[i]
[iii]

WOODLAND TALES

BY

ERNEST THOMPSON SETON

WITH 100 DRAWINGS

BY

THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR OF “WILD ANIMALS AT HOME,” “WILD
ANIMALS I HAVE KNOWN,” “TWO LITTLE SAVAGES,”
“BIOGRAPHY OF A GRIZZLY,” “LIFE
HISTORIES OF NORTHERN ANIMALS,” “ROLF IN
THE WOODS,” “THE BOOK OF WOODCRAFT.”
CHIEF OF THE WOODCRAFT LEAGUE OF AMERICA

GARDEN CITY         NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1922

[iv]

[v]

PREFACE

These Mother Carey Tales were written for children of
all ages, who have not outgrown the delight of a fairy tale.
It might almost be said that they were written chiefly for myself,
for I not only have had the pleasure of telling them to
the little ones, and enjoying their quick response, but have
also had the greater pleasure of thinking them and setting
them down.

As I write, I look from a loved window, across a landscape
that I love, and my eye rests on a tall beautiful pine planted
with my own hands years ago. It is a mass of green fringes,
with gem-like tips of buds and baby cones, beautiful, exquisitely
beautiful, whether seen from afar as a green spire,
or viewed close at hand as jewellery. It is beautiful, fragile
and—unimportant, as the world sees it; yet through its wind-waved
mass one can get little glimpses of the thing that
backs it all, the storm-defying shaft, the enduring rigid
living growing trunk of massive timber that gives it the
nobility of strength, and adds value to the rest; sometimes
it must be sought for, but it always surely is there, ennobling
the lesser pretty things.

I hope this tree is a fair image of my fairy tale. I know
my child friends will love the piney fringes and the jewel
cones, and they can find the unyielding timber in its underlying
truth, if they seek for it. If they do not, it is enough
to have them love the cones.[vi]

All are not fairy tales. Other chapters set forth things
to see, thing to do, things to go to, things to know, things to
remember. These, sanctified in the blue outdoors, spell
“Woodcraft,” the one pursuit of man that never dies or palls,
the thing that in the bygone ages gifted him and yet again
will gift him with the seeing eye, the thinking hand, the body
that fails not, the winged soul that stores up precious memories.

It is hoped that these chapters will show how easy and
alluring, and how good a thing it is.

While they are meant for the children six years of age
and upward, it is assumed that Mother (or Father) will be
active as a leader; therefore it is addressed, first of all, to
the parent, whom throughout we shall call the “Guide.”

Some of these stories date back to my school days, although
the first actually published was “Why the Chicadee Goes
Crazy Twice a Year.” This in its original form appeared in
“Our Animal Friends” in September, 1893. Others, as
“The Fingerboard Goldenrod,” “Brook-Brownie,” “The
Bluebird,” “Diablo and the Dogwood,” “How the Violets
Came,” “How the Indian Summer Came,” “The Twin
Stars,” “The Fairy Lamps,” “How the Littlest Owl Came,”
“How the Shad Came,” appeared in slightly different form
in the Century Magazine, 1903 and 1904.

My thanks are due to the Authorities of the American
Museum who have helped me with specimens and criticism;
to the published writings of Dr. W. J. Holland and Clarence
M. Weed for guidance in insect problems; to Britton and
Browne’s “Illustrated Flora, U. S. and Canada”; and to
the Nature Library of Doubleday, Page & Co., for light
in matters botanic; to Mrs. Daphne Drake and Mrs. Mary
S. Dominick for many valuable suggestions, and to my wife,[vii]
Grace Gallatin Seton, for help with the purely literary
work.

Also to Oliver P. Medsger, the naturalist of Lincoln High
School, Jersey City, N. J., for reading with critical care
those parts of the manuscript that deal with flowers and
insects, as well as for the ballad of the Ox-eye, the story of
its coming to America, and the photograph of the Mecha-meck.

[ix]

CONTENTS

[xiii]

INTRODUCTION

All-mother! Mater Cara! I have never seen you, but
I hungered so to know you that I understood it when you
came, unseen, and silently whispered to me that first time
in the long ago.

I cannot tell the children what you look like, Mother
Carey, for mortal eye hath never rested on your face; and
yet I can offer them a portrait, O strong Angel of the Wild
Things, neither young nor old—Oh! loving One that neither
trembles nor relents!

A mink he was, a young mink and foolish. One of a
happy brood, who were seeing the world with their mother—a
first glimpse of it. She was anxious and leading, happy
and proud, warning, sniffing, inviting, loving, yet angersome
at trivial disobedience, doling out her wisdom in nips and
examples and shrill warnings that all heeded; except this
one, the clever fool of the family, the self-satisfied smart one.
He would not be warned, the thing smelt so good. He
plunged ahead. Mother was a fool; he was wiser than
Mother. Here was a merry feasting for him. Then clank!
The iron jaws of a trap sprang from the hiding grass, and
clutched on his soft young paws. Screams of pain, futile
strainings, writhings, ragings and moanings; bloody jaws
on the trap; the mother distraught with grief, eager to take
all the punishment herself, but helpless and stunned, unable[xiv]
to leave; the little brothers, aghast at this first touch of
passion, this glimpse of reality, skurrying, scared, going
and coming, mesmerized, with glowing eyes and bristling
shoulder-fur. And the mother, mad with sorrow, goaded
by the screaming, green-eyed, vacant-minded, despairing—till
a new spirit entered into her, the spirit of Cara the All-mother,
Mother Carey the Beneficent, Mother Carey the
wise Straightwalker. Then the mother mink, inspired,
sprang on her suffering baby. With all the power of her
limbs she sprang and clutched; with all the power of her
love she craunched. His screams were ended; his days in
the land were ended. He had not heeded her wisdom; the
family fool was finished. The race was better, better for
the suffering fool mink; better for the suffering mother mink.

The spirit left her; left her limp and broken-hearted.
And away on the wind went riding, grimly riding her empire.

Four swift steeds for riding, has she, the White Wind,
the West Wind, the Wet Wind and the Waking Wind. But
mostly she rides the swift West Wind.

She is strong, is Mother Carey, strong, wise, inexorable,
calm and direct as an iceberg. And beneficent; but she
loves the strong ones best. She ever favours the wise ones.
She is building, ceaselessly building. The good brick she
sets in a place of honour, and the poor one she grinds into
gravel for the workmen to walk on.

She loves you, but far less than she does your race. It
may be that you are not wise, and if it seem best, she will
drop a tear and crush you into the dust.

Three others there be of power, like Mother Carey:
Maka Ina who is Mother Earth; El Sol, the Sun in the Sky,
and Diablo the Evil Spirit of Disease and Dread. But over
all is the One Great Spirit, the Beginning and the Ruler
with these and many messengers, who do His bidding. But
mostly you shall hear of Mother Carey.[xv]

It is long ago since first I heard her whisper, and though
I hear better now than then, I have no happier memory
than that earliest message.

“Ho Wayseeker,” she called, “I have watched your struggle
to find the pathway, and I know that you will love the
things that belong to it. Therefore, I will show you the
trail, and this is what it will lead you to: a thousand pleasant
friendships that will offer honey in little thorny cups,
the twelve secrets of the underbrush, the health of sunlight,
suppleness of body, the unafraidness of the night, the delight
of deep water, the goodness of rain, the story of the trail,
the knowledge of the swamp, the aloofness of knowing,—yea,
more, a crown and a little kingdom measured to your
power and all your own.

“But there is a condition attached. When you have
found a trail you are thereby ordained a guide. When
you have won a kingdom you must give it to the world or
lose it. For those who have got power must with it bear
responsibility; evade the one, the other fades away.”

This is the pledge I am trying to keep; I want to be your
Guide. I am offering you my little kingdom.[1]

[2]

THINGS TO SEE IN SPRINGTIME

Blue-eyes the Snow Child

[3]

Things to See in Springtime

TALE 1

Blue-eyes, the Snow Child, or The Story of Hepatica

HAVE you ever seen El Sol, the Chief of the Wonder-workers,
brother to Mother Carey? Yes, you
have, though probably you did not know it; at
least you could not look him in the face. Well, I am going
to tell you about him, and tell of a sad thing that
happened to him, and to some one whom he loved more
than words can tell.

Tall and of blazing beauty was El Sol, the King of the
Wonder-workers; his hair was like shining gold, and stood
straight out a yard from his head, as he marched over the
hilltops.

Everyone loved him, except a very few, who once had
dared to fight him, and had been worsted. Everyone else
loved him, and he liked everybody, without really loving
them. Until one day, as he walked in his garden, he suddenly
came on a beautiful white maiden, whom he had never
seen before. Her eyes were of the loveliest blue, her hair was
so soft that it floated on the air, and her robe was white,
covered with ferns done in white lace.

He fell deeply in love with her at once, but she waved a
warning hand, when he tried to come near.

“Who are you, oh radiant princess? I love you even
before I hear you speak.”[4]

“I am Snowroba, the daughter of the great King Jackfrost,”
she said.

“I love you as I never loved any one. Will you marry
me? I am the King of the Wonder-workers. I will make
you the Queen.”

“No,” said she, “I cannot marry you, for it is written that
if one of my people marry one of your people, she will sink
down and die in a day.”

Then El Sol was very sad. But he said, “May I not see
you again?”

“Yes,” she answered, “I will meet you here in the morning,
for it is pleasant to look on your beauty,” and her voice
tinkled sweetly.

So she met him in the morning, and again on the third
morning. He loved her madly now, and though she held
back, he seized her in his arms and kissed her tenderly.

Then her arms fell weakly to her sides, and her eyes half
closed as she said: “I know now that the old writing spake
truth. I love you, I love you, my love; but you have killed
me.”

And she sank down, a limp white form, on the leafy
ground.

El Sol was wild with grief. He tried to revive her, to
bring her back.

She only whispered, “Good-bye, my love. I am going fast.
You will see me no more, but come to this place a year from
now. It may be Maka Ina will be kind, and will send you
a little one that is yours and mine.”

Her white body melted away, as he bent over it and wept.

He came back every morning, but saw Snowroba no more.
One year from that day, as he lingered sadly over the sacred
spot, he saw a new and wonderful flower come forth. Its
bloom was of the tenderest violet blue, and it was full of
expression. As he gazed, he saw those eyes again; the scald[5]ing
tears dropped from his eyes, and burned its leaves into
a blotched and brownish colour. He remembered, and
understood her promise now. He knew that this was their
blue-eyed little one.

In the early springtime we can see it. Three sunny
days on the edge of the snowdrift will bring it forth. The
hunterfolk who find it, say that it is just one of the spring
flowers, out earlier than any other, and is called Liverleaf,
but we Woodcrafters know better. We know it is Hepatica,
the child of El Sol and Snowroba.

TALE 2

The Story of the White Dawnsinger

or

How the Bloodroot Came

Have you noticed that there are no snow-white birds
in our woods during summer? Mother Carey long ago
made it a rule that all snow-white landbirds should go
north, when the snow was gone in the springtime. And
they were quite obedient; they flew, keeping just on the
south edge of the melting snow.

But it so happened that one of the sweetest singers of
all—the snow-white Dawnsinger with the golden bill and
the ruby legs—was flying northward with his bride, when
she sprained her wing so she could not fly at all.

There was no other help for it; they must stay in that
thicket till her wing grew strong again.

The other white birds flew on, but the Dawnsinger waited.
He sang his merriest songs to cheer her. He brought her
food: and he warned her when enemies were near.

A moon had come and gone. Now she was well again,
and strong on the wing. He was anxious to go on to their[6]
northern home. A second warning came from Mother
Carey, “White birds go north.”

But the sunny woodside had become very pleasant, food
was abundant, and the little white lady said, “Why should
we go north when it is so much nicer right here?”

The Dawnsinger felt the same way, and the next time the
warning came, “White birds go north,” he would not listen
at all, and they settled down to a joyful life in the woods.

They did not know anything about the Yellow-eyed
Whizz. They never would have known, had they gone
north at their right time. But the Yellow-eyed Whizz was
coming. It came, and It always goes straight after white
things in the woods, for brown things It cannot see.

Dawnsinger was high on a tree, praising the light in a
glorious song, that he had just made up, when It singled
him out by his whiteness, and pierced him through.

He fell fluttering and dying; and as she flew to him, with a
cry of distress, the Yellow-eyed wicked Whizz struck her
down by his side.

The Chewinks scratched leaves over the two white bodies,
and—I think—that Mother Carey dropped a tear on the
place.

That was the end of the White Dawnsinger and his bride.
Yet every year, at that same place, as the snow goes, the
brown leaves move and part, and up from beneath there
comes a beautiful white flower.

The Story of the White Dawnsinger

Its bloom threads are yellow like the Dawnsinger’s beak,
and its stem is ruby like his legs; all the rest is snow-white like
his plumes. It rises, looks about, faces the sun, and sings
a little odour-song, a little aroma-lay. If you look deep
down into the open soul of the Dawnsinger you will see the
little golden thoughts he sings about. Then up from the
same grave comes another, just the same, but a little
smaller, and for a while they stand up side by side, and[8]
praise the light. But the Wither-bloom that haunts the
flowers as the Yellow-eyed Whizz does the birds, soon finds
them out; their song is ended, their white plumes are scattered,
and they shrink back into their grave, to be side by
side again.

You can find their little bodies, but deal gently with them,
for they are wounded; you may make them bleed again.

And when you hear the Chewinks scratching in the underbrush,
remember they are putting leaves on the grave of the
White Dawnsinger.

Surely you have guessed the secret; the flower is the
Bloodroot, and the Whizz is the Sharp-shinned Hawk.

TALE 3

The Prairie-girl with Yellow Hair

The Prairie-girl

Tall and fair was the Prairie-girl. She was not very
pretty, but her form was slender and graceful, and her head
was covered with a mass of golden hair that made you see
her from afar off. It has been whispered that she was deeply
in love with El Sol, for wherever he went, she turned her head
to look at him; and when she could not see him, she drooped
and languished. But he never seemed to notice her. As
she grew older her golden head turned white, and at last
the swish of Mother Carey’s horses carried away all her
white hair, and left her old, bald, and ugly. So she pined
and died, and Maka Ina buried her poor little body under
the grass. But some say it was Father Time that blew her
hair away, and that El Sol had the body cremated.

If you look on the lawns or the fields in springtime, you
are sure to find the Prairie-girl. The Guide can show her to[10]
you, if you do not know her. But he will call her “Common
Dandelion,” and I do not know of any flower that has so
many things for us children to remember.

If you are learning French, you will see how it got the
name “Dandelion”; it used to be written dent de lion; that
is, “tooth of a lion”; because its leaves are edged with sharp
teeth, like a lion’s jaw.

Its golden-yellow flower is said to open when the Swallows
arrive from the south, that is, in April; and though it blooms
chiefly in springtime it keeps on blooming till long after
the Swallows fly away. It certainly thrives as long as the
sun shines on it, and fades when the cold dark season comes.
But I have seen it out in November; that is, the Dandelion
blooms for fully nine months. I do not know of any other
flower that does; most of them are done in one month.

When the yellow flower is over, its place is taken by a
beautiful globe of soft, white plumes; this is why the story
says its golden hair turns white with age. The children
believe that this woolly head will tell you the time of day.
You hold it up, then pretend you are Father Time blowing
her hair away, blow a sharp puff with your breath, then
another and another, till the plumes are blown away. If
it takes four blows, they say it means four o’clock; but it is
not a very true clock.

Some children make a wish, then blow once and say,
“this year”; the second time, “next year”; the third time,
“some time”; the fourth time, “never.” Then begin all
over, and keep on as long as any plumes are left, to tell when
the wish is coming true.

Now pull the head off the stalk. You will find it leaves
a long, open tube that sounds like a trumpet when you blow
through it from the small end. If you force your finger into
the big end, and keep pushing, you split the tube into two
or three pieces; put these in your mouth and they will curl[11]
up like ringlets. Some children hang these on their ears
for ornaments. Take a stalk for each year of your age;
pull its head off. Then you will find that the top end will
go into the bottom and make a ring. Use all the stalks you
have gathered, to make a chain; now throw this chain into a
low tree. If it sticks the first time, your wish will come
true this year. Each time it falls puts your wish a year
farther away.

This may not be true; but it is a game to play. Some
big girls use it, to find out when they are going to be
married.

Now dig up the whole plant, root and all—the gardener
will be much obliged to you for doing so—take it home, and
ask the Guide to make the leaves into a salad; you will find
it good to eat; most Europeans eat it regularly, either raw,
or boiled as greens.

Last of all, ask the Guide to roast the root, till it is brown
and crisp, then grind it in a coffee-mill, and use it to make
coffee. Some people think it better than real coffee; at any
rate, the doctors say it is much healthier, for it is nourishing
food, and does not do one any harm at all. But perhaps
you will not like it. You may think all the time you are
eating the body of the poor little Prairie-girl, who died of
love.

TALE 4

The Cat’s-eye Toad, a Child of Maka Ina

When you were little, O Guide! didn’t you delight in the
tales of gnomes or nibelungen, those strange underground
creatures that lived hidden from the light, and busied themselves
with precious stones and metals? How unwillingly
we gave up those glad beliefs, as we inevitably grew old
and lost our fairyland eyes![12]

The Cat’s eye Toad (life size)

[13]

But you must not give up all your joyful creeds; you must
keep on believing in the weird underground dwarfs; for
I am going to tell you of one that the cold calculating Professor
Science has at last accepted, and that lives in your
own back-yard. That is, the Cat’s-eye Toad or Spadefoot.
It is much like a common Toad, but a little smoother, the
digging spade on its hind foot is bigger and its eye, its beautiful
gold-stone eye, has the pupil up and down like that of a
Cat, instead of level as in its cousin, the warty Hoptoad.

But the wonderful thing about the Cat’s-eye is that it
spends most of its life underground, coming out in the early
springtime for a few days of the most riotous honeymoon
in some small pond, where it sings a loud chorus till mated,
lays a few hundred eggs, to be hatched into tadpoles, then
backs itself into its underground world by means of the boring
machine on its hind feet, to be heard no more that season,
and seen no more, unless some one chance to dig it out,
just as Hans in the story dug out the mole-gnome.

In the fairy tale the Shepherd-boy was rewarded by the
gnome for digging him out; for he received both gold and
precious stones. But our gnome does not wish us to dig
him out; nevertheless, if you do, you will be rewarded with a
golden fact, and a glimpse of two wonderful jewel eyes.

According to one who knows him well, the Cat’s-eye
buries itself far underground, and sleeps days, or weeks,
perhaps years at a time. Once a grave-digger found a Cat’s-eye
three feet two inches down in the earth with no way out.

How and when are we then to find this strange creature?
Only during his noisy honeymoon in April.

Do you know the soft trilling whistle of the common
Hoptoad in May? The call of the Cat’s-eye is of the same
style but very loud and harsh, and heard early in April.
If on some warm night in springtime, you hear a song which
sounds like a cross between a Toad’s whistle and a Chicken’s[14]
squawk, get a searchlight and go quietly to the place. The
light will help you to come close, and in the water up to his
chin, you will see him, his gold-stone eyes blazing like jewels
and his throat blown out like a mammoth pearl, each time
he utters the “squawk” which he intends for a song. And
it is a song, and a very successful one, for a visit to the
same pond a week or two later, will show you—not the
Cat’s-eye or his mate, they have gone a-tunnelling—but a
swarm of little black pin-like tadpole Cat’s-eyes, born and
bred in the glorious sunlight but doomed and ready, if
they live, to follow in their parents’ tracks far underground.
Sure proof that the song did win a mate, and was crowned
with the success for which all woodland, and marshland
song first was made.

TALE 5

How the Bluebird Came

Nana-bo-jou, that some think is the Indian name for
El Sol and some say is Mother Carey, was sleeping his
winter’s sleep in the big island just above the thunder-dam
that men call Niagara. Four moons had waned, but
still he slept. The frost draperies of his couch were gone;
his white blanket was burnt into holes. He turned over
a little; then the ice on the river cracked like near-by thunder.
When he turned again, it began to slip over the big
beaver-dam of Niagara, but still he did not awake.

How the Bluebird Came

The great Er-Beaver in his pond, that men call Lake
Erie, flapped his tail, and the waves rolled away to the shore,
and set the ice heaving, cracking, and groaning; but
Nana-bo-jou slept on.

Then the Ice-demons pounded the shore of the island with
their clubs. They pushed back the whole river-flood till[16]
the channel was dry, then let it rush down like the end of all
things, and they shouted together:

“Nana-bo-jou! Nana-bo-jou! Nana-bo-jou! Wake
up!”

But still he slept calmly on.

Then came a soft, sweet voice, more gentle than the mating
turtle of Miami. It was in the air, but it was nowhere,
and yet it was in the trees, in the water, and it was in Nana-bo-jou
too. He felt it, and it awoke him. He sat up and
looked about. His white blanket was gone; only a few
tatters of it were to be seen in the shady places. In the
sunny spots the shreds of the fringe with its beads had taken
root and were growing into little flowers with beady eyes,
Spring Beauties as they are called now. The small voice
kept crying: “Awake! the spring is coming!”

Nana-bo-jou said: “Little voice, where are you? Come
here.”

But the little voice, being everywhere, was nowhere, and
could not come at the hero’s call.

So he said: “Little voice, you are nowhere because you
have no place to live in; I will make you a home.”

So Nana-bo-jou took a curl of birch bark and made a
little wigwam, and because the voice came from the skies
he painted the wigwam with blue mud, and to show that it
came from the Sunland he painted a red sun on it. On the
floor he spread a scrap of his own white blanket, then for a
fire he breathed into it a spark of life, and said: “Here, little
voice, is your wigwam.” The little voice entered and took
possession, but Nana-bo-jou had breathed the spark of
life into it. The smoke-vent wings began to move and to
flap, and the little wigwam turned into a beautiful Bluebird
with a red sun on its breast and a shirt of white. Away
it flew, but every year it comes as winter wanes, the Bluebird
of the spring. The voice still dwells in it, and we feel[17]
that it has lost nothing of its earliest power when we hear
it cry: “Awake! the spring is coming!”

TALE 6
Robin, the Bird that Loves to Make Clay Pots

Everyone knows the Robin; his reddish-brown breast,
gray back, white throat, and dark wings and tail are easily
remembered. If you colour the drawing, you will always
remember it afterward. The Robin comes about our
houses and lawns; it lets us get close enough to see it. It
has a loud, sweet song. All birds have a song[A]; and all sing
when they are happy. As they sing most of the time,
except when they are asleep, or when moulting, they must
have a lot of happiness in their lives.

Here are some things to remember about the Robin. It is
one of the earliest of all our birds to get up in the morning,
and it begins to sing long before there is daylight.

Birds that live in the trees, hop; birds that live on the
ground, walk or run; but the Robin lives partly in the trees
and partly on the ground, so sometimes he hops and sometimes
he runs.

The Robin Making Clay Pots

When he alights on a fence or tree, he looks at you and
flashes the white spots on the outer corners of his tail. Again
and again he does this. Why? That is his way of letting
you know that he is a Robin. He is saying in signal code—flash
and wig-wag—”I’m a Robin, I’m a Robin, I’m a
Robin.” So you will not mistake him for some bird that is
less loved.

The Robin invented pottery before men did; his nest is
always a clay pot set in a little pile of straws. Sometime,[19]
get a Robin’s nest after the bird is done with it; dry it well,
put it on the fire very gently; leave it till all the straws are
burned away, and then if it does not go to pieces, you will
find you have a pretty good earthen pot.

The Robin loves to make these pots. I have known a
cock Robin make several which he did not need, just for the
fun of making them.

A friend of mine said to me once, “Come, and I will show
you the nest of a crazy Robin.” We went to the woodshed
and there on a beam were six perfectly good Robin nests all
in a row; all of them empty.

“There,” said my friend. “All of these six were built by a
cock Robin in about ten days or two weeks. He seemed
to do nothing but sing and build nests. Then after finishing
the last one, he disappeared. Wasn’t he crazy?”

“No,” I said, “not at all. He was not crazy; he was industrious.
Let me finish the chapter. The hen Robin was
sitting on the eggs, the cock bird had nothing else to do,
so he put in the time at the two things he did the best and
loved the most: singing and nest-building. Then after
the young were hatched in the home nest, he had plenty
to do caring for them, so he ceased both building and singing,
for that season.”

I have often heard of such things. Indeed, they are
rather common, but not often noticed, because the Robin
does not often build all the extra nests in one place.

Do you know the lovely shade called Robin’s-egg blue?
The next time you see a Robin’s nest with eggs in it you
will understand why it was so named and feel for a moment,
when first you see it, that you have found a casket
full of most exquisite jewels.

Next to nest-building, singing is the Robin’s gift, and the
songs that he sings are full of joy. He says, “cheerup,
cheer up, cheerily cheer-up“; and he means it too.[20]

TALE 7

Brook Brownie, or How the Song Sparrow Got
His Streaks

Brook Brownie

TALE 8

Diablo and the Dogwood

The Dogwood Bloom

What a glorious thing is the Maytime Dogwood in our
woods! How it does sing out its song! More loudly and
clearly it sings than any other spring flower! For it is not
one, but a great chorus; and I know it is singing that “The
spring, the very spring is in the land!”

I suppose if one had King Solomon’s fayland ears, one
might hear the Dogwood music like a lot of church bells
pealing, like the chorus of the cathedral where Woodthrush
is the preacher-priest and the Veeries make responses.

It was Adam’s favourite tree, they say, in the Garden of[23]
Eden. And it grew so high, flowered so wonderfully, and
gave so much pleasure that Diablo, who is also called the
Devil, wanted to kill it. He made up his mind that he
would blight and scatter every shining leaf of its snowy
bloom. So one dark night he climbed a Honey Locust
tree near the gate, and swung by his tail over the wall, intending
to tear off all the lovely blossoms. But he got a
shock when he found that every flower was in the shape
of a cross, which put them beyond his power to blight. He
was furious at not being able to destroy its beauty, so did
the worst he could. Keeping away from the cross he bit
a piece out of the edge of every snowy flower leaf, and then
jumped back to the Honey Locust tree.

