a lazy paddle on the rim of a canoe. His hair was matted and reached a
yard down his back. 'Tamanous,' thought the old man. But chiefly he was
conscious of a mental change. He was calm and content. Hiaqua and
wealth seemed to have lost their charm for him. Tacoma, shining like
gold and silver and precious stones of gayest lustre, seemed a benign
comrade and friend. All the outer world was cheerful, and he thought
he had never wakened to a fresher morning. He rose and started on
his downward way, but the woods seemed strangely transformed since
yesterday; just before sunset he came to the prairie where his lodge
used to be; he saw an old squaw near the door crooning a song; she was
decked with many strings of hiaqua and costly beads. It was his wife;
and she told him he had been gone many, many years--she could not tell
how many; that she had remained faithful and constant to him, and
distracted her mind from the bitterness of sorrow by trading in kamas
and magic herbs, and had thus acquired a genteel competence. But little
cared the sage for such things; he, was rejoiced to be at home and at
peace, and near his own early gains of hiaqua and treasure buried in
a place of security. He imparted whatever he possessed--material
treasures or stores of wisdom and experience--freely to all the land.
Every dweller came to him for advice how to spear the salmon, chase the
elk, or propitiate Tamanous. He became the great medicine man of the
Siwashes and a benefactor to his tribe and race. Within a year after he
came down from his long nap on the side of Tacoma, a child, my father,
was born to him. The sage lived many years, revered and beloved, and on
his death-bed told this history to my father as a lesson and a warning.
My father dying, told it to me. But I, alas! have no son; I grow old,
and lest this wisdom perish from the earth, and Tamanous be again
obliged to interpose against avarice, I tell the tale to thee, O Boston
tyee. Mayst thou and thy nation not disdain this lesson of an earlier
age, but profit by it and be wise!"