Atondido Stories
killed him with a blow of his axe. "I am surely in good luck," he
thought, "for now I have the Worm and the Duck and the Fox
and the Wolf." But the next day when he told his brothers of his
good fortune and his great skill, they laughed at him loudly and
said, "Much good a dead Wolf will do you. Before two days have
passed it will be but an evil-smelling thing and we shall have to
bury it deep. You are indeed a great fool." The boy pondered for
a long time over what they had said, and he thought, "Perhaps
they are right. The dead Wolf cannot last long. I will save the
skin."
So he skinned the Wolf and dried the skin and made a drum
from it. For the drum was one of the few musical instruments of
the Indians in those old times, and they beat it loudly at all their
dances and festivals. The boy beat the drum each evening, and
made a great noise, and he was very proud because he had the
only drum in the whole village. One day the Chief sent for him
and said to him, "I want to borrow your drum for this evening. I
am having a great gathering to announce to all the land that my
daughter is now of age to marry and that suitors may now seek
her hand in marriage. But we have no musical instruments and I
want your drum, and I myself will beat it at the dance." So Thick
-head brought his drum to the Chief's house, but he was not very
well pleased, because he was not invited to the feast, while his
brothers were among the favoured guests. And he said to the
Chief, "Be very careful. Do not tear the skin of my drum, for I
can never get another like it. My Worm and my Duck and my
Fox and my Wolf have all helped to make it."
The next day he went for his drum. But the Chief had struck
it too hard and had split it open so that it would now make no
sound and it was ruined beyond repair. He offered to pay the
boy a great price for it, but the boy said, "I do not want your
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