he 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 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.

[Illustration: The Poison Ivy]

TALE 70

Poison Ivy or the Three-Fingered Demon of the Woods

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
clim