78 STORIES OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS 



ber, little brook, your happiness will depend 

 greatly upon knowing what to avoid.' 



"Then the Birth Spirits thronged about me, 

 offering their gifts. The meadows promised me 

 free passage through the fields and lowlands, with 

 beds of moss, bordered with Iris, and a gay escort 

 of flowers all through the season. For lancers, 

 it would give the stately spiked 

 Arums, with boughs of 

 White Thorn and Shad 

 Bush for flags of truce, 

 and early Marsh-mari- 

 golds for heralds. 

 Tree Frogs should 

 be the fifers, and 

 Dahinda, the great 

 mottled Bull Frog, 

 the drummer, and 

 the fluting Meadowlark 

 and madcap Bobolink the minstrels. 



" Heart of Nature said, ' These are beautiful 

 things, and they have their places ; but remember 

 also to bear with you, as you flow, all tha un- 

 cleanness that would make my garden foul, for 

 to wash away and purify is one of the duties 

 of water.' 



" The Spirit of the Woods was the Birth Spirit 



