Atondido Stories
"We will come back to-morrow and get the rest."
The one-time grass plant was filled with fear, and changed it-
self quickly into a small tuber-bearing plant like some that were
growing near. Scarcely had the change been made when a small
tundra mouse came softly through the grass and began digging
at a neighboring plant, holding up the tuber in its paws and nib-
bling it, after which the mouse crept on again.
"To be safe, I must be a mouse," thought the changeling.
"Animals are a higher kind of being than plants, anyway. I
will be a mouse."
Instantly it became a mouse and ran off, glad of the change.
Now and then it would pause to dig up a tuber, or would sit up
on its hind feet to look around on the new scenes that came into
view.
"This is much more delightful than being a plant and always
staying in one place and never seeing anything of the world," it
said.
While traveling nimbly along in this manner, the mouse ob-
served a strange white animal coming through the air toward it,
which kept dropping down upon the ground, and after stopping
to eat something, it would fly on again.
When it came near, the mouse saw that it was a great white
owl. At the same moment the owl saw the mouse and swooped
down upon it. Darting off, the mouse was fortunate enough to
escape by running into a hole made by one of its kind, and the
owl flew off.
After a while the mouse ventured to come out of its shelter,
though its heart still beat painfully from its recent fright. "I will
be an owl, and in that way be safe," thought the mouse, and with
the wish it was changed into a beautiful white owl.
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