They dug and found strings of lovely brown nuts as big as walnuts.

"See, see," chuckled the wood-witch. "See the cocoanuts in the cellar."

* * * * *

Go forth and look for it, ye Woodcrafters. You will find it throughout
Eastern America on the edge of every wood. Its flower is like a
purple-brown sweet-pea, and is in bloom all summer long. Follow down its
vine, dig out a few of the potatoes or nuts, and try them, raw, boiled,
or if ye wish to eat them as Indian Cake, clean them, cut them in
slices, dry till hard, pound them up into meal, and make a cake the same
as you would of oatmeal.

The wild things love them, the Indians love them, and this was the bread
of the wood-witch. The books call it Bog Potato and Ground Nuts. It is
the third secret of the woods.

TALE 45

The Mud-dauber Wasp

If you look under the roof of any wooden barn in Eastern America you are
likely to see the nest of the common Mud-wasp.

[Illustration: The Mud-dauber Wasp (life size)]

If you look on warm sunny days along the edge of some mud puddle you are
sure to see a curious steel-blue wasp, with a very thin waist, working
away at a lump of mud. She seems to be breathing hard with her body, as
she works with her yellow legs, but she finally goes off laden with a
gob of mud. This is the Mud-wasp at work, building a strong mud-nest for
her family. The nest is the one we have seen hung under the roof of
the shed, always put where no rain can reach it.

In the drawing are two of these nests.

Once the cradle is ready, the mother Wasp goes spider-hunting. Whenever
she can find a spider, she pounces on it, and with her sting, she stabs
it in the body, so as to paralyze it, but not kill it. Then she carries
it to the mud cell and packs it in, at the far end. Many spiders are
caught and preserved this way, for they do not usually die though they
cannot move.

When the cell is full, the Wasp lays an egg on the last spider, and
seals up the opening with a mud lid.

Very soon the egg hatches out a little white grub which begins on the
spider next to him, eating the legs first, and the body last, so as to
keep it alive as long as possible, though of course the spider has no
feeling. Then he eats the next spider, and the next, growing as he eats,
until he nearly fills the cell, and the spiders are all eaten up.

Now the grub goes to sleep, and next spring comes out as a full-grown
Mud-wasp to do exactly