Bald Eagle put his arm around his son’s shoulders and said:
“You see how much trouble can be brought on by one foolish mistake? If you had watched your father carefully, you would have known how to make a withe the right thickness. Because you were angry, you did not look for basswood saplings close to home, but wandered deep into the forest and almost became the dinner of brother bear. Rushing to escape the bear, you left your basswood saplings behind. So the task of making withes begins all over again. Be careful, my son, that when you do something, you do it right, or if you make a mistake, you do not waste time brooding over it. Better to accept it and go forth to do the job better.”
And so Sleeping Bear learned a great lesson that day.
THE LESSON OF THE ELM TREE
A small Cherokee lad by the name of White Eagle lived with his father and mother on the shores of a large lake in the Appalachian Mountains. He was a lad of about eleven years. His father, Great Eagle, was known in the tribe as one of the bravest of warriors. In this Cherokee tribe there was much talk of war with other tribes, and the tribe’s highest honors and respect always went to the bravest and most daring warrior.
Not many suns away lived another woodlands tribe, the Eries. This story concerns a young captive from this Erie tribe and White Eagle, the Cherokee boy.
Very rarely did any tribe go so far afield in its hunting, but this one winter food was very scarce for the Cherokees and they traveled quite a distance north in search of additional game. They moved into the hunting grounds of the Iroquois, quickly made their kills, and started for home. On their way, they came upon an Erie boy whom Great Eagle decided to bring home to his tepee as a brother to his son.
The Cherokee tribe lived in a sentry-patrolled, fortified village. When Little Frog, as the Erie lad was called, first saw the village, he was frightened. He realized that he was near the entire tribe of fearful Cherokees whose wars his father had often recounted to him. Great Eagle sensed the boy’s fear and laid his hand gently on his shoulder. Great Eagle took him to his home and introduced him to White Eagle. White Eagle was pleased to have a boy of his own age to play with in his own wigwam. That night there was much dancing and merry-making to celebrate the successful hunting raid into the Iroquois lands.
The following morning Great Eagle roused the boys to tell them that today they would go in search of small game to improve their shooting ability. Each boy was given a small amount of food, and they started off for the forest with Great Eagle. Little Frog began to look upon Great Eagle as his father and felt happy. His own father had been killed in an early tribal raid.
As they padded through the forest, they could hear the cry of wild birds and every now and then the snapping of a twig. Great Eagle signaled with his hand for the two youngsters to wait. Then he moved off to the side to investigate the noise; but once again he returned to the trail, indicating that the game they were after was not to be seen.