10

15

30

Looked the women at each other,
Smiled, and said, "It cannot be so!
Kaw!" they said, "it cannot be so!"
O'er it, said he, o'er this water
Came a great canoe with pinions,
A canoe with wings came flying,
Bigger than a grove of pine-trees,
Taller than the tallest tree-tops!
And the old men and the women
Looked and tittered at each other;
"Kaw!" they said, "we don't believe it!"
From its mouth, he said, to greet him,
Came Waywassimo, the lightning,
Came the thunder, Annemeekee!
And the warriors and the women.
Laughed aloud at poor Iagoo;

"Kaw!" they said, "what tales you tell us!"
In it, said he, came a people,

In the great canoe with pinions
Came, he said, a hundred warriors;
Painted white were all their faces,
And with hair their chins were covered!
And the warriors and the women
Laughed and shouted in derision,
Like the ravens on the tree-tops,
Like the crows upon the hemlocks.
"Kaw!" they said, "what lies you tell us.
Do not think that we believe them!"

Only Hiawatha laughed not,

But he gravely spake and answered
To their jeering and their jesting:
"True is all Iagoo tells us;

I have seen it in a vision,

Seen the great canoe with pinions,
Seen the people with white faces,
Seen the coming of this bearded
People of the wooden vessel

5 From the regions of the morning,
From the shining land of Wabun.
"Gitche Manito, the Mighty,

The Great Spirit, the Creator,

Sends them hither on his errand, 10 Sends them to us with his message. Wheresoe'er they move, before them Swarms the stinging fly, the Ahmo, Swarms the bee, the honey-maker; Wheresoe'er they tread, beneath them 15 Springs a flower unknown among us, Springs the White-man's-foot in blossom.

20

20

25

"Let us welcome, then, the strangers,
Hail them as our friends and brothers,
And the heart's right hand of friendship
Give them when they come to see us.
Gitche Manito, the Mighty,

Said this to me in my vision.
"I beheld, too, in that vision,
All the secrets of the future,
Of the distant days that shall be.
I beheld the westward marches
Of the unknown, crowded nations.
All the land was full of people,
Restless, struggling, toiling, striving,
30 Speaking many tongues, yet feeling
But one heart-beat in their bosoms.
In the woodlands rang their axes,
Smoked their towns in all the valleys,

Over all the lakes and rivers

Rushed their great canoes of thunder.
"Then a darker, drearier vision

Passed before me, vague and cloud-like.
5 I beheld our nations scattered,
All forgetful of my counsels,
Weakened, warring with each other;
Saw the remnants of our people
Sweeping westward, wild and woeful,
Like the cloud-rack of a tempest,
Like the withered leaves of autumn!"

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Discussion. 1. Read lines which tell Iagoo's story of adventures. 2. Where do you think he had seen these things? 3. What was the "bitter" water Iagoo told about? 4. What were the "lightning" and the "thunder" that came from the "canoe with pinions"? 5. Why was his story laughed at as false by the Indians? 6. How did Hiawatha know it was all true? 7. How did Hiawatha say they should receive the

White Man when he came? 8. What secrets came to Hiawatha in the vision? 9. What "darker vision" did he see? 10. Has Hiawatha's vision come true? 11. What do you think of Hiawatha's character? 12. Which of all the stories in this poem do you like best? 13. Give the reason for your answer. 14. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: tittered; hither; counsels. 15. Pronounce: pinions; derision; vision; regions; vague; warring.

Phrases for Study

regions of the morning, 355, 2
shining land of Wabun, 355, 3
canoe with pinions, 356, 5
painted white, 356, 21
heart's right hand of friendship,
357, 19

distant days that shall be, 357, 25 unknown, crowded nations, 357, 27 feeling but one heart-beat, 357, 30 sweeping westward, 358, 9

cloud-rack of a tempest, 358, 10

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), a native of Salem, Massachusetts, had the distinction of being born on the Fourth of July. He was graduated from Bowdoin College in the class with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

When a mere boy, Nathaniel was crippled by an accident in playing ball. This led him to a life of quiet and to the companionship of books. His vivid imagination made him fond of inventing stories for the entertainment of his friends. When he began to think of a career it was quite natural that he should turn to literature, and that in looking about him for material he should choose his subjects-as Irving did-from those stirring scenes of which he had an intimate, almost personal, knowledge— many of them of his native town, Salem.

Hawthorne idealized New England as Irving did New Amsterdam. He popularized New England history in the form of stories for children, one of which, Grandfather's Chair, contains "The Boston Tea Party." He wrote a book, The House of the Seven Gables, about the house in which he lived for many years. Soon after he wrote this tale, he wrote The Wonder-Book, a

volume of stories about Greek gods and heroes, from which "The Paradise of Children" and "The Golden Touch" are taken. Perhaps the best known of all Hawthorne's works is the volume called Twice-Told Tales. In this book he collected a large number of legends about colonial life in New England and retold them in such a way as to give us one of the best pictures of early American life that we have. Some of them deal with actual events; others are based on legendary matter. But all of them do for early New England life what Longfellow's Hiawatha does for the Indian legends: they preserve the stories and also the spirit of early times. Like Longfellow, Hawthorne was a lover of romance and of the early history of our country. He wrote in prose, not verse, but his prose is as careful and artistic as Longfellow's verse.

THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN

PANDORA AND THE GREAT BOX

Long, long ago, when this old world was in its tender infancy, there was a child named Epimetheus who never had either father or mother; and that he might not be lonely, another child, fatherless and motherless like himself, was 5 sent from a far country to live with him and be his playfellow and helpmate. Her name was Pandora.

The first thing that Pandora saw when she entered the cottage where Epimetheus dwelt was a great box. And almost the first question which she put to him, after crossing 10 the threshold, was this:

"Epimetheus, what have you in that box?"