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One day they went out hunting prairie-dogs, and while they were running
about from one prairie-dog village to another, it began to rain, which
made the trail slippery and the ground muddy, so that the boys became a
little wrathful. Then they sat down and cursed the rain for a brief space.
Off in the south it thundered until the earth trembled, and the
lightning-shafts flew about the red-bordered clouds until the two brothers
were nearly blinded with the beholding of it.
Presently the younger brother smoothed his brow, and jumped up with an
exclamation somewhat profane, and cried out: "Elder brother, let us go to
the Land of Everlasting Summer and steal from the gods in council their
thunder and lightning. I think it would be fine fun to do that sort of
thing we have just been looking at and listening to."
The elder brother was somewhat more cautious; still, on the whole, he
liked the idea. So he said
"Let us take our prairie-dogs home to the grandmother, that she shall have
something to eat meanwhile, and we will think about going tomorrow
morning."
The next morning, bright and early, they started out. In vain the old
grandmother called rather crossly after them: "Where are you going now_"
She could get no satisfaction, for she knew they lied when they called
back: "Oh, we are only going to hunt more prairie-dogs." It is true that
they skulked round in the plains about Thunder Mountain a little while, as
if looking for prairie-dogs. Then, picking up their wondrously swift
heels, they sped away toward that beautiful country of the corals, the
Land of Everlasting Summer.
At last,--it may be in the mountains of that country, which are said to
glow like shells of the sea or the clouds of the sunset,--they came to the
House of the Beloved Gods themselves. And that red house was a wondrous
terrace, rising wall after wall, and step after step, like a high
mountain, grand and stately; and the walls were so smooth and high that
the skill and power of the little War-gods availed them nothing; they
could not get in.
"What shall we do_" asked the younger brother.
"Go home," said the elder, "and mind our own affairs."
"Oh, no," urged the younger I have it, elder brother. Let us hunt up our
grandfather, the Centipede."
"Good!" replied the elder. "A happy thought is that of yours, my brother
younger."
Forthwith they laid down their bows and quivers of mountain-lion skin,
their shields, and other things, and set about turning over all the flat
stones they could find. Presently, lifting one with their united strength,
they found under it the very old fellow they sought. He doubled himself,
and covered his eyes from the sharpness of the daylight.
He did not much like being thus disturbed, even by his grandchildren, the
War-gods, in the middle of his noonday nap, and was by no means polite to
them. But they prodded him a little in the side, and said: "Now,
grandfather, look here! We are in difficulty, and there is no one in the
wide world who can help us out as you will."
The old Centipede was naturally flattered. He unrolled himself and viewed
them with a look which he intended to be extremely reproachful and
belittling. "Ah, my grandchildren," said he, "what are you up to now_ Are
you trying to get yourselves into trouble, as usual_ No doubt of it! I
will help you all I can; but the consequences be on your own heads!"
"That's right, grandfather, that's right! No one in the world could help
us as you can," said one of them. "The fact is, we want to get hold of the
thunder-stone and the lightning-shaft which the Rain-gods up there in the
tremendous house keep and guard so carefully, we understand. Now, in the
first place, we cannot get up the wall; in the second place, if we did, we
would probably have a fuss with them in trying to steal these things.
Therefore, we want you to help us, if you will."
"With all my heart, my boys! But I should advise you to run along home to
your grandmother, and let these things alone."
"Oh, pshaw, nonsense! We are only going to play a little while with the
thunder and lightning."
"All right," replied the old Worm; "sit here and wait for me." He wriggled
himself and stirred about, and his countless legs were more countless than
ever with rapid motions as he ran toward the walls of that stately
terrace. A vine could not have run up more closely, nor a bird more
rapidly; for if one foot slipped, another held on; so the old Centipede
wriggled himself up the sides and over the roof, down into the great
skyhole; and, scorning the ladder, which he feared might creak, he went
along, head-downward, on the ceiling to the end of the room over the
altar, ran down the side, and approached that most forbidden of places,
the altar of the gods themselves.
