with kind
words, until they came to the lodge in the forest where the feast was
being given. They sat down to the feast, and all were joyous except
Osseo, who would taste neither food nor drink, but sat as if in a dream,
looking first at the changed Oweenee, then upward at the sky. All at
once he heard a voice come out of the empty air and say to him: 'Osseo,
my son, the spells that bound you are now broken, and the evil charms
that made you old and withered before your time have all been wished
away. Taste the food before you, for it is blessed and will change you
to a spirit. Your bowls and your kettles shall be changed to silver and
to wampum, and shine like scarlet shells and gleam like the firelight;
and all the men and women but Oweenee shall be changed to birds.'

"The voice Osseo heard was taken by the others for the voice of the
whippoorwill, singing far off in the lonely forest, and they did not
hear a word of what was said. But a sudden tremor ran through the lodge
where they sat feasting, and they felt it rise in the air high up above
the tree-tops into the starlight. The wooden dishes were changed into
scarlet shells, the earthen kettles were changed into silver bowls, and
the bark of the roof glittered like the backs of gorgeous beetles.

"Then Osseo saw that the nine beautiful sisters of Oweenee and their
husbands, were changed into all sorts of different birds. There were
jays and thrushes and magpies and blackbirds, and they flew about the
lodge and sang and twittered in many different keys. Only Oweenee was
not changed, but remained as wrinkled and old and ugly as before; and
Osseo, in his disappointment, gave a cry of anguish such as he had
uttered by the oak tree when lo and behold! all Oweenee's former youth
and loveliness returned to her. The old woman's staff on which she had
been leaning became a glittering silver feather, and her tattered dress
was changed into a snowy robe of softest ermine.

"The wigwam trembled once again and floated through the sky until at
last it alighted on the Evening Star as gently as thistledown drops to
the water, and the ruler of the Evening Star, the father of Osseo, came
forward to greet his son.

"'My son,' he said, 'hang the cage of birds that you bring with you at
the doorway of my wigwam, and then do you and Oweenee enter,' and Osseo
and Oweenee did as they were told, entered the wigwam and listened to
the words of Osseo's father.

"'I have had pity on yo