The Junior Classics, vol 1 | Page 7

cowherd, a strong, intelligent woman of fifty, who had a perfect genius for storytelling. She knew she told the stories well, and that not many had her gift. The Grimms said that though she repeated a story for them three times, the variations were so slight as to be hardly apparent.
The American Indian stories of Manabozho the Mischief-Maker and his adventures with the Wolf and the Woodpeckers and the Ducks were collected in very much the same way by Henry R. Schoolcraft (1793- 1864), the explorer and traveler, who lived among the Indian tribes for thirty years.
Mrs. Steel has told us how she collected her Hindu stories, often listening over and over to poor story-tellers who would spoil a story in trying to tell it, until one day her patience would be rewarded by hearing it from the lips of the best storyteller in the village, who was generally a boy.
As all nations have their fairy tales, you will find in this collection examples of English, Irish, French, German, Scandinavian, Icelandic, Russian, Polish, Serbian, Spanish, Arabian, Hindu, Chinese, and Japanese fairy tales, as well as those recited around the lodge fires at night by American Indians for the entertainment of the red children of the West.
I hope the work may prove for many a boy and girl (of any age up to a hundred) the Golden Bridge over which they can plunge into that marvelous world of fairies, elves, goblins, kobolds, trolls, afreets, jinns, ogres, and giants that fascinates us all, lost to this world till some one wakes us up to say "Bedtime!"
Such excursions fill the mind with beautiful fancies and help to develop that most precious of our faculties, the imagination.
WILLIAM PATTEN.
MANABOZHO, THE MISCHIEF-MAKER
Adapted from H. R. Schoolcraft
THERE was never in the whole world a more mischievous busybody than that notorious giant Manabozho. He was everywhere, in season and out of season, running about, and putting his hand in whatever was going forward.
To carry on his game he could take almost any shape he pleased. He could be very foolish or very wise, very weak or very strong, very rich or very poor-just as happened to suit his humor best. Whatever anyone else could do, he would attempt without a moment's reflection. He was a match for any man he met, and there were few manitoes* (*good spirits or evil spirits) that could get the better of him. By turns he would be very kind or very cruel, an animal or a bird, a man or a spirit, and yet, in spite of all these gifts, Manabozho was always getting himself involved in all sorts of troubles. More than once, in the course of his adventures, was this great maker of mischief driven to his wits' ends to come off with his life.
To begin at the beginning, Manabozho, while yet a youngster, was living with his grandmother near the edge of a great prairie. It was on this prairie that he first saw animals and birds of every kind; he also there made first acquaintance with thunder and lightning. He would sit by the hour watching the clouds as they rolled by, musing on the shades of light and darkness as the day rose and fell.
For a stripling, Manabozho was uncommonly wide-awake. Every sight he beheld in the heavens was a subject of remark, every new animal or bird an object of deep interest, and every sound was like a new lesson which he was expected to learn. He often trembled at what he heard and saw.
The first sound he heard was that of the owl, at which he was greatly terrified, and, quickly descending the tree he had climbed, he ran with alarm to the lodge. "Noko! noko! grandmother!" he cried. "I have heard a monedo."
She laughed at his fears, and asked him what kind of a noise it made. He answered. "It makes a noise like this: ko-ko-ko-ho!"
His grandmother told him he was young and foolish; that what he heard was only a bird which derived its name from the peculiar noise it made.
He returned to the prairie and continued his watch. As he stood there looking at the clouds he thought to himself, "It is singular that I am so simple and my grandmother so wise; and that I have neither father nor mother. I have never heard a word about them. I must ask and find out."
He went home and sat down, silent and dejected. Finding that this did not attract the notice of his grandmother, he began a loud lamentation, which he kept increasing, louder and louder, till it shook the lodge and nearly deafened the old grandmother.
"Manabozho, what is the matter with you?" she said, "you are making a great deal of noise."
Manabozho started off again with his doleful hubbub, but succeeded