The Locust was ashamed when she found that she had
helped Diablo to do such a mean bit of mischief, so she
grew a bristling necklace of strong spikes to wear; they were
so long and sharp that no one since, not even Diablo himself,
has ever been able to climb that Honey Locust tree.

But it was too late to save the Dogwood bloom. The
bites were out, and they never healed up again, as you can
see to this very day.

TALE 9

The Woolly-bear

The Woolly-bear (the moth is 1-1/4 life size)

Do you know the Woolly-bear Caterpillar? It is divided
into three parts; the middle one brown, the two ends black.
Everyone notices the Woolly-bear, because it comes out in
early spring, as soon as the frost is over, and crawls on the
fences and sidewalks as though they belonged to it. It does
not seem to be afraid of any one or anything. It will march
across the road in front of a motor car, or crawl up the leg
of your boot. Sometimes when you brush it off with your[25]
hand, little hairs are left sticking in your fingers, because it
is really like a small porcupine, protected by short spears
sticking out of its skin in all directions. Here at the side
of the picture, is one of these hairs seen under a microscope.

Where did the Woolly-bear come from? It was hatched
from an egg last summer.

And now what is going to happen? It will stuff itself with
rib-grass or other low plants, till it has grown bigger; then it
will get a warning from the All-mother to prepare for the
great change. In some low dry place under a log, stone or
fence-rail, it will spin a cocoon with its own spikey hairs
outside for a protector. In this rough hairy coffin it will
roll itself up, for its “little death,” as the Indians call it, and
Mother Carey will come along with her sleeping wand, and
touch it, so it will go into sound sleep, but for only a few
days. One bright sunny morning old Mother Carey comes
around again, touches the Woolly-bear bundle-baby, and
out of it comes the Woolly-bear, only now it is changed like
the Prince in the story into a beautiful Moth called the
Tiger-Moth! Out he comes, and if you look up at one end
of the coffin he is leaving, you may see the graveclothes he
wore when first he went to sleep. Away he flies now to
seek his beautiful mate, and soon she lays a lot of eggs, from
each of which will come another little Woolly-bear to grow
into a big Woolly-bear, and do it all over again.

TALE 10

How the Violets Came

TALE 11

Cocoons

Everyone loves to go a-hunting. Our forebears were
hunters for so many ages that the hunting spirit is strong
in all of us, even though held in check by the horror of giving
pain to a fellow being. But the pleasure of being outdoors,
of seeking for hidden treasures, of finding something that
looks at first like old rubbish, and then turns out to be a
precious and beautiful thing, that is ours by right of the old
law—finders, keepers. That is a kind of hunting that every
healthy being loves, and there are many ways and chances
for you to enjoy it.

Go out any time between October and April, and look in
all the low trees and high bushes for the little natural rag-bundles
called “cocoons.” Some are bundle-shaped and
fast to a twig their whole length. Some hang like a Santa
Claus bag on a Christmas tree; but all may be known by
their hairiness or the strong, close cover of fine gray or
brown fibre or silk, without seams and woven to keep out
the wet.

Cocoons

They are so strongly fastened on, that you will have to
break the twig to get the bundle down. If it seems very[28]
light, and rattled when you shake it, you will likely see
one or more small, sharp, round holes in it. This means
that an insect enemy has destroyed the little creature sleeping
within. If the Cocoon is perfect and seems solid and
heavy, take it home, and put it in a cardboard, or wooden
box, which has a wire screen, or gauze cover. Keep it in a
light place, not too dry, till the springtime comes; then one
day a miracle will take place. The case will be cut open
from within, and out will come a gorgeous Moth. It is
like the dull, dark grave opening up at the resurrection to
let forth a new-born, different being with wings to fly in the
heavens above.

In the drawing I have shown five different kinds of bundle-baby,
then at the bottom have added the jug-handled
bundle-baby of the Tomato worm; it does not make a Cocoon
but buries itself in the ground when the time comes
for the Great Sleep. Kind Mother Earth protects it as
she does the Hickory Horn-Devil, so it does not need to
make a Cocoon at all.

There is a wonderful story about each of these bundle-babies.
You will never get weary if you follow and learn
them, for each one differs from the last. Some of them I
hope to tell you in this book, and before we begin I want you
to know some of the things that men of science have learned,
and why a Butterfly is not a Moth.

TALE 12
Butterflies and Moths

Do you remember the dear old fairy tale of Beauty and
the Beast? How Beauty had to marry the Beast to save
her father’s life? But as soon as she had bravely agreed
to sacrifice herself—as soon as she gave the fateful “Yes”[29]
the Beast stood up on his hind legs, his horns, hoofs and
hide rolled off, and he was turned back into his true shape,
a splendid young Prince whom she could not help loving;
and they lived happy ever after.

Do you know that just such transformations and happy
weddings are going on about us all the time? The Beast
is an ugly Caterpillar, the Princess Beauty is the Butterfly or
the Moth. And when the Beast is changed into the Prince
Charming and meets with Princess Beauty, they are just as
madly happy as they tell it in the fairy books. I know
it, for I have seen the transformation, and I have seen the
pair go off on their wedding flight.

Men of science have been trying to explain these strange
transformations, and to discover why the Prince and Princess
do not need to eat or drink, once they have won their
highest form, their life of wings and joy. But they have not
got much farther than giving names to the things we have
long loved and seen as children, dividing the winged wonders
into two big families called Butterflies and Moths.

Do you know the difference between a Butterfly and a
Moth?

Taken together they make a large group that are called
Scale-wings, because they alone among insects, have scales
or tiny feathers like dust on the wings. Butterflies are
Scale-wings that fly by day, and have club-shaped feelers;
they mostly fold one wing against the other when they
alight, and in the chrysalis, or bundle-baby stage, they are
naked and look like an African ear-drop.

Moths are Scale-wings that fly by night, and have switch
or feather-shaped feelers; they keep their wings spread open
when they alight, and in the bundle-baby stage, they are
wrapped in a cocoon. There are some that do not keep
to these rules, but they are rare, and the shape of the feelers
will tell whether it is a Moth or a Butterfly.[30]

All of these Scale-wings are hatched from eggs, and
come first, as a worm, grub, or caterpillar; next as a chrysalis
pupa or bundle-baby; last as the winged creature. That
is, first a Beast and last a Beauty. Each of them must
at one time be the ugly one, before the great change comes.
But I must tell you a truth that the Fairy Books left out,
and which maybe you have guessed—Princess Beauty too
was at one time forced to live and look like a Beast, till she
had fought her own fight, had worked out her own high
destiny, and won her way to wings.

TALE 13
The Mourning-cloak Butterfly, or the Camberwell
Beauty

There was once a lady who dwelt in Camberwell. She
was so good to see that people called her “The Camberwell
Beauty.” She dressed so magnificently that her robe was
covered with gold, and spangled with precious stones of
most amazing colours. Especially proud was she, of the
row of big blue diamonds that formed the border; and she
loved to go forth into the world to see and be seen; although
she knew that the country was full of robbers who would be
sure to steal her jewels if they could. Then she made a
clever plan, she kept on the beautiful things that she loved
to dress in, but over all she hung a black velvet mourning
cloak which nobody could possibly want to steal. Then
she went up and down the roads as much as she pleased.

Mourning-cloak Butterfly (3/4 life size)

Well, this story may be not quite true, but it is partly true,
and the beautiful lady is known to-day as the Mourning-cloak
Butterfly. There it is, plain to be seen, the black
mourning cloak, but peeping from under it, you can see the[32]
golden border and some of the blue diamonds too, if you
look very carefully.

In the North Woods where I spent my young days, the
first butterfly to be seen in the springtime was the Mourning-cloak,
and the reason we saw it so early in the season,
yes, even in the snowtime, was because this is one of the Butterflies
that sometimes sleep all winter, and so live in two
different seasons.

Its eggs are laid on the willows, elms, or poplars, in early
springtime. The young soon hatch, and eat so much, and
grow so fast, that five weeks after the eggs are laid, and three
after they are hatched, the caterpillar is full grown, and hangs
itself up as a chrysalis under some sheltering board or rail.
In two weeks more, the wonderful event takes place, the
perfect Butterfly comes forth; and there is another
Mourning-cloak to liven the roadside, and amaze us with
its half-hidden beauty.

TALE 14
The Wandering Monarch

Did you ever read the old Greek story of Ulysses, King
of Ithaca, the Wandering Monarch, who for twenty years
roamed over sea and land away from home—always trying
to get back, but doomed to keep on travelling, homesick
and weary, but still moving on; until his name became a
byword for wandering?

MONARCH BUTTERFLY
“The Wanderer” in Three Stages: Cocoon, Caterpillar,
and Butterfly

In our own woods and our own fields in America we have a
Wandering Monarch—the “Big Red Butterfly” as we children
called it—the “Monarch” as it is named by the butterfly
catchers.

It is called the “Wanderer” chiefly because it is the only
one of our Butterflies that migrates like the birds. In the[34]
late summer it gathers in great swarms when the bright
days are waning, and flies away to warmer lands. I have
often seen it going, yet I do not remember that I ever saw
it come back in the springtime; but it comes, though not
in great flocks like those that went south.

One of the common names of this splendid creature is
“Milkweed Butterfly” because its grub or caterpillar is fond
of feeding on the leaves of the common milkweed.

The drawing shows the size and style of the grub; in colour
it is yellow or yellowish green with black bands.

As soon as it is grown big enough and fat enough, the grub
hangs itself up as a “chrysalis” which is a Greek word that
may be freely rendered into “golden jewel.” The middle
drawing shows its shape; in colour it is of a pale green with
spots of gold, or as it has been described “a green house with
golden nails.”

After about two weeks the great change takes place, and
the bundle-baby or chrysalis opens to let out the splendid
red-brown Butterfly, of nearly the same red as a Cock
Robin’s breast in springtime, with lines and embroidery
of black and its border set with pearls. Near the middle
of the hind wing is a dark spot like a thickening of one rib.
This has been called a “sachet bag” or “scent-pocket,”
and though not very ornamental to look at, is of more use to
it than the most beautiful white pearl of the border. For
this is the battery of its wireless telegraph. We think our
ships and aeroplanes very far advanced because they can
signal miles away, and yet the Wandering Monarch had
an outfit for sending messages long before it was ever
dreamed of by man. Maybe it is not a very strong battery,
but it certainly reaches for miles; and maybe its messages
are not very clear, but they serve at least to let the Monarchs
know where their wives are, and how to find them, which is
something.[35]

There is one other reason for calling this the Wanderer.
Although it is an American by birth, it has travelled to
England and the Philippines and is ever going farther over
the world till at last no doubt it will have seen all lands and
possessed them.

It makes old Ulysses look like a very stay-at-home, for
his farthest travels never went beyond the blue Mediterranean,
and his whole twenty years of voyaging covered less
than the states east of the Mississippi—much less than
our Red Wanderer covers in a single summer.

TALE 15
The Bells of the Solomon Seal

Let us go out into the woods, and look for the Solomon
Seal. This is May and we should find it in some half open
place, where it is neither wet nor dry. Here it is! See
the string of bells that hangs from its curving stem. Dig
out its roots, wash off the earth, and you will see the mark
of King Solomon’s Seal that gives its name to the plant.
Now listen to the story of it all.

King Solomon had the “second sight” that means the
deeper sight, the magic eyesight which made him see
through a stone wall, or read men’s thoughts. King Solomon
had fayland ears; which means, he could hear all sounds
from A to Z; while common ears, like yours and mine, hear
only the middle sounds from K to Q.

Everything that lives and moves is giving out music;
every flower that blooms is singing its song. We cannot
hear, our ears are too dull; but King Solomon could. And
one day, as he walked through the woods, he heard a new
flower-song that made him stop and listen. It had strange
music with it, and part of that was a chime of golden bells.[36]

The Bells of the Solomon Seal

[37]

The great King sat down on a bank. His fayland eyes
could see right into the ground. He saw the fat fleshy root
like a little goblin, reaching its long white fingers down into
the soil, picking out the magic crystals to pack away in its
pockets; and he could see the tall stem like a wood-elf carrying
them up, and spreading them upon its flat hands, so
they could soak up the juices of the sun and air. He could
see them turning into a wonderful stuff like amber dew,
with a tang like new-cut timber. But it was not yet done,
so he could not tell just what it might be good for. Now
it was springtime, and it would be harvest red moon
before the little worker would have the magic healing stored
in its treasure bags underground. So to prevent any one
harming or hindering the plant till its work was done, the
King took out his seal ring and stamped seal marks all
along the root, where they are unto this day. And then
to make it sure he made the golden bell chimes become
visible so every one could see them. There they hang like
a row of ringing bells.

But the King never came back to learn the rest of it, for
he had to build the temple; and he had many wives who took
up a great deal of his time. So the world has never found
out just what is the magic power of the plant. But it is
there, be sure of that, just as surely as the peal of golden
bells is there, and the marks of the great King’s Seal.

TALE 16
The Silver Bells of the False Solomon Seal

The Silver Bells of the False Solomon Seal

Over a month later, the King suddenly remembered that
he had not been out to see the plant whose root he had sealed.
He was very busy at the time, as he had the temple to build,
and many wives to look after; so he called Djin, a good[39]
goblin, who does hard work and said, “Go and see that no
one has harmed that plant,” then told him how to find it.

Away went the good goblin, like a flash. He was a very
obedient servant, but not very bright; and when he came
to the woods, he looked all around for the plant with the
chime of bells, for King Solomon had forgotten to say that
the bells do not ring after June, and it was now July. So
the goblin looked about for a long time. He did not dare
to go back and say he could not find it—that would have
been a terrible crime, so he looked and looked. At last
he heard a little tinkle of bells away off in the woods. He
flew to the place, and there was a plant like the one he sought
but its bells were of silver, and all in a bunch instead of a
long string. The good goblin dug down to the big fat root
in the ground and found that the seal marks had grown
over—at least he thought they had—for they were nowhere
to be seen. So he looked around for something to help.
His eye fell on an acorn cup. He took this, and using it for
a seal, he stamped the root all over.

Then he took a piece of the root and a sprig and flew
back to show the King. Solomon smiled and said: “You
did the best you could, but you have marked the wrong
root. Listen! This is not the golden chime, but the chime
of silver bells.”

That is the story of it and that is why it has ever since
been called the False Solomon Seal.[40]

[41]

THINGS TO SEE IN SUMMERTIME

The Brownie and the
Mouse-bird

[43]

Things to See in Summertime

TALE 17
How the Mouse-bird Made Fun of the Brownie

Once there was a conceited Brownie, who thought
he could do more things and do them better than
any other of his people. He had not tried yet,
for he was very young, but he said he was going to do them
some day!

One morning a sly old Brownie, really making fun of
him, said: “Why don’t you catch that Phoebe-bird? It
is quite easy if you put a little salt on his tail.” Away went
Smarty Brownie to try. But the Phoebe would not sit
still, and the Brownie came back saying: “He bobbed his
tail so, the salt would not stay on.”

“Well,” said the sly old Brownie, “there is a little Mouse-bird
whose tail never bobs. You can easily catch him, for
you see, he does not even fly, but crawls like a mouse up
the tree,” and he pointed to a little brown Creeper. By
this time the young Brownie knew that the others were
laughing at him, so he said rather hotly, “I’ll just show you
right now.”

He took an acorn cup full of salt, and went after the
Mouse-bird. It was at the bottom of the big tree, creeping
up, round and round, as if on a spiral staircase, and the
Brownie began to climb in the same way. But every little
while the climber had to stop and rest. This had strange[43]
results, for there is a law in Brownie land, that wherever
one of the little people stops to sit down, or rest, a toadstool
must spring up for him to sit on. So the track of the
Brownie up the trunk became one long staircase of toadstool
steps, some close, some far apart, but each showing where the
Brownie had rested. They came closer together toward the
top where the Brownie had got tired, but he was coming very
near to the Creeper now. He got his pinch of salt all ready,
as his friends down below kept calling and jeering: “Now
you’ve got him, now is your chance.” But just as he was
going to leap forward and drop the salt on its tail, the
Creeper gave a tiny little laugh like “Tee-tee-tee,” spread
its wings, for it could fly very well, and sailed away to
the bottom of the next tree to do the spiral staircase all
over again, while Smarty Brownie was so mad that he
jumped to the ground and hid away from his friends for
two days. When he came back he did not talk quite so
much as he used to. But to this day you can see the staircase
of toadstools on the tree trunks where the Brownie
went up.

TALE 18
The Pot-herb that Sailed with the Pilgrims

“Come,” said the Guide, “to-day I am going to show you
a Pot-herb that came from England with the Pilgrim Fathers
and spread over the whole of America. There is a story
about it that will keep it ever in your memory.”

The Pilgrim’s Pot-herb

The Pilgrims had landed in Massachusetts, and slowly
made farms for themselves as they cleared off the forest.
They had a very hard time at first, but the Indians helped
them; sometimes with gifts of venison, and sometimes by
showing them which things in the woods were good to eat.

There was a Squaw named Monapini, “the Root-digger,”[46]
who was very clever at finding forest foods. She became
friendly with a white woman named Ruth Pilgrim, and so
Ruth’s family got the benefit of it, and always had on the
table many good things that came from the woods.

One day, long after the farms were cleared and doing well,
the white woman said, “See, Mother Monapini, thou hast
shown me many things, now I have somewhat to show thee.
There hath grown up in our wheat field a small herb that
must have come from England with the wheat, for hitherto
I have not seen it elsewhere. We call it lamb’s-quarter,
for the lamb doth eat it by choice. Or maybe because
we do eat it with a quarter of lamb. Nevertheless it maketh
a good pot-herb when boiled.”

The old Indian woman’s eyes were fixed on the new plant
that was good to eat: and she said, “Is it very good, oh
white sister?”

“Yes, and our medicine men do say that it driveth out
the poison that maketh itch and spots on the skin.” After
a moment Monapini said, “It looketh to me like the foot
of a wild goose.”

“Well found,” chuckled Ruth, “for sometimes our people
do call it by that very name.”

“That tells me different,” said the Indian.

“What mean you,” said Ruth.

“Is not a goose foot very strong, so it never catcheth cold
in the icy water?”

“Yes.”

“And this hath the shape of a goose foot?”

“Yes.”

“Then my Shaman tells that it is by such likeness that
the Great Spirit showeth the goose foot plant to be charged
with the driving out of colds.”

“It may be so,” said the white woman, “but this I know.
It is very good and helpeth the whole body.”[47]

The Indian picked a handful of the pot-herbs, then stared
hard at the last; a very tall and strong one.

“What hast thou now, Monapini?” The red woman
pointed to the stem of the lamb’s-quarter, whereon were
long red streaks, and said: “This I see, that, even as the
white-man’s herb came over the sea and was harmless
and clean while it was weak, but grew strong and possessed
this field, then was streaked to midheight with blood, so also
shall they be who brought it—streaked at last to the very
waist with blood—not the white men’s but the dark purple
blood of the Indian. This the voices tell me is in the coming
years, that this is what we shall get again for helping you—destruction
in return for kindness. Mine inner eyes have
seen it.” She threw down the new pot-herb and glided away,
to be seen no more in the settlements of the white men.

And Ruth, as she gazed after her, knew that it was true.
Had she not heard her people talking and planning? For
even as the weed seed came with the wheat, so evil spirits
came with the God-fearing Pilgrims, and already these were
planning to put the heathens to the sword, when the Colony
was strong enough.

So the Indian woman read the truth in the little pot-herb
that sailed and landed with the Pilgrims; that stands
in our fields to this day, streaked with the blood of the passing
race—standing, a thing of remembrance.

TALE 19
How the Red Clover Got the White Mark on Its
Leaves

How the Red Clover Got the White Mark on Its Leaves

Once upon a time a Bee, a Bug, and a Cow went marching
up to Mother Carey’s palace in the hemlock grove, to tell
her of their troubles. They complained that food was poor[49]
and scarce, and they were tired of the kinds that grew along
the roadsides.

Mother Carey heard them patiently, then she said: “Yes,
you have some reason to complain, so I will send you a new
food called Clover. Its flower shall be full of honey for
the Bee, its leaves full of cowfood and its cellar shall be
stocked with tiny pudding bags of meal for the Bug, that
is for good little Bug-folks who live underground.”

Now the tribes of the Bee, the Bug, and the Cow had a
fine time feasting, for the new food was everywhere.

But Cows are rather stupid you know. They found the
new food so good that they kept on munching everything
that had three round leaves, thinking it was Clover, and
very soon a lot of them were poisoned with strange plants
that no wise Cow would think of eating.

So Mother Carey called a Busy Brownie, and put him on
guard to keep the Cows from eating the poison plants by
mistake.

At first it was good fun, and the Brownie enjoyed it because
it made him feel important. But he got very tired
of his job and wanted to go to the ball game.

He sat down on a toadstool, and looked very glum. He
could hear the other Brownies shouting at the game, and
that made him feel worse. Then he heard a great uproar,
and voices yelling “A home run!” “A home run!” That
drove him wild. He had been whittling the edge of the
toadstool with his knife, and now he slashed off a big piece
of the cap, he was so mad.

Then up he got and said to the Cows: “See here, you fool
Cows, I can’t stay here for ever trying to keep you
from eating poison, but I’ll do this much. I’ll stamp
all the good-to-eat leaves with a mark that will be your
guide.”

The Shamrock

So he made a rubber stamp out of part of the toadstool[51]
he was sitting on, and stamped every Clover leaf in that
pasture, so the Cows could be sure, then skipped away to
the ball game.

When Mother Carey heard of his running away from his
job, she was very angry. She said: “Well, you Bad
Brownie, you should be ashamed, but that white mark was a
good idea so I’ll forgive you, if you go round, and put it on
every Clover leaf in the world.”

He had to do it, though it looked like an endless task,
and he never would have finished it, had not the other
Brownies all over the world come to help him; so it was
done at last. And that is the reason that every Clover
leaf to-day has on it the white mark like an arrowhead,
the Brownie sign for “good-to eat.”

The Cows get along better now, but still they are very
stupid; they go munching ahead without thinking, and will
even eat the blossoms which belong to the Bees. And the
Bees have to buzz very loudly and even sting the Cows on
their noses to keep them from stealing the bee-food. The
good little Bugs underground have the best time, for there
the Cows can not harm them, and the Bees never come
near. They eat when they are hungry and sleep when they
are cold, which is their idea of a good time; so except for
some little quarrels between the Cows and the Bees they
have all gotten along very well ever since.

TALE 20
The Shamrock and Her Three Sisters

The Shamrock is really the White Clover. It is much
the same shape as the Red Clover, and has the same food
bags in its cellar. It is just as good for Cows and even better
for Bees; so the Brownie stamped all its leaves with[53]
the white arrow mark, as you can plainly see. This plant,
as you know, is the emblem of Ireland.

The story-tellers say that St. Patrick was preaching to
Leary, the heathen King of Tara in Ireland hoping to turn
him into a Christian. The king listened attentively, but
he was puzzled by St. Patrick’s account of the Trinity.
“Stop,” said the king. “How can there be three Gods in
one and only one God where there are three. That is
impossible.” St. Patrick stooped down and picking up a
Shamrock leaf, said: “See, there it is, growing in your own
soil; there are three parts but only one leaf.” The king was
so much struck by this proof that he became a Christian and
ever since the Shamrock has been the emblem of Ireland.

Now to fill out the history of the Clovers, I should tell you
of the other three. The next is called Alsike, or the Pink
Clover.

When you look at this Alsike or Alsatian Clover, you
might think its mother was a red clover and its father a
white one, for it is about half way between them in size,
and its bloom is pink on the outside and white in the middle.
Evidently, the Brownie didn’t think much of it, for he did
not put his arrow mark on its leaves. Still the Cows think
it is good, the Bees think it is fine, and it always carried
lots of food bags in its cellar. So also does the next sister—Melilot,
the Yellow Clover or Honey-lotus—and the last
and sweetest of them all, is the Sweet Clover that spreads
sweet smells in the old-fashioned garden.

TALE 21
The Indian Basket-maker

The Indian Basket

“Come, little Nagami, my Bird-Singer, you are ten
years old, it is time you learned to make baskets. I made[55]
my first when I was but eight,” said Mother Akoko proudly,
for she was the best basket-maker on the river.

So they took a sharp stick, and went into the woods.
Akoko looked for spruce trees that had been blown down
by the storm, but found none, so she stopped under some
standing spruce, at a place with no underbrush and said:
“See, Nagami, here we dig for wattap.”

The spruce roots or “wattap” were near the surface and
easily found, but not easily got out, because they were long,
tangled and criss-crossed. Yet, by pulling up, and cutting
under, they soon got a bundle of roots like cords, and of
different lengths, from two feet to a yard, or more.

“Good,” said Akoko; “this is enough and we need not
soak them, for it is summer, and the sap is running. If it
were fall we should have to boil them. Now you must
scrape them clear of the brown bark.” So Nagami took
her knife and worked for an hour, then came with the bundle
saying: “See, Mother, they are smooth, and so white that
they have not a brown spot left.” “Good,” said Akoko,
“now you need some bark of the willow for sewing cord.
Let us look along the river bank.”

There they found the round-leafed, or fish-net willow,
and stripped off enough of its strong bark to make a bundle
as big as one hand could hold.

This also had to be scraped clear of the brown skin, leaving
only the strong whitish inner bark, which, when split
into strips, was good for sewing.

“See, my Nagami, when I was a little girl I had only a
bone needle made from the leg of a deer, but you have easy
work; here is a big steel packing needle, which I bought for
you from a trader. This is how you make your basket.”

So Akoko began a flat coil with the spruce roots, and
sewed it together with the willow bark for thread, until it
was a span wide. And whenever a new root was to be[56]
added, she cut both old piece and new, to a long point, so
they would overlap without a bump.

Then the next coil of the spruce roots was laid on, not
flat and level, but raised a little. Also the next, until the
walls were as high as four fingers. Then Akoko said, “Good,
that is enough. It is a fine corn basket. But we must give
it a red rim for good luck.”

