time, dripping
and wroth, roared out in one voice a terrible threat of vengeance, which
they promised to execute the next day. They knew the boy's speed, and
that they could by no means overtake him.

By times in the morning, the four brothers were stirring in their lodge,
and getting ready to look after their revenge.

Their old mother, who lived with them, begged them not to go.

"Better," said she, "now that your clothes are dry, to think no more of
the ducking than to go and all four of you get your heads broken, as you
surely will, for that boy is a monedo or he could not perform such feats
as he does."

But her sons paid no heed to this wise advice, and, raising a great
war-cry, which frightened the birds overhead nearly out of their
feathers, they started for the boy's lodge among the rocks.

The little spirit or boy-man heard them roaring forth their threats as
they approached, but he did not appear to be disquieted in the least.
His sister as yet had heard nothing; after a while she thought she could
distinguish the noise of snow-shoes on the snow, at a distance, but
rapidly advancing. She looked out, and seeing the four large men coming
straight to their lodge she was in great fear, and running in,
exclaimed:

"He is coming, four times as strong as ever!" for she supposed that the
one man whom her brother had offended had become so angry as to make
four of himself in order to wreak his vengeance.

The boy-man said, "Why do you mind them? Give me something to eat."

"How can you think of eating at such a time?" she replied.

"Do as I request you, and be quick."

She then gave little spirit his dish, and he commenced eating.

Just then the brothers came to the door.

"See!" cried the sister, "the man with four heads!"

The brothers were about to lift the curtain at the door, when the
boy-man turned his dish upside down, and immediately the door was closed
with a stone; upon which the four brothers set to work and hammered with
their clubs with great fury, until at length they succeeded in making a
slight opening. One of the brothers presented his face at this little
window, and rolled his eye about at the boy-man in a very threatening
way.

The little spirit, who, when he had closed the door, had returned to his
meal, which he was quietly eating, took up his bow and arrow which lay
by his side, and let fly the shaft, which, striking the man in the head,
he fell back. The boy-man merely called out "Number one" as he fell, and
went on with his meal.

In a moment a second face, just like the first, presented itself; and
as he raised his bow, his sister said to him:

"What is the use? You have killed that man already."

Little spirit fired his arrow--the man fell--he called out "Number two,"
and continued his meal.

The two others of the four brothers were dispatched in the same quiet
way, and counted off as "Number three" and "Number four."

After they were all well disposed of in this way, the boy-man directed
his sister to go out and see them. She presently ran back, saying:

"There are four of them."

"Of course," the boy-man answered, "and there always shall be four of
them."

Going out himself, the boy-man raised the brothers to their feet, and
giving each a push, one with his face to the East, another to the West,
a third to the South, and the last to the North, he sent them off to
wander about the earth; and whenever you see four men just alike, they
are the four brothers whom the little spirit or boy-man dispatched upon
their travels.

But this was not the last display of the boy-man's power.

When spring came on, and the lake began to sparkle in the morning sun,
the boy-man said to his sister:

"Make me a new set of arrows, and a bow."

Although he provided for their support, the little spirit never
performed household or hard work of any kind, and his sister obeyed.

When she had made the weapons, which, though they were very small, were
beautifully wrought and of the best stuff the field and wood could
furnish, she again cautioned him not to shoot into the lake.

"She thinks," said the boy-man to himself, "I can see no further into
the water than she. My sister shall learn better."

Regardless of her warnings, he on purpose discharged a shaft into the
lake, waded out into the water till he got into its depth, and paddled
about for his arrow, so as to call the attention of his sister, and as
if to show that he hardily braved her advice.

She hurried to the shore, calling on him to return; but instead of
heeding her, he cried out:

"You of the red fins, come and swallow me!"

Although his sister did not clearly understand whom her brother was
addressing, she too called out:

"Don't mind the foolish boy!"

The boy-man's order seemed to be best attended to, for immediately a
monstrous fish came and swallowed him. Before disappearing entirely,
catching a glimpse of his sister standing in despair upon the shore, the
boy-man hallooed out to her:

"Me-zush-ke-zin-ance!"

She wondered what he meant. At last it occurred to her that it must be
an old moccasin. She accordingly ran to the lodge, and bringing one, she
tied it to a string attached to a tree, and cast it into the water.

The great fish said to the boy-man under water.

"What is that floating?"

To which the boy-man replied:

"Go, take hold of it, swallow it as fast as you can; it is a great
delicacy."

The fish darted toward the old shoe and swallowed it, making of it a
mere mouthful.

The boy-man laughed in himself, but said nothing, till the fish was
fairly caught, when he took hold of the line and began to pull himself
in his fish-carriage ashore.

The sister, who was watching all this time, opened wide her eyes as the
huge fish came up and up upon the shore; and she opened them still more
when the fish seemed to speak, and she heard from within a voice,
saying, "Make haste and release me from this nasty place."

It was her brother's voice, which she was accustomed to obey; and she
made haste with her knife to open a door in the side of the fish, from
which the boy-man presently leaped forth. He lost no time in ordering
her to cut it up and dry it; telling her that their spring supply of
meat was now provided.

The sister now began to believe that her brother was an extraordinary
boy; yet she was not altogether satisfied in her mind that he was
greater than the rest of the world.

They sat, one evening, in the lodge, musing with each other in the dark,
by the light of each other's eyes--for they had no other of any
kind--when the sister said, "My brother, it is strange that you, who can
do so much, are no wiser than the Ko-ko, who gets all his light from the
moon; which shines or not, as it pleases."

"And is not that light enough?" asked the little spirit.

"Quite enough," the sister replied. "If it would but come within the
lodge and not sojourn out in the tree-tops and among the clouds."

"We will have a light of our own, sister," said the boy-man; and,
casting himself upon a mat by the door, he commenced singing:

Fire-fly, fire-fly, bright little thing,
Light me to bed and my song I will sing;
Give me your light, as you fly o'er my head,
That I may merrily go to my bed.

Give me your light o'er the grass as you creep,
That I may joyfully go to my sleep;
Come, little fire-fly, come little beast,
Come! and I'll make you to-morrow a feast.

Come, little candle, that flies as I sing,
Bright little fairy-bug, night's little king;
Come and I'll dream as you guide me along;
Come and I'll pay you, my bug, with a song.

As the boy-man chanted this call, they came in at first one by one, then
in couples, till at last, swarming in little armies, the fire-flies lit
up the little lodge with a thousand sparkling lamps, just as the stars
were lighting the mighty hollow of the sky without.

The faces of the sister and brother shone upon each other, from their
opposite sides of the lodge, with a kindly gleam of mutual trustfulness;
and never more from that hour did a doubt of each other darken their
little household.