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she came into the lodge, she would pick him up and kiss him again and 
again, saying, “My dear little grandson, my dear little grandson!” 
Then at one time he began to ask his grandmother questions, when 
he had grown larger. 
“Grandmother, what sort of things are these?” he asked her, of some 
things that were enclosed in two separate bladders that were tied to the 
lodge-poles. 
“Why, grandson, never mind what they are,” she answered him. 
She would not tell him what things were in there. But Sun-Child 
knew that those bladders were always twitching and moving. And so, 
as they lived there, once when his grandmother had gone off in her usual 
way, he filched her little sinew strings and made some snares. When he 
had made them, wherever their little dwelling was broken, he set a snare, 
and at the top he closed up the smoke-hole of their lodge. Then, when he 
had cut open one of those bladders, there, it was full of blackbirds. So 
these it was were in there. He whooped and yelled, and chased them, and 
try as they might to fly out of the house, he snared them all. He killed 
them all, laughing loud and amusing himself with them. When he thought 
his grandmother was about to arrive, he piled them up in one place and 
threw something over them, and as he put them under the covering, “Now 
we shall eat them,” he said; “Now we shall eat them, my grandmother 
and I,” he said. 
When she arrived, in the evening, and came into the lodge, he said to 
her, “Grandmother, now we shall eat.” 
“What will this dear little grandchild of mine be giving me as a treat?” 
she asked him. 
“Just uncover this here, grandmother.” 
When she uncovered it, what did she see but the blackbirds! 
His grandmother wept, saying, “Truly, my grandson has done me 
grief!” and telling him, “Truly, my grandson is naughty!” 
When at last she ceased her lamentation, she picked them up and 
plucked them. When she had got them clean, she set them to cook. 
When she had cooked them done, “Grandson, do you alone eat,” 
she told him. 
Accordingly, he alone partook of the meal. When he had his fill, he 
quit eating them. She put them away. 
“You will eat some more of them later,” she told him. 
So, as they continued to live there, and his grandmother went olf 
every day, when he had eaten all of those blackbirds, again he set snares. 
Again he closed up their lodge at the top, and again he cut open a bladder, 
and the place was filled with the twittering of swallows, as he whooped and 
yelled and gave them chase. As many of them as tried to escape from the 
house, he snared. He killed them all, this time too. Again he piled them 
up in one place and covered them up. Then his grandmother came home. 
He said to her, “Grandmother, now we shall eat again,” he told her. 
“What treat is this grandson of mine about to give me?” the old 
woman asked him. 
“Uncover this here,” he said to his grandmother. 
When she uncovered it, at once she began to weep. 
“Oh, grandmother, be quiet! You are always weeping for no reason 
at all!” he said to her. 
