lorious 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.

[Illustration: 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 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 li