The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

“Now, I’ll dance you a sailor’s hornpipe, and then I must go out and milk. If ma’d been home, it would have been finished long ago. But when the cat’s away the mice will play, you know; so here goes.”

Unfortunately, at that very moment the “cat” to whom he referred, Mercy, in fact, approached the cabin from a direction which even Wahneenah did not observe, and opened a rear door plump upon this unprecedented scene.

Abel stopped short in his jig, one foot still uplifted and his fiddle bow half drawn, while the Sun Maid was yet sweeping her most graceful curtsey; and even the serious Gaspar had left his seat to prance about the room to the notes of Abel’s music.

Mercy also remained transfixed, utterly dumfounded, and doubting the evidence of her own senses; but after a moment becoming able to exclaim:

“So! This is how lonesome you be when I leave you, is it?”

CHAPTER XII.

AFTER FOUR YEARS

Despite a really warm and hospitable heart, it was not pleasant for Mercy Smith to find that her submissive husband had taken upon himself to keep open house in this fashion for all who chose to call; and, as she often expressed it, the settler’s wife “hated an Indian on sight.”

Upon her unexpected entrance, there had ensued a brief silence; then the two tongues which were accustomed to wag so nimbly took up their familiar task and a battle of words followed. Its climax came rather suddenly, and was not anticipated by the housewife who declared with great decision:

“I say the children may stay for a spell, till we can find a way to dispose of ’em. The boy’s big enough to earn his keep, if he ain’t too lazy. Male creatur’s mostly are. An’ the girl’s no great harm as I see, ’nless she’s too pretty to be wholesome. But that red-face goes, or I do. There ain’t no room in this cabin for me an’ a squaw to one time. You can take your druther. She goes or I do”; and she glanced with animosity toward Wahneenah, who, when hearing the fresh voice added to the other three, had come promptly upon Mercy’s return to take her stand just within the entrance. There she had remained ever since, silent, watchful, and quite as full of distrust concerning Mercy as Mercy could possibly have been toward herself.

“Well,” said Abel, slowly, and there was a new note in his voice which aroused and riveted his wife’s attention. “Well – you hear me. I don’t often claim to be boss, but when I do I mean it. Them children can stay here just as long as they will. For all their lives, an’ I’ll be glad of it. The Lord has denied us any little shavers of our own, an’ maybe just because in His providence He was plannin’ to send them two orphans here for us to tend. As for the squaw, she’s proved her soul’s white, if her skin is red, an’ she stays or goes, just as she elects – ary one. That’s all. Now, you’d better see about fixing ’em a place to sleep.”

Because she was too astonished to do otherwise, Mercy complied. And Wahneenah wisely relieved her unwilling hostess of any trouble concerning herself. She followed Abel to the barn, to attend him upon his belated “chores,” and to beg the use of some coarse blankets which she had found stored there. Until she could secure properly dressed skins or bark, these would serve her purpose well enough for the little tepee she meant to pitch close to the house which sheltered her children.

“For I must leave them under her roof while the winter lasts. They are not of my race, and cannot endure the cold. But I will work just so much as will pay for their keep and my own. They shall be beholden to the white woman for naught but their shelter. For that, too, I will make restitution in the days to come.”

“Pshaw, Wahneeny! I wouldn’t mind a bit of a sharp tongue, if I was you. Ma don’t mean no hurt. She’s used to bein’ boss, that’s all; an’ she will be the first to be glad she’s got another female to consort with. I wouldn’t lay up no grudge. I wouldn’t.”

But the matter settled itself as the Indian suggested. It was pain and torment to her to hear Mercy alternately petting and correcting her darlings, yet for their sakes she endured that much and more. She even failed to resent the fact that, after a short residence at the farm, the Smiths both began to refer to her as “our hired girl, that’s workin’ for her keep an’ the childern’s.”

