"On their way through the thicket, lay a hollow oak that had been uprooted by a storm, and when Osseo saw it he gave a cry of anguish, and leaped into the mighty tree. He went in an old man, ugly and bent and hideous with wrinkles. He came out a splendid youth, straight as an arrow, handsome and very strong. But Osseo was not happy in the change that had come over him. Indeed, he was more sorrowful than ever before, because at the same instant that he recovered his lost youth, Oweenee was changed into a tottering old woman, wasted and worn and ugly as a witch. And her nine hard-hearted sisters and their husbands laughed long and loud, until the forest echoed once again with their wicked merriment. "Osseo, however, did not turn from Oweenee in her trouble, but took her brown and withered hand, called her sweetheart and soothed her with kind words, until they came to the lodge in the forest where the feast was being given. They sat down to the feast, and all were joyous except Osseo, who would taste neither food nor drink, but sat as if in a dream, looking first at the changed Oweenee, then upward at the sky. All at once he heard a voice come out of the empty air and say to him: 'Osseo, my son, the spells that bound you are now broken, and the evil charms that made you old and withered before your time have all been wished away. Taste the food before you, for it is blessed and will change you to a spirit. Your bowls and your kettles shall be changed to silver and to wampum, and shine like scarlet shells and gleam like the firelight; and all the men and women but Oweenee shall be changed to birds.' "The voice Osseo heard was taken by the others for the voice of the whippoorwill, singing far off in the lonely forest, and they did not hear a word of what was said. But a sudden tremor ran through the lodge where they sat feasting, and they felt it rise in the air high up above the tree-tops into the starlight. The wooden dishes were changed into scarlet shells, the earthen kettles were changed into silver bowls, and the bark of the roof glittered like the backs of gorgeous beetles. "Then Osseo saw that the nine beautiful sisters of Oweenee and their husbands, were changed into all sorts of different birds. There were jays and thrushes and magpies and blackbirds, and they flew about the lodge and sang and twittered in many different keys. Only Oweenee was not changed, but remained as wrinkled and old and ugly as before; and Osseo, in his disappointment, gave a cry of anguish such as he had uttered by the oak tree when lo and behold! all Oweenee's former youth and loveliness returned to her. The old woman's staff on which she had been leaning became a glittering silver feather, and her tattered dress was changed into a snowy robe of softest ermine.