THE SUGAR MOON 29 



a Maple Dance, for the maple sweet was their 

 April food and they welcomed the Sugar 

 Moon. 



^^Then by-and-by fair-faced children came 

 begging for the sweet taste as their fathers 

 tapped the trees in the old Indian way, caught 

 the sap in wooden troughs, and boiled it over 

 a fire in metal pots." 



**But tell me, I pray, more about the chil- 

 dren.'' 



*' Daughter, you are impatient," said Old 

 Nokomis, the earth-mother. *^You long to 

 steal forth with the flowing sap and be a child 

 at the sugar-making." 



**Yes, that is my wish. And I would re- 

 main as other children, and live in their home 

 and grow and work and play with them and 

 be always one in their midst." 



**So shall it be," said Nokomis, ** unless the 

 spell be broken." 



**What spell must not be broken'?" 



*^Love, like sunlight, will draw you forth; 

 but discord, like the frost, will drive you back. 

 Will you go?" 



