"Have you seen the beautiful new canoe father has just finished?" asked White Cloud.

"Seen it! I helped make it," answered Swift Elk. "I cut nearly all the birch bark."

"Your father has it ready for the wild-rice harvest," said Good Bird. "To-day I go to tie the stalks. You are to help me, White Cloud."

Nothing could have pleased the little girl better. All summer she had hoped for this great pleasure. From a low hill near her home she had watched the growth of the rice.

When the June berries were ripe, the first shoots came up near the shore of the lake. In a few weeks the rice beds looked like beautiful green islands in the water.

And when the yellow-green blossoms opened, she coaxed her father to take her in his canoe to the rice plants. She picked the flowers, shaded with reddish purple, and she saw the spreading mass of blossoms, their straw-colored anthers moving with every breeze.

Swift Elk was very proud of the new canoe. He had made the paddles, and had cut the forked sticks that would be needed to force the boat through the shallow water.

"When the rice is ripe, I'll go with you and manage the boat," he said to his mother. "When you come home to-night, White Cloud, bring some green rice to parch for supper."

"I'll have some all ready for you," promised his sister. "You shoot a deer to-day, and to-night we'll have a feast. We'll ask grandfather, and perhaps he'll tell us a story."

Soon Good Bird was paddling rapidly toward the rice beds. It was a beautiful morning, and White Cloud was as happy as any little girl could ever be.

For many weeks she had helped her mother prepare the string for tying the rice stalks. It was cut from the inner bark of the basswood tree. The narrow bands were wound in a ball so large that the child could hardly reach around it.

"Why do you tie the wild rice stalks, Mother?" she asked.

"So that our little brothers, the birds, can not eat all our grain," answered Good Bird. "All the bunches we have tied are our own, and will be more easily harvested. No friendly Indian ever touches the heads of rice bound together by another."

With a curved stick Good Bird pulled a mass of stalks within her reach and bound the heads firmly together with the narrow strips of bark. For hours she worked, forcing her way through the thick mass of water plants and tying the stalks on both sides of the canoe.

"May I come here again with you when the wild rice is ripe?" asked White Cloud.

"It will take two strong women to gather the harvest, my child; but the canoe is very long and I think you can help."

"How is it done, Mother?" asked the child.

"Swift Elk will sit at one end of the canoe and paddle. Nokomis will bend the stalks over the boat and untie the long pieces of bark, and I shall beat the heads with a stick. The grain will fall until the boat holds as much as it is safe to carry."

"Are we going to take home any to-day?" asked White Cloud.

"Oh, yes; when the rice is not quite ripe it is just right for parching. As soon as my rows are all tied, you shall help me gather the greenish kernels."

Good Bird worked until she had used all her string. The long rows of heads, neatly tied, looked very fine.

New plants were found, and the stalks beaten with a stick. The rice fell into the canoe, and White Cloud found it was good to eat even without cooking. By sunset the bottom of the canoe was covered with grain, and they started home across the quiet lake.

"May we have maple sugar with our rice to-night, Mother?"

"There is very little left, my daughter. I think we would better save it for winter."

"When are we going to the sugar trees to make more?"

"After the winter is nearly over and the first crow comes to tell us that the sap is flowing. Then we will move to our sugar lodge and stay for a whole moon."

"May I take care of a kettle and boil sugar next time we go to the lodge?" asked White Cloud, "By that time I can count eight winters."

"You may if you will cut birch bark and make your own sap dishes. You will need a great many."

"Why can't we eat the sugar we have, Mother? What is the use of saving it?"

"There may be little food on the cold, snowy days that are coming. We shall need the sugar more then than we do now. Have you forgotten the story of the ant and the katydid?"

"Tell it again. Tell it now before we get home, Mother."

"I think there is time, as it is a short story," said Good Bird. And White Cloud listened to the tale of the lazy katydid and the hard-working ant while the canoe moved slowly across the quiet lake.