The old man stooped through the low door leading into the longhouse. He smiled, watching the children play around the sacred-fire and remembered how his own mother used to bring him here on the cold or rainy days. She would sit and gossip with her many relatives while he and his brothers ran and screamed and raised hell.
Spotting his furs clad body as he arose to his full height, the children whooped and called for him to join them and tell them more about the Wolf of God. Their mothers and aunts hushed them and the men on the far side of the meeting house smiled and put their pipes away.
"O:tsi:Yu, adutsi," they called, The Eagle-Woman hears you, old uncle.
He nodded and smiled, rubbing arthritic hands over the swollen joints of his elbows trying to ease the sting of pain. The children made exclamations of worry.
"It will warm up soon," he said. A wry smile came over his daughter's face. "And probably rain."
He shrugged, folding his frail body into the place reserved for him due to his age and wisdom at the fire. Slowly, painfully, one joint at a time while every one sat in a deepening and respectful silence. The old man closed his eyes and wiped a tear that formed in the sagging left eye. A stroke almost took his life. It rendered him nearly useless to the things he loved, but it gifted him with something infinitely more precious. Now he told his stories to the children, and what is more precious than the smile of a child?
A story came to him. Not a good one, but a story from the deep mists of the People's past. Yet, this is one they needed to hear.
"In these hills between the Little Black River, once known as the Lehigh, the days in the Land of the Plenty-Corn People things are sweet. Time moves slowly, in one lazy, easy day after another and the shon:gili:i were-beasts are no more." He paused, took his pipe from under the heavy deer skin robe he wore and the woman stretched out her hands for the honor of filling it. He allowed the woman to take it. His hands were so knotted and weak he could no longer do it himself.
Spotting his furs clad body as he arose to his full height, the children whooped and called for him to join them and tell them more about the Wolf of God. Their mothers and aunts hushed them and the men on the far side of the meeting house smiled and put their pipes away.
"O:tsi:Yu, adutsi," they called, The Eagle-Woman hears you, old uncle.
He nodded and smiled, rubbing arthritic hands over the swollen joints of his elbows trying to ease the sting of pain. The children made exclamations of worry.
"It will warm up soon," he said. A wry smile came over his daughter's face. "And probably rain."
He shrugged, folding his frail body into the place reserved for him due to his age and wisdom at the fire. Slowly, painfully, one joint at a time while every one sat in a deepening and respectful silence. The old man closed his eyes and wiped a tear that formed in the sagging left eye. A stroke almost took his life. It rendered him nearly useless to the things he loved, but it gifted him with something infinitely more precious. Now he told his stories to the children, and what is more precious than the smile of a child?
A story came to him. Not a good one, but a story from the deep mists of the People's past. Yet, this is one they needed to hear.
"In these hills between the Little Black River, once known as the Lehigh, the days in the Land of the Plenty-Corn People things are sweet. Time moves slowly, in one lazy, easy day after another and the shon:gili:i were-beasts are no more." He paused, took his pipe from under the heavy deer skin robe he wore and the woman stretched out her hands for the honor of filling it. He allowed the woman to take it. His hands were so knotted and weak he could no longer do it himself.