their hands and asked many questions.

Then the priest balanced it in his hand, and struck with it a hard
place, and blew upon it. Amid the plumes appeared four round things-mere
eggs they were. Two were blue like the sky and two dun-red like the
flesh of the Earth-mother.

Then the people asked many questions.,

"These," said the priests, "are the seed of living beings. Choose which
ye will follow. From two eggs shall come beings of beautiful plumage,
colored like the grass and fruits of summer. Where they fly and ye
follow, shall always be summer. Without toil, fields of food shall
flourish. And from the other two eggs shall come evil beings, piebald,
with white, without colors. And where these two shall fly and ye shall
follow, winter strives with summer. Only by labor shall the fields yield
fruit, and your children and theirs shall strive for the fruits. Which
do ye choose?"

"The blue! The blue!" cried the people, and those who were strongest
carried off the blue eggs, leaving the red eggs to those who waited.
They laid the blue eggs with much gentleness in soft sand on the sunny
side of a hill, watching day by day. They were precious of color; surely
they would be the precious birds of the Summer-land. Then the eggs
cracked and the birds came out, with open eyes and pin feathers under
their skins.

"We chose wisely," said the people. "Yellow and blue, red and green, are
their dresses, even seen through their skins." So they fed them freely
of all the foods which men favor. Thus they taught them to eat all