Маленькая хозяйка большого дома / The Little Lady Of The Big House

4

“And now, Red Cloud[33], sing Mr. Graham your Acorn Song[34],” Paula commanded Dick.

Forrest shook his head somberly.

“The Acorn Song!” Ernestine called from the piano.

“Oh, do, Dick,” Paula pleaded. “Mr. Graham is the only one who hasn’t heard it.”

Dick shook his head.

“Then sing him your Goldfish Song[35].”

“I’ll sing him Mountain Lad’s song[36],” Dick said, a whimsical sparkle in his eyes. He stamped his feet, pranced, tossed an imaginary mane, and cried:

“Hear me! I am Eros[37]! I stamp upon the hills![38]“

“The Acorn Song,” Paula interrupted quickly and quietly, with steel in her voice.

Dick obediently ceased his chant of Mountain Lad, but shook his head like a stubborn colt.

“I have a new song,” he said solemnly. “It is about you and me, Paula.”

Dick danced half a dozen steps, as Indians dance, slapped his thighs with his palms, and began a new chant.

“Me, I am Ai-kut[39], the first man, Ai-kut is the short for Adam, and my father and my mother were the coyote and the moon. And this is Yo-to-to-wi[40], my wife. She is the first woman. Her father and her mother were the grasshopper and the ring-tailed cat. They were the best father and mother left after my father and mother. The coyote is very wise, the moon is very old. The mother of all women was a cat, a little, wise, sad-faced, shrewd ring-tailed cat.”

The song of the first man and woman was interrupted by protests from the women and acclamations from the men.

“This is Yo-to-to-wi, which is the short for Eve,” Dick chanted on. “Yo-to-to-wi is very small. But it is not her fault. The fault is with the grasshopper and the ring-tailed cat. Me, I am Ai-kut, the first man. I was the first man, and this, Adam chose Eve. Yo-to-to-wi was the one woman in all the world for me, so I chose Yo-to-to-wi.”

And Evan Graham, listening, thought, “Dick Forrest is lucky—too lucky.”

“Me, I am Ai-kut,” Dick chanted on. “This is my dew of woman. She is my honey-dew[41] of woman. I have lied to you. Her father and her mother were neither hopper nor cat. They were the dawn and the summer east wind of the mountains. Yo-to-to-wi is my honey-dew woman. Hear me! I am Ai-kut. Yo-to-to-wi is my quail woman, my deer-woman, my lush-woman of all soft rain and fat soil. She was born of the thin starlight and the brittle dawn-light before the sun …”