The beloved gods, in silent majesty, were sitting there with their heads
bowed in meditation so deep that they heard not the faint scuffle of the
Centipede's feet as he wound himself down into the altar and stole the
thunder-stone. He took it in his mouth--which was larger than the mouths
of Centipedes are now--and carried it silently, weighty as it was, up the
way he had come, over the roof, down the wall, and back to the flat stone
where he made his home, and where, hardly able to contain themselves with
impatience, the two youthful gods were awaiting him.
"Here he comes!" cried the younger brother, "and he's got it! By my
war-bonnet, he's got it!"
The old grandfather threw the stone down. It began to sound, but Áhaiyúta
grabbed it, and, as it were, throttled its world-stirring speech. "Good!
good!" he cried to the grandfather; "thank you, old grandfather, thank
you!"
"Hold on!" cried the younger brother; "you didn't bring both. What can we
do with the one without the other_"
"Shut up!" cried the old Worm. "I know what I am about!" And before they
could say any more he was off again. Ere long he returned, carrying the
shaft of lightning, with its blue, shimmering point, in his mouth.
"Good!" cried the War-gods. And the younger brother caught up the
lightning, and almost forgot his weapons, which, however, he did stop to
take up, and started on a full run for Thunder Mountain, followed by his
more deliberate, but equally interested elder brother, who brought along
the thunder-stone, which he found a somewhat heavier burden than he had
supposed.
It was not long, you may well imagine, so powerful were these Gods of War,
ere they reached the home of their grandmother on the top of Thunder
Mountain. They had carefully concealed the thunder-stone and the shaft of
lightning meanwhile, and had taken care to provide themselves with a few
prairie-dogs by way of deception.
Still, in majestic reverie, unmoved, and apparently unwitting of what had
taken place, sat the Rain-gods in their home in the mountains of
Summerland.
Not long after they arrived, the young gods began to grow curious and
anxious to try their new playthings. They poked one another considerably,
and whispered a great deal, so that their grandmother began to suspect
they were about to play some rash joke or other, and presently she espied
the point of lightning gleaming under Mátsailéma's dirty jacket.
"Demons and corpses!" she cried. "By the moon! You have stolen the
thunder-stone and lightning-shaft from the Gods of Rain themselves! Go
this instant and return them, and never do such a thing again!" she cried,
with the utmost severity; and, making a quick step for the fireplace, she
picked up a poker with which to belabor their backs, when they whisked out
of the room and into another.
They slammed the door in their grandmother's face and braced it, and,
clearing away a lot of rubbish that was lying around the rear room, they
established themselves in one end, and, nodding and winking at one
another, cried out: "Now, then!" The younger let go the lightning-shaft;
the elder rolled the thunder-stone.
The lightning hissed through the air, and far out into the sky, and
returned. The thunder-stone rolled and rumbled until it shook the
foundations of the mountain. "Glorious fun!" cried the boys, rubbing their
thighs in ecstasy of delight. "Do it again!" And again they sent forth the
lightning and rolled the thunder-stone.
And now the gods in Summerland arose in their majesty and breathed upon
the skies; and the winds rose, and the rains fell like rivers from the
clouds, centering their violence upon the roof of the poor old
grandmother's house. Heedlessly those reckless wretches kept on playing
the thunder-stone and lightning-shaft without the slightest regard to the
tremendous commotion they were raising all through the skies and all over
Thunder Mountain; but nowhere else as above the house where their poor old
grandmother lived fell the torrent of the rain, and there alone, of
course, burst the lightning and rolled the thunder.
Soon the water poured through the roof of the house; but, move the things
as the old grandmother would, she could not keep them dry; scold the boys
as she would, she could not make them desist. No, they would only go on
with their play more violently than ever, exclaiming: "What has she to
say, anyway_ It won't hurt her to get a good ducking, and this is fun!"
By-and-by the waters rose so high that they extinguished the fire.
Soon they rose still higher, so that the War-gods had to paddle around
half submerged. Still they kept rolling the thunder-stone and shooting the
lightning. The old grandmother scolded harder and harder, but after awhile
desisted and climbed to the top of the fireplace, whence, after recovering
from her exertion, she began again. But the boys heeded her not, only
saying: "Let her yell! Let her scold! This is fun!"