So they sought in a sunny place along the shore, and
found the fruit of the squawberry or blitum. “See,” said
Akoko, “the miscawa. Gather a handful, my Nagami.
They make the red basket-dye.”

They crushed the rich red berries, saving the red juice in
a clam shell, and soaked a few strands of the white willow
bark in the stain. When they were dry, Nagami was taught
to add a rim to her basket, by sewing it over and over as
in the picture.

Then Akoko said, “Good, my little Bird-Singer, you have
done well, you have made some old black roots into a beautiful
basket.”

N.B. The Guide will remember that rattan and raffia can
be used for this when it is impossible to get spruce roots
and willow bark. Good dyes may be made from many
different berries.

TALE 22
Crinkleroot; or Who Hid the Salad?

It has long been the custom of the Brownies to have a
great feast on the first of the merry month of May, to celebrate
the return of the spring.

The Crinkleroot; or Who Hid the Salad?

One springtime long ago, they got ready as usual. The
King of the Brownies had invited all the leaders; the
place for the dinner was chosen in a grove of mandrakes[58]
whose flat umbrellas made a perfect roof, rain or shine.
The Bell Bird, whose other name is Wood Thrush, was
ringing his bell, and calling all the Chief Brownies by
name.

“Ta-rool-ya! ting-a-ling-ling-ling.“

“Oka-lee! ting-a-ling-ling-ling.“

“Cherk! ting-a-ling-ling-ling.“

“Come to the feasting! ting-a-ling-ling-ling.“

A hundred glow worms were told to hurry up with their
lights and be ready for that night, and busy Brownies
gathered good things from woods and waters, for the
feast.

May Day came bright and beautiful. The busy ones
had all the “eats” in the Mandrake Hall, the glowworms
were sleeping soundly to fill their storage batteries ready
for the night. It made the salamanders’ mouths water
to see so many good things; but they were not asked, so
stayed away. There were dewdrops in acorn cups, and
honey on the wax. There were clam shells piled up with
red checkerberries, and caddis worms on the half shell, with
spicebush nubbins. A huge white Mecha-meck was the
chief dish, with bog nuts on the side. There were lovely
long crinkle salads. And last, there were gumdrops from
the sweet birch, while at each place was a pussy willow
to dust the food over with golden pollen that gave it
a pleasant peppery tang. All the guests were there, and
the feast was nearly over, when a terrible thing took
place!

Of all the dreaded happenings in the world of beauty
there is nothing else so feared as the forest fire. There is
not much danger of it in springtime, but it is possible at
any season, after a long dry spell. Words cannot tell of
the horror it spreads, as it comes raging through the woods
destroying all beautiful living things.[59]

And right in the middle of the feast, the dreadful news
was carried by a flying Night-bird.

“Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire!” he screamed, and almost at once
the smoke came drifting through the banquet hall, so they
knew it was true.

There was mad haste to escape, and only two ways were
open. One was to get across some big stream, and the
other was to hide in a cave underground. The birds took
the first way, and the Brownies the second. Every Woodchuck
den was just packed with Brownies within a few
minutes. But the busy Brownie who was chief steward
and had charge of the feast, had no idea of leaving all the
good things to burn up, if he could help it. First he sent
six of his helpers to make a deep pit for the big Mecha-meck,
and while they did that he began hiding all the dishes
in the ground. Last he dug some deep holes and quickly
buried all the crinkle salads; then he ran for his life into a
cave.

The raging fire came along. It is too horrible to tell
about, for it was sent by the Evil One. The lovely woods
were left black without a living thing. But the very next
day, Mother Carey and Mother Earth and El Sol, set about
saving the wreck, and in a marvellously short time actually
had made it green again. The mayflowers came up a second
time that year, the violets came back, and in each place
where the Brownies had hid a salad there came up a curious
plant that never had been seen before. It had three
saw-edged leaves and a long wand, much like the one
carried by the Chief Steward. I never was able to
find out his name for sure, but I think it was Trileaf
or Three-leaves. Anyway, if you dig under his sign and
sceptre wand, you will surely find the salad, and very
good indeed it is to eat; it was not hurt in the least by
the fire.[60]

[61]

But from that day, the Brownies have been very shy
of feasting during dry weather in the woods. They generally
have their banquets now in some meadow, and afterward
you can tell the place of the feast by the circle of
little toadstools called fairy rings. For you know that
wherever a Brownie sits, a toadstool must spring up for
him to sit on.

The Mecha-meck

TALE 23
The Mecha-meck

That fearful time when the forest fire set all the Brownies
busy burying their food and dishes at the feast-hall, you
remember it took six of them to carry and hide the Mecha-meck.
For it is a large fat white root as big as a baby, and
sometimes it has arms or legs, so that when Monapini
told Ruth Pilgrim about it she called it “Man-of-the-earth.”

You remember that the busy Brownie hid all the Crinkle
salads, and so saved them; and most of us have found the
Crinkleroot and eaten it since. But how many of us have
found the Mecha-meck? I know only one man who has.
We call him the Wise Woodman. He found and dug out
the one from which I made the picture. It was two and a
half feet long and weighed fifteen pounds—fifteen pounds
of good food. Think of it! Above it and growing out
of its hiding place was a long trailing vine that looked like a
white morning-glory. There is always one of these over
the Mecha-meck. And by that you may find it, if you
look along the sunny banks outside of the woods. But
still it is very hard to find. I never yet got one, though
I have found many of the crinkle-root salads. Of
course, that is easy to explain, for the busy Brownies[63]
buried hundreds of the salads, but only one of the big
fat Mecha-meck.

TALE 24
Dutchman’s Breeches

Of course they are not, for no Dutchman I ever saw
could wear such tiny things. I will tell you what they really
are and how that came to be.

You remember how the Brownies assembled for the feast
on May Day when the Glow worms were the lamps and the
Wood Thrush rang the bell. Well, it so happened that day
that a great crowd of the merrymakers gathered long before
the feast was ready, and while they were wondering what
to do someone shouted: “See, how fine and warm the water
is where the brook spreads out into the ditch. Let us have
our first swim of the season right now!”

So they all went with a whoop! stripped off their clothes,
and into their swimming breeches with a perfect riot of
glee.

Then how they did splash! Some blind folks thought
it must be a million early pollywogs splashing. But the
swim ended with another racket when the dinner bell
rang.

Each splashing Brownie hopped out and hung up his
breeches to dry as he got into his clothes.

Then you remember the fire came along and scared them
away. Of course the breeches were wet, so they didn’t get
singed; and there you can see them hanging to this day on
the first of May. That is what they really are—Brownies’
Breeches. And because the Brownies often swim in a
ditch, they are called ditch-man’s breeches; but believe
me, they are not Dutchman’s breeches and never
could be.[64]

The Seven Sour Sisters

[65]

TALE 25
The Seven Sour Sisters

If you look along any half-open bank in the edge of the
woods, or even in the woods itself, you are sure to see one
of the Seven Sorrel Sisters, with leaves a little like Clover,
only notched in the end and without the white marks, that
the Brownie put on the Clover. There are seven of them,
according to most doctors; five have yellow eyes, one purple,
and one white streaked with blood. Their Latin name
means “vinegar” and their Greek name means “acid.”
“Sorrel” itself means “Little sour one,” so you see they have
the reputation of a sour bunch. If you eat one of the
leaves, you will agree that the name was well-chosen, and
understand why the druggists get the tart “salt of lemons”
from this family. The French use these Sour Sisters for
their sour soup. But in spite of their unsweetness, they
are among the pretty things of the woods; their forms are
delicate and graceful; their eyes are like jewels, and when
the night comes down, they bow their heads, gracefully
fold their hands, and sleep like a lot of tired children.

TALE 26
Self-heal or Blue-curls in the Grass

Self-heal or Blue-curls in the Grass

You should know the history of the lowly little flower
called Blue-curls; and you must remember that flowers
have their troubles just as you have. For one thing,
flowers must get their pollen or yellow flower-dust, carried
to some other of their kind, or they cannot keep on growing
good seed. And since the flower cannot walk about finding
places for its pollen, it generally makes a bargain with a
bee. It says, “If you will carry my pollen to my cousins[67]
yonder, I will give you a sweet sip of nectar.” That is
where the bees get the stuff for all their honey, and that is
how the pollen is carried.

Well, the modest little Blue-curls long had had a working
agreement with the Meadow Bees, and got on nicely.
But one summer Blue-curls became discontented. She
saw all the other plants with wonderful gifts that had power
to cure pain and sickness; while she was doing nothing
but live her own easy life, and she felt she was a nobody.

So one day as Mother Carey’s slowest steed was swishing
over the grass, Blue-curls cried out: “Mother Carey, Mother
Carey, won’t you hear me and grant me a gift?”

“What is it, little one?” said the All-mother.

“Oh, Mother Carey, the pansy cures heartache, the
monkshood cures canker-lip, the tansy cures colds, and all the
others have some joy and honour of service, but I am good for
nothing, Mother Carey so the wise men despise me. Won’t
you give me a job? Won’t you give me some little power?”

“Little one, such an asking never finds me deaf. I love
those who would help. I will give you a little bit of all
healing so that you shall be good medicine, if not the best,
for all ills, and men shall call you ‘Self-heal’ and ‘All-heal’
for you shall have all healing in yourself.”

And it has been so ever since. So that some who go by
looks call the modest little meadow flower, “Blue-curls
in the Grass,” but the old herb-men who know her goodness
call her “All-heal” or “Self-heal.”

TALE 27
The Four Butterflies You See Every Summer

Summer Butterflies (a little over life size)

There are four Butterflies that you are sure to see every
summer, on our fields; and remember that each of them goes
through the same changes. First it is an egg, then a greedy[69]
grub, next a hanging bundle-baby, and last a beautiful
winged fairy, living a life of freedom and joy.

In the picture I have shown the butterflies life size, but
you must add the colour as you get each one to copy.

The first is the White or Cabbage Butterfly that flits over
our gardens all summer long.

It is not a true American, but came from Europe in 1860
and landed at Quebec, from whence it has spread all over
the country. In the drawing I have shown the female;
the male is nearly the same but has only one round dark
spot on the front wings. Its grub is a little naked green
caterpillar, that eats very nearly a million dollars’ worth
of cabbages a year; so it is a pity it was ever allowed to
land in this country. There are moths that we should like
to get rid of, but this is the only butterfly that is a pest.

2nd. The Yellow or Clouded Sulphur Butterfly. You are
sure to find it, as soon as you begin to look for butterflies.
This is the one that is often seen in flocks about mud puddles.

When I was a very small boy, I once caught a dozen of
them, and made a little beehive to hold them, thinking
that they would settle down and make themselves at home,
just like bees or pigeons. But the grown-ups made me let
them fly away, for the Sulphur is a kindly creature, and
does little or no harm.

One of the most beautiful things I ever came across, was,
when about ten years old, I saw on a fence stake ahead of
me a big bird that was red, white and blue, with a flaming
yellow fan-crest. Then as I came closer, I knew that it
was a red-headed woodpecker, with a Sulphur Butterfly in his
beak; this made the crest; what I thought was blue turned
out to be his glossy black back reflecting the blue sky.

3rd. The next is the Red Admiral or Nettle Butterfly.
The “red” part of the name is right, but why “Admiral”?
I never could see unless it was misprint for “Admirable.”[70]

Red Admiral

[71]

Tiger Swallowtail (life size)

[72]

This beautiful insect lays its eggs and raises its young on
nettles, and where nettles are, there is the Red Admiral also.
And that means over nearly all the world! Its caterpillar
is not very well protected with bristles, not at all when
compared with the Woolly-bear, but it lives in the nettles,
and, whether they like it or not, the hospitable nettles
with their stings protect the caterpillar. The crawler may
be grateful, but he shows it in a poor way, for he turns on
the faithful nettle, and eats it up. In fact the only food
he cares about is nettle-salad, and he indulges in it several
times a day, yes all day long, eating, growing and bursting
his skin a number of times, till he is big enough to hang himself
up for the winter, probably in a nettle. Then next
spring he comes forth, in the full dress uniform of a Red
Admiral, gold lace, red sash, silver braid and all.

4th. The last of the four is the Tiger Swallowtail. You
are sure to see it some day—the big yellow butterfly that
is striped like a tiger, with peacock’s feathers in its train,
and two long prongs, like a swallow-tail, to finish off with.
It is found in nearly all parts of the Eastern States and
Canada. I saw great flocks of them on the Slave River
of the North.

It is remarkable in that there are both blondes and brunettes
among its ladies. The one shown in the drawing is a
blonde. The brunettes are so much darker as to be nearly
black; and so different that at one time everyone thought
they were of a different kind altogether.

TALE 28
The Beautiful Poison Caterpillar

The Beautiful Poison Caterpillar (the moth is a little over life size)

The lovely Io Moth is one that you will see early, and
never forget, for it is common, and ranges over all the[74]
country from Canada to the Gulf. When you see it, you will
be inclined to spell its name Eye-oh—for it has on each
wing a splendid eye like that on a peacock’s tail-feather,
while the rest of its dress is brown velvet and gold.

There is a strange chapter in the life of Io, which you
should know because it shows that Mother Carey never
gives any wonderful gift to her creatures without also giving
with it some equal burden of sorrow.

This is how it all came about.

Long ago when the little ones of the Io Moth were small,
they were, like most caterpillars, very ugly little things.
They felt very badly about it, and so they set out one day
for the great Home Place of Mother Carey in the Whispering
Grove of the Ages.

There they prayed, “Dear Mother Carey, we are not of
an ugly race, why should we be so ugly as caterpillars?
Will you not make us beautiful, for beauty is one of the best
things of all?”

Mother Carey smiled and waved a finger toward a little
Brownie, who came with a tray on which were two cups;
one full of bright sparkling pink stuff, and the other with
something that looked like dark green oil. But the glasses
were joined at the top, there was but one place to drink,
and that reached both.

Then Mother Carey said, “These are the goblets of
life, one is balm and will give you joy, the other is gall
and will give you suffering. You may drink little or much,
but you must drink equally of both. Now what would
ye?”

The little ugly creatures whispered together, then one
said: “Mother Carey, if we drink, will it give us beauty?”

“Yes, my children, the red goblet of life will give you
beauty, but with it the other will give you grief.”

They whispered together, then all the little crawlers[75]
went silently forward, and each took a long drink of the
double goblet.

Then they crawled away, and at once became the most
beautiful of all caterpillars, brilliant jewel-green with stripes
of pink, velvet, and gold. Never before were there seen
such exquisite little crawlers.

But now a sad thing happened. They were so beautiful
that many creatures became their enemies, and began to
kill them and eat them one after another. They crawled
as fast as they could, and hid away, but many of them were
killed by birds and beasts of prey, as well as by big fierce
insects.

They did not know what to do, so next day the few that
were left crawled back to the Grove of Ages, and once more
stood before Mother Carey.

“Well, my Beauty-crawlers,” she said, “what would
you?”

“Oh, Mother Carey, it is fearful, everyone seeks to destroy
us. Most of us are killed, and many of us wounded.
Will you not protect us?”

“You drank of the two goblets, my children. I warned
you that your beauty would bring terrible trouble with it.”

They bowed their little heads in silent sorrow, for they
knew that that was true.

“Now,” said the All-Mother, “do you wish to go back
and be ugly again?”

They whispered together and said: “No, Mother Carey,
it is better to be beautiful and die.”

The Splendid Silk-Moth (about 1/2 life size)

Then Mother Carey looked on them very kindly, and
said: “Little ones, I love your brave spirit. You shall not
die. Neither shall you lose your beauty. I will give you
a defence that will keep off all your enemies but one, that
is the Long-stinger Wasp, for you must in some way pay
for your loveliness.” She waved her wand, and all over each[77]
of the Beauty-crawlers, there came out bunches of sharp
stickers like porcupine quills, only they were worse than
porcupine quills for each of the stickers was poisoned at
the tip, so that no creature could touch the Beauty-crawlers
without being stung.

The birds and beasts let them alone now, or suffer a
terrible punishment from the poison spears. You children,
too, must beware of them; touch them not, they will give
you festering wounds. There is only one creature now that
the Beauty-crawlers truly fear; that is the Long-stinger
Wasp. He does indeed take toll of their race, but that is
the price they still must pay for their beauty. Did they
not drink of the double goblet?

TALE 29

The Great Splendid Silk-Moth or Samia Cecropia

When I was a very small boy, I saw my father bring in
from the orchard a ragged looking thing like parchment
wrapped up with some tangled hair; it was really the bundle-baby
of this Moth. He kept it all winter, and when the
spring came, I saw for the first time the great miracle of the
insect world—the rag bundle was split open, and out came
this glorious creature with wings of red and brown velvet,
embroidered with silver and spots that looked like precious
stones. It seemed the rarest thing in the world, but I
have found out since, that it is one of our common moths,
and any of you can get one, if you take the trouble.

Now listen, and you shall hear of what happened long
ago to a green crawler who was born to be a splendid
Silk-Moth, but who spoiled it all by a bad temper.

It had been a very cold, wet summer, and one day, when[78]
the wind was whispering, he cried out: “Mother Carey,
when I have done with my working life, and go into the
Great Sleep, grant that it may never rain on me for I
hate rain, and it has done nothing but pour all summer
long.” And he shivered the red knobs on his head with
peevishness.

“You silly little green crawler, don’t you think I know
better than you what is good for you? Would you like
there to be no rain?”

“Yes, I would,” said the red-knobbed Samia rebelliously.

“Would you?” said the All-Mother to another green
crawler, who hung on a near-by limb.

“Mother Carey, we have had a wet, cold summer, and
the rain has been miserable, but I know you will take care
of us.”

“Good,” said the All-Mother: “then, in this way it shall
be. You little Red-Knobs shall have what you so much
wish, you shall hang up in a dry loft where not a drop of
dew even shall touch you in your bundle-baby sleep. And
you little Yellow-Knobs shall hang under a limb where
every rain that comes shall drench your outer skin.” And
she left them.

When the time came to hang up, Red-Knobs was led to
a place as dry as could be, under a shed and swung his
bundle-baby hammock from the rafters.

Yellow-Knobs hung up his hammock under a twig in
the rose garden.

The winter passed, and the springtime came with the
great awakening day. Each of the bundle-babies awoke
from his hammock and broke his bonds. Each found his
new wings, and set about shaking them out to full size
and shape. Those of the rain-baby came quickly to their
proper form, and away he flew to rejoice in perfect life.
But though the other shook and shook, his wings would[79]
not fluff out. They seemed dried up; they were numbed
and of stunted growth.

Shake as he would, the wings stayed small and twisted.
And as he struggled, a Butcher-bird came by. His fierce
eye was drawn by the fluttering purple thing. It had no
power to escape. He tore its crumpled wings from its
feathery form, and made of it a meal. But before dying
it had time to say, “Oh, Mother Carey, now I know that
your way was the best.”

TALE 30
The Green Fairy with the Long Train

Some fairies are Brownies and some are Greenies, and of
all that really and truly dance in the moonlight right here
in America, Luna Greenie seems the most wonderful; and
this is her history:

Once upon a time there was a seed pearl that dropped
from the robe of a green fairy. It stuck on the leaf of a
butternut tree till one warm day Mother Carey, who knows
all the wild things and loves them all, touched it with her
magic wand, called Hatch-awake, and out of the seed pearl
came an extraordinarily ugly little dwarf, crawling about
on many legs. He was just as greedy as he was ugly, and
he ate leaf after leaf of the butternut tree, and grew so
fat that he burst his skin. Then a new skin grew, and he
kept on eating and bursting until he was quite big. But
he had also become wise and gentle; he had learned many
things, and was not quite so greedy now.

The Green Fairy With the Long Train (about 4/5 life size)

Mother Carey, the All-Mother, had been watching him,
and knew that now he was ready for the next step up. She
told him to make himself a hammock of rags and leaves,
in the butternut tree. When he had crawled into it, she[81]
touched him with her wand, the very same as the one she
used when she sent the Sleeping Beauty into her long sleep.
Then that little dwarf went soundly to sleep, hanging in
his hammock.

Summer passed; autumn came; the leaves fell from the
butternut tree, taking the bundle-baby with them, exactly
as in the old rhyme:

Rock-a-bye baby on the tree-top,
When the wind blows, your cradle will rock,
When the cold weather makes all the leaves fall,
Down tumbles baby and cradle and all.

But the hammock, with its sleeper, landed in a deep
bed of leaves, and lay there all winter, quite safe and
warm.

Then when the springtime sun came over the hill, Mother
Carey came a-riding on the Warm Wind, and waving her
wand. She stopped and kissed the sleeping bundle-baby,
just as the Prince kissed the Sleeping Beauty, and instantly
the baby awoke. Then happened the strangest thing.
Out of that ragged old hammock there came the most wonderful
and beautiful Green Fairy ever seen, with wings
and with two trains; and as it came out and looked shyly
around, trembling with new life, Mother Carey whispered,
“Go to the butternut grove and see what awaits you
there.”

So away she went. Oh, how easy and glorious it is to
fly! She could remember how once she used to crawl everywhere.
And through the soft sweet night she flew, as she
was told, straight to the butternut grove. As she came near
she saw many green fairies—a great crowd of them—gathered
in the moonlight, and dancing round and round in
fluttering circles, swooping about and chasing each other,
or hiding in the leaves. They did not feast, for these fairies[82]
never eat, and they drink only honey from flowers. But
there was a spirit of great joy over them all. And there
were some there with longer head plumes than those she
wore. They seemed stronger and one of them came with a
glad greeting to the new Green Dancer and though she flew
away, she was bursting with joy that he should single her
out. He pursued her till he caught her, and hand in hand
they danced together in the moonlight. She was happier
than she had known it was possible to be, and danced all
night—that wonderful wedding dance. But she was very
tired when morning was near, and high in the tree she slept
so soundly that she never noticed that many seed pearls that
were clustered on the lining of her robe had got loose and
rolled into the crevices of the trunk. There they lay until
Mother Carey came to touch them with her magic wand,
so each became a crawler-dwarf, then a bundle-baby, and
at last a dancing fairy.

But the Green Dancer did not know that—she knew only
that it was a glorious thing to be alive, and fly, and to
dance in the moonlight.

You must never fail to watch under the butternut tree
on mid-summer nights, for it is quite possible that you may
see the wedding dance of the Luna Greenie and her sisters
with the long-trained robes.

TALE 31
The Wicked Hoptoad and the Little Yellow
Dragon

The Wicked Hoptoad and the Little Yellow Dragon

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little Yellow
Dragon, who lived a happy and innocent life on the high
banks of a prattling stream. The Dragon himself was dumb[84]
but he loved a merry noise, and nothing pleased him more
than the prattling of the water. Sometimes this pleasant
little Dragon went up stream, where it was noisy, and
sometimes he went down stream, where it was very silent,
and rested awhile in little pools. Here it was that he met
with his first enemy, a warty Hoptoad with jealous eyes.
That Toad thought that he owned the pools because he
bathed there every springtime, and though it was a kind
little Dragon, the Toad hated him, and began to plot against
him.

“Ho! little Yellow Dragon,” he said, “you are very wonderful
to see, and you must be very clever; but you haven’t
got everything you want, have you?”

The Dragon smiled, shook his head, and made silent
signs with his lips. Then the Toad understood, for he said:
“Ho-ho, I understand that you cannot speak. But are
you happy?”

The Dragon smiled sweetly and nodded, then pointed
to the stream.

That made the Toad madder than ever, for he thought
it meant that the Dragon was claiming the whole
stream. So the Toad said: “See, Dragon, there is a
wonderful food that you have never tasted, that is a
poached egg.”

This he said with his heart full of guile, for he knew full
well that poached eggs are deadly poison to Dragons.

The Dragon looked puzzled, and the Toad said, “Have
you?”

The Dragon shook his head. “Well,” said the Toad, “it
is the most delicious thing in the woods; now you wait
and see.”

He went hoppity-hop, to a sand-bank where he had seen
a Turtle lay its eggs that morning. He dug out one. He
rolled it upon a stone, and split it open with the sharp spur[85]
on his heel. As soon as it was stiffened by the sun heat,
he said, “Here now, Dragon, swallow it down, while I get
another for myself.”

The poor innocent little Dragon did not know any better.
He tried to swallow the poached egg. The moment he did,
it stuck in his throat, and poisoned him. At once his toes
sank into the ground. He turned green all over, and his
head was changed into a strange new flower. There it is
to this day, standing silently where it can hear the brook
a-prattling. Its body is green all over, and its head is yellow
and its jaws are wide open with a poached egg stuck in its
throat. And that is how it all came about. Some call
it Toad Flax, and some call it Butter and Eggs, but we who
know how it happened call it the Dragon and the Poached
Egg.

Poor dear little Yellow Dragon!

TALE 32
The Fairy Bird or the Humming-bird Moth

When I was a schoolboy, a number of my companions
brought the news that the strangest bird in the world had
come that day to our garden and hovered over the flowers.
It was no bigger than a bumble-bee. “No! It was not a
humming-bird,” they said, “it was smaller by far, much
more beautiful, and it came and went so fast that no one
could see it go.”

The Fairy Bird (1-1/2 life size)

Every guess that I made seemed not to fit the wonderful
bird, or help to give it a name that would lead us to its
history in the books. The summer went by, several schoolmates
saw the Wonderbird, and added stories of its marvellous
smallness and mysterious habits. Its body, they
said, was of green velvet with a satin-white throat; it had[87]
a long beak—at least an inch long—a fan-tail of many
feathers, two long plumes from its head, “the littlest feet
you ever have seen,” and large lustrous eyes that seemed
filled with human intelligence. “It jest looked right at
you, and seemed like a fairy looking at you.”

The wonder grew. I made a sketch embodying all the
points that my companions noted about the Fairy Bird.
The first drawing shows what it looked like, and also gives
the exact size they said it was.

It seemed a cruel wrong that let so many of them see the
thing that was of chief interest to me, yet left me out. It
clearly promised a real fairy, an elfin bird, a wonderful
messenger from the land I hungered to believe in.

