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
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."

[Illustration: 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," 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