The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

“And then?”

“Then, when the little one was very cold and tired and lonely she remembered something: it was that she had seen her own mother lift her two hands to the sky and ask the Great Spirit for all she might need.”

“He always hears, doesn’t He?”

“He hears and answers. But sometimes the answers are what He sees is best, not what we want.”

“Don’t sigh that way, Other Mother! S’posin’ your little boy did go away. Haven’t you got Gaspar and Kitty?”

“Yes, little one.”

“Go on, then. About the little maid – just like me.”

“So she put her own two tiny hands up toward the sky and asked the Great Spirit to put soft shoes on her tired little feet.”

“And He did, didn’t He?”

“Surely. First the pain eased and that made her look down. And there she saw a pair of the softest moccasins that ever were made. They were of pale pink and yellow, and all dotted with dark little bead-spots; and they fitted as easily as her own dainty skin. Then the girl papoose was grateful, and she begged the Great Spirit that He would make many and many another pair of just such comfortable shoes for every other little barefoot maid in all the world. That not one single child should ever suffer what the girl papoose had suffered.”

“Did He?” asked Gaspar, as interested as Kitty.

“Yes. Surely. The prayer of the unselfish and innocent is always granted. He sent a voice out of the sky and bade the child look all about her. So she did, and the whole wide prairie was a-bloom with more pink and yellow ‘shoes’ than all the children in all the earth could ever wear. They were growing right out of the hard ground, reaching up to be plucked and worn. So she cried out aloud in her gratitude: ‘Oh, the moccasin flower! the moccasin flower!’ and ever since then this shoe-like blossom has been beloved of all the children in the world. But, because the heat burns as well as the cold pinches, it blooms nowadays at all times and seasons of the year. A few flowers here, a few there; but quite enough for any child to find – who has the right spirit.”

“Kitty must have had the spirit, mustn’t she, Other Mother? That day when her feets were so tired and the good Feather-man found her. ’Cause she had lots and lots of them; only she went to sleep and they all solemned down. And – ”

Gaspar started suddenly and held up a warning hand. His quick ear had caught the sound of approaching feet, crushing boldly through the cavern, like the tread of one who knows his way well and is coming to his own.

Wahneenah had also heard, though she had continued her story, making no sign that she was inwardly disturbed. But she now paused and listened whether this footfall were one she knew, either of friend or foe. Then a bush cracked behind them, and Gaspar’s heart stood still, as the tall form of an Indian warrior pushed past them into the firelight.

CHAPTER IX.

AT MUCK-OTEY-POKEE

Wahneenah did not lift her eyes. For the moment an unaccustomed fear held her spellbound, and it was the Sun Maid’s happy cry which roused her at length, and restored them all to composure.

“Black Partridge! My own dear Feather-man!”

With a spring, the child threw herself upon the Indian’s breast and clasped his neck with her trustful arms. It was, perhaps, this confidence of hers in the good-will of all her friends that made them in return hold her so dear. Certain it was that the chief’s face now assumed that expression of gentleness which was the attribute small Kitty ascribed to him, but which among his older acquaintances was not considered a leading trait of his character. Just he always was, but rather severe than gentle; and Wahneenah marked, with some surprise, the caressing touch he laid upon the Sun Maid’s floating hair as he quietly set her down and himself dropped upon a ledge to rest.

“You are welcome, my brother. Though, at first, I feared it was some alien who had discovered our cave.”

“It is not the habit of the Happy to fear. She who forebodes danger where no danger is but paves the way to her own destruction.”

Wahneenah glanced at her brother sharply.

“It is the Truth-Teller himself who has put foreboding into my soul. He – and the new-born love which the Sun Maid has brought.”

The face of Black Partridge fell again into that dignified gravity which was its habitual expression and he sat for a long time with the “dream-look” in his eyes, gazing straightforward into the embers of their little fire.

“Is you hungry, Feather-man? We did have such a beau’ful supper. Nice Other Mother can cook fishes and cakes and – things. Shall she cook you some fish, Black Partridge?”

“Will my chief eat the food I prepare for him?” asked Wahneenah, seconding the child’s invitation.

“With pleasure. For one hour he will let the cares of his life slip from him. He will have this night of peace, and while the meal is getting he will sleep.”

With a sigh of relief the tall Indian moved a few steps back into the cave and stretched himself at length upon the ground. His eyes closed, and before Gaspar had made ready his line to catch the fresh trout he had sunk into a profound slumber.

Wahneenah put her finger to her lip to signify silence, but she need not have done so. Gaspar had long ago learned the red man’s noiseless ways, and the Sun Maid immediately placed herself beside the prostrate chief, and clasping his hand that lay on his breast snuggled her cheek against it, and followed his example.

