The Story of  Lake Odonada

   A long, long time ago, in a valley beside a creek, there lived a tribe of warfaring indians.  The boys of the tribe were raised to be brave warriors, well-trained in the skills of combat.  But there was one little Indian boy who wasn't like his brothers.  While the others sparred with each other and developed hunting and fishing skills, he went into the woods and talked to the animals.  The others teased him unmercifully, and wouldn't let him have any part in their everyday life.  There was one special place where he would always go when the others had been especially cruel.  Under a tall tree, besides a small lake, surrounded by his true friends-the animals, he could finally be at peace.  Green turquoise, gold and silver dragonflies would whirl up to him in welcome.  A blue heron, which nested near the lake , would glide across the water and land gently in the tree above him.  The make him feel as one with the wilderness.
   He grew up this way, spending most of his time beside this little lake in the valley.  He grew farther and farther away from the rest of his tribe until he was almost totally excluded from it.  They lived their life in warfate with small neighboring tribes and he lived his with the dragon flies.
   One day, when the boy was nearly a man, a huge tribe moved in from the west, intent on destroying all of the tribes in the area.  The local tribes were too busy with each other to notice anything else.
   The boy was sleeping peacefully by the lake when his dreams were interrupted by the dragonflies.  The usual gentle creatures were whirling furiously around his head.  "What is it?" he asked of them, but they were too alarmed to answer.  The great blue heron lifted his wings, swept across the water, and swooped above the boy's head.  The boy sat up.  He had never seen his friends so upset.  The snapping turtles dragged themselves out of the waster and, grasping his mosccasins with their jaws as they tugged at him.  "What's the mattter?" he asked again.
   The  dragonflies whirled closer, beating out an urgent message with their silver wings.  The heron  and the turtles echoed it.  The Indian boy leapt to his feet and saw them: a thousand Indians in war paint, milling around below the lake.  They didn't see him beneath the tree, and he slipped away and raced over to where his old tribe was.  They were in battle, but he ran among them anyway and they stopped fighting and listened to him.  Together the warrring tribes orgnaized a defense, and they destroyed the tribe from the west.
   The boy became a hero.  Feasts were held in his honor and his brothers were finally glad that he talked to animals instead of fighting with men.
   After all the celebrating was over, the boy walked silently back to the quiet little lake.  He sat in the darkness by himself. He was a man.  In  his tribe, when a boy becomes a man he goes out into the woods alone and a name comes to him.  The lone Indian boy had spent most of his life alone in the wilderness, and a name had never come to him.  That night was different.  Out of the darkness came a glowing, it was the dragonflies, his life-long friends, their silvery wings reflecting the moonlight.  They came to the boy and gave him their own name - Odonata.  From then on that was his name.  Only he and the dragonflies knew where  it had come from.
   Odonata was welcomed in all the tribes from then on.  He lived quietly and happily with is people and gave them a peace they had not known for hundreds of years.  His arts of harmony replaced the old arts of warfare.  Yet, no matter how busy he wa, he always found time to slp away and sit alone under the tall old  tree beside his lake.  And dragonflies would come to him and whisper his name, and theirs - Odonata.

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