“I have tried very hard to talk to you,” she said.

“I don’t know what to say, Dorothy,” I muttered.  “Truly I do desire to amuse you and make you laugh—­as once I did.  But the heart of everything seems dead.  There!  I did not mean that!  Don’t hide your face, Dorothy!  Don’t look like that!  I—­I cannot bear it.  And listen, cousin; we are to be quite happy.  I have thought it all out, and I mean to be gay and amuse you....  Won’t you look at me, Dorothy?” “Wh—­why?” she asked, unsteadily.

“Just to see how happy I am—­just to see that I pull no long faces—­idiot that I was!...  Dorothy, will you smile just once?”

“Yes,” she whispered, lifting her head and raising her wet lashes.  Presently her lips parted in one of her adorable smiles.  “Now that you have made me weep till my nose is red you may pick me every strawberry in sight,” she said, winking away the bright tears.  “You have heard of the penance of the Algonquin witch?”

I knew nothing of Northern Indian lore, and I said so.

“What?  You never heard of the Stonish Giants?  You never heard of the Flying Head?  Mercy on the boy!  Sit here and we’ll eat strawberries and I shall tell you tales of the Long House....  Sit nearer, for I shall speak in a low voice lest old Atotarho awake from his long sleep and the dead pines ring hollow, like witch-drums under the yellow-hammer’s double blows....  Are you afraid?”

“All a-shiver,” I whispered, gayly.

“Then listen,” she breathed, raising one pink-tipped finger.  “This is the tale of the Eight Thunders, told in the oldest tongue of the confederacy and to all ensigns of the three clans ere the Erians sued for peace.  Therefore it is true.

“Long ago, the Holder of the Heavens made a very poisonous blue otter, and the Mohawks killed it and threw its body into the lake.  And the Holder of Heaven came to the eastern door of the Long House and knocked, saying:  ’Where is the very poisonous blue otter that I made, O Keepers of the Eastern Door?’

“‘Who calls?’ asked the Mohawks, peeping out to see.

“Then the Holder of the Heavens named himself, and the Mohawks were afraid and hid in the Long House, listening.

“’Be afraid!  O you wise men and sachems!  The wisdom of a child alone can save you!’ said the Holder of the Heavens.  Saying this he wrapped himself in a bright cloud and went like a swift arrow to the sun.”

My cousin’s voice had fallen into a low, melodious sing-song; her rapt eyes were fixed on me.

“A youth of the Mohawks loved a maid, and they sat by the lake at night, counting the Dancers in the sky—­which we call stars of the Pleiades.

“‘One has fallen into the lake,’ said the youth.

“‘It is the eye of the very poisonous blue otter,’ replied the maid, beginning to cry.

“‘I see the lost Dancer shining down under the water,’ said the youth again.  Then he bade the maid go back and wait for him; and she went back and built a fire and sat sadly beside it.  Then she heard some one coming and turned around.  A young man stood there dressed in white, and with white feathers on his head.  ‘You are sad,’ he said to the maid, ’but we will help you.’  Then he gave her a belt of purple wampum to show that he spoke the truth.