CHAPTER XIII

LITTLE METACOMET SEES HIMSELF IN A LOOKING-GLASS

Among many wonderful playthings of wood, metal and shell that Little Metacomet had in his lodge were a bundle of notch-sticks, by which he numbered the changes of the moon, and rising of the tide. His mother had shown him how to make these calculations, and she had been taught by a paniese, or Indian prophet. He came out to the groves one day, and brought his notch-sticks with him, and he told timid Susan that he could tell her when the moon was going to change.

"Are you sure?" said she. "I'm powerful uncertain about the planets. Suppose to-morrow night should be the full moon instead of the new moon?"

"No, no," said the little prince, "the paniese, he knows."

"How does he know?"

"Because things are always so. The Great Spirit he never changes his notch-sticks."

Timid Susan raised her hands.

She had a looking-glass. She kept it covered for fear of the dust and flies, and when the little prince was explaining to her how the Great Spirit never changed his notch-sticks, a happy thought came to her. She would show Little Metacomet his own face in the looking-glass.

A tame blue jay came into the door, and lighted upon Little Metacomet's crown of feathers, and the cat ran toward them with her back up to drive the audacious bird away.

Just here timid Susan took the curtain from the glass and lowered it, so that the prince could see his face, and the bird with her pretty head with its raised crown, and the cat with her humped back and resentful eyes.

The prince had never seen a looking-glass before. He had seen his face in the clear water among the lilies, the water glass. But when he saw himself now with his crown feathers, and the blue jay with her crown feathers raised, and the resentful cat, he thought that all had changed into two. He rolled over in surprise, the bird screamed, and the cat drew back.

The bird flew up to one of the beams under the roof, and expressed her surprise in a series of shrieks that sounded like the turning of a rusty crank.

The cat ran down toward the glass, and found what seemed to be another cat rushing towards her. She drew back and spit, and the other cat seemed to do the same.

Metacomet leaped up and went toward the other little Indian in the glass, which seemed to mock him.

"I am two to-day," said he, gazing into the glass. "Where did you get the water face? I came here to surprise you and you surprised me. I have a sun glass in the lodge that the English gave to my father. It draws down the fire from the sun. Don't you think it is all great conjuring? The notch-sticks they be always the same. Why are the notch-sticks always the same over and over, why the moon full out and be sharp again? It was so in the moons ago. Why?"

Susan shook her head.

"It is so because it was always so."

And they knew as much as anybody knew about it--even the hermit.