Atondido Stories
The Boy Who was Called Thick-Head
Three brothers lived with their old Indian mother in the forest
near the sea. Their father had long been dead. At his death he
had little of the world's goods to his credit and his widow and
her sons were very poor. In the place where they dwelt, game
was not plentiful, and to get food enough to keep them from
want they had often to go far into the forest. The youngest boy
was smaller and weaker than the others, and when the two older
sons went far away to hunt, they always left him behind, for alt-
hough he always wished to accompany them they would never
allow him to go. He had to do all the work about the house, and
all day long he gathered wood in the forest and carried water
from the stream. And even when his brothers went out in the
spring-time to draw sap from the maple trees he was never per-
mitted to go with them. He was always making mistakes and do-
ing foolish things. His brothers called him Thick-head, and all
the people round about said he was a simpleton because of his
slow and queer ways. His mother alone was kind to him and she
always said, "They may laugh at you and call you fool, but you
will prove to be wiser than all of them yet, for so it was told me
by a forest fairy at your birth."
The Chief of the people had a beautiful daughter who had
many suitors. But her father spurned them all from his door and
said, "My daughter is not yet of age to marry; and when her time
of marriage comes, she will only marry the man who can make
great profit from hunting." The two older sons of the old woman
decided that one of them must win the girl. So they prepared to
set out on a great hunting expedition far away in the northern
forest, for it was now autumn, and the hunter's moon had come.
The youngest boy wanted to go with them, for he had never
been away from home and he wished to see the world. And his
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