midday
The children followed him without a word . They understood that they had come to the place in the Story of the Trails , which is known in the schoolbooks as `` History . '' From the top of the mound they could see strange shapes of earthworks stretching between them and the shore of Erie . Lakeward the sand and the standing grass was the pale color of the moon that floated above it in the midday sky . Between them the blue of the lake melted into the blue horizon ; the turf over the mounds was thick and wilted . `` I suppose I must remember it like this , '' said the Tallega , `` because this is the way I saw it when I came back , an old man , after the fall of Cahokia . But when this mound was built there were towns here , busy and crowded .