Basket Woman: A Book of Indian Tales for Children

by Lester Chadwick

  THE CHEERFUL GLACIER

  Very many years ago, at the foot of a nameless peak between Mount Ritterand Togobah, after three successive years of deep snow there was aglacier born. It crept out fanwise from a furrow on the mountain-side,very high up, above the limit of the white-barked pines, and its upperend was lost under the drift of loose snow that trailed down the slope.For three successive winters the gray veil of storms hung month-longabout the crest of the Sierras, while the snow came falling, falling,and the wind kept heaping, heaping, until the drifts sagged and slippedof their own weight down the long groove of the mountain; and since itlay on the sunless northern slope, and as it happened the summers thatcame between fell cool and rainy, there, when the spring thaw hadcleared the loose snow, spread out on a little stony flat lay the rim ofthe glacier. Yet it was a very little one, a rod or two of clearshining ice that ran into deep blue and gray sludge under a drift ofcoarse, whitish granules, and very high up, fine dry particles of snowlike powdered glass. So it lay at the time of year when the mountainsheep began to come back to their summer feeding-grounds.

  When the thaw had cleared the heather and warmed the lichened rocks,they loosed their hold of the ice, and the great weight of it began tocrawl down the mountain. At the first slow thrill of motion the littleglacier creaked with delight.

  "Ah," it said, "it is evident that I am not a mere snow bank, for inthat case I should remain in one place. Now I know myself truly aglacier." For up to that time it had been in some doubt.

  By the end of the summer it had advanced more than a span in the shadowof the peak. Then the snows began, deep and heavy, but the glacier didnot complain; it hugged the floor of the rift where it lay, and thoughtof the time when it should start on its travels again. So, because ofthinking about it so much, or because the snows were deeper and thesummers not so warm, the glacier increased and went forward until it hadquite crossed the stony flat, and began to believe it might make itsmark in the world. There were any number of reasons for thinking so. Tobegin with, all that neighborhood was deeply scarred and scoured by thetrail of old glaciers, and the high peaks glittered with the keen polishof ice floes. All down the slope shone glassy bosses of clear granitesucceeding to beds of cassiope and blue heather, polished slips ofgranite, pentstemon and more heather, smooth granite that the feet couldtake no hold upon, then saxifrage and meadowsweet, and so down to thestream border, where the water quarreled with the stones. And by thetime the little glacier had settled that it would leave such a mark onthe mountain-side, shining and softened by small blossomy things, it hadcome quite to the farthest border of the flat, and looked over the edgeof a sharp descent. It was much too far to bend over, for though theglacier was all of brittle ice, it could bend a little.

  "But it is really nothing," said the glacier. "I have only to grind downthe cliff until it is the proper height;" and it took a firmer hold onthe sharp fragments of stones it had gathered on its way down theravine. The pressure of the sodden snow above kept on, however, andbefore the glacier had fairly begun its grinding the ice rim was pushedout beyond the bluff, broke off, and lay at the foot in a shining heap.

  "So much the better," said the cheerful glacier. "What with grindingabove and filling with broken ice below, the work will be accomplishedin half the time."

  But that never really happened, for this was the last season the icereached to the far edge of the flat. The next year there was less snowand more sun. The long slope of bare rocks gathered up the heat and heldit so that the ice began to melt underneath, and a stream ran from itand fell over the cliff in a fine silvery veil.

  "How very fortunate," said the glacier, "to become the head of a riverso early in my career. Besides, this is a much easier way of gettingover the falls."

  Then the water began to purr in sheer content where it went among thestones; it increased and went down the canyon toward the white torrent ofthe creek that flowed from Togobah, and the next summer a water ouselfound it. She came whirling up the course of the stream like a thrownpebble, plump and slaty blue, scattering a spray of sound as clear andround as the trickle of ice water that went over the falls. The ouselsat on the edge of the ice rim to finish her song, and it timed with therunning of the stream.