At last they began to take the old grandmother's scolding as a matter of
course, and allowed nothing but the water to interrupt their pastime. It
rose so high, finally, that they were near drowning. Then they climbed to
the roof, but still they kept on.
"By the bones of the dead! why did we not think to come here before_ 'T is
ten times as fine up here. See him shoot!" cried one to the other, as the
lightning sped through the sky, ever returning.
"Hear it mutter and roll!" cried the other, as the thunder bellowed and
grumbled.
But no sooner had the Two begun their sport on the roof, than the rain
fell in one vast sheet all about them; and it was not long ere the house
was so full that the old grandmother--locked in as she was--bobbed her
poor pate on the rafters in trying to keep it above the water. She gulped
water, and ghtmled, coughed, strangled, and shrieked to no purpose.
"What a fuss our old grandmother is making, to be sure!" cried the boys.
And they kept on, until, forsooth, the water had completely filled the
room, and the grandmother's cries gurgled away and ceased. Finally, the
thunder-stone grew so terrific, and the lightning so hot and unmanageable,
that the boys, drawing a long breath and thinking with immense
satisfaction of the fun they had had, possibly also influenced as to the
safety of the house, which was beginning to totter, flung the
thunder-stone and the lightning-shaft into the sky, where, rattling and
flashing away, they finally disappeared over the mountains in the south.
Then the clouds rolled away and the sun shone out, and the boys, wet to
the skin, tired in good earnest, and hungry as well, looked around.
"Goodness! the water is running out of the windows of our house! This is a
pretty mess we are in Grandmother! Grandmother!" they shouted. Open the
door, and let us in!" But the old grandmother had piped her last, and
never a sound came except that of flowing water.
They sat themselves down on the roof, and waited for the water to get
lower. Then they climbed down, and pounded open the door, and the water
came out with a rush, and out with a rush, too, their poor old
grandmother,--her eyes staring, her hair all mopped and muddied, and her
fingers and legs as stiff as cedar sticks.
"Oh, ye gods! ye gods!" the two boys exclaimed; "we have killed our own
grandmother--poor old grandmother, who scolded us so hard and loved us so
much! Let us bury her here in front of the door, as soon as the water has
run away."
So, as soon as it became dry enough, there they buried her; and in less
than four days a strange plant grew up on that spot, and on its little
branches, amid its bright green leaves, hung long, pointed pods of fruit,
as red as the fire on the breast of the red-bird.
"It is well," said the boys, as they stood one day looking at this plant.
"Let us scatter the seeds abroad, that men may find and plant them. It
seems it was not without good cause that in the abandonment to our sport
we killed our old grandmother, for out of her heart there sprung a plant
into the fruits of which, as it were, has flowed the color as well as the
fire of her scolding tongue; and, if we have lost our grandmother, whom we
loved much, but who loved us more, men have gained a new food, which,
though it burn them, shall please them more than did the heat of her
discourse please us.
Poor old grandmother! Men will little dream when they eat peppers that the
seed of them first arose from the fiery heart of the grandmother of
Ahaiyutaa and Matsailema."
Thereupon the two seized the pods and crushed them between their hands,
with an exclamation of pleasure at the brisk odor they gave forth. They
cast the seeds abroad, which seeds here and there took root; and the
plants which sprang from them being found by men, were esteemed good and
were cultivated, as they are to this day in the pepper gardens of Zuni.
Ever since this time you hear that mountain wherein lived the gods with
their grandmother called Thunder Mountain; and often, indeed, to this day,
the lightning flashes and the thunder plays over its brows and the rain
falls there most frequently.
It is said by some that the two boys, when asked how they stole the
lightning-shaft and the thunder-stone, told on their poor old grandfather,
the Centipede. The beloved Gods of the Rain gave him the lightning-shaft
to handle in another way, and it so burned and shriveled him that he
became small, as you can see by looking at any of his numerous
descendants, who are not only small but appear like a well-toasted bit of
buckskin, fringed at the edges.
So shortens my story.
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