418 SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS [etii. ann.32 



"There is a young man out here who says he would like to marry 

 you. Will you have him ? " " Why, yes ! I would rather marry him 

 than anyone else," she replied. "Shall I tell him so?" her brother 

 persisted. " Yes," she answered. Thereupon he told the orphan boy, 

 who said, " I shall be glad to marry your sister and live with her." 

 The brother in fun repeated this to his sister, who said, " I will go 

 myself and ask him." She asked the orphan, " What did my brother 

 tell you about me? " He told her everything. She then said : " I will 

 live with you as your wife. Come tomorrow night at this time and I 

 will take you for my husband." The next morning she hunted up 

 leggings and moccasins for the orphan boy. As was the custom with 

 youths, he had never worn moccasins in summer. The young woman 

 made ready everything for him. In the evening she went to the 

 meeting place, where she found him. She brought water with which 

 he washed himself; he then put on the garments and she tied up his 

 hair. This time she told him to come to her home and to go straight 

 to her bed, without talking with any of the men, because one of her 

 brothers was always playing tricks. He did as he was told. The 

 waggish brother looked at him and laughed, and calling him by name, 

 said, " Come and sleep with me." 



In the fall the sons of the chief were ready to go on a deer hunt, 

 and the young married woman thought that she, too, would like to 

 go, inasmuch as she had a youthful husband, who, perhaps, would 

 become a good hunter. The husband said, " Yes; I will go and try," 

 for he had never hunted. When they had traveled some distance, 

 they camped and began hunting. The husband, having found a 

 place where there were wild grape vines, made a swing. There he 

 swung all day, never hunting, as the others did. At night he would 

 go home without game, but he did not tell what he had seen in 

 the woods. The brothers killed many deer. One day one said to 

 the other: "Our brother-in-law gets no game." The other replied: 

 " Perhaps he does not hunt." So they agreed to watch. On follow- 

 ino- him, they found him swinging, and they noticed that the groiuid 

 was worn smooth around the swing. Thereupon they said : " We 

 will not live with this man and feed him. We will leave him and 

 camp a day's journey away." So they started, leaving the man and 

 woman only one piece of venison. 



The boy never ate much, so his wife had most of the meat. When 

 all was eaten she began to fear starvation. One day while the boy 

 was swinging he saw a great horned owl alight in a tree near by- 

 Having shot it, he put the body under the swing, where he could 

 look at it as he swung. His wife was getting very hungry, and 

 wdien he went home that night she said, " If I have nothing to eat 

 tomorrow, perhaps I shall be unable to get up ; you ought to kill some- 



