Sagastao, who had already given him several presents, had held on to his
box of candies. He had learned that for such things the old man could be
coaxed to do almost anything, and now he held them out, and said:
"Now, Souwanas, as all the presents have been passed around, I have got
some fine sweeties for you, but we must have a first-class Nanahboozhoo
story for them."
"O yes!" said Minnehaha. "And as it is to be for sweeties let us have a
nice sweet story of Nanahboozhoo this time."
"A sweet story you want? Well, before I begin let us fix up the fire and
all get comfortably seated around it."
Then, as they usually did, the two white children cuddled as close to the
inimitable story-teller as they could. Little cared they for the cold
without or even for the occasional puffs of smoke which seemed at times to
prefer to enter the eyes of the listeners rather than to go out at the
orifice at the top of the wigwam.
"A sweet story," musingly said the old man, "in this land of fish, and
bears, and wolves, and wildcats, and wolverines!" Then he paused long
enough to fill his mouth again with the candies which he enjoyed so much.
"A sweet story. Then it must be of a land, south of this, where for some
years I dwelt, many, many moons ago. A land where the Se-se-pask-wut-a-tik
(sugar maple tree) grows and flourishes in all its beauty.
"There, in those wigwams, long ago lived the people whom we call the
Hurons, the Dakotahs and the Ojibways.
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