cape of Nanahboozhoo
and the Animals on the Raft--The Creation of a New World.

The coming of the pleasant springtime was hailed with great delight. Seven
or eight months were found to be a very long spell of cold winter weather,
and so when with a rapidity unknown in more Southern climates the winter
broke up, and the welcome warm weather made its appearance, everybody
seemed to feel its genial influence.

The first little wild flowers were looked for with intense interest, and
great indeed was the joy of the children when some were found. The sweet
singing birds that in the previous autumn, on the first signs of the coming
down from the colder North of the Frost King, had flitted away to the
summer Southland were now returning in multitudes. The air was full of
their melody, and as scores of them, fearless and trustful, made themselves
at home in the bird resorts around Wahkiegum, great indeed was the
children's delight as they welcomed them back to their haunts in the North.

And really it did seem as though the birds were glad to be there again,
for it is only in the North that these birds sing their sweet love songs to
each other and build their nests and hatch out their little broods.

The Whisky Jacks, that had been croaking out their hoarse cries all winter,
seemed to get sulky and vexed that they were now so little admired, and so
they flitted away farther north and buried themselves in the interior of
the deepest forests.

In the joyousness of those happy days up in those high latitudes, when the
changes of every twenty-four hours can easily be noticed, Sagastao and
Minnehaha for a time troubled neither Souwanas nor Mary for Indian legends
or stories. There was in the rapid melting of the snow, the breaking up of
the immense ice fields on the lake, the appearance of the land, and then
the grass and flowers, and the planting of seeds in their little gardens,
enough to keep them busy and happy.

But even all these things at length lost their interest. The flights of the
wild geese, swans, and ducks had all ceased. They, with many other kinds of
migrating birds, were busy nesting. The sweet songsters around the home
were everyday companions, and, while the children loved them as much as
ever, the excitement of their coming had died away. So when one day they
saw Souwanas coming over the now sparkling waters in his canoe they were
delighted to welcome him. As usual, when he reached the shore the contents
of h