Atondido Stories
and neither of them knew where it lay. They groped for it
among the dead leaves, but as they searched for it, a wood-
pecker, watching from a branch of a tree near by, swooped sud-
denly down and gobbled it up and flew away.
As they were still searching for it, the old woman who had
given it to them came along. She had been hiding among the
trees, and she had seen the wood-pecker flying away with her
gift. She said, "Where is the eye I gave you?" "It dropped from
my head," answered the boy, "and I cannot find it in the grass."
"Yes," said the girl, "it dropped from his head, and we cannot
find it." "You have lied to me," said the old woman, "and you
have disobeyed, and for that I shall punish you." And with her
magic power she changed the boy into a mole and the girl into a
bat, and said, "Now live blind upon the earth, with only your
sense of sound to guide you." At once the boy and the girl were
changed. And so the Mole and the Bat appeared upon the earth.
27