IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 35 1 



waters playing about the trunks of huge cypress trees 

 standing well out from the shore. But when the tide 

 went out, how marked the change! I have seen the 

 very walls of its muddy channel laid bare, while on 

 either side great, gray, slimy flats come out of the 

 water, their glistening surface broken here and there 

 with decaying snags and dotted with little patches of 

 tangled grass. But it is not my desire, O Chipoax ! to 

 revile you because your waters leave you uncovered, 

 for many is the time that you have floated my boat and 

 offered up your treasures with unstinted hand. Long 

 may your tides flow in and out and your channel re- 

 main unchoked by debris of the sea. 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 



Scattered over the northern country, between the 

 Hudson River and the Missouri, are many thousands 

 of reedy swamps and shallow lakes, and great stretches 

 of wet meadow-land, where the wild rice grows. In 

 the spring, so soon as the water is warmed by the genial 

 rays of the advancing sun, the tiny pale green spears 

 show themselves above its surface, and, all through 

 the hot summer, grow taller and stouter, until, when 

 August comes, the tasseled heads begin to bow with the 

 weight of the flowers, and, a little later, the soft, milky 

 grain appears in a waving crop. In the good old times, 

 before the white man's foot had explored every recess 

 of our land, or his plough furrowed every prairie, or 



