"I'll show you, if you promise to do me no harm," she answered.
"Of course, I'll promise," replied the boy.
Then Granny Wood-witch went hobbling to the nearest thicket and cackled out loud, as she pointed out a trailing vine that had sometimes five leaflets on a stalk and sometimes seven. "See, see, that's the lady. See seven fingers on that hand and five on this. Now follow her feet down and dig in the ground."
They dug and found strings of lovely brown nuts as big as walnuts.
"See, see," chuckled the wood-witch. "See the cocoanuts in the cellar."
Go forth and look for it, ye Woodcrafters. You will find it throughout Eastern America on the edge of every wood. Its flower is like a purple-brown sweet-pea, and is in bloom all summer long. Follow down its vine, dig out a few of the potatoes or nuts, and try them, raw, boiled, or if ye wish to eat them as Indian Cake, clean them, cut them in slices, dry till hard, pound them up into meal, and make a cake the same as you would of oatmeal.
The wild things love them, the Indians love them, and this was the bread of the wood-witch. The books call it Bog Potato and Ground Nuts. It is the third secret of the woods.
TALE 45
The Mud-dauber Wasp
If you look under the roof of any wooden barn in Eastern America you are likely to see the nest of the common Mud-wasp.