WHY THE MORNING-GLORY CLIMBS[1]

[Footnote 1:  This story was given me by Miss Elisabeth McCracken, who wrote it some years ago in a larger form, and who told it to me in the way she had told it to many children of her acquaintance.]

Once the Morning-Glory was flat on the ground.  She grew that way, and she had never climbed at all.  Up in the top of a tree near her lived Mrs Jennie Wren and her little baby Wren.  The little Wren was lame; he had a broken wing and couldn’t fly.  He stayed in the nest all day.  But the mother Wren told him all about what she saw in the world, when she came flying home at night.  She used to tell him about the beautiful Morning-Glory she saw on the ground.  She told him about the Morning-Glory every day, until the little Wren was filled with a desire to see her for himself.

“How I wish I could see the Morning-Glory!” he said.

The Morning-Glory heard this, and she longed to let the little Wren see her face.  She pulled herself along the ground, a little at a time, until she was at the foot of the tree where the little Wren lived.  But she could not get any farther, because she did not know how to climb.  At last she wanted to go up so much, that she caught hold of the bark of the tree, and pulled herself up a little.  And little by little, before she knew it, she was climbing.

And she climbed right up the tree to the little Wren’s nest, and put her sweet face over the edge of the nest, where the little Wren could see.

That was how the Morning-Glory came to climb.

THE STORY OF LITTLE TAVWOTS[1]

[Footnote 1:  Adapted from The Basket Woman, by Mary Austin.]

This is the story an Indian woman told a little white boy who lived with his father and mother near the Indians’ country; and Tavwots is the name of the little rabbit.

But once, long ago, Tavwots was not little,—­he was the largest of all four-footed things, and a mighty hunter.  He used to hunt every day; as soon as it was day, and light enough to see, he used to get up, and go to his hunting.  But every day he saw the track of a great foot on the trail, before him.  This troubled him, for his pride was as big as his body.

“Who is this,” he cried, “that goes before me to the hunting, and makes so great a stride?  Does he think to put me to shame?”

“T’-sst!” said his mother, “there is none greater than thou.”

“Still, there are the footprints in the trail,” said Tavwots.

And the next morning he got up earlier; but still the great footprints and the mighty stride were before him.  The next morning he got up still earlier; but there were the mighty foot-tracks and the long, long stride.

“Now I will set me a trap for this impudent fellow,” said Tavwots, for he was very cunning.  So he made a snare of his bowstring and set it in the trail overnight.