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Cricket was such a bothersome
little creature. She was here, she was there and made a nuisance of herself
generally. Chirping loudly while people were trying to sleep, hiding under
clothing dropped, and then, bouncing away in a zig zag fashion, at the
least gave her a glance askance. Hmmmmm, Sing The, in their language was
her name, no doubt about it.
If she was threatened her
wildly doing back flips had to give her tormentor a pause for laughter. She
was so ridiculous in her dramatic ways and it was funny. But, because of
her child like and human ways, generally, she was just pushed out the door
without harming her. Sometimes, a soft towel was thrown over her and she was
picked up gently only to be shaken out of the towel into the large outdoors
where she, after all, belonged.
Once, Sing the was caught in
a corner by a very large spider. Neither of the creatures were welcome in
the house. But, for some reason or another, they seemed to prefer the space
inhabited by humans.
The spider whirred a loud
challenge. Sing The held her ground. The loud battle of sounds was so noisy
the owner of the home had to take notice of the two misbehaving insects.
“Out!” “Out!” “Out you
go.” “I mean.” “You little monsters.” “Neither of you belong here.” And
then they were herded out the door at the end of a broom.
Sing The hopped in long low
skips as she covered the grassy ground in front of her. “Humph!” She
complained. “I've been thrown out of better places.”
“Well, its all your fault.” “You should have moved out of my way.”
“You know everything fears a spider and lets us go first.”
“Everyone but me.” Declared
the saucy little insect.
“You will fear me if I get a
hold on you.” The spider warned.
“Won't happen!” The little
cricket was so impudent.
Meanwhile the owner of the
house was watching the display of that small battle going down. “Well,
girls!” “I can't bring you to ruin.” “However these are the days of man's
genius.” “There is a little gadget sold at Wal Mart.” “It is an electronic
thing which puts out a high pitched sound you two will absolutely not be
able to tolerate.” “You have brought me to it.”
Sing The did double back
flips. The spider stopped in place as rebellious as its powerful control
allowed her to do.
“You know!” Said the spider.
“She has a nerve.” “Can you believe it?” Cricket hoped and skipped,
and then ran along side the spider who was leading the way. She was
chirping in a most winsome way to the spider who appeared to have all a
sudden become her close friend.
“She does, doesn't she?”
“She really does have a nerve.” “I guess we know where we aren't welcome.”
And off they went to look for another house which did NOT have a little
electronic beeper.
Author's note:
This is a story to show the relationship between the Ponca and the Osage.
Spider of the Osage is respected as “One who leads the way.” “Cricket of the
Ponca's is a friendly little bug, tolerated because of its human like ways.”
It is all a tribute to the Native American culture who somehow or another
had a great respect for ecology before it was commonly studied. |
