blackberries that they fairly perfumed the air of the whole coast with
fragrant scent of ripe fruit. The wild pigeons and every variety of
feathered songsters filled all the groves, warbling their songs
joyfully and feasting upon these wild fruits of nature; and in these
waters the fishes were so plentiful that as you lift up the anchor-
stone of your net in the morning, your net would be so loaded with
delicious whitefish as to fairly float with all its weight of the
sinkers. As you look towards the course of your net, you see the fins
of the fishes sticking out of the water in every way. Then I never knew
my people to want for anything to eat or to wear, as we always had
plenty of wild meat and plenty of fish, corn, vegetables, and wild
fruits. I thought (and yet I may be mistaken) that my people were very
happy in those days, at least I was as happy myself as a lark, or as
the brown thrush that sat daily on the uppermost branches of the stubby
growth of a basswood tree which stood near by upon the hill where we
often played under its shade, lodging our little arrows among the thick
branches of the tree and then shooting them down again for sport.

[Footnote: The word Arbor Croche is derived from two French words:
Arbre, a tree; and Croche, something very crooked or hook-like. The
tradition says when the Ottawas first came to that part of the country
a great pine tree stood very near the shore where Middle Village now
is, whose top was very crooked, almost hook-like. Therefore the Ottawas
called the place "Waw-gaw-naw-ke-zee"--meaning the crooked top of the
tree. But by and by the whole coast from Little Traverse to Tehin-gaw-
beng, now Cross Village, became denominated as Waw-gaw-naw-ke-zee.]

Early in the morning as the sun peeped from the east, as I would yet be
lying close to my mother's bosom, this brown thrush would begin his
warbling songs perched upon the uppermost branches of the basswood tree