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."