"But this we do know--when we are born, we are helpless children. The Narragansetts once were such. Even when they had grown to the stature of men, their warriors were nothing but big boys; their chiefs and councillors no wiser than old women. There was a time when they had no bow and arrow, no hatchet, no canoe, no cabin, no corn. They were ignorant and foolish as white men. They would have mistaken the track of the moose for that of a wild cat; they would have thought the tread of a land-tortoise the trail of the grey snake; they would have killed an owl and feasted upon it, for a heath-hen. They had nothing but feet to walk with, hands to catch fish with, and tongues which loved best to utter wicked lies and speak foolish words. They were only fit to serve bad spirits, the men of the Spirit of Evil, whom they called Hobbamock(1). And they did serve him, night and day, but he would give them very little for their worship, treating them worse than he treated any tribe upon the borders of the Great Lake. The Pequods killed more whales; the people of Nope raised more _poke_. When a Narragansett caught a deer, it was always a sick one, and had no fat upon it, and when he speared a fish, it had only a backbone. He was, in truth, a very ungrateful master." There was among the Narragansetts a very wise conjuror(2) or priest, whose name was Sasasquit. He was the priest of the Good Spirit; he was a good man; much better than the rest of the tribe, for he never served the Evil Spirit. He said to the Narragansetts, "If you were better men, if you served my master, the Good Spirit, as you do the Evil Spirit, he would give you abundance of good things. You would not, as you do now, catch fish with heads as big as mine, and bodies no bigger than my arm, but would take fat fish, and would take them with little trouble. You would snare birds more easily, and, perhaps, have other gifts which now you do not dream of." The Sachem said to the people, "Sasasquit talks well, but talking well is the business of a priest. Let us say to him, that we will take for our God the Spirit which gives us the best gifts, and bid him tell his master so." The Narragansetts liked well what the Sachem had said, and went in a body to Sasasquit. "We have come," said they, "to offer our services and worship to the Great Spirit, if he will pay us better for our worship than Hobbamock has done." Sasasquit replied, "It is not for the worth of your worship, that the Great Spirit will grant your wish, but because he loves to vex the Evil Spirit. Come to-morrow to the Great Hill, when the sun first comes out of the water, and you shall see whose God is the most generous--yours, or mine."