Louise Erdrich: Hello, my name is Louise Erdrich, and I'm going to tell you a story. This is actually a story that I told my own daughters before I wrote it down, and it's the beginning of a book called The Birch Bark House.

The title of this little story is The Girl From Spirit Island.

The only person left alive on the island was a baby girl. The tired men who had come there to pick up furs from the Inishnabe people, stood uneasily on the rocky shore. They watched from a distance as the baby crawled in a circle, whimpering and pitiful.

Her tiny dress of good blue wool was embroidered with white beads and ribbons, and her new moccasins were carefully sewn. It was clear she had been loved. And it was also clear that the family who had loved her was gone.

All the fires in the village were cold. The dead lay sadly in blankets, curled as though sleeping. Smallpox, a terrible disease, had killed them all.

The men trembled at the thought that the disease might already have chosen one of them. Oh, surely, they muttered, the baby had the sickness too.

She's sick, she looks tired, said one man. When she lays down against one of the blanketed figures, let her sleep.

Birds were singing, dozens of tiny, white-throated sparrows. The trilling, rippling sweetness of their songs contrasted strangely with the silent horror below.

First one, and then the other of the men turned away. They got back into their canoes. As they paddled toward the next island, all of them were silent and thoughtful. Some wore hard expressions. One man had tears in his eyes. His name was Hat.

Hat thought of his wife, and he decided that he would tell her about the baby. If there was anyone in the world who would go and rescue that little girl, it was his wife. He shivered a little as he thought of her. He couldn't help it.

Tal, she was called. And sometimes she scared him with her temper. Other times, he was amazed at her courage. He grimaced in shame. Unlike him, his wife was afraid of nothing.

And now I'm going to whistle the sound of the little song sparrow that was heard on this island. If you hear it anywhere you are, in your yard, or if you live in the country, you'll know that this little sparrow is very important to this book. And it represents the spirit of the people who lived on that island.