THE water-fowls were flying over the marshy lakes. It was now

the hunting season. Indian men, with bows and arrows, were wading

waist deep amid the wild rice. Near by, within their wigwams, the

wives were roasting wild duck and making down pillows.

In the largest teepee sat a young mother wrapping red

porcupine quills about the long fringes of a buckskin cushion.

Beside her lay a black-eyed baby boy cooing and laughing. Reaching

and kicking upward with his tiny hands and feet, he played with the

dangling strings of his heavy-beaded bonnet hanging empty on a tent

pole above him.

At length the mother laid aside her red quills and white

sinew-threads. The babe fell fast asleep. Leaning on one hand and

softly whispering a little lullaby, she threw a light cover over

her baby. It was almost time for the return of her husband.

Remembering there were no willow sticks for the fire, she

quickly girdled her blanket tight about her waist, and with a

short-handled ax slipped through her belt, she hurried away toward

the wooded ravine. She was strong and swung an ax as skillfully as

any man. Her loose buckskin dress was made for such freedom. Soon

carrying easily a bundle of long willows on her back, with a loop

of rope over both her shoulders, she came striding homeward.

Near the entrance way she stooped low, at once shifting the

bundle to the right and with both hands lifting the noose from over

her head. Having thus dropped the wood to the ground, she

disappeared into her teepee. In a moment she came running out

again, crying, "My son! My little son is gone!" Her keen eyes

swept east and west and all around her. There was nowhere any sign

of the child.

Running with clinched fists to the nearest teepees, she

called: "Has any one seen my baby? He is gone! My little son is

gone!"

"Hinnu! Hinnu!" exclaimed the women, rising to their feet and

rushing out of their wigwams.

"We have not seen your child! What has happened?" queried the

women.

With great tears in her eyes the mother told her story.

"We will search with you," they said to her as she started

off.

They met the returning husbands, who turned about and joined

in the hunt for the missing child. Along the shore of the lakes,

among the high-grown reeds, they looked in vain. He was nowhere to

be found. After many days and nights the search was given up. It

was sad, indeed, to hear the mother wailing aloud for her little

son.

It was growing late in the autumn. The birds were flying high

toward the south. The teepees around the lakes were gone, save one

lonely dwelling.

Till the winter snow covered the ground and ice covered the

lakes, the wailing woman's voice was heard from that solitary

wigwam. From some far distance was also the sound of the father's

voice singing a sad song.

Thus ten summers and as many winters have come and gone since

the strange disappearance of the little child. Every autumn with

the hunters came the unhappy parents of the lost baby to search

again for him.

Toward the latter part of the tenth season when, one by one,

the teepees were folded and the families went away from the lake

region, the mother walked again along the lake shore weeping. One

evening, across the lake from where the crying woman stood, a pair

of bright black eyes peered at her through the tall reeds and wild

rice. A little wild boy stopped his play among the tall grasses.

His long, loose hair hanging down his brown back and shoulders was

carelessly tossed from his round face. He wore a loin cloth of

woven sweet grass. Crouching low to the marshy ground, he listened

to the wailing voice. As the voice grew hoarse and only sobs shook

the slender figure of the woman, the eyes of the wild boy grew dim

and wet.

At length, when the moaning ceased, he sprang to his feet and

ran like a nymph with swift outstretched toes. He rushed into a

small hut of reeds and grasses.

"Mother! Mother! Tell me what voice it was I heard which

pleased my ears, but made my eyes grow wet!" said he, breathless.

"Han, my son," grunted a big, ugly toad. "It was the voice of

a weeping woman you heard. My son, do not say you like it. Do not

tell me it brought tears to your eyes. You have never heard me

weep. I can please your ear and break your heart. Listen!"

replied the great old toad.

Stepping outside, she stood by the entrance way. She was old

and badly puffed out. She had reared a large family of little

toads, but none of them had aroused her love, nor ever grieved her.

She had heard the wailing human voice and marveled at the throat

which produced the strange sound. Now, in her great desire to keep

the stolen boy awhile longer, she ventured to cry as the Dakota

woman does. In a gruff, coarse voice she broke forth:

"Hin-hin, doe-skin! Hin-hin, Ermine, Ermine! Hin-hin, red

blanket, with white border!"

Not knowing that the syllables of a Dakota's cry are the names

of loved ones gone, the ugly toad mother sought to please the boy's

ear with the names of valuable articles. Having shrieked in a

torturing voice and mouthed extravagant names, the old toad rolled

her tearless eyes with great satisfaction. Hopping back into her

dwelling, she asked:

"My son, did my voice bring tears to your eyes? Did my words

bring gladness to your ears? Do you not like my wailing better?"

"No, no!" pouted the boy with some impatience. "I want to

hear the woman's voice! Tell me, mother, why the human voice stirs

all my feelings!"

The toad mother said within her breast, "The human child has

heard and seen his real mother. I cannot keep him longer, I fear.

Oh, no, I cannot give away the pretty creature I have taught to

call me 'mother' all these many winters."

"Mother," went on the child voice, "tell me one thing. Tell

me why my little brothers and sisters are all unlike me."

The big, ugly toad, looking at her pudgy children, said: "The

eldest is always best."

This reply quieted the boy for a while. Very closely watched

the old toad mother her stolen human son. When by chance he

started off alone, she shoved out one of her own children after

him, saying: "Do not come back without your big brother."

Thus the wild boy with the long, loose hair sits every day on

a marshy island hid among the tall reeds. But he is not alone.

Always at his feet hops a little toad brother. One day an Indian

hunter, wading in the deep waters, spied the boy. He had heard

of the baby stolen long ago.

"This is he!" murmured the hunter to himself as he ran to his

wigwam. "I saw among the tall reeds a black-haired boy at play!"

shouted he to the people.

At once the unhappy father and mother cried out, "'Tis he, our

boy!" Quickly he led them to the lake. Peeping through the wild

rice, he pointed with unsteady finger toward the boy playing all

unawares.

"'Tis he! 'tis he!" cried the mother, for she knew him.

In silence the hunter stood aside, while the happy father and

mother caressed their baby boy grown tall.