Beneath the Singing Pines
Publisher: Hillsdale Educational Pubs
Published: June 1967
Format: Textbook Binding
ISBN-13: 9780910726801
First sentence: Page 125:      THE FIRST BUTTERFLIES

When the Great Spirit planned to create the earth and mankind, he decided to make the land first.  "I shall make a beautiful home for people," he said to himself.  "I shall put mountains, lakes, rivers, plains, deserts, and forests upon the earth.  It shall be such a beautiful place that all people shall be happy there and live in peace."  

Consequently, the Great Spirit covered the earth with a carpet of green.  he planted flowers of many varieties and colors to blossom in the fields.  He made forests filled with birds and animals.  He formed the lakes and broad rivers teeming with many kinds of fish.  Then he piled up great masses of solid rock that towered thousands of feet into the air. "My children will like the great rivers, the numerous lakes, the fertile fields, and the deep forests," said the Great Spirit, "for they are beautiful and useful. But how shall I get them to love the mountains?  Even though I love them, they look cold and bare.  How shall I get my people to go to the mountains and to learn to love them as I do?"  

About this question, the Great Spirit thought and thought.  At last, he make many little shining stones.  Some were red, some blue, some green, some yellow, and some shone with all the lovely colors of the rainbow.  The Great Spirit then said, " I shall hide these stones in the cracks and crevices of the mountains.  Men will come to find them, and in this way, they will learn to love the mountains.

As the Great Spirit looked at the stones which he had made, he realized they they were very beautiful.  Among them were emeralds, turquoise, rubies, sapphires. diamonds and opals.  he said to these lovely stone,, "I shall not hide all of you in the rocks of the mountains and in the earth.  You must be out in the sunshine where men can admire you.  I want the little children who cannot go to the mountains to see your beauty."

Just at that time the South Wind came by.  He sang of the forests filled with oak, maple, spruce and pine.  He praised the graceful white birches and the silvery aspen.  He sang of the colorful song birds nesting in the leafy trees.  He praised the meadows filled with flowers of every hue.  He recalled the pleasures of summer days and summer evenings beside the clear, blue water.  All the beauty of day and night were in his song.  

When the Great Spirit heard the South Wind's song, he called, "Dear South Wind, here are some beautiful things for you to take to your summer home.  The little children will like their lovely colors and all men who love beauty will admire their loveliness."  As soon as the Great Spirit stopped speaking, all the stones before him stirred with new life and lifted themselves lightly on their many colored wings.  They fluttered away in the sunshine.

This it was that the first butterflies like the Black and Tiger Swallowtails, the Monarch, the Painted Beauty and the American Copper came from the beautiful thought of the Great Spirit.  In their wings were the colored stones which he did not wish to hide away in the mountains."