But at last my turn came. One afternoon two of the
boys ran toward me, shouting: “Here it is, the little Fairy
Bird, right in the garden over the honeysuckle. C’mon,
quick!”

I rushed to the place, more excited than I can tell. Yes,
there it was, hovering over the open flowers—tiny, wonderful,
humming as it swung on misty wings. I made a quick
sweep of my insect net and, marvellous to relate, scooped
up the Fairy Bird. I was trembling with excitement now,
not without a sense of wickedness that I should dare to
net a fairy—practically an angel. But I had done it, and
I gloated over my captive, in the meshes. Yes, the velvet
body and snowy throat were there, the fan-tail, the plumes
and the big dark eyes, but the creature was not a bird; it
was an insect! Dimly now I remembered, and in a few
hours, learned, as I had feared, that I had not captured a
young angel or even a fairy—it was nothing but a Humming-bird
Moth, a beautiful insect—common in some regions,
scarce in some, such as mine—but perfectly well known
to men of science and never afterward forgotten by any
of that eager schoolboy group.[88]

TALE 33
Ribgrass or Whiteman’s-Foot

If you live in the country or in a small town, you will
not have to go many steps, in summer time, before you
find the little plant known as Ribgrass, Plantain, or Whiteman’s-foot.
If you live in a big city, you may find it in any
grassy place, but will surely see it, as soon as you reach the
suburbs. It grows on the ground, wherever it can see the
sun, and is easily known by the strong ribs, each with a
string in it when you pull the leaf apart. The Indians
call it Whiteman’s-foot, not because it is broad and flat,
but because it came from Europe with the white man; it
springs up wherever he sets his foot, and it has spread over
all America. Gardeners think it a troublesome weed;
but the birds love its seed; canary birds delight in it; and
each plant of the Ribgrass may grow many thousands of
seeds in a summer.

How many? Let us see! Take a seed-stalk of the Plantain
and you will find it thickly set with little cups, as in
the drawing. Open one of these cups, and you find in it
five seeds. Count the cups; there are two hundred on this
stalk, each with about five seeds, that is, one thousand
seeds; but the plant has five or more seed-stalks, some have
more (one before me now has seventeen), but suppose it has
only ten; then there are 10,000 seeds each summer from one
little plant. Each seed can grow up into a new plant; and,
if each plant were as far from the next as you can step, the
little ones in a row the following summer would reach for
nearly six miles; that is, from the City Hall to the end of
Central Park, New York.[B]

[89]

The Ribgrass

[90]
[91]

On the third year if all had the full number of seed, and
all the seed grew into plants, there would be enough to go
more than twice round the world. No wonder it has spread
all over the country.

TALE 34
Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Once upon a time there was a missionary named
the Rev. John T. Arum, who set out to preach to the
Indians. He had a good heart but a bitter, biting tongue.
He had no respect for the laws of the Indians, so they killed
him, and buried him in the woods. But out of his grave
came a new and wonderful plant, shaped like a pulpit, and
right in the middle of it, as usual, was the Reverend Jack
hard at it, preaching away.

If you dig down under the pulpit you will find the preacher’s
body, or his heart, in the form of a round root. Taste
it and you will believe that the preacher had a terribly
biting tongue, but treat it properly, that is boil it, and
you will find out that after all he had a good little heart
inside. Even the Indians have discovered his good qualities
and have become very fond of him.

TALE 35
How the Indian Pipe Came

How the Indian Pipe Came

In the last tale you learned the fate of the Rev. John
T. Arum, and the origin of Jack-in-the-Pulpit. But you
must not suppose for a moment that the Indians decided
in a hurry to kill the missionary. No, they had too much
sense of fair play for that. They held a great many councils
first to find some way of curbing his tongue, and making
him mind his own business. In fact, they got into the habit[93]
of holding a council every few minutes to discuss the question,
no matter where they were or what else they were doing.
So that pretty nearly every part of the woods was in time
used for a council ring to discuss the fate of the Rev. John
T. Arum.

Of course, you know that no Indian can hold a council
without smoking the Peace Pipe, and when the council
is over, he empties out the ashes of the pipe. So that when
all those councils were over, when the matter was settled,
when the missionary was buried, and when the warrior
had gone to the ghost land, there came solemnly poking
its white bowl and stem from under the leaves an Indian
pipe, at the very spot where the Councillors had emptied
the ashes. It is a beautifully shaped pipe, with a curved
and feathered stem, but it has none of the bright colours
of the old Peace Pipe. It cannot have them for this is only
a ghost Pipe to show where the council used to be; and
one pipe there is for each council held on that spot, so you
see how many, many councils the Indians had, before they
killed the troublesome preacher. And sometimes you can
find a pipe that has the bowl still filled with ghost tobacco
or even a little red ghost fire, showing that the warriors
had to hurry away before that council was finished. Whenever
you find the ghost pipe in the woods, you are sure to
see close by either a log, a bank or a rock on which the Councillors
sat to talk it over.

TALE 36
The Cucumber Under the Brownie’s Umbrella

The Indians had Brownies, only they called them Pukwudjies,
and I am going to tell you a story of an Indian
Brownie.

The Cucumber Under the Brownie’s Umbrella

Whenever the Indians got together for a council, the[95]
Brownies did the same thing, in the woods near by. It
was a kind of Brownie Fair, and some of the little people
used to have stands and sell refreshments. Berries were
scarce in the springtime, but the Brownies were very fond
of cucumber. So there were always one or two Cucumber
Brownies, who set up their little umbrellas, and sold slices
of Cucumber to the others.

When it was time to go home, or when the sun got so hot
that the cucumbers were likely to spoil, they would bury
them in the ground, but leave the umbrella to mark the
place. And there they are yet; many a time have I found
the umbrella, and dug under it to find the cucumber. It
is delicious eating; everything that Brownies like is. You
can find it, and try it. It is one of the things that Monapini
taught Ruth Pilgrim to eat. (Tale 18).

Of course, the Brownies do not like you to dig up their
treasure or good-to-eats, but there are plenty more, far
more than they ever need. “Yet what about it,” you say,
“if the Brownie happens to be there?”

He may be sitting right under the umbrella, but remember
the little people are invisible to our eyes. You will not
see him; at least I never did.

TALE 37
The Hickory Horn-devil

Hush, whisper! Did you ever meet a Hickory Horn-devil?
No! Well I did, and I tell you he is a terror.
Look at this picture of him. It is true, only he is not quite
so big as that, though he looks as if he might be. And I
was not quite so small as that, only I felt as if I were!
And everything about him looked horribly strong, poisonous
and ugly. He was a real devil.[96]

The Hickory Horn-devil (1/2 life size)

[97]

I did not know his history then; I did not learn it for a
long time after, but I can tell it to you now.

Once upon a time there was a little, greenish, blackish
worm. He loved pretty things, and he hated to be ugly,
as he was. No one wanted him, and he was left all alone,
a miserable little outcast. He complained bitterly to
Mother Carey, and asked if she would not bless him with
some grace, to help him in his troubles.

Mother Carey said: “Little ugly worm; you are having
a hard time, because in your other life, before you came into
this shape, you had an ugly, hateful spirit. You must go
through this one as you are, until the Great Sleep comes;
after that, you will be exactly what you have made of
yourself.”

Then the little ugly worm said: “Oh Mother Carey, I
am as miserable as I can be; let me be twice as ugly, if, in
the end, I may be twice as beautiful.”

Mother Carey said gravely, “Do you think you could
stand it, little worm? We shall see.”

From that time the worm got bigger and uglier, no creature
would even talk to him. The birds seemed to fear
him, and the Squirrels puffed out little horror-snorts, when
they saw him coming, even the other worms kept away
from him.

So he went on his lonely life, uglier and more hated than
ever. He lived chiefly on a big hickory tree, so men called
him the Hickory Horn-devil.

One day as he was crawling on a fence, a hen with chickens
came running after him, to eat him. But when she saw how
ugly he was she cried: “Oh, Lawk, lawk! Come away,
children, at once!”

At another time he saw a Chipmunk teaching its little
ones to play tag. They looked so bright and happy, he
longed, not to join them because he could only crawl, but[98]
to have the happiness of looking on. But when he came
slowly forward, and the old Chipmunk saw him waving his
horns and looking like a green poisonous reptile, she
screamed, “Run, my children!” and all darted into their
hole while Mother Chipmunk stuffed up the doorway with
earth.

But the most thrilling thing of all that he saw was one
day as the sun went down, a winged being of dazzling beauty
alighted for a moment on his hickory tree. Never had the
Horn-devil seen such a dream of loveliness. Her slender
body was clad in rose velvet, and her wings were shining
with gold. The very sight of her made him hate himself,
yet he could not resist the impulse to crawl nearer, to gaze
at her beauty.

But her eyes rested a moment on his horrible shape, and
she fled in fear, while a voice near by said: “The Spangled
Queen does not love poisonous reptiles.” Then the
poor little Horn-devil wished he were dead. He hid away
from sight for three days. Hunger however forced him
out, and as he was crawling across a pathway, a man who
came along was going to crush him underfoot, but Mother
Carey whispered, “No, don’t do it.” So the man let him
live, but roughly kicked the worm aside, and bruised him
fearfully.

Then came Mother Carey and said: “Well, little ugly
worm! Is your spirit strong, or angry?”

The worm said bravely, though feebly: “Mother, Mother
Carey, I am trying to be strong. I want to win.”

The breezes were losing their gentle warmth when
Mother Carey came to him one day, and said: “Little one,
your trial has been long, but it is nearly over.

“Prepare to sleep now, my little horny one, you have
fought a brave fight; your reward is coming. Because your
soul has been made beautiful by your suffering, I will give[99]
you a body blazing with such beauty as shall make all stand
in adoration when you pass.” Then Mother Earth said,
“Our little one shall have extra care because he has had
extra trials.” So the tired little Horn-devil did not even
have to make himself a hammock, for Mother Earth received
him and he snuggled into her bosom. As Mother
Carey waved her wand, he dropped off asleep. And he
slept for two hundred days.

Then came the great Awakening Day, the resurrection
day of the woods. Many new birds arrived. Many new
flowers appeared. Sleepers woke from underground, as
Mother Carey’s silent trumpeters went bugling ahead of
her, and her winged horse, the Warm Wind, came sweeping
across the meadows, with the white world greening as he
came.

The bundle-baby of the Horn-devil woke up. He was
cramped and sleepy, but soon awake. Then he knew that
he was a prisoner, bound up in silken cords of strength.
But new powers were his now, he was able to break the
cords and crawl out of his hole. He put up his feelers to
find those horrible horns, but they were gone, and his devil
form fell off him like a mask. He had wings, jewelled
wings! on his back now. Out he came to fluff the newfound
wings awhile, and when they were spread and supple
he flew into the joyful night, one of the noblest of all the
things that fly, gorgeous in gold and velvet, body and wings;
filled with the joy of life and flight, he went careering through
the soft splendour of the coming night. And as he flew,
he glimpsed a radiant form ahead, a being like himself, with
wings of velvet and gold. At first he thought it was the
Princess of the Hickory Tree, but now his eyes were perfect,
and he could see that this was a younger and more
beautiful Spangled Princess than the one of his bygone
life, and all his heart was filled with the blazing fire of love.[100]
Fearlessly now he flew to overtake her; for was she not of
his own kind? She sped away, very fast at first, but maybe
she did not go as fast as she could, for soon he was sailing
by her side. At first she turned away a little, but she was
not cross or frightened now. She was indeed inclined to
play and tease. Then in their own language, he asked her
to marry him, and in their own language she said, “yes.”
Away they flew and flew on their wedding flight, high in
the trees in the purple night, glorious in velvet and gold,
more happy than these printed words can tell.

The wise men who saw them said, “There go the Royal
Citheronia and his bride.” And Mother Carey smiled
as she saw their bliss, and remembered the Hickory Horn-devil.[101]

[102]

THINGS TO SEE IN AUTUMNTIME

The Purple and Gold of Autumn

[103]

Things to See in Autumntime

TALE 38
The Purple and Gold of Autumn

There was once an old gentleman named Father
Time, and he had four beautiful daughters.

The eldest was called Winter Time. She was
tall and pale. She dressed chiefly in white wool trimmed
with wonderful lacework. She was much admired by some,
but others considered her very cold and distant. And
most agreed that she was the least winsome of the sisters.

The second one was called Spring Time, and she was
dressed in beautiful golden-green satin. She had a gentle,
sunny disposition; some thought her the loveliest.

The third was Summer Time, and her robe was dark-green
velvet. She was warm-hearted and most attractive,
full of life and energy, and as unlike the eldest sister as
possible.

The youngest was Autumn Time. She certainly was a
wonderful creature, with red rosy cheeks, plump form,
and riotous good spirits. Her robes were gorgeous and
a little extravagant, for she wore a new one every day,
and of all that she had, the one that she loved the best
and wore the latest was of purple and gold. We can go
out in October and see the purple and gold, and gather
some scraps of the robe, for it is on every wayside and
every hillside.[104]

TALE 39
Why the Chicadee Goes Crazy Twice a Year

A long time ago, when it was always summer in our
woods, the Chicadees lived merrily with their cousins, and
frolicked the whole year round. But one day Mother
Carey sent the small birds a warning that they must move
to the South, when the leaves fell from the trees, for hard
frost and snow were coming, and maybe starvation too.

All the cousins of the Chicadees listened to the warning
and got ready to go; but Tomtit, their leader, only laughed
and turned a dozen wheels around a twig that served him
for a bar.

“Go to the South?” said he. “Not I; I am too happy
here; and as for frost and snow, I never saw any, and I
don’t believe there are such things.”

Very soon the leaves fell from the trees and the Nut-hatches
and the King-wrens were so busy getting ready to
go that the Chicadees left off play for a minute, to ask
questions. They were not pleased with the answer they
got, for the messenger had said that all of them were to take
a long, long journey that would last for days, and the little
King-wrens had actually to go as far as the Gulf of Mexico.
Besides, they were to fly by night, to avoid their enemies,
the Hawks, and the weather at this season was sure to be
stormy. So the Chicadees said it was all nonsense, and
went off, singing and chasing one another through the woods,
led by Tomtit singing a new song in which he made fun of
the travellers.

[105]

But their cousins were quite serious. They picked out
wise leaders and formed themselves into bands. They
learned that they must follow their leader, they must twitter
as they flew in the darkness, so as to let those behind know
where\he leaders were; they must follow the great rivers
southward; they must wait for a full moon before starting,
and never travel by day.

The noisy, rollicking Chicadees continued to make fun
of their cousins as they saw them now gathering in the
woods along the river; and at length, when the moon was
big, bright, and full, the cousins arose to the call of the
leaders and all flew away in the gloom. The Chicadees
said that all the cousins were crazy, made some good jokes
about the Gulf of Mexico, and then dashed away on their
favourite game of tag and tumble through the woods, which,
however, did seem rather quiet now, and bare of leaves;
while the weather, too, was certainly turning uncomfortably
cool.

At length the frost and snow really did come, and the
Chicadees were in a bad way. Indeed, they were frightened
out of their wits, and dashed hither and thither, seeking
in vain for some one to set them aright on the way to the
warm land. They flew wildly about the woods, till they
were truly crazy. I suppose there was not a squirrel-hole
or a hollow log in the neighbourhood that some Chicadee
did not enter to inquire if this was the Gulf of Mexico.
But no one could tell anything about it, no one was going
that way, and the great river was hidden under ice and
snow.

About this time a messenger from Mother Carey was
passing with a message to the Caribou in the Far North;
but all he could tell the Chicadees was that he could not
be their guide, as he had other business. “Besides,” he
[106]said, “you had the same notice as your cousins whom you
called ‘crazy.’ And from what I know of Mother Carey,
you will probably have to stick it out here all through the
snow, not only now, but in every winter after this; so you
may as well make the best of it.”

This was sad news for the Chicadee Tomtits; but they
were brave little fellows, and seeing they could not help
themselves, they went about making the best of it. Before
a week had gone by they were in their usual good spirits
again, scrambling about the snowy twigs, or chasing one
another as before.

They were glad to remember now that Mother Carey
said that winter would end. They told each other about
it so much that even at its beginning, when a fresh blizzard
came on, they would gleefully remark to one another that
it was a “sign of spring,” and one or another of the flock
would lift his voice in the sweet little chant that we all
know so well:

Spring soon

Spring com-ing

And winter did end. Spring did come at last. And the
sign of its coming was when the ice broke on the stream
and the pussy willow came purring out above it. The air
was full of the good news. The Chicadees felt it, and knew
it through and through. They went mad with joy, chasing
each other round and round the trees and through the
hollow logs, shouting “The spring is here, the spring is
here, Hurree, Hurree, Hurree,” and in another week
their joyous lives were going on as before the trouble
came.

But to this day, when the chill wind blows through the
deserted woods, the Chicadees seem to lose their wits for a
few days, and dart into all sorts of queer places. They
may then be found in great cities, or open prairies, cellars,
chimneys, and hollow logs; and the next time you find one
of the wanderers in any out-of-the-way corner, be sure to
remember that the Chicadee goes crazy twice a year, in the
fall and in the spring, and probably went into his strange
hole or town in search of the Gulf of Mexico.

TALE 40

The Story of the Quaking Aspen or Poplar

The leaf of the Quaking Asp is like the one marked
“a” in the drawing. Its trunk is smooth, greenish, or
whitish, with black knots of bark like “c”. All the
farmers know it as Popple, or White Poplar; but the
hunters call it Quaking Asp or Aspen.

The Story of the Quaking Aspen

The name “quaking” was given because it is for ever
shaking its leaves; the slightest wind sets them all rustling.
[109]They move so easily because each leaf-stem is like a thin,
flat strap set on edge; while the leaf-stem of such as the oak
is nearly round and scarcely rustles at all. Why does the
Quaking Asp do this? No doubt, because it lives in places
where the hot dust falls thick on the leaves at times, and
if it did not have some trick of shaking it off, the leaf would
be choked and bent so that the tree could scarcely breathe;
for the leaves are the lungs of the trees. So remember,
when the Poplar rustles loudly, it is coughing to clear its
lungs of the dust.

Some trees try to hide their troubles, and quickly cover
up their wounds; but the Aspen has a very touchy skin and,
once it is wounded, it shows the scar as long as it lives.
We can, therefore, go to any Aspen tree, and have it tell
us the story of its life. Here is the picture of one. The
black marks at the forks (c) are scars of growth; the belts
of dots (d) were wounds given by a sapsucker to rob it of its
sap; the flat places (e) show where a Red Squirrel gnawed off
the outer bark.

If a Raccoon climbed the tree (f), or an insect bored into
the trunk, we are sure to see a record of it in this sensitive
bark.

Now, last of all, the paper on which this story is printed
was likely made out of Aspen wood.

TALE 41

The Witch-hazel

Witch-hazel

These are the things to make you remember the Witch-hazel;
its forked twig was used—nay, still is used—as a
magic rod to show where there is running water underground;
that is, where it is possible to find water by sinking
a well. Its nuts are explosive, and go off with a snap,
[111]shooting the seeds that are inside, ten or twenty feet away,
when the cold dry days of autumn come. Third, its curious
golden-thread flowers appear in the fall.

As Cracked Jimmy used to sing:-

On November 16, 1919, after a sharp frost, I went
out in the morning to get some Witch-hazel flowers
for this drawing, and found them blooming away in the
cold air, vigorously as ever. Imagine a flower that can
bloom while it is freezing. In the drawing I have shown
the flower, like a 4-lipped cup with four yellow snakes coiling
out of it.

But these are not the deadly snakes one hears about.
They are rather symbols of old Æsculapius, the famous
healer of the long ago, whose emblem was the cup of life
with curling snakes of wisdom about it. In the Witch-hazel
has been found a soothing balm for many an
ache and pain. The Witch-hazel you buy in the
drugstores, is made out of the bark of this tree. If you
chew one of the little branches you will know it by the
taste.

Near the top is a flower that is finished, its snakes have
fled; and at the top of all is a bud for next year. That is,
they are—is, has-been and going-to-be. The nuts are shown
in the corner.

Note, last of all, that it is a sociable little tree; it always
goes with a crowd. There are generally three or four
Witch-hazels from one root, and there is always a family
of cousins not far away.[112]

TALE 42
How the Shad Came and How the Chestnut Got
Its Burrs

In the woods of Poconic there once roamed a very discontented
Porcupine. She was forever fretting. She complained
that everything was wrong, till it was perfectly
scandalous, and Wahkonda, the Great Spirit, getting tired
of her grumbling, said:

“You and the world I have made don’t seem to fit;
one or the other must be wrong. It is easier to change you.
You don’t like the trees, you are unhappy on the ground,
and think everything is upside down, therefore I’ll turn
you inside out, and put you in the water.” And so the
Porcupine was turned into a new creature, a fish, called
the Shad. That is why he is so full of little sharp
bones.

Then after the old Porcupine had been turned into a Shad,
the young ones missed their mother, and crawled up into a
high Chestnut tree to look for her coming. Wahkonda
happened to pass that way, and they all chattered their
teeth at him, thinking themselves safe. They were not
wicked, but at heart quite good, only badly brought up;
oh, so ill-trained, and some of them chattered and groaned
as Wahkonda came nearer. Then Wahkonda was sorry
for them, remembering that he had taken their mother from
them, and said: “You look very well up there, you little
Porkys, so you had better stay there for always, and be
part of the Chestnut tree.” And he touched each one
with his magic wand and turned it into a burr that grew
tight to the tree. That is how it came about. There they
hang like a lot of little Porcupines on the twigs of the
tree. They are spiney and dangerous, utterly without[113]
manners, and yet most of them have a good little heart
inside.

TALE 43
How the Littlest Owl Came

After the Great Spirit had made the world and the creatures
in it, he made the Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo. This was
like an Owl, but bigger than anything else alive, and his
voice was like a river plunging over a rocky ledge. He
was so big that he thought he had done it all himself, and
he became puffed up. He forgot the Great Spirit, who
decided to teach him a lesson in this wise:

He called the Blue-jay, the mischief-maker of the woods,
and told him what to do. Away went the Blue-jay to the
mountain at the top of which was the Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo
making thunder in his throat. The Blue-jay flew up to his
ear, and said: “Pooh, Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo, you don’t
call that a big noise! You should hear Niagara; then
you would never twitter again.”

The Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo was so mad at hearing his big
wonderful song called a twitter, that he said: “Niagara,
Niagara! I’m sick of hearing about Niagara. I will go
and silence Niagara with my voice.” So he flew to Niagara
while the Blue-jay snickered and followed to see the
fun.

Now when Niagara Falls was made the Great Spirit
said to it, “Flow on for ever.” That last word of the
Great Spirit it took up as it rushed on, and never ceases
to thunder out “For ever! For ever! For ever!”

When they came to Niagara the mighty cataract, the
Blue-jay said, “Now, Gitchee, you can beat that I am
sure.” So Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo began bawling to drown
the noise of it, but could not make himself heard.[114]

“Wa-wa-wa,” said the Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo, with great
effort and only for a few heart beats.

“For ever, For ever, For ever,” thundered the river, steadily,
easily, ceaselessly.

“Wa-wa-wa—!” shrieked Gitchee O-kok-o-hoo; but his
voice was so utterly lost that he could not hear it himself,
and he began to feel small, and smaller; and as he began
to feel small, a strange thing happened—he began to get
small and smaller, until he was no bigger than a Sparrow;
and his voice, instead of being like a great cataract, became
like the dropping of water, just a little

And this is why the Indians give to this smallest of the
Owls the name of “The Water-dropping Bird,” who was once
the greatest of all creatures, but is now shrunk to be the
littlest of the Owls, because he became proud and forgot
the Great Spirit.

TALE 44
The Wood-witch and the Bog-nuts

Once upon a time there was a rich boy, who knew all
about the city, and nothing about the woods. He went for
an outing into the wilderness, and got lost. He wandered
all day until he was very tired and hungry. The
sun was low when he came to a little pathway. He followed
it, and it led to a small log cabin. When he knocked, an
old woman opened the door. He said, “Please, Ma’am, I
am lost and very hungry, will you give me something to
eat?”

The Wood-witch and the Bog-nuts

The old woman looked sharply at his clothes, and knew[116]
that he was rich, so she said: “Poor people are wise, they
can take care of themselves in the woods. They don’t
get lost. But you rich people are fools, and I wish you
would go away.”

“I will, if you’ll give me something to eat,” he answered.

Then the old woman said: “Listen, foolish rich boy,
in the woods beside you right now is a friend who feeds
the poor people, maybe she will feed you. She is tall and
slim, her eyes are brownish purple and her hair is green,
and by this you may know her—she has five fingers on one
hand and seven on the other. Her house is in the brier
thicket; she climbs to the roof and stands there all day
waving her hands, and shouting out in wood-talk, ‘There
are cocoanuts in my cellar.’

“Now go and find her, maybe she will feed you. She
always feeds us poor folks,” and the witch slammed the
door.

The boy was puzzled. As he stood in doubt, there was a
loud noise, and his friends arrived. They brought him
the food and comfort that he needed.

Then he said: “I wish to know what that old wood-witch
meant by the lady with the purple eyes and green hair.”
So he went again to the log cabin and knocked.

When the old woman came, and saw a lot of people about,
she was frightened for she knew she had been unkind.
But the boy said: “Now Granny, you needn’t be afraid,
I want you to show me the friend that has seven fingers
and a cellar full of cocoanuts.”

“I’ll show you, if you promise to do me no harm,” she
answered.

“Of course, I’ll promise,” replied the boy.

Then Granny Wood-witch went hobbling to the nearest
thicket and cackled out loud, as she pointed out a trailing
vine that had sometimes five leaflets on a stalk and sometimes[117]
seven. “See, see, that’s the lady. See seven fingers on
that hand and five on this. Now follow her feet down and
dig in the ground.”

They dug and found strings of lovely brown nuts as big
as walnuts.

“See, see,” chuckled the wood-witch. “See the cocoanuts
in the cellar.”

Go forth and look for it, ye Woodcrafters. You will find
it throughout Eastern America on the edge of every wood.
Its flower is like a purple-brown sweet-pea, and is in bloom
all summer long. Follow down its vine, dig out a few of
the potatoes or nuts, and try them, raw, boiled, or if ye
wish to eat them as Indian Cake, clean them, cut them in
slices, dry till hard, pound them up into meal, and make a
cake the same as you would of oatmeal.

The wild things love them, the Indians love them, and this
was the bread of the wood-witch. The books call it Bog
Potato and Ground Nuts. It is the third secret of the
woods.

TALE 45
The Mud-dauber Wasp

If you look under the roof of any wooden barn in Eastern
America you are likely to see the nest of the common
Mud-wasp.

The Mud-dauber Wasp (life size)

If you look on warm sunny days along the edge of some
mud puddle you are sure to see a curious steel-blue wasp,
with a very thin waist, working away at a lump of mud.
She seems to be breathing hard with her body, as she works
with her yellow legs, but she finally goes off laden with a
gob of mud. This is the Mud-wasp at work, building a
strong mud-nest for her family. The nest is the one we[119]
have seen hung under the roof of the shed, always put
where no rain can reach it.

In the drawing are two of these nests.

Once the cradle is ready, the mother Wasp goes spider-hunting.
Whenever she can find a spider, she pounces
on it, and with her sting, she stabs it in the body, so as to
paralyze it, but not kill it. Then she carries it to the mud
cell and packs it in, at the far end. Many spiders are caught
and preserved this way, for they do not usually die though
they cannot move.

When the cell is full, the Wasp lays an egg on the last
spider, and seals up the opening with a mud lid.

Very soon the egg hatches out a little white grub which
begins on the spider next to him, eating the legs first, and the
body last, so as to keep it alive as long as possible, though
of course the spider has no feeling. Then he eats the next
spider, and the next, growing as he eats, until he nearly
fills the cell, and the spiders are all eaten up.

Now the grub goes to sleep, and next spring comes out as
a full-grown Mud-wasp to do exactly as the mother did,
though it never saw that Mother or had a lesson from any
one in the many strange things it must do to live.

I went into my boat-house to-day, November 20, 1919,
to get a mud nest for this drawing. There were 86 on the
roof; some of them with 20 or 30 cells, and besides there
was a lot of paper nests by other Wasps. The nest I took
had two cells, one open and empty, and the other with a
mud lid on tight. This held a long, shiny brown transparent
case, in which was a white grub much too small for the
big coat he was wearing. The grub was sound asleep,
and would have come out next spring, as a big steel-blue
Mud-wasp had I let him alone. But there are plenty of
Mud-wasps so I fed him to the Chicadees, which likely is
what Mother Carey would have done.[120]

The Cicada and the Katydid (life size)

[121]

TALE 46
The Cicada and the Katydid

Once upon a time, long, long ago, the birds whose job
it was to make the woods merry with their songs, decided
to go on strike. They said, “We have sung all day, all
springtime, and half way through the summer, but now we
are moulting, the weather is frightfully hot; we need a rest,
and we are going to stop singing, to take a holiday.”

Then Dame Nature, who is sometimes called the All-mother,
or Mother Carey, said: “Dear me, this will never
do! No songbirds, woods silent all through the dog-days.
Now who will be strike-breakers and volunteer to supply the
music till the birds get once more in a good humour?”

Then up at that question got a long-winged insect
like a big fly, and a long-legged insect like a green grasshopper,
and both said at once, “I will.” Amid low murmurs
of “Scab! Scab!” from many of the Wood-birds.

“You. I forgot that you two had any voices at all!”
said Mother Carey.

Then the long-winged creature, whose name is Cicada,
began, “True, my voice isn’t much, but I have invented a
most successful musical Castanet. Listen!”

Then he began an extraordinary racket like an alarm
clock, a threshing machine, and a buzz-saw all going together.
He filled the grove with his noise, and set all the
woodfolk laughing with his funny performance. Though,
of course, he didn’t mean to be funny; he thought it was fine.

Then as the Cicada ceased, Mother Carey said to the
Green Hopper, whose name was Katy, “Now, Katy, what
can you do?”

“I do not brag of my voice, dear Mother,” said she, “but
I am a thrilling performer on the violin.”[122]

Then she humped herself up over a green fiddle that she
had under her cloak, and nearly deafened them with its
hoarse screechings.

There was no doubt that these two could make as much
noise as a wood full of birds; both were eager to take sole
charge, and a bitter dispute arose as to whose idea it was
first.

But Mother Carey settled it by dividing the time. “You,”
she said to Cicada, “can take charge of the music by day,
and you,” she said to the Green one, “must take it up at
sundown in place of the nightingale, and keep it up, till
the night breaks, and both of you continue till the frost
comes, or until the birds are back on the job.”

That is how it all came about.

But there is considerable feeling yet among the Katies,
that they should get all the night work, and never be seen
performing. They think that their ancestor was the original
inventor of this cheap substitute for bird song. And
it is made all the worse by a division among themselves.
Some say “she did” and some say “she didn’t.” If you
notice in early August, they are nearly all shouting, “Katy-did.”
Then by the end of the month, “Katy-didn’t” is
stronger. In September it is still mixed. In October
their work is over, the chorus ended, but you hear an occasional
“Katy-did” and finally as late as Indian Summer,
which is Hallowe’en, I have heard the last of the fiddlers
rasp out “she did”; and do it in daytime, too, as though to
flout the followers of Cicada. And, if the last word be
truth, as they say, we may consider it settled, that Katy
really and truly did. And yet I believe next year the same
dispute will arise, and we shall have the noisy argument all
over again.

If you look at the portraits of Cicada, the Hotweather-bug
or Locust, and of the Katydid, you will not see[123]
their musical instruments very plainly, but believe me they
have them; and you can hear them any late summer hot-weather
time, in any part of the Eastern States and some
parts of southern Canada.

And now let me finish with a secret. Katy is not a lady at
all, but a he-one disguised in green silk stockings, and a green
satin dress.

TALE 47
The Digger Wasp that Killed the Cicada

Strange things are done in the realm of Mother Carey;
strange things and cruel. At least so they seem to us, for
we do not know the plan that is behind them. We know
only that sometimes love must be cruel. I am going to
tell you of a strange happening, that you may see any hot
day in August. And this is how it came about.

At that meeting in the woods when the Cicada and the
Katydid undertook to be musicians, while the birds were on
strike, there was one strong insect who gave off an angry
“Bizz, Bizz” that sounded like “Scab, Scab.” That was
the big yellow-and-black Digger Wasp, the biggest of the
wasps, with a sting that is as bad as that of a baby rattlesnake.
And that very day she declared war on the Cicada
and his kind. The Katydids she could not touch, because
the Wasp cannot see at night.

But the Cicada was easy to find. As soon as the day
got hot, and that awful buzzing began in the trees, the Big
Digger got her sting ready, and went booming along in
the direction of the sound.

The Digger Wasp (life size)

Now Mother Carey had given the Cicada bright eyes
and strong wings, and it was his own business to take care
of himself; but he was so pleased with his music that he
never saw the fierce Digger Wasp, till she charged on him.[125]
And before he could spread his wings, she had stabbed him
through.

His song died away in a few shrieks, and then the Cicada
lay still. But not dead, for the Digger had stuck her poison
dagger into the nerve centre, so that he was paralyzed and
helpless, but still living.

Now the Digger set about a plan. She wanted to get
that Cicada body into her den, to feed her young ones with
it. But the Cicada was bigger and heavier than she was,
so that she could not carry it. However, she was bent on
doing it, she got all ready, took tight hold with her claws,
then swooped from the tree, flying as strongly as she could,
till the weight of the Cicada brought her to the ground
within fifty feet, while the den was fully a hundred feet
away. But the Wasp dragged the Cicada up the trunk of
another tree, then took another long sloping flight as before.
One more climb and skid down, brought her to her den—a
hole in a bank that she had dug out; that is why she is called
the Digger Wasp. The passage was a foot long and had a
crook in the middle. At the end was a round room an
inch and a half high. Here the Digger left her victim’s
body and right on its breast, to one side, laid an egg.

This hatched in two or three days, and began to feed on
the Cicada. In a week it had eaten the Cicada and grown
to be a big fat grub. Then it spun a cocoon, and made
itself into a bundle-baby, resting all autumn and all winter
in that dark den.

But when the spring came with its glorious wakening up,
great changes came over the bundle-baby of the Digger.
It threw off the cocoon and its outer skin, and came forth
from the gloom into the sunshine, a big strong Digger
Wasp with a sting of its own, and a deadly feud with all
screaming Cicadas. Although it never saw its mother,
or got any lessons from her, it goes after the buzzing hot[126]weather-bugs,
when August comes, and treats them exactly
as she did.

TALE 48
How the Indian Summer Came

Wahkonda, the Great Spirit, the Ruler of the World,
had found pleasure the whole summer long in making
mountains, lakes, and forests. Then when the autumn
came, and the leaves fell from the trees, He lighted His pipe
and sat down to look over the things He had made.

As He did so, the north wind arose for Cold Time was
coming, and blew the smoke and ashes of the pipe into His
face. Then He said: “Cease your blowing, all ye winds,
until I have finished smoking.” So, of course, there was
dead calm.

Wahkonda smoked for ten days, and during all that time
there were no clouds in the sky, for there was no wind to
bring them; there was unbroken, calm sunny weather.
But neither was there any wind to carry off the smoke,
so it hung, as the teepee smoke hangs at sunrise, and it
drifted over the valleys and forests in a blue haze.

Then at last when the Great Spirit finished His smoke
and His meditation, He emptied out His pipe. That was the
signal, the north wind broke loose, and came howling down
from the hills, driving the leaves before it, and warning all
wild things to be ready, for soon there would be winter in
the woods.

And it hath been so ever since. When the leaves have
fallen and before yet the Ice-king is here, there come, for a
little while, the calm dreamy days, when the Great Spirit
is smoking His pipe, and the smoke is on the land. The Red-men
call them the Smoking Days, but we call it Indian
Summer.[127]

[128]

THINGS TO SEE IN WINTERTIME

The North Star or Home Star

[129]

Things to See in Wintertime

TALE 49
The North Star, or the Home Star

If you are going to be a Woodcrafter, you must begin
by knowing the North Star, because that is the star
which will show you the way home, if you get lost in
the woods at night. That is why the Indians call it the
“Home Star.”

But first, I must tell you how it came to be, and the story
begins a long, long time ago.

In those far-off days, we are told, there were two wonderful
hunters, one named Orion, and the other named Boötes
(Bo-o-tees). Orion hunted everything and I shall have
to leave him for another story. Boötes was an ox-driver
and only hunted bears to save his cattle. One day he
went after a Mother Bear, that had one little cub.

The Pappoose on the Squaw’s Back

He chased them up to the top of a mountain so high, that
they leaped off into the sky, and just as they were going,
Boötes shot his arrows after them. His very first arrow
hit the Little Bear in the tail—they had long tails in those
days—and pinned him to the sky. There he has hung ever
since, swinging round and round, on the arrow in his tail,
while his mother runs bawling around him, with Boötes
and his dogs chasing her. He shot arrows into her tail,
which was long and curved, into her body, and into her
shoulder. Seven big arrows he shot, and there they are yet,[131]
in the form of a dipper pointing always to the cub who is
called the “Little Bear.” The shining head of the big arrow
in the end of the Little Bear’s tail is called the North Star
or Pole Star. You can always tell which is the North Star,
by the two Pointers; these are the two bright stars that
make the outer side of the Dipper on the Big Bear’s
shoulder. A line drawn through them, points out the
North Star.

The Dipper, that is the Big Bear, goes round and round
the Pole Star, once in about twenty-four hours; so that sometimes
the Pointers are over, sometimes under, to left or to
right; but always pointing out the Pole Star or North Star.

This star shows nearly the true north; and, knowing that,
a traveller can find his way in any strange country, so long
as he can see this friendly Home Star.

TALE 50
The Pappoose on the Squaw’s Back

Now that you know how the Bears and the Big Dipper
came, you should know the Indian story of the Old Squaw.

Orion Fighting the Bull

First find the bright star that is at the bend of the Dipper
handle. This is called the “Old Squaw”; on her back is a
tiny star that they call “The Pappoose.”

As soon as an Indian boy is old enough to understand, his
mother takes him out into the night when it is calm and
clear, and without any moon or any bright lights near,
and says, “My child, yonder is the Old Squaw, the second
of the seven stars; she is going over the top of the hill; on
her back she carries her pappoose. Tell me, my child, can
you see the pappoose?”

Then the little redskin gazes, and from his mother’s
hand he takes two pebbles, a big one and a little one, and he
sets them together on her palm, to show how the two stars[133]
seem to him. When the mother is sure that he did see
them clearly, she rejoices. She goes to the fire and drops
a pinch of tobacco into it, for incense to carry her message,
then looking toward the sky she says: “Great Spirit, I
thank Thee that my child has the eyes of a hunter.”

These things are not new, O Woodcrafter. The wise
men of our race call the Big Star “Mizar” one of the chariot
horses, and the little star “Alcor” or the Rider. In all ages
it has been considered proof of first-class eyes, to see this
little star. Can you see it? Have you the eyes of a hunter?

TALE 51
Orion the Hunter, and His Fight With the Bull

In the 49th Tale I told you there were two giants among
the mighty hunters in the sky, Boötes, whose adventure with
the Bears you have already heard, and Orion. (O-ry´-on).

Orion was the most famous of all. In his day men had no
guns; they had nothing but clubs, spears, and arrows to fight
with, and the beasts were very big and fierce as well as
plentiful, yet Orion went whenever he was needed, armed
chiefly with his club, fought the wild beasts, all alone, killing
them or driving them out, and saving the people, for the
joy of doing it. Once he killed a lion with his club, and
ever afterward wore the lion’s skin on his arm. Bears
were as nothing to him; he killed them as easily as most
hunters would rabbits, but he found his match, when he
went after a ferocious wild Bull as big as a young elephant.

As soon as the Bull saw him, it came rushing at him.
It happened to be on the other side of a stream, and as it
plunged in, Orion drew his bow and fired seven quick shots
at the Bull’s heart. But the monster was coming head on,
and the seven arrows all stuck in its shoulder, making it[134]
madder than ever. So Orion waved his lion skin in his left
hand, and with his club in the right, ran to meet the Bull,
as it was scrambling up the bank from the water.

The first whack of the club tumbled the Bull back into
the water, but it turned aside, went to another place, and
charged again. And again Orion landed a fearful blow
with the club on the monster’s curly forehead.

By this time, all the animals had gathered around to see
the big fight, and the gods in heaven got so interested that
they shouted out, “Hold on, that is good enough for us to
see. Come up here.”

So they moved the mighty Hunter and the Bull, and the
River and all the animals, up to heaven, and the fight has
gone on there ever since.

In the picture I have shown a lot of animals besides Orion
and the Bull, but the only things I want you to look now
in the sky, are Orion’s belt with the three stars on it, and
the Pleiades on the Bull’s shoulder, the seven spots where
the seven arrows struck.

And remember these stars cannot be seen in summer,
they pass over us in winter time. You can find Orion by
drawing a straight line across the rim of the Dipper, beginning
at the inner or handle side, passing through the outer
or Pointers side, and continued for twice the length of the
Dipper, handle and all, this will bring you to Betelgeuze,
the big star in the Giant’s right shoulder, below that are the
three stars of his belt, sometimes called the “Three Kings.”

TALE 52
The Pleiades, that Orion Fired at the Bull

The Pleiades

When late autumn comes the Pleiades (Ply’-a-dees)
appear in the evening sky to the eastward. These are the
seven shots in the Bull’s shoulder, the seven arrows from[136]
Orion’s bow. The Guide can locate them by continuing
the line of Orion’s belt, eight times the length of the belt to
the right, as one faces the Hunter, so Orion must have been
very close indeed. At first they look like a faint light with a
few bright pin-points scattered through. Tennyson described
them as:

The best time to see them is some clear night about
Christmas, when there is no moon, and the Pleiades are
nearly overhead, above the mist and smoke of the horizon,
and there are no electric lights near by.

Study them attentively. Make a tube of your two hands
and look through. Look on the ground, then look back
again; look not straight at them, but a little to one side;
and at last, mark down on paper how many you can clearly
see, putting a big spot for the big one, and little spots for
the little ones. Poor eyes see nothing but a haze; fairly
good eyes see four of the pin-points; good eyes see five;
the best of eyes see seven. I can see seven on a clear winter
night when there are no clouds and no moon. This is as
high as you need expect to get, although it is said that some
men in clear air on a mountain top have seen ten, while
the telescope shows that there are 2,000.

In taking these eyesight tests you may use your spectacles
if you usually wear them.

TALE 53
The Twin Stars

TALE 54
Stoutheart and His Black Cravat

Do you know the bird that wears a black cravat, which
he changes once a year? It is the English Sparrow, the
commonest of all our birds. His hair is gray, but he must
have been red-headed once, for just back of his ears there
is still a band of red; and his collar, maybe, was white once,
but it is very dingy now. His shirt and vest are gray; his
coat is brown with black streaks—a sort of sporting tweed.
The new cravat comes when the new feathers grow in late
summer; and, at first, it is barred with gray as if in half
mourning for his sins. As the gray tips wear off, it becomes
solid black; that is, in March or April. In summer, it
gets rusty and worn out; so every year he puts on a new
one in late August.

The hen sparrow is quite different and wears no cravat.
She has a black-and-brown cape of the sporting pattern,
but her dress is everywhere of brownish Quaker gray.

The song of the English Sparrow is loud and short; but
he tries to make up, by singing it over and over again, for
many minutes.

He eats many bad bugs, and would be well liked, if he[138]
did not steal the nests and the food of Bluebirds, Woodpeckers,
Swallows, and others that are prettier and more
useful birds, as well as far better singers than he is.

But there is much to admire in the Sparrow. I do not
know of any bird that is braver, or more ready to find a way
out of trouble; and if he cannot find a way, he cheerfully
makes the best of it.

Some years ago I was at Duluth during a bitterly cold
spell of weather. The thermometer registered 20° or 30°
below zero, and the blizzard wind was blowing. Oh my,
it was cold. But out in the street were dozens of English
Sparrows chirruping and feeding; thriving just as they do
in warmer lands and in fine weather.

When black night came down, colder yet, I wondered
what the little stout-hearts would do. Crawl into some
hole or bird-house, maybe? or dive into a snowdrift? as
many native birds do.

I found out; and the answer was most unexpected.

In front of the hotel was a long row of electric lights. At
nine o’clock, when I chanced to open the window for a
breath of air, my eye fell on these; on every bulb was an
English Sparrow sound asleep with the overarching reflector
to turn the storm, and the electric bulb below him to warm
his toes. My hat is off. Our Department of Agriculture
may declare war on the Sparrow; but what is the use?
Don’t you think that a creature who is not afraid of blizzard
or darkness, and knows how to use electric lights, is going
to win its life-battle, and that he surely is here to stay?

TALE 55
Tracks, and the Stories They Tell

Tracks, and the Stories They Tell

Sometimes, in town, just after rain, when the gutters
are wet, and the pavement dry, look for the tracks of some[140]
Dog that walked with wet feet on the pavement. You will
find that they are like “a” in the drawing. A Dog has five
toes on his front feet, but only four touch the pavement as
he walks. The claws also touch, and make each a little
mark.

Now look for the track of a Cat; it is somewhat like that
of the Dog, but it is smaller, softer, and the claws do not
show (b). They are too good to be wasted on a pavement;
she keeps them pulled in, so they are sharp when she has
use for them.

Make a drawing of each of these, and make it life size.

When there is dust on the road, or snow, look for Sparrow
tracks; they are like “c.”

Note how close together the front three toes are. The
inner two are really fast together, so they cannot be separated
far and the hind toe is very large. Last of all, note
that the tracks go two and two, because the Sparrow goes
“hop hop, hop.” These things mean that the Sparrow is
really a tree bird; and you will see that, though often on the
ground he gets up into a tree when he wishes to feel safe.

Look for some Chicken tracks in the dust; they are like
“d” in the drawing because the Chicken does not go “hop,
hop, hop” like the Sparrow, but “walk, walk, walk.” The
Chicken is a ground bird. Most of the song birds hop
like the Sparrow, and most of the game birds walk like a
Chicken. But the Robin (e) goes sometimes hopping and
sometimes running, because part of his life is in the trees,
and part on the ground.

TALE 56
A Rabbit’s Story of His Life, Written by Himself

Yes, the Rabbit wrote it himself and about himself in
the oldest writing on earth, that is the tracks of his feet.[141]

A WOODCRAFT TRAGEDY
As shown by the Tracks and Signs in the Snow

[142]

In February of 1885, one morning after a light snowfall,
I went tramping through the woods north of Toronto, when
I came on something that always makes me stop and look—the
fresh tracks of an animal. This was the track of a Cottontail
Rabbit and I followed its windings with thrills
of interest. There it began under a little brush pile (a);
the bed of brown leaves showing that he settled there, before
the snow-fall began. Now here (b) he leaped out after
the snow ceased, for the tracks are sharp, and sat looking
around. See the two long marks of his hind feet and in
front the two smaller prints of his front feet; behind
is the mark made by his tail, showing that he was sitting
on it.

Then he had taken alarm at something and dashed off at
speed (c), for now his hind feet are tracking ahead of the
front feet, as in most bounding forefoots, and the faster he
goes, the farther ahead those hind feet get.

See now how he dodged about here and there, this way
and that, among the trees, as though trying to escape
some dreaded enemy (c, d, e, f).

But what enemy? There are no other tracks, and still
the wild jumping went on.

I began to think that the Rabbit was crazy, flying from
an imaginary foe; possibly that I was on the track of a
March Hare. But at “g” I found on the trail for the first
time a few drops of blood. That told me that the Rabbit
was in real danger but gave no clue to its source.

At “h” I found more blood and at “j” I got a new thrill,
for there, plain enough on each side of the Rabbit track, were
finger-like marks, and the truth dawned on me that these
were the prints of great wings. The Rabbit was fleeing from
an eagle, a hawk, or an owl. Some twenty yards farther “k”
I found in the snow the remains of the luckless Rabbit
partly devoured. Then I knew that the eagle had not[143]
done it, for he would have taken the Rabbit’s body away, not
eaten him up there. So it must have been a hawk or an
owl. I looked for something to tell me which, and I got it.
Right by the Rabbit’s remains was the large twin-toed
track (l) that told me that an owl had been there, and
that therefore he was the criminal. Had it been a hawk
the mark would have been as shown in the left lower corner,
three toes forward and one back, whereas the owl usually
sets his foot with two toes forward and two backward, as
in the sketch. This, then, I felt sure was the work of an
owl. But which owl? There were two, maybe three kinds
in that valley. I wished to know exactly and, looking
for further evidence, I found on a sapling near by a big
soft, downy, owlish feather (m) with three brown bars across
it; which told me plainly that a Barred Owl or Hoot Owl
had been there recently, and that he was almost certainly
the killer of the Cottontail.

This may sound like a story of Sherlock Holmes among
the animals—a flimsy tale of circumstantial evidence. But
while I was making my notes, what should come flying
through the woods but the Owl himself, back to make
another meal, no doubt. He alighted on a branch just
above my head, barely ten feet up, and there gave me the
best of proof, next to eye witness of the deed, that all I had
gathered from the tracks and signs in the snow was quite
true.

I had no camera in those days, but had my sketch book,
and as he sat, I made a drawing which hangs to-day among
my pictures that are beyond price.

Here, then, is a chapter of wild life which no man saw,
which man could not have seen, for the presence of a man
would have prevented it. And yet we know it was true,
for it was written by the Rabbit himself.

If you have the seeing eye, you will be able to read many[144]
strange and thrilling happenings written for you thus in
the snow, the mud, and even the sand and the dust.

TALE 57
The Singing Hawk

Listen, Guide and young folk, I want to add another
bird to your list to-day; another secret of the woods to your
learning.

I want you to know the Singing Hawk. Our nature writers
nearly always make their hawks scream, but I want you
to know a wonderful Hawk, right in your own woods, that
really and truly sings, and loves to do it.

It is a long time ago since I first met him. I was going
past a little ravine north of Toronto, on a bright warm mid-winter
day, when a loud call came ringing down the valley
and the bird that made it, a large hawk, appeared, sailing
and singing, kee-o, kee-o, kee-o, kee-o, kee-o, kee-ye-o, ky-ye-o,
ky-oodle, ky-oodle, kee-o, kee-o and on; over and over again,
in a wild-wood tone that thrilled me. He sailed with set
wings to a near-by tree, and ceased not his stirring call; there
was no answer from the woods, but there was a vibrant
response in my heart. It moved me through and through.
How could it do so much, when it was so simple? I did not
know how to tell it in words, but I felt it in my boyish soul.
It expressed all the wild-wood life and spirit, the joy of
living, the happy brightness of the day, the thrill of the
coming spring, the glory of flight; all, all it seemed to voice
in its simple ringing, “kee-o, kee-o, kee-o, kee-yi-o“; never
before had I seen a bird so evidently rejoicing in his flight;
then singing, it sailed away from sight; but the song has
lingered ever since in the blessed part of my memory. I
often heard it afterward, and many times caught the Blue-[145]jay
in a feeble imitation of its trumpet note. I never forgot
the exact timbre of that woodland call; so when at length,
long after, I traced it to what is known in books as the “Red-shouldered
Hawk,” it was a little triumph and a little disappointment.
The books made it all so commonplace.
They say it has a loud call like “kee-o”; but they do not
say that it has a bugle note that can stir your very soul if
you love the wild things, and voices more than any other
thing on wings the glory of flight, the blessedness of being
alive.

To-day, as I write, is December 2, 1917; and this morning
as I walked in my homeland, a sailing, splendid hawk came
pouring out the old refrain, “kee-yi-o, kee-yi-o, kee-oh.”
Oh, it was glorious! I felt little prickles in the roots of
my hair as he went over; and I rejoiced above all things
to realize that he sang just as well as, yes maybe a little
better than that first one did, that I heard in the winter
woods some forty years ago.

TALE 58
The Fingerboard Goldenrod

“Oh, Mother Carey! All-mother! Lover of us little
plants as well as the big trees! Listen to us little slender
Goldenrods.

“We want to be famous, Mother Carey, but our stems are
so little and our gold is so small, that we cannot count in
the great golden show of autumn, for that is the glory
of our tall cousins. They do not need us, and they do not
want us. Won’t you give us a little job all our own, our
very own, for we long to be doing something?”

The Compass Goldenrod Pointing Toward the North

Then Mother Carey smiled so softly and sweetly and
said: “Little slender Goldenrods, I am going to give you[147]
something to do that will win you great honour among all
who understand. In the thick woods the moss on the trunk
shows the north side; when the tree is alone and in the open,
the north side is known by its few branches; but on the
open prairie, there is no plant that stands up like a finger
post to point the north for travellers, while the sun is
hid.”

“This, then do, little slender Goldenrods; face the noon
sun, and as you stand, throw back your heads proudly, for
you are in service now. Throw back your heads till
your golden plumes are pointing backward to the north—so
shall you have an honourable calling and travellers
will be glad that I have made you a fingerboard on the
plains.”

So the slender Goldenrod and his brothers rejoiced and
they stood up straight, facing the noon sun, and bent backward,
throwing out their chests till their golden caps and
plumes were pointed to the north.

And many a traveller, on cloudy days and dark nights,
has been cheered by the sight of the Compass Goldenrod,
pointing to the north and helping him to get home.

This does not mean that every one of them points to the
north all the time. They do their best but there are always
some a little wrong. Yet you can tell the direction at night
or on dark days if you look at a bed of them that grew out
in full sunlight.

“Yon is the north,” they keep on singing, all summer
long, and even when winter comes to kill the plant, and end
its bloom, the brave little stalk stands up there, in snow to
its waist, bravely pointing out the north, to those who have
learned its secret. And not only in winter storms, but I
have even found them still on guard after the battle,
when the snow melted in springtime. Once when I was
a boy, I found a whole bank of them by a fence, when[149]
the snow went off in April, and I wrote in their honour
this verse:

TALE 59
Woodchuck Day, February Second
Sixth Secret of the Woods

WOODCHUCK DAY: COLD WEATHER
“To be, or not to be”

It was Monapini that told Ruth Pilgrim, and Ruth
Pilgrim told the little Pilgrims, and the little Pilgrims told
the little Dutchmen, and the little Dutchmen told it to all
the little Rumours, and the grandchild of one of these little
Rumours told it to me, so you see I have it straight and on
good authority, this Sixth Secret of the Woods.

The story runs that every year the wise Woodchuck retires
to sleep in his cozy home off the subway that he made,
when the leaves begin to fall, and he has heard the warning.
Mother Carey has sung the death-song of the red leaves;
sung in a soft voice that yet reaches the farthest hills:

And Mother Earth, who is Maka Ina, cries to her own:
“Come, hide in my bosom, my little ones.” And the wise
Woodchuck waits not till the blizzard comes, but hides
while he may make good housing, and sleeps for three long
moons.

But ever on the second sun of the Hunger-moon (and this
is the Sixth Secret) he rouses up and ventures forth. And[150]
if so be that the sun is in the sky, and the snow on the bosom
of his Mother Earth, so that his shadow shall appear on it,
he goeth back to sleep again for one and a half moons more—for
six long weeks. But if the sky be dark with clouds
and the earth all bared of snow so that no shadow shows,
he says, “The blizzard time is over, there is food when the
ground is bare,” and ends his sleep.

This is the tale and this much I know is true: In the
North, if he venture forth on Woodchuck Day, he sees both
sun and snow, so sleeps again; in the South there is no snow
that day, and he sleeps no more; and in the land between,
he sleeps in a cold winter, and in an open winter rouses to
live his life.

These things I have seen, and they fit with the story of
Monapini, so you see the little Rumour told me true.[151]

[152]

THINGS TO KNOW

How the Pine Tree Tells Its Own Story

[153]

Things to Know

TALE 60
How the Pine Tree Tells Its Own Story

Suppose you are in the woods, and your woods in
Canada, or the Northern States; you would see
at once two kinds of trees: Pines and Hardwoods.

Pines, or Evergreens, have leaves like needles, and are
green all the year round; they bear cones and have soft wood.

The Hardwoods, or Broadleaves, sometimes called Shedders,
have broad leaves that are shed in the fall; they bear
nuts or berries and have hard wood.

Remember this, every tree that grows has flowers and
seeds; and the tree can always be told by its seeds, that is,
its fruit. If you find a tree with cones on it, you know it belongs
to the Pine family. If you find one with broad leaves
and nuts or berries, it belongs to the Hardwoods.[C]

Of these the Pines always seem to me more interesting.

In September, 1002, I had a good chance to study Pine
trees in the mountains of Idaho. There was a small one
that had to be cut down, so I made careful drawings of it.
It was fourteen years old, and across the stump it showed one
ring of wood for each year of growth, and a circle of branches
on the trunk for each year. Notice that between the[154]
branches, the trunk did not taper; it was an even cylinder,
but got suddenly smaller at each knot by the same
amount of wood as was needed by those branches for their
wood.

If we begin in the centre of the stump, and at the bottom
of the trunk, we find that the little tree tells us its own story
of its life and troubles. Its first year, judging by the bottom
section of the trunk (No. 1) and by the inmost ring, was just
ordinary. Next year according to section 2 and ring 2,
it had a fine season and grew nearly twice as much as the
first year. The third year the baby Pine had a very hard
time, and nearly died. Maybe it was a dry summer, so
the little tree grew only 2-1/2 inches higher while the ring
of wood it added was no thicker than a sheet of paper.
Next year, the fourth, it did better. And the next was
about its best year, for it grew 7-1/2 inches higher, and put on
a fine fat ring of wood, as you see.

In its eleventh year, it had some new troubles; either the
season was dry, or the trees about too shady, or maybe
disease attacked it. For it grew but a poor shoot on the
top, and the ring of wood on the stump is about the thinnest
of all.

Of course, a saw-cut along the second joint showed but
thirteen rings, and the third but twelve while one through
the top joint, the one which grew this year, showed but a
single ring.

Thus the Pine tree has in itself a record of its whole life;
and this is easy to read when the tree is small; but in later
life the lower limbs disappear, and the only complete record
is in the rings of growth that show on the stump. These
never fail to tell the truth.

Of course, you are not to go around cutting down trees
merely to count their rings and read their history, but you
should look at the rings whenever a new stump gives you a[155]
good chance. Then Hardwoods as well as Pines will spread
before you the chapters of their life; one ring for each year
that they have lived.

TALE 61
Blazes

All hunters and Indians have signs to let their people
know the way. Some of these signs are on trees, and are
called “Blazes.” One of those much used is a little piece
of bark chipped off to show the white wood; it means: “This
is the way, or the place.” Another sign is like an arrow,
and means: “Over there,” or “Go in that direction.” No
matter what language they speak, the blazes tell everyone
alike. So a blaze is a simple mark that tells us something
without using words or letters, and it depends on
where it is placed for part of its meaning.

On the following page are some blazes used in our towns
to-day. You will find many more if you look, some in
books; some on the adjoining page.

TALE 62

Totems[D]

A Totem is a simple form used as the emblem or symbol of
a man, a group of men, an animal, or an idea; it does not use
or refer to words or letters, so it is the same in all languages.
Unlike the blaze it does not depend on its position for part
of its meaning.

Indian Symbols

Among peoples that cannot read or write, each leading
man had a Totem that he used, instead of writing his name.[159]
He put this mark on his property, and at length put it on
his shield and armour to distinguish him in battle. Out
of this grew heraldry.

Modern trade-marks are Totems though often spoiled
by words or letters added. The Totem continues in use
because it is so easy to see a long way off, and can be understood
by all, no matter what their language. Most of
the great railway companies have a Totem and the use of
such things is increasing to-day.

Here in the drawing are some Totems seen daily in our
towns. Doubtless you can add to the number.

TALE 63
Symbols

If you have thought much about it, O Guide! you
will surely find that, for decoration, it is better to use a
beautiful symbol of anything, rather than a good
photograph of it. For the symbol lets the imagination
loose, and the other chains it to the ground; the one is
the spirit, and the other the corpse. These things you
cannot tell to the little folks, but you can prove them to
yourself, and you will see why I wish to give some symbols
here for use.

There is another reason, one which you can give to them.
It is this: Only the highly trained artist can make a good
portrait drawing, while the smallest child, if it sticks to
symbols, is sure, in some degree, of a pleasant success in its
very first effort.

These that I give, are copied from Indian art, and whether
in colour, in raised modelling, or in black lines, can be used
successfully to decorate anything that you are likely to
make.[160]

[161]

TALE 64
Sign Language

Seventeen Gestures Currently Used in the Sign Language

All men, especially wild men, and some animals have
a language of signs. That is, they talk to each other without
making any sounds; using instead, the movements of
parts of the body. This is “eye talk,” while words are
“ear talk.”

Among the animals, horses bob their heads when they are
hungry and paw with a front foot when thirsty or eager to be
off. Dogs wag their tails when pleased, and cows shake
their heads when angry.

Policemen, firemen, railway men, and others use signs
because there is too much noise to be heard. School children
use signs because they are not allowed to talk in school.
Most children know the signs for “yes” and “no,” “come
here,” “go away,” “hurry up,” “you can’t touch me,”
“hush!”, “shame on you!”, “up,” “down,” “word of
honour,” “swimming,” etc.

The traffic policeman is using signs all day long. By a
movement of the hand he signals:—stop, go on, come here,
hurry up, wait, turn around, go by, stay back, over there,
you look out, right here, and one or two others.

How many signs can you add to these two lists?

TALE 65
The Language of Hens

Yes; Hens talk somewhat as we do; only they haven’t
so many words, and don’t depend on them as we have to.

There are only ten words in ordinary hen-talk.

The cluck, cluck of the mother means “Come along,
kiddies.”[162]

The low kawk of warning, usually for a hawk.

The chuck, chuck of invitation means, “Good food.”

The tuk-ut-e-ah-tuk means, “Bless my soul, what is that?”

The cut, cut, get your hair cut, of a Hen that has just laid
and is feeling greatly relieved; no doubt, saying, “Thank
goodness, that’s done!” or maybe it is a notice to her mate
or friend that “Business is over, let’s have some fun. Where
are you?”

The soft, long-drawn tawk—tawk—tawk, that is uttered
as the Hen strolls about, corresponds to the whistling of the
small boy; that is, it is a mere pastime, expressing freedom
from fear or annoyance.

The long, harsh, crauk, crauk of fear when captured.

The quick clack, clack, clatter when springing up in fear
of capture.

The put, put of hunger.

And, of course, the peep, peep of chickens and the cock-a-doodle-doo,
which is the song of the Rooster.

Some Hens may have more; but these given here are hen-talk
for mother-love, warning, invitation, surprise, exultation,
cheerfulness, fear, astonishment, and hunger. Not a
bad beginning in the way of language.

TALE 66
Why the Squirrel Wears a Bushy Tail

“Oh, Mother, look at that Gray Squirrel!” shouted
Billie. “What a beautiful bushy tail he has!” Then,
after a pause he added, “Mother, what is its tail for? Why
is it so big and fluffy? I know a ‘Possum has a tail to hang
on a limb with, and a Fish can swim with his tail, but why
is a Gray Squirrel’s tail so bushy and soft?”

Alas! Mother didn’t know, and couldn’t tell where to[163]
find out. It was long after, that little Billie got the answer
to his childish, but really important question. The Alligator
may use his tail as a club, the Horse, his tail as a fly-flapper,
the Porcupine his tail as a spiked war-club, the
‘Possum his as a hooked hanger, the Fox his as a muffler,
the Fish his as a paddle; but the Gray Squirrel’s tail is a
parachute, a landeasy. I have seen a Gray Squirrel fall
fifty feet to the ground, but his tail was in good condition;
he spread it to the utmost and it landed him safely right
side up.

I remember also a story of a Squirrel that lost his tail
by an accident. It didn’t seem to matter much for a while.
The stump healed up, and the Squirrel was pert as ever;
but one day he missed his hold in jumping, and fell to the
ground. Ordinarily, that would have been a small matter;
but without his tail he was jarred so severely that a dog,
who saw him fall, ran up and killed him before he could
recover and climb a tree.

TALE 67
Why a Dog Wags His Tail

There is an old story that the Dog said to the Cat: “Cat,
you are a fool; you growl when you are pleased and wag your
tail when you are angry.” Which happens to be true;
and makes us ask: Why does a Dog wag his tail to mean
friendship?

The fact is, it is part of a wig-wag code, which is doubly
interesting now that all our boys are learning wig-wagging
with a white flag. We think that our army people invented
this method; but Woodcraft men know better.

First, notice that any Dog that has any white on his
body has at least a little white on the end of his tail. This[164]
is well known; and the reason is that the wild ancestor had a
white brush on the end of his tail; a white flag, indeed;
and this was the flag of his signal code.

Suppose, then, that a wild Dog, prowling through the
woods, sights some other animal. Instantly he crouches;
for it is good woodcraft to avoid being seen and then watch
from your hiding-place. As the stranger comes near, the
crouching Dog sees that it is one of his own kind, and that
it is needless to hide any longer; indeed, that it is impossible
to remain hidden. So the moment the stranger stops and
looks at the crouching Dog, the latter stands straight up
on all fours, raises his tail up high, and wags the white tip
from side to side in the sign which means, “Let’s be friends.”

Every Dog knows the sign, every Dog in every town does
it yet; every boy has seen it a thousand times. We flatter
ourselves that we invented the wig-wag code with our little
white flag. Maybe so; but the Dog had it long before
we did.

TALE 68
Why the Dog Turns Around Three Times Before
Lying Down

Yes, they all do it; the big St. Bernard, the foolish littlest
lap Dog, the ragged street Dog; give them bare boards, or a
silken cushion, or snow, three turns around and down they
go.

Why? Not so hard to answer as some simple questions.
Long, long ago, the wild great-great-grandfather of the
Dog—a yellow creature with black hair sprinkled on his
back, sharp ears, light spots over his eyes, and a white tail-tip—used
to live in the woods, or on the prairies. He did
not have a home to which he might return every time he[165]
wanted to rest or sleep; so he camped wherever he found
himself, on the plains, in a thicket, or even in some hole in a
rock; and he carried his bedclothes on his back. But he
always found it worth while to add a little comfort by
smoothing the grass, the leaves, the twigs, or the pebbles
before lying down; and the simplest way to do this was by
curling up, and turning round three times, with the body
brushing the high grass or pebbles into a comfortable shape
for a bed.

Yes, and they all do it to-day just the same, big and little,
which is only one of the many proofs that they are descended
from the same wild-wood great-grandfather, and
still remember his habits.

TALE 69
The Deathcup of Diablo

The Deathcup Toadstool

The world went very well in those bright days of the
long ago, when the wedding of El Sol and Maka Ina set all
living things rejoicing. Green youth and sparkling happiness
were everywhere. Only one there was—Diablo—who
found in it poor comfort. He had no pleasure in the
growing grass. The buttercups annoyed him with the gayness
of their gold. It was at this time he chewed their
stalks, so that many ever since have been flattened and
mangled. And the cherry with its fragrant bloom he
breathed on with his poison breath, so its limbs were burnt
and blackened into horrid canker bumps. And poisonous
froth he blew on the sprouting rose leaves, so they blackened
and withered away. The jewel weed, friend of the humming
birds, he trampled down, but it rose so many times and so
bravely, that he left the yellow dodder like an herb-worm,
or a root-born leech to suck its blood all summer long, and[167]
break it down. Then to trail over the trunks of trees and
suck their life, he left the demon vine, the Poison Ivy with
its touch of burning fire. He put the Snapping Turtle
in the beautiful lakes to destroy its harmless creatures and
the Yellow-eyed Whizz he sent, and the Witherbloom with
its breath of flame.

And last he made the Deathcup Toadstool, and sowed
it in the woods.

He saw the Squirrels eating and storing up the sweet red
russula. He saw it furnish food to mice and deer, so he
fashioned the Deathcup Amanita to be like it; and scattered
it wherever good mushrooms grew, a trap for the unwary.

Tall and shapely is the Deathcup; beautiful to look upon
and smelling like a mushroom. But beware of it, a very
little is enough, a morsel of the cup; the next night or maybe
a day later the poison pangs set in. Too late perhaps for
medicine to help, and Amanita, the Deathcup, the child
of Diablo, has claimed another victim.

How shall we know the deadly Amanita among its kindly
cousins, the good mushrooms? Wise men say by these:—The
poison cup from which its springs; the white kid collar
on its neck; the white or yellow gills; and the white spores
that fall from its gills if the cup, without the stem, be laid
gills down on a black paper for an hour.

By these things we may know the wan Demon of the
woods, but the wisest Guides say to their tribe:—”Because
death lurks in that shapely mushroom, though there are a
hundred good for food, they are much alike, and safety
bids you shun them; let them all alone.”

So Diablo went on his way rejoicing because he had
spoiled so much good food for good folk.

This, the danger of the Deathcup, is the Seventh Secret
of the Woods.[168]

[169]

TALE 70
Poison Ivy or the Three-Fingered Demon of the
Woods

The Poison Ivy

You have been hearing about good fairies and good
old Mother Carey and Medicine in the Sky. Now
I am going to warn you against the three-fingered
Demon, the wicked snakevine that basks on stone walls
and climbs up the tree trunk, and does more harm than
all the other plants, vines, trees, and bushes put together;
for it is not like the Deathcup, easy to see and easy to
let alone.

This is the Poison Ivy. Does it not look poisonous as
it crawls snake-like up some trunk, sending suckers out into
the tree to suck the sap; and oozing all over its limbs with
poison in tiny wicked little drops? Sometimes it does not
climb but crawls on the ground, but by this ye may always
know it: It has only three fingers on its hand; that is, only
three leaflets on each stalk.

The one thing that looks like it, is the Boston Ivy, but
that does not grow in the woods, and the Poison Ivy leaf
always has the little bump and bite out on the side of the
leaf as you see in the drawing.

It is known and feared for its power to sting and blister
the skin when it is handled or even touched. The sting
begins with an unpleasant itching which gets worse, especially
if rubbed, until it blisters and breaks open with sores
which are very hard to heal.

The cause of the sting is a blistering oil, which is found
in tiny drops on all parts of the leaf and branches; it is a
fixed oil; that is, it will not dry up, and as long as it is
on the skin, it keeps on burning and blistering, worse
and worse.[170]

And this is the cure for the sting of the Demon Vine:—

Anything that will dissolve and remove oil without injuring
the skin:—

Hot water, as hot as you can stand it, is good; a little salt
in it helps.

Hot soapy water is good.

Hot water with washing soda is good.

A wash of alcohol is good.

But best of all is a wash of strong alcohol in which is a
little sugar of lead as an antiseptic.

The Guide should remember that three persons out of
five are immune from Poison Ivy, while a few are so sensitive
that they are poisoned by flies carrying it to them on
their feet. It can be easily cured if treated at once; if
neglected it often becomes very bad and may need the help
of a doctor.

This is the Eighth Secret of the Woods.

TALE 71
The Medicine in the Sky

This is one of the greatest and best secrets of Woodcraft—The
Medicine in the Sky.

Let me tell you a story about it. There was once an
Indian who left his own people, to live with the white man,
in the East. But the Great Spirit was displeased, for he
did not mean the Indian to live in houses or cities. After a
year, the red man came back very thin and sick, coughing
nearly all night, instead of sleeping. He believed himself
dying.[171]

The wise old Medicine Man of his tribe said, “You need
the Medicine of the Sky.” He took it and got quite well
and strong.

Another Indian, who had gone to visit with a distant tribe
of red men, came back with some sickness on his skin that
made it very sore. It was far worse than Poison Ivy, for it
began to eat into his flesh. The Medicine Man said, “Sky
Medicine will cure you.” And it did.

One day a white man, a trader, came with chest protectors
to sell to the Indians. He was sure they needed them,
because he did; and, although so well wrapped up, he was
always cold. He suffered whenever the wind blew. The
old Medicine Man said, “We don’t need your chest pads,
and you would not if you took the Sky Medicine.” So
the trader tried it, and by and by, to his surprise and joy,
no matter whether it was hot or cold outdoors, he was comfortable.

This man had a friend who was a learned professor in a
college, and he told him about the great thing he had learned
from the old Indian. The professor was not old, but he
was very sick and feeble in body. He could not sleep nights.
His hair was falling out, and his mind filled with gloomy
thoughts. The whole world seemed dark to him. He
knew it was a kind of disease, and he went away out West
to see his friend. Then he met the Medicine Man and
said to him, “Can you help me?”

The wise old Indian said, “Oh, white man, where do
you spend your days?”

“I spend them at my desk, in my study, or in the classroom.”

“Yes, and your nights?”

“In my study among my books.”

“And where do you sleep?”

“I don’t sleep much, though I have a comfortable bed.”[172]

“In the house?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Listen, then, O foolish white man. The Great Spirit
set Big Medicine in the sky to cure our ills. And you hide
from it day and night. What do you expect but evil?
This do and be saved. Take the Sky Medicine in measure
of your strength.”

He did so and it saved him. His strength came back.
His cheeks grew ruddy, his hands grew steady, his hair
ceased falling out, he slept like a baby. He was happy.

Now what is the Sky Medicine? It is the glorious sunlight,
that cures so many human ills. We ask every Woodcrafter
to hold on to its blessings.

And in this wise, O Guide, you must give it to the little
ones. Make it an honourable exploit to be sunburnt to the
elbows without blistering; another to be sunburnt to the
shoulders; another to the waist; and greatest of all, when
sunburnt all over. How are they to get this? Let them
go to some quiet place for the last, and let the glory fall
on their naked bodies, for ten minutes each day. Some
more, and some less, according to their strength, and this
is the measure—so long as it is pleasant, it is good.

In this way they will inherit one of the good things of
the woods and be strong and hardened, for there is no greater
medicine than the Sun in the sky.

TALE 72
The Angel of the Night

O Guide of the young Tribe! Know you the Twelfth
Secret of the Woods? Know you what walked around
your tent on that thirtieth night of your camp out? No![173]
I think you knew, if you continued for thirty nights, but
you knew not that you knew. These things, then, you
should have in heart, and give to those you are leading.

The Great Spirit does not put out good air in the daytime
and poison air at night. It is the same pure air at night,
only cooler. Therefore use more clothing while you sleep.
But while the outdoor air is pure, the indoor may be foul.
Therefore sleep out of doors, and you will learn the blessedness
of the night, and the night air, with its cooling kindly
influence laden.

Those who come here to our Camp from life in town and
sleeping in close rooms, are unaccustomed, and nervous
it may be, so that they sleep little at first. But each night
brings its balm of rest. Strength comes. Some know it
in a week. The town-worn and nerve-weary find it at
farthest in half a moon. And in one full moon be sure of
this, when the night comes down you will find the blessed
balm that the Great Spirit meant for all of us. You will
sleep, a calm sweet vitalizing sleep.

You will know this the twelfth secret of the woods: What
walked around your tent that thirtieth night? You know
not, you heard nothing, for you slept. Yet when the morning
comes you feel and know that round your couch, with
wings and hands upraised in blessed soothing influence,
there passed the Angel of the Night, with healing under her
wings, and peace. You saw her not, you heard her not, but
the sweet healing of her presence will be with you for many
after moons.[175]

THINGS TO DO

[176]

Nests of Kingbird, Oriole, Vireo, Robin, Goldfinch, Phoebe (1/4 life size)

[177]

Things to Do

TALE 73
Bird-nesting in Winter

What good are old bird-nests? These are some
of the ends they serve. A Deermouse seeking
the safety of a bramble thicket and a warm house,
will make his own nest in the forsaken home of a Cat-bird.
A Gray Squirrel will roof over the open nest of a Crow or
Hawk and so make it a castle in the air for himself. But
one of the strangest uses is this: The Solitary Sandpiper
is a bird that cannot build a tree nest for itself and yet loves
to give to its eggs the safety of a high place; so it lays in the
old nest of a Robin, or other tree bird, and there its young
are hatched. But this is only in the Far North. There
are plenty of old bird-nests left for other uses, and for you.

Bird-nesting in summer is wicked, cruel, and against the
law. But bird-nesting in winter is good fun and harms no
one, if we take only the little nests that are built in forked
twigs, or on rock ledges. For most little birds prefer to
make a new nest for themselves each season.

If you get: A Goldfinch, floss nest;

A Phoebe, moss nest;

A Robin, mud nest;

A Vireo, good nest;

A Kingbird, rag nest;

An Oriole, bag nest;

TALE 74
The Ox-eye Daisy or Marguerite

The Ox-eye Daisy or Marguerite

Do you know that “Daisy” means “day’s eye,” because
the old country Daisy opens its eyes when day comes, and
shuts them every night. But our Daisy is different and
much bigger, so we have got into the way of calling it
“Ox-eye.” Some of our young people call it “Love-me; love-me-not,”
because they think it can tell if one is loved. They
pull out the white rays of the flower one by one, saying,
“He loves me; he loves me not; he loves me; he loves me
not.” Then what they are saying as the last is pulled, settles
the question. If the Daisy says “He loves me,” they take
a second Daisy and ask the next question, “Will he marry
me?” Then, pulling the rays as before, “This year, next
year, some time, never.” And in this way they learn
all that the Daisies know about these important matters.

We call it “our Daisy,” but it is not a true native of America.
Its home is Europe. The settlers of New England,
missing the flower of their homeland, brought it over and
planted it in their gardens. It spread widely in the North;
but it did not reach the South until the time of the Civil
War, when it is said to have gone in with the hay for Sherman’s
Army, to become a troublesome weed in the fields.

This scrap of history is recorded in a popular ballad.

[180]

[181]

TALE 75
A Monkey-hunt

The Monkeys in the Tree Tops

We all love to go a-hunting; every one of us in some way;
and it is only the dislike of cruelty and destruction that
keeps most of us from hunting animals continually, as our
forebears did.

Some of my best days were spent in hunting. The Arabs
say, “Allah reckons not against a man’s allotted span the
days he spends in the chase.”

I hope that I may help many of you to go a-hunting, and
to get the good things of it, with the bad things left out.

Come! Now it is the spring of the year, and just the
right time for a Monkey-hunt. We are going prowling
along the brookside where we are pretty sure of finding
our game. “See, there is a Monkey tree and it is full of
the big Monkeys!”

“What! That pussy-willow?”

Yes, you think they are only pussy-willows, but wait
until you see. We shall take home a band of the Monkeys,
tree and all, and you will learn that a pussy-willow is only
a baby Monkey half done.

Now let us get a branch of live elderberry and one or two
limbs of the low red sumac. It is best to use sumac because
it is the only handy wood that one can easily stick a pin
through, or cut. The pieces should be five or six inches
long and about half an inch to an inch thick. They should
have as many odd features as possible, knots, bumps, fungus,
moss, etc.; all of which add interest to the picture.

To these we must add a lot of odd bits of dry cane, dry
grasses, old flower-stalks, moss, and gravel, etc., to use for
background and foreground in the little jungle we are to
make for our Monkeys to play in. It is delightful to find[182]
the new interest that all sorts of queer weeds take on, when
we view them as canes or palms for our little jungle.

Now with the spoils of our hunt, let us go home and preserve
the trophies.

Cut off about three inches of the elderberry wood and have
it clear of knots; cut a flat ended ramrod so as just to fit the
bore, and force out the pith with one clean sharp push: or
else whittle away the surrounding wood. The latter way
gives a better quality of pith.

Now take a piece of the pith about one-third the size of a
big pussy-willow, use a very sharp knife and you will find it
easy to whittle it into a Monkey’s head about the shape of
“a” and “b.”

Use a very sharp-pointed, soft black pencil to make the
eyes, nose, the line for the mouth and the shape of the ears;
or else wait till the pith is quite dry, then use a fine pen with
ink.

If you are skilful with the knife you may cut the ears
so that they hang as in “d.”

Stick an ordinary pin right down through the crown of
the head into a big pussy-willow that will serve as a body
(e). If you glue the head on it is harder to do, but it
keeps the body from being mussed up. Cut two arms
of the pith (ff) and two feet (gg), drawing the lines for the
fingers and toes, with the sharp black pencil, or else ink
as before.

Cut a long, straight pointed piece of pith for a tail, dip it
in boiling water, then bend it to the right shape “h.”

Cut a branch of the sumac so that it is about four inches
high, and of the style for a tree; nail this on a block of wood
to make it stand. Sometimes it is easier to bore a hole in
the stand and wedge the branch into that.

Set the Monkey on the limb by driving the pin into it
as at “i,” or else glueing it on; and glue on the limbs and[183]
tail. Sometimes a little wad of willow-down on the
Monkey’s crown is a great help. It hides the pin.

Now set this away for the glue to harden.

Meanwhile take an ordinary cigar box about two inches
deep, line it with white paper pasted in; or else paint it with
water colour in Chinese white. Colour the upper part
sky colour; the lower, shaded into green, getting very
dark on the bottom. Lay a piece of glass or else a scrap
of an old motor-car window-isinglass on the bottom,
and set in a couple of tacks alongside to hold it; this is
for a pool.

Make a mixture of liquid glue, one part; water, five parts;
then stir in enough old plaster of Paris, whitening, or even
fine loam to make a soft paste. Build banks of this paste
around the pool and higher toward the back sides. Stick
the tree, with its stand and its Monkeys, in this, to one side;
dust powder or rotten wood over the ground to hide its
whiteness; or paint it with water colours.

Use all the various dry grasses, etc., to form a jungle;
sticking them in the paste, or glueing them on.

And your jungle with its Monkeys is complete.

Many other things may be used for Monkeys. I have
seen good ones made of peanuts, with the features inked
on, and a very young black birch catkin for tail. Beautiful
birds also can be made by using a pith body and bright
feathers or silks glued on for plumes. The pith itself is
easily coloured with water colours.

You will be delighted to see what beautiful effects you
can get by use of these simple wild materials, helped with a
little imagination.

And the end of the Monkey-hunt will be that you have
learned a new kind of hunting, with nothing but pleasant
memories in it, and trophies to show for proof.[184]

[185]

TALE 76
The Horsetail and the Jungle

The Horsetail and the Jungle

Long, long ago, millions of years ago, this world was
much hotter than it is now. Yes, in mid-winter it was hotter
than it is now in mid-summer. Over all Pennsylvania there
were huge forests of things that looked a little like palms,
but some looked like pipes with joints, and had wheels of
branches or limb wheels at every joint. They were as
tall as some palms, and grew in swamps.

When one of those big joint-wheels fell over, it sank into
the mud and was forgotten. So at last the swamp was
filled up solid with their trunks.

Then for some unknown reason all the big joint-trees
died, and the sand, mud, and gravel levelled off the swamp.
There they lay, and slowly become blacker and harder under
the mud, until they turned into coal.

That is what we burn to-day, the trunks of the wheel-jointed
swamp trees. But their youngest great-grandchild
is still with us, and shows, in its small way, what its great
ancestors were like.

You will find it along some railway bank, or in any damp
woods. Country people who know it, call it Joint Grass
or Horsetails; the books call it Equisetum. The drawing
will show you what to look for.

Gather a handful and take them home. Then get some
of the moss known as ground-pine, a small piece of glass
(the Guide should see that the edges of the glass are well
rubbed with a stone, to prevent cutting the fingers), a cigar
box, and white paste or putty, as in the Monkey-hunt.

Make a pool with the glass, and banks around it of the
paste. Now cover these banks with the ground pine; using
a little glue on the under side of each piece, but leave an[186]
open space without moss at the back, near the pool. Take
a pointed stick and make holes through the moss into the
clay or putty, and in each hole put one of the Horsetails,
cutting it off with scissors if too tall for the top, till you
have a thicket of these stems on each side; only make more
on one side than on the other.

Now for the grand finish. You must make an extinct
monster. Get half a walnut shell; cut a notch at one end
where the neck will be; fill the shell with putty; stick in
wooden pegs for legs, tail, and head. The central stalk of a
tulip-tree fruit makes a wonderful sculptured tail; the unopened
buds of dogwood do for legs, also cloves have been
used. Any nobby stick serves for head if you make eyes and
teeth on it.

When dry this makes a good extinct monster. Set it
on the far bank of the water, and you have a jungle, the
old Pennsylvania jungle of the days when the coal was
packed away.

TALE 77
The Woods in Winter

Go out to the nearest chestnut tree, and get half a small
burr; trim it neatly. Fill it with putty; set four wooden
pegs in this for legs, a large peg for a head and a long thin
one for a tail. On the head put two little black pins for
eyes. Now rub glue on the wooden pegs and sprinkle them
with powdered rotten wood, or fine sand, and you have a
Burr Porcupine. Sometimes carpet tacks are used for
legs. You will have to wear strong leather gloves in making
this, it is so much like a real Porcupine.

Now go into your woods and get a handful of common
red cedar twigs with leaves on, or other picturesque branches,[187]
some creeping moss of the kind used by flower dealers to
pack plants, various dried grasses, and a few flat or sharp-cornered
pebbles. Take these home. Get a cigar box
or a candy-box, some paper, clay or putty and glass, as already
described for the Monkey-hunt. Make a pond with
the glass and a bank with the clay and pebbles. Paint
the top of the clay, and tops of the pebbles with the thin
glue, and also part of the glass; then sprinkle all with powdered
chalk, whitening, plaster of Paris or talcum powder for
snow. Put the Porcupine in the middle, and you have the
“Woods in Winter.”

TALE 78
The Fish and the Pond

The Fish and the Pond—and the Cone

Go out and get the cone of a Norway Spruce tree, or a
White Spruce; this is the body of your Fish. Cut two round
spots of white paper for eyes, glue them on, and when dry,
put a black ink spot in the middle of each. Add a curved
piece of paper on each side for gills. Then with an awl
or with the point of the scissors make holes in the sides, in
which put fins cut out of brown paper, fixing them in with
glue. Then, with the knife blade, make a long cut in the
back, and split the tail, and in each cut glue a thick piece
of brown paper cut fin shape. When dry, draw lines on
these with ink. Now you have a good Fish.

For the pond, take a cigar-box, paint the lower quarter
of it dark green, and the upper part shaded into light blue,
for sky. Glue a piece of glass or else carwindow celluloid
level across this near the bottom. This is for water. Hide
all the back and side edges of the glass with clay banks as
described in the Monkey-hunt, or with moss glued on.
Put a fine black thread to the Fish’s back, another to his[189]
tail, and hang him level above the water by fastening the
threads to the top of the box. Label it “Pond Life” or
the “Fish at Home.”

TALE 79
Smoke Prints of Leaves

Smoke Prints of Leaves

Collect one or two leaves that have strongly marked
ribs; elm and raspberry are good ones. Take a piece of
paper that is strong, but rather soft, and about as big
as this page. Grease, or oil it all over with paint-oil, butter,
or lard. Then hold it, grease-side down, in the smoke of a
candle, close to the flame, moving it about quickly so that
the paper won’t burn, until it is everywhere black with soot.

Lay the paper flat on a table, soot-side up, on a piece
of blotting paper. Lay the leaf on this; then, over that, a
sheet of paper. Press this down over all the leaf. Lift the
leaf and lay it on a piece of soft, white paper; press it down
as before, with a paper over it, on which you rub with one
hand while the other keeps it from slipping; lift the leaf,
and on the lower paper you will find a beautiful line-drawing
of the leaf, done in black ink; which, once it is dry, will
never rub out or fade away.

At one corner write down the date and the name of the
leaf.

TALE 80
Bird-boxes

Bird-boxes

You can win honours in Woodcraft if you make a successful
bird-box. That is one made by yourself, and used
by some bird to raise its brood in.

There are three kinds of birds that are very ready to use
the nesting places you make. These are the Robin, Wren,[193]
and Phoebe. But each bird wants its own kind exactly
right, or will not use it.

First the Robin wants a shelf, as in the picture. It
should be hung against a tree or a building, about ten feet
up, and not much exposed to the wind. It should also be
in a shady place or at least not where it gets much sun.

The nails sticking up on the floor are to hold the nest so
the wind will not blow it away. The Phoebe-shelf is much
the same only smaller.

The Wren-box should be about four or five inches wide
and six inches high inside, with a hole exactly seven eighths
inch wide. If any bigger, the Wren does not like it so well,
and other birds may drive the Wren away. Many Wren-boxes
are made of tomato tins, but these are hard to cut a
hole in. The Wren-box should be hung where the sun never
shines on it all summer, as that would make it too hot inside.

TALE 81
A Hunter’s Lamp

A Hunter’s Lamp

In the old pioneer days, every hunter used to make himself
a lamp, for it was much easier to make than a candle.
It is a good stunt in Woodcraft to make one. Each woodcrafter
should have one of his own handiwork. There are
four things needed in it: The bowl, the wick, the wick-holder
and some fat, grease, or oil.

For the bowl a big clam shell does well.

For wick a strip of cotton rag rolled into a cord as thick
as a slate pencil, and about two inches long; a cotton cord
will do, or perhaps the fibrous bark of milkweed or other
native stuff is the truly woodcraft thing.

For wick-holder get a piece of brick, stone, or a small clam
shell about as big as a half dollar. Bore a hole through the[194]
middle to hold the wick. It is not easy to get the hole
through without splitting the stone, but sometimes one
can find a flat pebble already bored. Sometimes one can
make a disc of clay with a hole in it, then burn this hard in
a fierce fire, but the most primitive way is to rub the bump
of a small clam shell on a flat stone till it is worn through.

For oil use the fat, grease, lard, or butter of any animal,
if it is fresh, that is without salt in it.

Fill the bowl with the grease, soak the wick in grease and
set it in the holder so that half an inch sticks up; the rest is
in the grease. The holder rests on the bottom of the bowl.

Light the end that sticks up. It will burn with a clear,
steady light till all the oil is used up.

To have made a lamp that will burn for half an hour is
counted an “honour” in Woodcraft, and may win you a
badge if you belong to a Woodcraft Tribe.

TALE 82
The Coon Hunt

Take a little bundle of white rags, or paper, as large as
a walnut; call this the “Coon.” While all the young folks
hide their eyes or go out of the room, the Guide puts the
Coon on some place, high or low, but in plain view; then,
going away from it, shouts “Coon!”

Now the young scouts have to find that Coon, each
looking about for himself. As soon as one sees it, he says
nothing, but sits down. Each must find it for himself,
then sit down silently, until all are down. Last down is
the “booby”; first down is the winner; and the winner has
the right to place the Coon the second time, if the Guide
does not wish to do it.

This is often played indoors and sometimes a thimble is
used for the Coon.[195]

TALE 83
The Indian Pot

This is something everyone can make, no matter how
young, and each, including the Guide, should make one.

Get a lump of good stiff clay; yellow is better than blue,
only because it is a better colour when finished.

Work the clay up with water till soft, pick out all stones,
lumps, and straws. Then roll it out like a pancake; use a
knife to cut this into laces a foot long and about as thick as
a pencil.

Dip your fingers in water, take one of these laces and
coil it round and round as in “a,” soldering it together with
water rubbed on and into the joints. Keep on adding,
shaping and rubbing, till you have a saucer about three
inches across and a quarter of an inch thick. Put this away
in some shady place to set, or harden a little; otherwise it
would fall down of its own weight.

After about an hour, wet the rim, and build up on that
round and round with laces as before, until you have turned
the saucer into a cup, about four inches across, and, maybe
three inches high. Set this away to stiffen. Then finish the
shape, by adding more coils, and drawing it in a little.
When this has stiffened, make a “slip” or cream of clay
and water, rub this all over the pot inside and out; use your
fingers and a knife to make it smooth and even. When
this is done, use a sharp point, and draw on the pot any of
the Indian designs show in the sketches, using lines and
dots for the shading.

The Indian Pot

Now set the pot in some shady place to dry. High above
the stove in the kitchen is a good place, so long as it is not
too near the stove-pipe. After one day bring it nearer the
heat. Then about the second day, put it in the oven.[197]
Last of all, and this is the hardest part to do, let the Guide
put the bone-dry pot right into the fire, deep down into
the red coals at night, and leave it there till next day. In
the morning when the fire is dead, the pot should be carefully
lifted out, and, if all is well, it will be of hard ringing
red terra cotta.

The final firing is always the hardest thing to do, because
the pots are so easily cracked. If they be drawn out of the
fire while they are yet hot, the sudden touch of cold air
usually breaks them into pieces.

Now remember, O Guide! A pot is made of the earth,
and holds the things that come out of the earth to make
life, that feed us and keep us. So on it, you should draw
the symbols that stand for these things. At the foot of
preceding page you see some of them.

TALE 84
Snowflakes, the Sixfold Gems of Snowroba

Snowflakes

You have heard of the lovely Snowroba, white calm beautiful
Snowroba, the daughter of King Jackfrost the Winter
King, whose sad history was told in the first Tale. You
remember how her robe was trimmed with white lace and
crystal gems, each gem with six points and six facets and
six angles, for that is one of the strange laws of the white
Kingdom, the sixfold rule of gems. I did not give a good
portrait of the White Princess, but I can show you how
to make the Jewels which sparkled on her robe.

Take a square of thin white paper three or four inches wide
(a). Fold it across (b), and again, until it is a square (c), half as
wide as “a.” Mark on it the lines as in “d,” and fold it in three
equal parts as in “e.” Now with pencil draw the heavy black
lines as in “f, g, h.” Cut along these lines with scissors, open[199]
out the central piece, and you have your snow-gems as
on facing page.

You can see for yourself that these are true to the gem-law
of the White Kingdom, if, when next the snow comes down,
you look for the biggest flakes as they lie on some dark
surface. You will find many patterns all of them beautiful,
and all of them fashioned in accordance with the law.

Are You Alive?

Little boy or girl, are you all alive? Just as alive as an
Indian? Can you see like a hawk, feel like a blind man,
hear like an owl? Are you quick as a cat? You do not
know! Well, let us find out in the next eight tales. In
these tests 100 is kept in view as a perfect score in each department,
although it is possible in some cases to go over
that.

TALE 85
Farsight

1. Hold up a page of this book, and see how far off you
can read it. If at 60 inches, measured with a tapeline
from your eye to the book, then your eye number is 60,
which is remarkably good. Very few get as high as 70.

2. Now go out at night and see how many Pleiades you
can count; see Tale 52. If you see a mere haze, your star
number is 0; if you see 4 little pin points in the haze, your
number is 8; if you see 6, your number is 12. If you see
7 your number is 14; and you will not get beyond that.

3. Now look for the Pappoose on the Squaw’s back, as
in Tale 50. If you do not see it, you score nothing. If
you can see it, and prove that you see it, your number is
14 more.[200]

Now add up these, thus: 60 plus 14 plus 14; this gives
88 as your farsight number. Anything over 60 means you
can see like a hawk.

TALE 86
Quicksight

Take two boards, cards or papers, each about half a
foot square; divide them with black lines into 25 squares
each, i. e. 5 each way; get 6 nuts and 4 pebbles, or 6 pennies
and 4 beans; or any other set of two things differing in
size and shape.

Let the one to be tested turn his back, while the Guide
places 3 nuts and 2 pebbles on one of the boards, in any
pattern he pleases, except that there must be only one on
a square.

Now, let the player see them for 5 seconds by the watch;
then cover it up.

From memory, the player must place the other 3 nuts
and 2 pebbles on the other board, in exactly the same pattern.
Counting one for every one that was right. Note
that a piece exactly on the line does not count; but one
chiefly in a square is reckoned to be in that square.

Do this 4 times. Then multiply the total result by 5.
This gives his quicksight number, to be added to his aliveness
score.

TALE 87
Hearing

Can you hear like an owl? An owl can find his prey by
hearing after dark. His ears are wonderful. Let us try
if yours are.[201]

1. Watch-test. First, you must be blindfolded, and in
some perfectly quiet place indoors. Now have the Guide
hold a man’s watch (open if hunting-cased), near your
head; if you can hear it at 40 inches, measured on a tapeline,
and prove that you do, by telling exactly where it is, in
several tries, your hearing number is 40, which is high. If
at 20 inches, it is low (20 pts.); if at 60 inches (60 pts.), it is
remarkable. Anything over 50 points means you can hear
like an owl. In this you go by your best ear.

2. Pindrop-test. Sometimes it is difficult to get a good
watch-test. Then the trial may be made with an ordinary,
silvered brass stick-pin, 1-1/8 inches long, with small head.
Lay the pin on a block of wood that is exactly half an inch
thick. Set this on a smooth polished board, or table top
of hardwood, not more than an inch thick, and with open
space under it. Set it away from the edge of the table so
as to be clear of the frame and legs. After the warning
“ready,” let the Guide tip the block of wood, so the pin
drops from the block to the table top (half an inch). If
you hear it at 35 feet in a perfectly still room, your hearing
is normal, and your hearing number is 35. If 20 feet is your
farthest limit of hearing it, your number is 20, which is low.
If you can hear it at 70 feet, your number is 70, which is
remarkable.

You can use either the watch-test or the pin-test. If
you use both, you add the totals together, and divide by
2, to get your hearing number.

TALE 88
Feeling

1. Have you got wise fingers like a blind man?

Put 10 nickels, 10 coppers and 10 dimes in a hat or in one[202]
hand if you like. Then, while blindfolded, separate them
into three separate piles, all of each kind in a separate pile,
within 2 minutes. If it takes you the full 2 minutes (120
seconds), you are slow, and your feel number is 0. If you
do it without a mistake in 1 minute and 20 seconds, your
feel number is 40, one point for each second you are less
than 2 minutes. But you must take off 3 points for every
one wrongly placed, so 3 wrongly placed would reduce your
40 to 31. I have known some little boys on the East Side
of New York to do it in 50 seconds without a mistake, so
their feel-number by coins was 70. That is, 120 seconds
minus 50 seconds equals 70. This is the best so far.

2. Now get a quart of corn or beans. Then when blindfolded,
and using but one hand, lay out the corn or beans
in “threes”; that is, three at a time laid on the table for
2 minutes. The Guide may move the piles aside as they
are made. Then stop and count all that are exactly three
in a pile (those with more or less do not count at
all). If there are 40 piles with 3 in each, 40 is your number,
by corn.

3. The last test is: Can you lace your shoes in the
dark, or blind-folded, finishing with a neat double bow
knot?

Arrange it so your two shoes together have a total of at
least 20 holes or hooks to be used in the test, i. e., which
do not have the lace in them when you begin. Allow 1
point for each hole or hook, i. e., 20 points, finish the lacing
in 2 minutes, in any case stop when the 2 minutes is
up; then take off 2 points for each one that is wrongly laced,
or not laced. Thus: Supposing 4 are wrong, take off 4
times 2 from 20, and your blindfold lacing number is 12;
if the number wrong was 10 or more, your lacing number is
0; if you had 3 wrong, your number is 14.

Suppose by these three tests—coins, corn, and laces—you[203]
scored 40, 30, and 14; add these together and they give your
feel number; 84.

TALE 89
Quickness

Put down 12 potatoes (or other round things) in a row,
each one exactly 6 feet from the last, and the last 12 feet
from a box with a hole in it, just large enough to take in one
potato. Now at the word “go,” run and get the first potato,
put it through the hole into the box; then get the second,
bring it to the box, and so on, one at each trip. After one
minute, stop. Now multiply the number of potatoes in the
box by 10, and you have your quickness number. If you
have 8 in the box, you score 80 points, you are as quick as a
cat. Very few get over 80. No one so far has made 100
points.

TALE 90
Guessing Length

Take two common nails, or other thin bits of metal,
and lay them on a table or board, at what you guess to be
exactly one yard (36 inches) apart. Then let the Guide
lay the tape-line on it, and, allowing 20 points for exactly
right, take off 1 point for each half inch you are wrong, over
or under. Do not count quarter inches, but go by the nearest
half-inch mark. Do this 5 times, add up the totals,
that will give your guessing-length number.

Thus, if your first guess turns out to be 37 inches, that
is, 2 half-inches too much, 2 from 20 gives 18 points. Your
next guess was 34 inches, that is 4 half-inches too little, 4
from 20 gives 16 points. Your next guess gave 12 points,
your next 17, and your last 19. The total, 18 plus 16[204]
plus 12 plus 17 plus 19, equals your number of guessing
length or 82.

TALE 91
Aim or Limb-control

Take 25 medium-sized potatoes, and set up a bucket or
bag whose mouth is round and exactly one foot across.
Draw a line exactly 10 feet from the bucket or bag. Toe
that line, and throw the potatoes, one by one, into the
bag. Those that go in, then bounce out, are counted
as in. Do it four times, then add up all the four totals
of those that went in; that gives your aim or control
number.

For example, suppose that in the 4 tries you got 10 in the
first time, 15 in the second, 20 in the third, 19 in the fourth.
Add these together, it gives your arm-control or aim number
as 64.

But very few can score so high. If you can score 400
you are surely alive; you can see like a hawk, you can take
in at a glance, you can hear like an owl, you can feel like a
blind man, you are quick as a cat, you are a good judge of
size, and you can aim true; That is, you are as alive as an
Indian.[205]

TALE 92
A Treasure Hunt

Make 24 little white sticks, each about three inches long,
and as thick as a pencil. They are easy to make of willow
shoots, after the bark is peeled off. While the young folk
hide their eyes, the Guide walks off in the woods, ties a white
rag on a tall stake or limb, for the point of beginning. Then,
one step apart and in a very crooked line, sets each of the
little white sticks in the ground, standing straight up.
Under the last stick should be buried the treasure; usually
a stick of chocolate. This the players are to find by following
the sticks.

When the young folk get used to it, the line should be
longer, the sticks farther apart, and the last one may be
ten steps from the last but one.

When they are well trained at it, scraps of paper, white
beans, corn, or even chalk marks on trees, instead of sticks,
will serve for trail; and still later holes prodded in the ground
with a sharp pointed cane will do.

This game can be played in the snow; in which case, the
track of the Guide, when he hides the treasure, takes the
place of the sticks.

Finally it makes a good game for indoors on a rainy day.
In which case we use buttons, corn, or scraps of white cotton
for trail sticks. Of course the trail now should be upstairs
and down, and as long and crooked as possible.

TALE 93
Moving Pictures

One of the best developers of imagination is the Moving
Picture. Sometimes called Pantomime, or Dumb-show
which means all signs without sounds.[206]

The one who is to put on the “movie” is given a subject
and must then stand out on the stage or Council Ring, and
carry all the story to the spectators, without using any sound
and with as few accessories as possible.

The “print between the reels” is supplied by the Guide
who simply announces what is needed to explain.

The following subjects have been used successfully
(unless otherwise stated they are for one actor each):

Miss Muffet and the Spider—the well-known Nursery
Rhyme

Old Mother Hubbard

Little Jack Horner

Mary and her Little Lamb

Red Ridinghood—walk through the woods, meeting the wolf, etc.

Robinson Crusoe—finding the track of a man in the sand

A Barber Shop—shaving a customer (two actors)

The Man’s First Speech at a Dinner

The Politician who was rotten-egged after vainly trying to control a meeting

Joyride in a Ford Car—ending in a bad upset (two actors)

The Operation—a scene in a hospital following the accident (two or more)

The Professor of Hypnotism and His Subject (two actors)

The Man who Found a Hair in His Soup

The Young Lady Finds a Purse, on opening it a mouse jumps out and she remembers that it is 1st of April

A Young Man Telephoning to His Best Girl

A Man Meeting and Killing a Rattlesnake

Lighting a Lamp

Drawing a Cork

Looking for a Lost Coin—finding it in one pocket or shoe

A Musician Playing His Own Composition

[207]The Sleeping Beauty and the Prince (two actors)

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

William Tell and the Apple (best rendered in caricature with a pumpkin and two actors)

Eliza Crossing the Ice

The Kaiser Signing His Abdication

The Judgment of Solomon (three actors)

Brutus Condemning His Two Sons to Death.

TALE 94
A Natural Autograph Album

If you live in the country, I can show you an old
Woodcraft trick. Look for a hollow tree. Sometimes you
can pick one out afar, by the dead top, and sometimes by
noting a tree that had lost one of the biggest limbs years
ago. In any case, basswoods, old oaks and chestnuts are apt
to be hollow; while hickories and elms are seldom so, for once
they yield to decay at all, they go down.

Remember that every hollow tree is a tenement house of
the woods. It may be the home of a score of different
families. Some of these, like Birds and Bats, are hard to
observe, except at nesting time. But the fourfoots are
easier to get at. For them, we will arrange a visitors’
book at the foot of the tree, so that every little creature
in fur will write his name, and some passing thought, as
he comes to the tree.

How?

Oh, it is simple; I have often done it. First clear and
level the ground around the tree for three or four feet;
then cover it with a coat of dust, ashes, or sand—whichever
is easiest to get; rake and brush it smooth; then wait over
one night.

Next morning—most quadrupeds are night-walkers[208]—come
back; and you will find that every creature on four
feet that went to the tree tenement-house has left us its
trail; that is its track or trace.

No two animals make the same trail, so that every Squirrel
that climbed, every ‘Coon or ‘Possum, every Tree-mouse,
and every Cottontail that went by, has clearly put himself
on record without meaning to do so; and we who study
Woodcraft can read the record, and tell just who passed
by in the night.

TALE 95
The Crooked Stick

Once upon a time there was a girl who was very anxious
to know what sort of a husband she should get; so, of course,
she went to the old wood-witch.

The witch asked a few questions, then said to the girl:
“You walk straight through that woods, turn neither to
right nor left, and never turn back an inch, and pick me out
a straight stick, the straighter the better; but pick only one,
and bring it back.”

So the girl set out. Soon she saw a fine-looking stick
close at hand; but it had a slight blemish near one end, so
she said: “No; I can do better than that.” Then she saw
another that was perfect but for a little curve in the middle,
so she passed it by.

Thus she went, seeing many that were nearly perfect; but
walking on, seeking one better, till she was quite through
the woods. Then she realized her chances were nearly gone;
so she had to take the only stick she could find, a very
crooked one indeed, and brought it to the witch, saying that
she “could have got a much better one had she been more
easily satisfied at the beginning.”

The witch took the stick, waved it at the girl and said:[209]
“then this is your fortune; through the woods and through
the woods and out with a crooked stick. If you were less hard
to please, you would have better luck; but you will pass
many a good man by, and come out with a crooked stick.”

Maybe some of our Woodcraft girls can find an initiation
in this. Put it just as the witch did it, but let it be considered
a success if the stick is two feet long and nowhere half
an inch out of true line. Let me add a Woodcraft proverb
which should also have its mead of comfort—The Great
Spirit can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.

TALE 96
The Animal Dance of Nana-bo-jou

For this we need a Nana-bo-jou; that is, a grown-up who
can drum and sing. He has a drum and drumstick, and a
straw or paper club; also two goblins, these are good-sized
boys or girls wearing ugly masks, or at least black hoods
with two eyeholes, made as hideous as possible; and any
number of children, from three or four up, for animals.
If each has the marks, colours, etc., of some bird or beast,
so much the better.

First, Nana-bo-jou is seen chasing the children around the
outside of the circle, trying to catch one to eat; but failing,
thinks he’ll try a trick and he says: “Stop, stop, my brothers.
Why should we quarrel? Come, let’s hold a council together
and I will teach you a new dance.”

The animals whisper together and the Coyote comes forward,
barks, then says:

“Nana-bo-jou, I am the Coyote. The animals say that
they will come to council if you will really make peace and
play no tricks.”[210]

“Tricks!” says Nana-bo-jou, “I only want to teach you
the new songs from the South.”

Then all the animals troop in and sit in a circle. Nana-bo-jou
takes his drum and begins to sing:

Turning to one, he says: “Who are you and what can you
dance?”

The answers are, “I am the Beaver [or whatever it is] and
I can dance the Beaver Dance.”

“Good! Come and show me how.”

So the Beaver dances to the music, slapping the back of
his flat right hand, up and under his left hand for a tail,
holding up a stick in both paws to gnaw it, and lumbering
along in time to the music, at the same time imitating the
Beaver’s waddle.

Nana-bo-jou shouts: “Fine! That is the best Beaver
Dance I ever saw. You are wonderful; all you need to be
perfect is wings. Wouldn’t you like to have wings so you
could fly over the tree-tops, like the Eagle?”

“Yes,” says the Beaver.

“I can make strong medicine and give you wings, if all the
animals will help me,” says Nana-bo-jou. “Will you?”

“Yes,” they all cry.

“Then all close your eyes tight and cover them with your
paws. Don’t look until I tell you. Beaver, close your eyes
and dance very fast and I will make magic to give you
wings.”

All close and cover their eyes. Nana-bo-jou sings very
loudly and, rushing on the Beaver, hits him on the head with
the straw club. The Beaver falls dead. The two goblins
run in from one side and drag off the body.[211]

Then Nana-bo-jou shouts: “Look, look, now! See how
he flies away! See, there goes the Beaver over the tree-tops.”
All look as he points and seem to see the Beaver
going.

Different animals and birds are brought out to dance their
dances and are killed as before. Then the Crow comes out,
hopping, flopping, cawing. Nana-bo-jou looks at him and
says: “You are too thin. You are no good. You don’t
need any more wings,” and so sends him to sit down.

Then the Coyote comes out to do the Coyote Dance,
imitating Coyote, etc.; but he is very suspicious and, in
answer to the questions, says: “No; I don’t want wings.
The Great Spirit gave me good legs, so I am satisfied”;
then goes back to his seat.

Next the Deer, the Sheep, etc., come out and are killed;
while all the rest are persuaded that the victims flew away.
But the Coyote and the Loon have their doubts. They
danced in their turns, but said they didn’t want any change.
They are satisfied as the Great Spirit made them. They
are slow about hiding their eyes. At last, they peek and
realize that it is all a trap and the Loon shouts: “Nana-bo-jou
is killing us! It is all a trick! Fly for your lives!”

As they all run away, Nana-bo-jou pursues the Loon,
hitting him behind with the club, which is the reason that
the Loon has no tail and has been lame behind ever since.

The Loon shouts the Loon battle-cry, a high-pitched
quavering LUL-L-L-O-O-O and faces Nana-bo-jou; the
animals rally around the Loon and the Coyote to attack
the magician. All point their fingers at him shouting
“Wakan Seecha” (or Black Magic). He falls dead in the
circle. They bury him with branches, leaves, or a blanket,
and all the animals do their dances around him.

Before beginning, the story of the dance should be told
to the audience.[212]

TALE 97
The Caribou Dance

Horns for the Caribou Dance

The easiest of our campfire dances to learn, and the best
for quick presentation, is the Caribou Dance. It has been
put on for public performance after twenty minutes’ rehearsing,
with those who never saw it before, because it is
all controlled and called off by the Chief. It does equally
well for indoor gymnasium or for campfire in the woods.

In the way of fixings for this, you need only four pairs
of horns and four cheap bows. Real deer horns may be
used, but they are scarce and heavy. It is better to go out
where you can get a few crooked limbs of oak, cedar, hickory
or apple tree; and cut eight pairs, as near like those in the
cut as possible, each about two feet long and one inch thick
at the butt. Peel these, for they should be white; round off
all sharp points of the branches, then lash them in pairs,
as shown. A pair, of course, is needed for each Caribou.
These are held in the hand and above the head, or in the
hand resting on the head.

The four Caribou look best in white. Three or four
hunters are needed. They should have bows, but no arrows.
The Chief should have a drum and be able to sing the Muje
Mukesin, or other Indian dance tune. One or two persons
who can howl like Wolves should be sent off to one side,
and another that can yell like a Lynx or a Panther on the
other side, well away from the ring. Otherwise the Chief
or leader can do the imitations. Now we are ready for

The Chief begins by giving three thumps on his drum to
call attention; then says in a loud, singing voice: “The[214]
Caribou have not come on our hunting grounds for three
snows. We need meat. Thus only can we bring them
back, by the big medicine of the Caribou Dance, by the
power of the White Caribou.”

He rolls his drum, then in turn faces each of the winds,
beckoning, remonstrating, and calling them by name;
Kitchi-nodin (West); Keeway-din (North); Wabani-nodin
(East); Shawani-nodin (South). Calling last to the quarter
whence the Caribou are to come, finishing the call with
a long KO-KEE-NA. Then as he thumps a slow single
beat the four Caribou come in in single file, at a stately pace
timed to the drum. Their heads are high, and they hold the
horns on their heads, with one hand, as they proudly march
around. The Chief shouts: “The Caribou, The Caribou!”
After going round once in a sun circle (same way as the sun),
they go each to a corner. The Chief says: “They honour
the symbol of the Great Spirit.” The drum stops; all
four march to the fire. They bow to it together, heads low,
and utter a long bellow.

Then the Chief shouts: “They honour the four Winds,
the Messengers.”

Then the Caribou back up four paces each, turn suddenly
and make a short bow, with a short bellow, then turn and
again face the fire.

The Chief shouts: “Now they live their wild free lives on
the plain.” He begins any good dance song and beats
double time. The Caribou dance around once in a
circle.

The Chief shouts: “Full of life they fight among themselves.”

The first and second Caribou, and third and fourth, close
in combat. They lower their heads, lock horns held safely
away from the head, snort, kick up the dust, and dance
around each other two or three times.[215]

The music begins again, and they cease fighting and dance
in a circle once more.

The music stops. The Chief shouts: “They fight again.”
Now the first and fourth and second and third lock horns
and fight.

After a round or so the music begins again and they
cease fighting and again circle, dancing as before.

The Chief calls out: “The Wolves are on their track.”

Now the howling of Wolves is heard in the distance, from
the fellows already posted.

The Caribou rush toward that side and face it in a row,
threatening, with horns low, as they snort, stamp, and kick
up the dust.

The Wolf-howling ceases. The Caribou are victorious.
The Chief shouts: “They have driven off the Wolves.”
They turn away and circle once to the music, holding their
heads high.

Now Panther-yelling (or other menacing sound) is heard
in the other direction. The Chief shouts: “But now the
Panthers have found them out.”

Again the Caribou line up and show fight. When it
ceases, the Chief cries out: “They have driven off the
Panther.” Now they dance proudly around, heads up,
chests out as they step, for they have conquered every foe.

Then the Chief calls out: “But another, a deadlier enemy
comes. The hunters are on their trail.” The hunters
appear, crawling very low and carrying bows. They go
half around the ring, each telling those behind by signs,
“Here they are; we have found them,” “Four big fellows,”
“Come on,” etc. When they come opposite the Caribou,
the first hunter lets off a short “yelp.” The Caribou spring
to the opposite side of the ring, and then line up to defy this
new noise; but do not understand it, so gaze as they prance
about in fear. The hunters draw their bows together, and[216]
make as though each lets fly an arrow. The first Caribou
drops, the others turn in fear and run around about half
of the ring, heads low, and not dancing; then they dash
for the timber. The hunters run forward with yells. The
leader holds up the horns. All dance and yell around the
fallen Caribou and then drag it off the scene.

The Chief then says: “Behold, it never fails; the Caribou
dance brings the Caribou. It is great medicine. Now there
is meat in the lodge and the children cry no longer.”

TALE 98
The Council Robe

The Woodcraft Council Robe is something which every
one may have, and should make for himself. It may be
of any shade, of gray, buff, orange, or scarlet. The best ones
are of a bright buff. In size they are about five feet by six
feet, and the stuff may be wool, cotton, silk, or a mixture.
My own is of soft or blanket cotton.

The Council Robe

The robe is used as a wall banner, a personal robe, or a bed
spread, and has for the first purpose two or more tag-loops
sewn on the top. For the second, it has a head-hole or
poncho-hole, an upright slit near one end (hh), and for
the last, there are one or two buttons or tie-strings to close
the poncho-hole. These are the useful features of the
robe.

The ornamental features are the records on it. While
these vary with each owner, the following usually appear:
The Fourfold fire, near the middle; the Woodcraft shield,
the owner’s totem, the symbols of each coup and each degree
won by the owner.

To this many add a pictographic record of great events or
of camps they have visited.[217]

[218]

The easiest way to make the robe is to use paints on the
cotton fabric.

The favourite way and more beautiful way, is to use
appliqués of coloured cloths for the design.

The most beautiful is to embroider in silk or mercerized
cotton. But the last is very slow, and calls for much labour
as well as some money.

On the preceding page are shown four different styles of
robe; you may choose or adapt which you please, except
that only a Sagamore may use the one with the 24 feathers
in the centre.[219]

[221]

THINGS TO REMEMBER

Things to Remember

TALE 99
How the Wren Became King of the Birds

The story is very old, and it may not be true, but
this is how they tell it in many countries.

The animals had chosen the lion for their King
because his looks and his powers seemed to fit him best of
all for the place. So the birds made up their minds that
they also would have a royal leader.

After a long council it was decided that, in spite of strong
opposition from the Ostrich and his followers, the one with
the greatest powers of flight should be King. And away
all flew to see which could go the highest.

One by one they came down tired out, till only two were
to be seen in the air: the Eagle and the Turkey-buzzard still
going up. At last they got so high that the Turkey-buzzard
froze his ears off for they were naked. Then he
gave it up. The Eagle went still higher to show how strong
he was, then sailed downward to claim the royal honours.

But just as they were about to give him the crown, the
Wren hopped off the top of the Eagle’s head, where he had
been hiding in the long feathers, and squeaked out, “No
matter how high he was, I was a little bit higher, so I am
King.”

“You,” said the Eagle; “Why I carried you up.”

“Nothing to do with it,” said the Wren.[222]

“Then let’s try it over,” said the Eagle.

“No, no,” said the Wren, “one try was agreed on, and it’s
settled now, I was higher than you.”

And they have been disputing over it ever since. The
lawyers take the Wren’s side and the soldiers take the
Eagle’s side.

The peasants in Europe sometimes speak of the Eagle
as “the King of the Birds,” but they always call the Wren
the “Little King.” And that is why we call our gold-crowned
Wrens, Kinglets, or Kingwrens and I suppose that
is why they wear a crown of gold.

TALE 100
The Snowstorm

It was at the great winter Carnival of Montreal not long
ago. Looking out of a window on a stormy day were five
children of different races: an Eskimo, a Dane, a Russian,
an Indian, and a Yankee. The managers of the Carnival
had brought the first four with their parents; but the Yankee
was the son of a rich visitor.

“Look,” cried the little Eskimo from Alaska, as he
pointed to the driving snow. “Look at the ivory chips
falling! El Sol is surely carving a big Walrus tusk into a
fine dagger for himself. See how he whittles, and sends the
white dust flying.”

Of course he didn’t say “El Sol,” but used the Eskimo
name for him.

Then the Dane said: “No, that isn’t what makes it. That
is Mother Earth getting ready for sleep. Those are the
goose feathers of her feather bed, shaken up by her servants
before she lies down and is covered with her white mantle.”

The little Indian, with his eyes fixed on the storm, shook[223]
his head gravely and said: “My father taught me that these
are the ashes from Nana-bo-jou’s pipe; he has finished his
smoke and is wrapping his blanket about him to rest. And
my father always spake true.”

“Nay, you are all wrong,” said the little Russian. “My
grandmother told me that it is Mother Carey. She is out
riding in her strongest, freshest steed, the White Wind.
He has not been out all summer; he is full of strength and
fury; he spumes and rages. The air is filled with the foam
from his bridle, and froth from his shoulders, as she rides
him, and spurs him, and rides him. I love to see it, and
know that she is filling the air with strength and with messages.
They carry me back to my own dear homeland.
It thrills me with joy to see the whiteness.”

But the Yankee boy said: “Why, it’s just snowing.”

TALE 101
The Fairy Lamps

There was once a little barelegged, brown-limbed boy
who spent all his time in the woods. He loved the woods
and all that was in them. He used to look, not at the
flowers, but deep down into them, and not at the singing
bird, but into its eyes, to its little heart; and so he got an
insight better than most others, and he quite gave up collecting
birds’ eggs.

But the woods were full of mysteries. He used to hear
little bursts of song, and when he came to the place he could
find no bird there. Noises and movements would just
escape him. In the woods he saw strange tracks, and one
day, at length, he saw a wonderful bird making these very
tracks. He had never seen the bird before, and would have
thought it a great rarity had he not seen its tracks every[224]where.
So he learned that the woods were full of beautiful
creatures that were skillful and quick to avoid him.

One day, as he passed by a spot for the hundredth time,
he found a bird’s nest. It must have been there for long,
and yet he had not seen it; and so he learned how blind he
was, and he exclaimed: “Oh, if only I could see, then I
might understand these things! If only I knew! If I
could see but for once, how many there are, and how near!
If only every bird would wear over its nest this evening a
little lamp to show me!”

The sun was down now; but all at once there was a soft
light on the path, and in the middle of it the brown boy saw
a Little Brown Lady in a long robe, and in her hand a rod.

She smiled pleasantly and said: “Little boy, I am the
Fairy of this Woods. I have been watching you for long.
I like you. You seem to be different from other boys.
Your request shall be granted.”

Then she faded away. But at once the whole landscape
twinkled over with wonderful little lamps—long lamps,
short lamps, red, blue, and green, high and low, doubles,
singles, and groups; wherever he looked were lamps—twinkle,
twinkle, twinkle, here and everywhere, until the
forest shone like the starry sky. He ran to the nearest,
yes, a nest; and here and there, each different kind of lamp
stood for another kind of nest. A beautiful purple blaze
in a low tangle caught his eye. He ran to it, and found
a nest he had never seen before. It was full of purple eggs,
and there was the rare bird he had seen but once. It was
chanting the weird song he had often heard, but never traced.
But the eggs were the marvelous things. His old egg-collecting
instinct broke out. He reached forth to clutch
the wonderful prize, and—in an instant all the lights went
out. There was nothing but the black woods about him.
Then on the pathway shone again the soft light. It grew[225]
brighter, till in the middle of it he saw the Little Brown
Lady—the Fairy of the Woods. But she was not smiling
now. Her face was stern and sad, as she said: “I fear I
set you over-high. I thought you better than the rest.
Keep this in mind:

Then she faded from his view, and he never saw the lamps
again.

TALE 102
The Sweetest Sad Song in the Woods

Once a great American poet was asked which he thought
was the sweetest voice in the woods. He said: “The
sweetest sound in Nature is the calling of the Screech Owl.”

Sometimes, though rarely, it does screech, but the sound
it most often makes is the soft mournful song that it sings
in the woods at night, especially in the autumn nights.

It seems to be moaning a lament for the falling leaves, a
sad good-bye to the dear dying summer.

Last autumn one sat above my head in the dark October
woods, and put his little soul into a song that seemed to be

[226]

[227]

A mist came into my eyes as I listened, and yet I thanked
him. “Dear voice in the trees, you have said the things I
felt, and could not say; but voicing my sadness you have
given it wings to fly away.”

TALE 103
Springtime, or the Wedding of Maka Ina and El Sol

Oh, that was a stirring, glowing time! All the air, and
the underwood seemed throbbed with pleasant murmuring
voices. The streams were laughing, the deep pools smiling,
as pussy-willows scattered catkins on them from above.
The oak trees and the birches put on little glad-hangers,
like pennants on a gala ship. The pine trees set up their
green candles, one on every big tip-twig. The dandelions
made haste to glint the early fields with gold. The song
toads and the peepers sang in volleys; the blackbirds wheeled
their myriad cohorts in the air, a guard of honour in review.
The woodwale drummed. The redbud draped its naked
limbs in early festal bloom; and Rumour the pretty liar
smiled and spread the news.

All life was smiling with the frank unselfish smile, that
tells of pleasure in another’s joy.

The love of love is wider than the world. And one who
did not know their speech could yet have read in their
reflected joy a magnitude of joyful happening, could guess
that over two beings of the highest rank, the highest rank
of happiness impended.

Yes, all the living world stood still at gaze: the story of
the bridegroom, the gracious beauty of the bride were sung,
for the wedding day had come. And Mother Carey, she
was there, for were they not her peers? And the Evil One—he
came, but slunk away, for the blessing of the one Great
Oversoul was on them.[228]

Oh, virile, radiant one, El Sol! Oh, Maka Ina! bounteous
mother earth, the day of joining hand in hand passed
by. The joy is with us yet; renewed each year, when March
is three weeks gone. Look, then, ye wanderers in the woods!
Seek in the skies, seek in the growing green, but find it
mostly in your souls, and sing!

TALE 104
Running the Council

Every good Woodcrafter should know the way of the
Council Ring.

Select some quiet level place out of doors; in the woods if
possible, for it is so much better if surrounded by trees.

Make a circle of low seats; the circle should be not less
than 12 feet or more than 20 feet across, depending somewhat
on the number to take part.

In the middle prepare for a small fire. At one side is a
special seat for the Chief; this is called the Council Rock.

On very important occasions take white sand or lime,
and draw a circle around the fire. Then from that draw
the four lamps and the twelve laws as in Tale 105.

When all is ready with the Guide on the Council Rock,
and the Scouts in their seats, the Guide stands up and says:
“Give ear my friends, we are about to hold a council. I
appoint such a one, Keeper of the fire and so-and-so,
Keeper of the tally. Now let the Fire-keeper light the
fire.”

Next the Tally-keeper calls the roll. After which the
business part of the Council is carried on exactly the same
as any ordinary meeting, except that instead of addressing
the “Chairman,” they say, “O Chief”; instead of “yes”
they say “ho,” instead of “no” they say “wah.”[229]

The order of doings in Council is:—

TALE 105
The Sandpainting of the Fire

The Sandpainting of the Fire

When I was staying among the Navaho Indians, I met
John Wetherall, the trader. He had spent half his life
among them, and knew more of their ways than any other
white man that I met. He told me that part of the education
of Navaho priest was knowing the fifty sandpaintings
of his tribe. A sandpainting is a design made on the ground
or floor with dry sands of different colours—black, white,
gray, yellow, red, etc. It looks like a rug or a blanket on
the ground, and is made up of many curious marks which
stand for some man, place, thing, or idea. Thus, the first
sandpainting is a map of the world as the Navaho knew
it, with rivers and hills that are important in their history.
These sandpaintings cannot be moved; a careless touch
spoils them, and a gust of wind can wipe them out. They[231]
endure only in the hearts and memories of the people who
love them.

In the Woodcraft Camp there is but one sandpainting
that is much used; that is, the Sandpainting of the Fourfold
Fire. When I make it in camp, I use only white sand
or powdered lime; but indoors, or on paper, I use yellow
(or orange) and white.

This is the story of the sandpainting. The fire is the symbol
of the Great Spirit; around that we draw a great circle,
as in the diagram.

At each of the four sides we light another fire; these four
are called Fortitude, Beauty, Truth, and Love, and come
from the Fire through Spirit, Body, Mind, and Service.

Then from each of these we draw three golden rays. These
stand for the twelve laws of Woodcraft, and they are named
in this way:

And the final painting is as in the drawing. Of course
the names are not written on the real thing though the
Woodcraft scout should know them.

TALE 106
The Woodcraft Kalendar

The Woodcraft Kalendar

The Woodcraft Kalendar is founded on the Indian way
of noting the months. Our own ancestors called them
“Moons” much as the Indians did. Our word “month”
was once written “moneth” or “monath” which meant a
“moon or moon’s time of lasting.” The usual names for the
moons to-day are Latin, but we find we get closer to nature[233]
if we call them by their Woodcraft names, and use the
little symbols of the Woodcraft Kalendar.

TALE 107
Climbing the Mountain

Afar in our dry southwestern country is an Indian
village; and in the offing is a high mountain, towering up
out of the desert. It is considered a great feat to climb
this mountain, so that all the boys of the village were eager
to attempt it. One day the Chief said: “Now boys, you
you may all go to-day and try to climb the mountain.
Start right after breakfast, and go each of you as far as you
can. Then when you are tired, come back: but let each
one bring me a twig from the place where he turned.”

Away they went full of hope, each feeling that he surely
could reach the top.

But soon a fat, pudgy boy came slowly back, and in his
hand he held out to the Chief a leaf of cactus.

The Chief smiled and said: “My boy, you did not reach
the foot of the mountain; you did not even get across the
desert.”

Later a second boy returned. He carried a twig of sagebrush.

“Well,” said the Chief. “You reached the mountain’s
foot but you did not climb upward.”

The next had a cottonwood spray.

“Good,” said the Chief; “You got up as far as the springs.”

Another came later with some buckthorn. The Chief
smiled when he saw it and spoke thus: “You were climbing;
you were up to the first slide rock.”

Later in the afternoon, one arrived with a cedar spray,
and the old man said: “Well done. You went half way up.”[234]

An hour afterward, one came with a switch of pine. To
him the Chief said: “Good; you went to the third belt;
you made three quarters of the climb.”

The sun was low when the last returned. He was a tall,
splendid boy of noble character. His hand was empty as
he approached the Chief, but his countenance was radiant,
and he said: “My father, there were no trees where I got
to; I saw no twigs, but I saw the Shining Sea.”

Now the old man’s face glowed too, as he said aloud and
almost sang: “I knew it. When I looked on your face, I
knew it. You have been to the top. You need no twigs
for token. It is written in your eyes, and rings in your
voice. My boy, you have felt the uplift, you have seen the
glory of the mountain.”

Oh Ye Woodcrafters, keep this in mind, then: the badges
that we offer for attainment, are not “prizes“; prizes are
things of value taken by violence from their rightful owners.
These are merely tokens of what you have done, of where
you have been. They are mere twigs from the trail to
show how far you got in climbing the mountain.[235]

This old Indian prayer is sung by the Council standing
in a great circle about the fire with feet close together,
hands and faces uplifted, for it is addressed to the Great
Spirit. At the final bars the hands and faces are lowered
to the fire.[236]

Books by Ernest Thompson Seton

BY MRS. ERNEST THOMPSON SETON

(Published by DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.)