  "You should understand," said the glacier, "that I started in life withthe intention of cutting my way down the mountain. But now I am become ariver I am quite as well pleased."

  "Everything is the best," said the ousel; "that has been the motto of myfamily for a long time, and I am sure I have proved it." And if onelistened close as she flew in and out of the falls and sought in thewhite torrent for her food, one understood that it was the burden of hersong. "Everything is the best," she sang, and kept on singing it whenthe glacier had grown so small by running that it was quite hollowed outunder the roof of granulated snow, and the light came through it softlyand wonderfully blue. Then the ousel would go far up into this ice caveuntil the sound of her singing came out wild and sweet, mixed with thewater and the tinkle of the ice. As for the words of her song, theglacier never disagreed with her, though by now it had retreated clearacross its stony flat. But the wind brought in the seeds of dwarf willowthat sprouted and took root, and bright little buttercups began to comeup and shiver in the flood of ice water.

  "It seems I am to have a meadow of my own," said the glacier, by thetime there was stone-crop and purple pentstemon blowing in the dampcrevices about its border. "I do not believe there is a prettier icegarden on this side of the mountain. And to think that all I oncewished was to leave a track of bare and shining stones! The ousel isright, everything is for the best."

  The ousel always went downstream at the beginning of the winter, whenthe running waters were shut under snow bridges and the pools werepuddles of gray sludge, down and down to the foothill borders, and atthe turn of the year followed up again in the wake of the thaw. So itwas not often that the ousel and the glacier saw each other betweenOctober and June.

  "But of course," said the glacier, "the longer you are away, the more wehave to say to each other when you come."

  "And anyway it cannot be helped," said the ousel. For though she did notmind the storms and cold weather, one cannot really exist withouteating.

  After one of these winter trips, the ousel noticed that the stream thatcame over the fall had quite failed, ran only a slender trickle thatdripped among the shivering fern and was lost in the rock crevices, andthough she was such a cheerful little body, she did not like to be thefirst to speak of it. It seemed as if the glacier could not last muchlonger at that rate. So she flitted about in the lace-work caverns ofthe ice, and sang airily and sweet, and the words of her song were whatthey had always been.

  "That is quite true," said the glacier. "You see how it is with me; onceI was very proud to run over the fall with a splashing sound, but now Ifind it better to keep all the water for my meadow."

  In fact, there was quite a border of sod all about where the ice hadbeen, and a great mat of white-belled cassiope in the middle. It grewgreener and more blossomy every year. The ousel grew so used to findingit there, and so pleased with the society of the glacier, which wasquite after her own heart, that it was a great grief to her as she camewhirling up the stream in the flood tide of the year to find that theyhad both, the meadow and the ice, wholly disappeared.

  That had been a winter of long, thunderous storms, and a great splinterof granite had fallen away from the mountain peaks and slid down in aheap of rubble over the place where the glacier had been. There was nowno trace of it under sharp, broken stones.

  But because they had been friends, the ousel could not keep quite awayfrom the place, but came again and again and flew chirruping around thefoot of the hill. One of those days when the sun was strong and theheather white on the wild headlands, she saw a slender rill of watercreeping out at the bottom of the rubbish heap, and knew at once by thecheerful sound of it that it must be her friend the glacier, or what wasleft of it.

  "Yes, indeed," bubbled the spring, "
it is really surprising what goodluck I have. As a glacier, I suppose I should have quite melted away ina few summers; but with all this protection of loose stones, I shouldn'twonder if I became a perennial spring."

  And in fact that is exactly what occurred, for with the snow that sifteddown between the broken boulders, and the snow water that collected inthe hollow where the meadow had been, the spring has never gone quitedry. Every summer, when the heather and pentstemon and saxifrage on theglacier slip are at their best, the cheerful water comes out of the footof the nameless peak and the ousel comes up from the white torrent andsits upon the stones. Then they sing together, and their voices blendperfectly; but if you listen carefully, you will observe that the wordsof their song are always the same.