Home > Authors Index > Browse all available works of Elaine Goodale Eastman > Text of Owl Gets Married
A short story by Elaine Goodale Eastman |
||
The Owl Gets Married |
||
|
________________________________________________
Title: The Owl Gets Married Author: Elaine Goodale Eastman [More Titles by Eastman] There was once a woman who had a marriageable daughter. Many men came wooing, but the mother told the girl never to accept any but a skilled hunter, who would keep the lodge well supplied with meat. One evening the Owl called, in the shape of a handsome young man, and asked the girl to be his wife. "Are you a good hunter?" she asked. He said that he was, and upon this she agreed to marry him. On the day after the wedding, the bridegroom went forth to hunt, and at night he returned with nothing but some scraps that the hunters had thrown away. He excused himself by saying that he had had bad luck, and the next morning he declared that he would try fishing instead. When at evening he brought home only a worthless minnow or two, the old lady advised her daughter to follow him quietly the next time and see what he did. She did so and was horrified to see her husband turn into a great Owl and fly to the top of a dead tree, where he sat watching for some small fish that might be dropped by a Hawk or an Eagle. She went home in disgust, and presently he returned with a story of an Owl which had driven away his game. "I think you are the Owl," declared the young woman, and she turned him out of doors. The poor Owl went off by himself and pined away till he lost all his flesh, and is now nothing more than a big head and a bundle of feathers. [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |