en,
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 the snow went off in April, and I wrote
in their honour this verse:

Some of them bowed are, and broken
And battered and lying low
But the few that are left stand like spearmen staunch
Each pointing his pike at the foe.

TALE 59

Woodchuck Day, February Second Sixth Secret of the Woods

[Illustration: 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 m