thing but bare
bones. Soon after a blast of wind opened the branches and set him
free. He went home, thinking to himself--

"See the effect of meddling with frivolous things when certain good is
in one's possession!"

THE MAN-FISH.

A very great while ago the ancestors of the Shawanos nation lived on
the other side of the Great Lake, half-way between the rising sun and
the evening star. It was a land of deep snows and much frost, of winds
which whistled in the clear, cold nights, and storms which travelled
from seas no eyes could reach. Sometimes the sun ceased to shine for
moons together, and then he was continually before their eyes for as
many more. In the season of cold the waters were all locked up, and
the snows overtopped the ridge of the cabins. Then he shone out so
fiercely that men fell stricken by his fierce rays, and were numbered
with the snow that had melted and run to the embrace of the rivers. It
was not like the beautiful lands--the lands blessed with soft suns and
ever-green vales--in which the Shawanos now dwell, yet it was well
stocked with deer, and the waters with fat seals and great fish, which
were caught just when the people pleased to go after them. Still, the
nation were discontented, and wished to leave their barren and
inhospitable shores. The priests had told them of a beautiful world
beyond the Great Salt Lake, from which the glorious sun never
disappeared for a longer time than the duration of a child's sleep,
where snow-shoes were never wanted--a land clothed with perpetual
verdure, and bright with never-failing gladness. The Shawanos listened
to these tales till they came to loathe their own simple comforts; all
they talked of, all they appeared to think of, was the land of the
happy hunting-grounds.

Once upon a time the people were much terrified at seeing a strange
creature, much resembling a man, riding along the waves of the lake on
the borders of which they dwelt. He had on his head long green hair;
his face was shaped like that of a porpoise, and he had a beard of the
colour of ooze.

If the people were frightened at seeing a man who could live in the
water like a fish or a duck, how much more were they frightened when
they saw that from his breast down he was actually fish, or rather two
fishes, for each of his legs was a whole and distinct fish. When they
heard him speak distinctly in their own language, and when he sang
songs sweeter than the music of birds in s