FIRE BOY AND WATER BOY
As long as the oldest Indians could remember, the Fire and Water Boys had lived along the shores of the great lake called Athabasca. They never seemed to grow any older; sometimes they were very good and very helpful—sometimes, very annoying and often destructive. When the Indians grew tired of their pranks and tried to punish them, many strange things would happen.
Far off the shore of Chipewyan lies an island, beautifully wooded and shaped very like a lady’s hat. On this island, alone, for nearly fifty years had lived Ani, who seldom spoke to any one, nor did she ever go to the mainland to enter into the festivities of the other Indians living in the vicinity of the settlement comprising two old Hudson’s Bay forts, a store of the company that traded with the Indians, a log church and a few straggling huts that fringed the woodlands on one side and the lake on the other. In winter the Indians trapped and hunted for the many valuable fur animals that roamed the desolate parts of this great northern wilderness, and in the spring and summer fished for their winter supply for their dogs that helped them drag the game from the woods, often many miles from the settlement.
The women made white and colored moccasins of the most beautiful designs, adorned with porcupine quills dyed in many colors, some of the strands being almost as fine as a hair. These were braided and twisted with silk cords also of many colors, making a charming adornment for the feet, even of a queen. Because the Indian women were not industrious, there were but few made, and these were all bought by the trappers, so people of the Southland never saw them.
Far beyond the island on which Ani had made her home so long, was another smaller one where Ani’s lover, a very handsome Beaver Indian, had lived more than forty years before. He had gone on a long trail for moose and caribou and had never returned; and every morning at dawn, and in the evening at sunset Ani would take a wild flower that her lover had given her, and which she had kept in a squirrel-skin bag, and go to the edge of the lake when the sun made a path of gold away across to the far shore, and call in her feeble voice to the Great Spirit to send back her brown-eyed boy of so many dead years of long ago. But he never came, and her heart grew more sad as the years passed. There were so many reasons why she wanted him—her tipi needed repairing, it was hard for her to cut wood, the path to the lake was stony and sometimes she would bruise her feet and groan; but there was no one to hear or to help her. She would not leave the island, fearing if she did her lover would return and would not be able to find her.
One morning she heard the paddle of a canoe, and thinking perhaps he had come, she threw down her pan in which she was frying a portion of rabbit that she had snared two days before, and slowly crawled to the opening of her tipi and looked out; but it was not he—only two boys who were pointing their canoe directly to the path leading to her camp.
“Hello, Granny Ani!” called the boy plying the bow paddle, but Ani was so disappointed she made only a grunt as a reply.
“Hello!” they called again.
Ani made no answer, standing with a worried look.
“Get some fagots,” called the boy in the bow. “We have brought a goose and caribou tongues, and we will share them with you.”
Ani seemed pleased and went for an armful of dry branches—she had not eaten goose for so long, and caribou tongue she had almost forgotten. She was so slow the boys went to help her, and gathered for her a fine lot of branches, dry and just the right size to make a quick and hot fire. The goose was prepared and strung on a birch branch, as also were the tongues, just close enough to the fagots to roast without burning.
“I have no tinder,” said Ani.
“Never mind,” said the boy with the bright, flashing eyes, and with the tip of his finger he touched the branches, at which they burst into flame, much to the astonishment of Ani.
“Spirits,” thought she, “I’ll not go too near them.”
“Get a gourd,” demanded the other boy in a tone Ani did not like—but she obeyed, and brought a fine big one hanging on long strings of caribou sinew. She handed it to the boy, and as soon as he had taken it, it filled to overflowing with clear, cool water.
“You are children of the Evil Spirit,” said Ani, looking first at one and then at the other, and then at the fire.
This remark made the boys laugh.
The goose and tongues were by this time nicely browned, and the edge of the fire had spread to a pile of dry leaves. This was put out by a gesture of the hand of the boy who had so mysteriously filled the gourd. But this Ani had not noticed as she was now anxious to know if the boys would make a fair division of the food, as she was growing very hungry.
The first boy reached out and tore from the goose a leg dripping with rich juice while the other lad took from the stick a dainty tongue, and began eating. Ani waited for them to invite her to join in the feast, but they did not. This so offended her that she seized the nearest boy (who made no resistance) by the hair of the head, and led him to the water, pushing him into a deep hole where he sank to the bottom. Looking up to her he waved his hand, and smiled, making strange faces at the astonished old woman who was too startled to speak. Then going back to her tipi, she collected a large armful of leaves and piled bundle after bundle of branches until they mounted as high as she could reach. Then she went to the other boy with her pipe, pretending she wanted to smoke, and asked him to light it, which he did. Then she put the fire from her pipe on the ground beneath the great pile and blew until a flame burst out, the fire leaping high. Quickly seizing the boy, she dragged him to the pile and pushed him into the burning mass. He also did not resist, but sat without discomfort in the midst of the flames until the fire had burned itself out. Then he shook the ashes from his clothing and walked back to his friend who had returned from the river, and they finished their meal together.
“Where is the old lady?” asked the boy whom Ani had tried to burn, and they went in search, finding her sitting behind an old hut that had been deserted before she came to live on the island. She was very much worried by their coming, and told them so; but they only smiled, and told her she was to have all the goose and the caribou tongues that remained, and that they, who were the incarnation of fire and water, the elements she needed most, had been sent to her by the spirit of her lover to hunt, to make her fire, cook her food, and to water the island so berries and herbs would grow—and to do all that fire and water could do for her in her old age.
The old Indians who knew Ani said the boys served her in every way as long as she lived, and that she was never so happy as when they were with her; and some said her young lover came back, and they journeyed together to the far-off land that the white man called heaven.