"As I have already told you, it is necessary for all promising youths to retire into some solitary place, and submit to a long fast, that they may propitiate the Great Spirit. In a few years, Is-a-dill-a expressed his desire to attempt the ordeal. The chief made everything in readiness, and soon Is-a-dill-a was alone in his little lodge in the wilderness, upon his bed of skin. He looked up with great confidence to the Great Spirit, and felt that the light of his countenance would rest upon him. Every morning his father visited him, and encouraged him to persevere, by appealing to his pride, his ambition, and his noble instincts. The ninth day came and passed, and also the tenth; on the morning of the eleventh Is-a-dill-a was dying with weakness, and his full, rounded muscles had shrunk and withered from the prostrating effects of the terrible ordeal. "'Father,' said the almost expiring youth, 'I have fasted eleven days, a longer time than man ever fasted before; the Great Spirit is satisfied; give me something to eat that I may not die.' "'To-morrow, my son, before the bright sun rises, I will bring you venison cooked by your mother; fast until then that your name may become mighty among the great chiefs of the Delawares.' "The old man departed, proud of the fame his son would acquire; and the next morning, before the sun had risen, he was at the lodge of Is-a-dill-a, with a supply of the most tempting food, but he stood motionless before a strange sight within the lodge. There was a youth with golden wings and most beautiful features, having a halo of light around his head, painting the breast of Is-a-dill-a with vermilion, and his body brown. Then, in a moment, the winged youth was changed to a dove, and Is-a-dill-a to a strange and beautiful bird, and they both flew through the door of the lodge to a tree, and the strange bird thus addressed the chief of the Delawares: "'Father, farewell. The Great Spirit, when he saw that I was dying from hunger, sent a messenger for me, and I am changed to this bird. I will always preserve my love for man, and will build and carol near his dwelling.' "The two birds then flew away, but every morning the robin, during the lifetime of the chief, sang from the large oak tree that overshadowed his lodge. "When the Delawares moved west of the Missouri, the faithful descendants of the strange bird followed them, and that is how the robins came to Kansas." The mocking-bird, that sweetest of our feathered songsters, is indigenous to the central region of the great plains, and his notes are heard when the day breaks. He seeks the highest points upon the dwellings, the ridge of the house, the barn, or the top of the windmill, if there be one, where, like the Aztecs of old, or their lineal descendants, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico to-day, he greets the coming god in the east.