Indian Time - A Voice from the Eastern Door

…continued from last week

Wood Duck told the story and said that except for him, all the others were blind.

“Too bad,” answered Old Man Autumn. Then he said to all the ducks, “Tell you what I’ll do. I will open your eyes for you if you’ll do me a favor. That old trickster Sojy fooled me, too. He says I can’t paint a leaf’s reflection in the water. If I do, he says, he will let me wipe my brushes on him. Now one of you must dive down with a painted leaf, and when Sojy holds the green one over the water, the fellow under the water must hold out the painted leaf. When Sojy looks in the water, he will see it. Then you just watch me! I’ll have all kinds of things chase Sojy.”

“We all agree,” honked out the ducks.

So Old Man Autumn had the ducks soak their heads in his pool for a few moments and then he rubbed ginseng seeds on them. Open popped their eyes. Then the ducks tore down their reed house and flung the cattails all around the pool.

Old Man Autumn painted a leaf and gave it to Coot, who showed how he could dive and stay underwater as long as a frog. The ducks now hid.

Along Came Sojy, swinging along as if he were quite a big fellow. “Morning, Old Man Autumn,” he said. “I’ve come to see if you can paint that leaf, ho ho!”

He held a leaf over the pool and Old Man Autumn, looking in, began to mix his colors. Soon Old Man stuck his brush in the water and then, pop! out came the leaf in the water as red and yellow as any on the trees. Coot had done the trick properly. Sojy was dumbfounded and commenced to say, “Well, I didn’t think-I didn’t know-I didn’t—”

But Autumn answered, “Just as smart fellows so often do!”

“Guess I’ll be going now-you win this contest, Old Man,” said Sojy.

“Wait a bit, wait a bit!” called out Old Man Autumn. “We have a bargain. I am going to wipe my brushes on you, Sojy. You have done enough mischief!”

“No, no, no—please, not this time! I was only fooling,” begged Sojy.

“Well, I am not,” answered Old Man Autumn, mixing some clay from his pool and smearing it all over his chest and leggings. He looked at the gray shirt front and then wiped some of his charcoal down the back of Sojy’s red coat. It was enough.

Sojy yelped and cried and rolled over and tried to wipe the color off, but he couldn’t. The stains stayed, and the pure red suit was all gone. It was marked with gray and black.

Sojy was much ashamed, especially when the ducks swam out from the reeds and began to quack.

“I don’t care,” he yelped. “That Wood Duck fellow has red eyes anyway and can’t change them now.”

“I don’t care,” quacked Wood Duck. “You’re fixed so you’ll be chased and hunted and stalked by all sorts of animals now, you mischief maker!”

At that, Coot came up with the painted leaf in his bill, and at that a pack of hungry dogs came out of the bushes and chased Sojy into a hole.

Ho, ho nephew! Now you know how Wood Duck got red eyes, and so suspicious is he that he now builds his nest in a tree. But I bet you can’t guess who Sojy turned out to be. Ho ho! Maybe you can, but so you won’t be wrong. I’ll tell you his name is also Bushy Tail. That’s all, nephew.