THR BEGGAR'S SON. part III

The story is getting good, eh?
The woman told her son thus: " When I was sitting in the shelter when all of a sudden everything inside and out turned all white. When I looked up there was a man standing there, and he was asking about you. I told him that you go out early and stay out all day, because the girls would come by and tease us because we are poor. He asked about our food and about our bedding. I had baked four little seed cakes and I showed them to him and said that we eat seed cakes and whatever rabbits you killed. I showed him the woven grass mats we use for beds and covers. Then the man took a cake and took a bite out of it and said," This is my food also." Then when I turned my head for only a moment, he was gone. So I rushed outside and found only one footprint in the sand. Look, the seed cake that he bit into is here."
The youth did not believe her story and said," It is foolish to think that any people that are as poor as we are would be visited by a Holy Being. It is you who have bitten the cake and left the track outside!"
The next morning the youth went out as usual, and upon returning in the evening his mother told him," At noon time, I saw the the Holy Person again, and he is a handsome man. This time he ate almost half of the cake. When I turned away for a moment, he was gone. When I went outside, there were two tracks."
The youth then told his mother again that it was her that ate the cake and left the tracks.
On the third day the same story. This time he had eaten almost all of the cake and left three tracks outside.
On the fourth day when the youth returned in the evening, his mother told him that she had again seen the Holy Man. And that he had eaten all the cake, and this is what he told me my son. He wants you to wash your hair in the morning, bathe your whole body, and dry yourself with cornmeal and pollen. Then you are to get some water in a jar, and sit beside it in the shelter. You are to sit there and keep looking into the water. After he left there were four prints outside in the sand.
The next morning the young man did all that his mother told him to do. She sat beside him in the shelter looking into the jar filled with water. After a time he became restless, and his mother said," Son, the Sun is at noon."
And at that moment everything inside and out turned all white. In the midst of the glow stood a young man. The Holy Being told the woman that he was taking his younger brother, her son, but that he would return.
The poor woman said," NO! You can't take him, he's all I have in this world, I'll starve to death without him!"
The mother was asked four times to let her son go. And finally the youth said," Let me go mother, did you not hear him say that I would return?" So the mother gave her consent.
They then went outside, and a white rainbow flashed about the youth's feet. He was told to raise his right foot. And on the first step, they were on top of the mountain called Sis jin de' lea. On the second step, they were at a place called Natsi'lid be'tqo, Rainbow Springs. On the third step, they were at a place called Bitoa'ho chee, Red Mountain. On the fourth step, they were on top of Tqo jin whee tsa.
There they stepped into a house. The first room they entered was full of trash. When they entered the second room someone called out," Um-m-m, I smell earthly people, the fool hearted youth must be bringing somebody home." The two got to the fourth room and saw a man, woman, and a girl. They are called, Tqo jin whee tsa Hastin, Tqo jin whee tsa Esdzan, and Tqo jin whee tsa Chike'. They were the people of the mountain, the man, his wife, and their daughter.
They washed him four times, each time drying him with corn pollen. The maiden gave him four baskets, White bead, Turquoise, White shell, and Black jet. He was then trimmed and form to look like the maiden herself. She put her head beside his and he was formed like her. All except his feet, he had big feet...

I am what I am...