el, but I will
not give away the largest cake of all." So she said to her guest, "I
have no food for you. Go to the forest and look there for your food. You
can find it in the bark of the trees, if you will."

The Great Spirit was angry when he heard the words of the woman. He rose
up from where he sat and threw back his cloak. "A woman must be good and
gentle," he said, "and you are cruel. You shall no longer be a woman and
live in a wigwam. You shall go out into the forest and hunt for your
food in the bark of trees."

The Great Spirit stamped his foot on the earth, and the woman grew
smaller and smaller. Wings started from her body and feathers grew upon
her. With a loud cry she rose from the earth and flew away to the
forest.

And to this day all woodpeckers live in the forest and hunt for their
food in the bark of trees.

WHY THE WOODPECKER'S HEAD IS RED.

One day the woodpecker said to the Great Spirit, "Men do not like me. I
wish they did."

The Great Spirit said, "If you wish men to love you, you must be good to
them and help them. Then they will call you their friend."

"How can a little bird help a man?" asked the woodpecker.

"If one wishes to help, the day will come when he can help," said the
Great Spirit. The day did come, and this story shows how a little bird
helped a strong warrior.

There was once a cruel magician who lived in a gloomy wigwam beside the
Black-Sea-Water. He did not like flowers, and they did not blossom in
his pathway. He did not like birds, and they did not sing in the trees
above him. The breath of his nostrils was fatal to all life. North,
south, east, and west he blew the deadly fever that killed the women and
the little children.

"Can I help them?" thought a brave warrior, and he said, "I will find
the magician, and see if death will not come to him as he has made it
come to others. I will go straightway to his home."

For many days the brave warrior was in his canoe traveling across the
Black-Sea-Water. At last he saw the gloomy wigwam of the cruel magician.
He shot an arrow at the door and called, "Come out, O coward! You have
killed women and children with your fatal breath, but you cannot kill a
warrior. Come out and fight, if you are not afraid."

The cruel magician laughed loud and long. "One breath of fever," he
said, "and you will fall to the earth." The warrior shot again, and then
the magician was angry. He did not laugh, but he came straight out o