The Black Partridge, like most of his race, could sleep anywhere, at any time, and for as long as he chose. He had elected to wake at the end of a half-hour, and he did so on the moment. Sitting up, he gently placed the still slumbering Sun Maid upon the ground and moved forward to the fire. While he ate the food she had provided for him, Wahneenah continued standing near, but a little behind him; ready to anticipate his needs, and with a humility of demeanor which she showed toward no other person.

Gaspar watched the pair, wondering if they could really be of the same race which had destroyed his childhood’s home, and now again that second home of his adoption – the Fort. He liked, and was impelled to trust them both, and was already learning to love his foster-mother. But when they began to converse in their own dialect, and with occasional glances toward himself and the sleeping Kitty, the native caution of his mind arose, and made him miserable. He remembered a byword of the Fort:

“The only safe Indian is a dead one”; and with a sudden sense of danger leaped to his feet and ran to bend above the unconscious maid.

“If you harm her, I’ll – I’ll – kill you!” he shouted fiercely.

Wahneenah looked amazed, but the Black Partridge instantly comprehended the working of the boy’s thoughts, and a smile of satisfaction faintly illumined his sombre features.

“It is well. Let every brave defend his own. The Dark-Eye is no coward. His years are few, but he has the heart of a warrior and a chief. He must begin, at once, to learn the speech of his new tribe. He that knows has doubled the strength of his arm. Draw near. There is good and not evil in the souls of the chief and his sister. We are Truth-Tellers. We cannot lie. We have pledged our faith to the Dark-Eye and the Sun Maid – though she needs it not.”

The sincerity and admiration in the Indian’s eyes compelled the lad’s obedience; and when, as he stepped into the firelight, the chief indicated that he should sit beside himself, and also nodded to Wahneenah to take her own place opposite, his heart swelled with pride and ambition. So had the white Captain trusted and counselled with him. He had been faithful through all that dreadful day of massacre, and he had felt the man’s spirit within his child-body. Now again, a commander of others, the wise leader of a different people, was honoring him with a share in his council. There must be good in him, and some sort of wisdom – even though so young – else they had paid him no heed. His cheek flushed, his breast heaved, and his beautiful eyes shone with the exultation that thrilled him.

“Let the chief pardon the child – which I was, but a moment ago. I am become a man. I will do a man’s task, now and forever. If I suspected evil where there was none, is it a wonder? I have told Wahneenah, the Happy, the story of my life. The Black Partridge knew it already.”

Quite unconsciously, Gaspar dropped into the Indian manner of speech, and he could not have done a better thing for himself had he pondered the matter for long. Black Partridge nodded approvingly, and remarked:

“Another Sauganash is here! Well, while the Sun Maid sleeps, let us consider the future. The evil days are near.”

“What is the evil that my brother, the chief, beholds with his inner vision?” questioned the woman.

“War and bloodshed. Still more of war, still more of death. In the end will our wigwams lie flat on the earth as fallen leaves, while the remnant of my people moves onward, forever onward toward the setting sun.”

Wahneenah kept a respectful silence, but in her heart she resented the dire forebodings of her chief. At last, when her brooding thought forced utterance, she inquired:

“Can not the wisdom of the Black Partridge hinder these days of calamity? If the great Gomo, and Winnemeg, and those white braves who have lived among us, as the Sauganash, take counsel together, and compel their tribes to keep the peace, and to copy of the pale-faces the arts which have made them so powerful – will not this avert the evil? Why may there not in some time and place, a mighty grave be digged in which may be buried all the guns that kill and the knives that scalp, with the arrows which fly more swiftly than a bird? Over all may there not be emptied the casks and bottles of the fearful fire-water, that, passing through the lips of a warrior, changes him to a beast? Then the red man and his pale brother may clasp hands together and abide, each upon the earth, where the Great Spirit placed him.”

“It is a dream. Dreams vanish. Even as now the night speeds, and we are far from home. It avails us not to think of what might – but never will – be. Occasional friendships bridge the feud between our alien races, but the feud remains. It is eternal. Endless as the years which will witness the gradual extinction of the weaker, because smaller, race. Let us dream no more. Has Wahneenah, my sister, observed how the store she left in the old cave has grown? How the few sealed jars have become many, and how there are heaps of the good gifts which the Great Father sent to his white children at the Fort for the red children’s use?”

“Yes. I thought it was the miser, Shut-Hand, who had placed them here in our cave.”

“It was I, the Black Partridge.”

“For what purpose, my brother?”

“Against the needs of the time I have foretold. It is a sanctuary. Here may Wahneenah, and the young son and daughter which have been given her, find shelter and sustenance.”

Something of her old tribal exultation seized the woman, who was a great chief’s daughter. Rising to her fullest height, her fine head thrown slightly back, she demanded, indignantly: