"'To-morrow just at sunrise go to the high rocks above the river and
look to the east. And where the river passes through our lands, I will
go also to see some high rocks, and I will look to the east, too,
when the sun rises, and I will know that though we are apart, we are
watching the sun rise together, and it will be always our message of
love to each other as it travels across the sky.'
"So Laida went back to her tribe and Ahlogah to his, and every morning
they watched from their high rocks above the river, and held out their
arms to the rising sun, as a message it should bear between them.
"And Kapoka found out that Laida went every morning to the high rocks,
and held out her arms to the sun. And he found that Ahlogah also went
every morning to the high rocks farther up the river. Then Kapoka knew
that Laida would never be his wife as long as Ahlogah was alive. And
one morning very early Kapoka left his wigwam and crept across to the
lands of the other tribes, and to the high rocks where Ahlogah stood
waiting for the sunrise. And just as the sun rose, and Kapoka knew that
Ahlogah would not hear him, he slipped up behind Ahlogah, and gave him
a great push that sent him over into the swift river, hundreds of feet
below.
"And the swift river caught him and tossed him and whirled him about,
and finally carried him down past the high rocks where Laida was
sending her message to the sun. And Laida looked down and saw him
coming. She saw his chieftain's dress and plumes tossed and whirled by
the water. She knew it was Ahlogah, and she waited for him. Then, when
he just was below the high rocks where she stood, she gave a great cry,
'Ahlogah!' and she was in the whirling, tossing water beside him.
"Then the tribes searched together, and they found Ahlogah and Laida
far below, cast up on a place of white pebbles, side by side. And
they buried them, side by side, and both the tribes mourned. But when
the spring came there grew upon their graves two strange flowers with
bright, beautiful faces that turned each morning to the sunrise. And
these they named Ahlogah and Laida, but in another year there were
more of them, so they called them sunflowers, and after that the land
in September, the month when they had died, was like gold with the
beautiful flowers of the sun."
"But what became of the wicked Kapoka? What did they do with him?"
asked Prue, anxiously.
"They never saw him again. I suppose he was ashamed to come back, and
by and by his brother, who was good and noble, ruled the tribe, and
they dwelt in peace for many generations."
"Do sunflowers belong to a family now?" asked Davy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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