Story Time

  This article was written by Jessie

A Legend: “The Three Sisters”

Once upon a time very long ago, there were three sisters who lived together

in a field. These sisters were quite different from one another in their size and also in

their way of dressing. One of the three was a little sister, so young that she could

only crawl at first, and she was dressed in green. The second of the three wore a

frock of bright yellow, and she had a way of running off by herself when the sun

shone and the soft wind blew in her face. The third was the eldest sister, standing

always very straight and tall above the other sisters and trying to guard them. She

wore a pale green shawl, and she had long, yellow hair that tossed about her head

in the breezes.

There was only one way in which the three sisters were alike. They loved one

another very dearly, and they were never separated. They were sure that they would

not be able to live apart.

After awhile a stranger came to the field of the three sisters, a little Indian boy. He

was as straight as an arrow and as fearless as the eagle that circled the sky above

his head. He knew the way of talking to the birds and the small brothers of the earth,

the shrew, the chipmunk, and the young foxes. And the three sisters, the one who

was just able to crawl, the one in the yellow frock, and the one with the flowing hair,

were very much interested in the little Indian boy. They watched him fit his arrow in

his bow, saw him carve a bowl with his stone knife, and wondered where he went at

night.

Late in the summer of the first coming of the Indian boy to their field, one of the three

sisters disappeared. This was the youngest sister in green, the sister who could only

creep. She was scarcely able to stand alone in the field unless she had a stick to

which she clung. Her sisters mourned for her until the fall, but she did not return.

Once more the Indian boy came to the field of the three sisters. He came to gather

reeds at the edge of a stream nearby to make arrow shafts. The two sisters who

were left watched him and gazed with wonder at the prints of his moccasins in the

earth that marked his trail.

That night the second of the sisters left, the one who was dressed in yellow and who

always wanted to run away. She left no mark of her going, but it may have been that

she set her feet in the moccasin tracks of the little Indian boy.

Now there was but one of the sisters left. Tall and straight she stood in the field not

once bowing her head with sorrow, but it seemed to her that she could not live there

alone. The days grew shorter and the nights were colder. Her green shawl faded and

grew thin and old. Her hair, once long and golden, was tangled by the wind. Day and 

night she sighed for her sisters to return to her, but they did not hear her. Her voice

when she tried to call to them was low and plaintive like the wind.

But one day when it was the season of the harvest, the little Indian boy heard the

crying of the third sister who had been left to mourn there in the field. He felt sorry for

her, and he took her in his arms and carried her to the lodge of his father and mother.

Oh what a surprise awaited here there! Her two lost sisters were there in the lodge of

the little Indian boy, safe and very glad to see her. They had been curious about the

Indian boy, and they had gone home with him to see how and where he lived. They

had liked his warm cave so well that they had decided now that winter was coming

on to stay with him. And they were doing all they could to be useful.

The little sister in green, now quite grown up, was helping to keep the dinner pot full.

The sister in yellow sat on the shelf drying herself, for she planned to fill the dinner

pot later. The third sister joined them, ready to grind meal for the Indian boy. And the

three were never separated again.