And in these days he made wild songs; for never do the happy ones make songs—they only sing them. Songs that none had heard he made. Not such as toilers make to shout about the camp fires when the meat goes round. Yet was the thick, hot dust of weary trails blown through them, and cries of dying warriors, and shrieks of widowed women, and whimpering of sick _zhinga zhingas_; and also there was in them the pang of big man-hearts, the ache of toiling women’s backs, the hunger, the thirst, the wish to live, the fear to die!
So the people said: “Who is this _nu zhinga_ who sings of trails he never followed, of battles he never fought? No father is he—and yet he sings as one who has lost a son! Of the pain of love he sings—yet never has he looked upon a girl!”
And it was the way of the boy to answer: “I seek what I do not find, and so I sing!”
And the nights and days made summers and winters, and thus it was with the Singer of the Ache. He grew tall even to the height of a man—yet was he no man. For little did he care to hunt, and the love of battles was not his. Nor his the laughter of the feast fires. Nor did he look upon the face of any maiden with soft eyes.
And the father and mother, who felt the first frosts upon their heads, said: “Our son is now a man; should he not build a lodge and fill it with a woman? Should we not hear the laughter of _zhinga zhingas_ once again before we take the black trail together?”
And because his father had many ponies, many maidens were brought before him for his choosing. But he looked coldly upon them and he said: “The stars are my sisters and my brothers, and the Moon is my wife, giving me songs for children. Soon shall there be a long trail for me.”
Thereat a cry went up against him and more and more he walked a stranger. Only the Dream walked with him; and he sang the songs that ache.
Harsh words the father spoke: “Does the tribe need songs? Can hungry people eat a silly shout, or will enemies be conquered with a singing?”
But the mother wept and said: “Say not so of him. Do not his songs bring tears, so strange and sweet they are at times? Does a man quarrel with the vessel from which he drinks sweet waters, even if it be broken and useless for the cooking?”