Atondido Stories
Even a Grass Plant Can Become Someone if it Tries
Near the mouth of the Yukon grows a tall, slender kind of grass
which the women gather and dry in the fall and use for braiding
mats and baskets and for pads in the soles of skin boots.
One of these grass stalks that had been almost pulled out by
the roots when the women were gathering others, did not like
the fate in store for it.
"Why should I stay on in this shape and never become any-
thing but a pad in the sole of a boot to be trodden on forever? It
must be nicer to be the one who treads on the pad; but since I
cannot be that, I will at least be something better than grass."
Looking about, it spied a bunch of herbs growing close by,
looking so quiet and unmolested that the grass stem said, "I will
be an herb; that is a higher and safer life than this."
At once it was changed into an herb like those it had envied,
and for a time it remained in peace. But one day the women
came back with baskets and picks and began to dig up these
herbs and eat some of the roots, putting others into the baskets
to take home. The changed plant was left standing when the
women went home toward evening, but it had seen the fate of its
companions.
"This is not very safe either, for now I should be eaten. I wish
I had chosen some other form," it said.
Looking down, it saw a tiny, creeping vine clinging close to
the ground. "That is the thing to be," it said. "That is so obscure
and lowly that the women will never notice it. I will be a vine
like that."
Without delay it became a little squawberry vine nestling un-
der the dead leaves. It had not lived in peace and seclusion very
long before the women came and tore up many of the vines,
stopping just before they reached the changeling, and saying,
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