One day the west wind came full-breathed over land and sca, and Katipah was
among the first on the beach to send up her messenger with word to Gamma-gata
of the thing for which she prayed. "Gamma-gata," she sighed, "the voice of
Bimsha afflicts me daily; my heart is bruised by the mockery she casts at me.
Did I not love thee under the plum-tree, Gamma-gata? Ask of Heaven, therefore,
that a child may be born to me--ever so small let it be--and Bimsha will
become dumb. Gamma-gata, it is a very little thing that I am asking!"

All day long she let her kite go farther up into the sky than all the other
kites. Overhead the wind sang in their strings like bees, or like the thin cry
of very small children; but Katipah's was so far away she could scarcely see
it against the blue. "Gamma-gata," she cried; till the twilight drew sea and
land together, and she was left alone.

Then she called down her kite sadly; hand over hand she drew it by the cord,
till she saw it fluttering over her head like a great moth searching for a
flower in the gloom. "Wahoo! wahoo!" she could hear the wind crying through
its strings like the wailing of a very small child.

It had become so dark that Katipah hardly knew what the kite had brought her
till she touched the tiny warm limbs that lay cradled among the strings that
netted the frame to its cord. Full of wonder and delight, she lifted the
windling out of its nest, and laid it in her bosom. Then she slung her kite
across her shoulder, and ran home, laughing and crying for joy and triumph to
think that all Bimsha's mockery must now be at an end. So, quite early the
next morning, Katipah sat herself down very demurely in the doorway, with her
child hidden in the folds of her gown, and waited for Bimsha's evil eye to
look out upon her happiness.