Once Old Man was travelling around, when he heard some very queer singing.
He had never heard anything like this before, and looked all around to see who
it was. At last he saw it was the cottontail rabbits, singing and making
medicine. They had built a fire, and got a lot of hot ashes, and they would lie
down in these ashes and sing while one covered them up. They would stay there
only a short time though, for the ashes were very hot.
"Little Brothers," said Old Man, "that
is very wonderful, how you lie in those hot ashes and coals without burning. I
wish you would teach me how to do it."
"Come on, Old Man," said the rabbits,
"we will show you how to do it. You must sing our song, and only stay in
the ashes a short time." So Old Man began to sing, and he lay down, and
they covered him with coals and ashes, and they did not burn him at all.
"That is very nice," he said. "You have
powerful medicine. Now I want to know it all, so you lie down and let me cover
you up."
So the rabbits all lay down in the ashes, and Old Man
covered them up, and then he put the whole fire over them. One old rabbit got
out, and Old Man was about to put her back when she said, "Pity me, my
children are about to be born."
"All right," replied Old Man. "I will
let you go, so there will be some more rabbits; but I will roast these nicely
and have a feast." And he put more wood on the fire. When the rabbits were
cooked, he cut some red willow brush and laid them on it to cool. The grease
soaked into these branches, so, even today if you hold red willow over a fire,
you will see the grease on the bark. You can see, too, that ever since, the
rabbits have a burnt place on their backs, where the one that got away was
singed.
Old Man sat down, and was waiting for the rabbits to
cool a little, when a coyote came along, limping very badly. "Pity me, Old
Man," he said, "you have lots of cooked rabbits; give me one of
them."
"Go away," exclaimed Old Man. "If you
are too lazy to catch your food, I will not help you."
"My leg is broken," said the coyote. "I
can't catch anything, and I am starving. Just give me half a rabbit."
"I don't care if you die," replied Old Man.
"I worked hard to cook all these rabbits, and I will not give any away. But
I will tell you what we will do. We will run a race to that butte, way out
there, and if you beat me you can have a rabbit."
"All right," said the coyote. So they
started. Old Man ran very fast, and the coyote limped along behind, but close to
him, until they got near to the butte. Then the coyote turned round and ran back
very fast, for he was not lame at all. It took Old Man a long time to go back,
and just before he got to the fire, the coyote swallowed the last rabbit, and
trotted off over the prairie
NEXT