"If you ask questions, I won't tell it," Mark said. "You'll see as I go along. This woji lived deep in the woods, and every year when winter came he nearly froze to death. That was because the icy rains soaked him and the snow covered him over, and he had nothing at all to eat because the leaves all fell and he ate leaves. One year he got an idea, and he went to a big spruce tree and told it his idea. At first the spruce tree wouldn't even consider his suggestion. The woji didn't go away, though. He kept telling the spruce tree his idea over and over, and finally the spruce tree thought, What did he have to lose? Why not try it? So the spruce tree told the woji to go ahead. For days and days the woji worked on the leaves, rolling them up and making them over into needles. He used some of the needles to sew them all tightly to the tree branches. Then he climbed to the very top of the spruce tree and yelled at the ice wind, and laughed at it and said it couldn't hurt him now, because he had a home and food to eat all winter.

"The other trees heard him and laughed, and they began to tell each other about the crazy little woji who yelled at the ice wind, and finally the last tree, at the place where the trees end and the snow begins, heard the story. It was a maple tree, and it laughed until its leaves shook. The ice wind heard it laughing and came blowing up, storming and throwing ice, and demanded to know what was so funny. The maple tree told the ice wind about the crazy little woji who had challenged his powers to take the leaves off the trees, and the ice wind became madder and madder. It blew harder and harder. The maple leaves turned red and gold with fear and then fell to the ground, and the tree stood naked before the wind. The ice wind blew south and the other trees shivered and turned color and dropped their leaves.