Excerpt from Straws and Thistledown: The Work of Odd Moments In times long gone, the red-men free, Who roamed the forest old; Loved the bark Of the good birch tree, AS a miser loves his gold; Loved and prized, did the red-man bold, The bark of the birch tree, more than gold. It made, for the primitive artist, and scribe, Canvas, and tablet too; A roof, that sheltered his dusky bride, And furnished his light canoe. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.