he twigs of
the tree. They are spiney and dangerous, utterly without manners, and
yet most of them have a good little heart inside.

TALE 43

How the Littlest Owl Came

After the Great Spirit had made the world and the creatures in it, he
made the Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo. This was like an Owl, but bigger than
anything else alive, and his voice was like a river plunging over a
rocky ledge. He was so big that he thought he had done it all himself,
and he became puffed up. He forgot the Great Spirit, who decided to
teach him a lesson in this wise:

He called the Blue-jay, the mischief-maker of the woods, and told him
what to do. Away went the Blue-jay to the mountain at the top of which
was the Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo making thunder in his throat. The Blue-jay
flew up to his ear, and said: "Pooh, Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo, you don't call
that a big noise! You should hear Niagara; then you would never twitter
again."

The Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo was so mad at hearing his big wonderful song
called a twitter, that he said: "Niagara, Niagara! I'm sick of hearing
about Niagara. I will go and silence Niagara with my voice." So he flew
to Niagara while the Blue-jay snickered and followed to see the fun.

Now when Niagara Falls was made the Great Spirit said to it, "Flow on
for ever." That last word of the Great Spirit it took up as it rushed
on, and never ceases to thunder out "For ever! For ever! For ever!"

When they came to Niagara the mighty cataract, the Blue-jay said, "Now,
Gitchee, you can beat that I am sure." So Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo began
bawling to drown the noise of it, but could not make himself heard.

"Wa-wa-wa," said the Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo, with great effort and only for
a few heart beats.

"_For ever, For ever, For ever_," thundered the river, steadily, easily,
ceaselessly.

"Wa-wa-wa--!" shrieked Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo; but his voice was so utterly
lost that he could not hear it himself, and he began to feel small, and
smaller; and as he began to feel small, a strange thing happened--he
began to get small and smaller, until he was no bigger than a Sparrow;
and his voice, instead of being like a great cataract, became like the
dropping of water, just a little

Tink-tank-tink,
Tink-tank-tink.

And this is why the Indians give to this smallest of the Owls the name
of "The Water-dropping Bird," who was once the greatest of all
creatures, but is now shrunk to be the littlest of the Owls, because he
becam