It did not matter to her now. Nothing mattered so long as she was still within sight and sound of her Sun Maid’s beauty and laughter; and by the time spring came she had procured the needful skins to construct the wigwam she desired. Her skill in nursing, that had been well known among her own people, she now made a means of sustaining her independence. Such aid as she could render was indeed difficult to be obtained by the isolated dwellers in that wilderness; and having nursed Abel through a siege of inflammatory rheumatism, as he had never been cared for before, he sounded her praises far and near, and to all of the chance passers-by.

For her service among those who could pay she charged a very moderate wage, but it sufficed; and, for the sake of pleasing her children, she adopted a dress very like that worn by all the women of the frontier. Kitty, also, had soon been clothed “like a Christian” by Mercy’s decision; but Wahneenah still carefully preserved the dainty Indian costume Katasha had given the child; along with the sacred White Bow and the priceless Necklace.

As for the three horses on which she and the two children had stolen away from their enemies in the cave of refuge, Abel had long ago decided that they were but kittle cattle, unfitted for the sober work of life which his own oxen and old nag Dobbin performed so well. So they were left in idleness, to graze where they pleased, and were little used except by their owners for a rare ride afield. The Chestnut, however, carried Wahneenah to and fro upon her nursing trips; for, unless the case were too urgent to be left, she always returned at nightfall to her own lodge and the nearness of her Sun Maid.

Thus four uneventful years passed away, and it had come to the time of the wheat harvest.

“And it’s to be the biggest, grandest frolic ever was in this part of the country,” declared the settler, proudly.

Whereupon, days before, Mercy began to brew and bake, and even Wahneenah condescended to assist in the household labor. But she did this that she might if possible lighten that of her Sun Maid, who had now grown to a “real good-sized girl an’ just as smart as chain lightning.”

This was Abel’s description. Mercy’s would have been:

“Kitty’s well enough. But she hates to sew her seam like she hates poison. She’d ruther be makin’ posies an’ animals out my nice clean fresh-churned butter than learn cookin’. But she’s good-tempered. Never flies out at all, like Gaspar, ’cept I lose patience with Wahneeny. Then, look sharp!”

“Well, I tell you that out in this country a harvestin’ is a big institution!” cried Abel to Gaspar as, early on the morning of the eventful day, they were making all things ready for the accommodation of the people who would flock to the Smith farm to assist in the labor and participate in the fun. “If there’s some things we miss here, we have some that can’t be matched out East. Every white settler’s every other settler’s neighbor, even though there’s miles betwixt their clearin’s. All hands helpin’ so makes light work of raisin’ cabins or barns, sowin’, reapin’, or clearin’. I – I declare I feel as excited as a boy. But you don’t seem to. You’re gettin’ a great lad now, Gaspar, an’ one these days I’ll be thinkin’ of payin’ you some wages. If so be I can afford it, an’ – ”

“And Mercy will let you!”

“Hi, diddle diddle! What’s struck you crosswise, sonny?”

“I’m tired of working so hard for other people. I want a chance to do something for myself. I’m not ungrateful; don’t think it. But see. I am already taller than you and I can do as much work in a day. Where is the justice, then, of my labor going for naught?”

“Why, Gaspar. Why, why, why!” exclaimed the pioneer, too astonished to say more.

Gaspar went on with his task of clearing the barn floor and arranging tying places for the visitors’ teams; but his dark face was clouded and anxious, showing little of the anticipation which Abel’s did.

“I’m going to ask you, Father Abel, to let me try for a job somewhere else; that is, if you can’t really pay me anything, as your wife declares. Then, by and by, when I can earn enough to get ahead a little, I’d pay you back for all you’ve spent on us three.”

Abel’s face had fallen, and he now looked as if he might be expecting some dire disaster rather than a frolic. But it brightened presently.

“Yes, Gaspar; I know you’re big, and well-growed. But you’re young yet – dreadful young – ”

“I’m near fifteen.”

“Well, you won’t be out your time till you’re twenty-one.”

“What ‘time’?” asked the lad, angrily, though he knew the answer.

“Hmm. Of course, there wasn’t no regular papers drawed, but it was understood; it was always understood between ma and me that if we took you all in, and did for you while you was growin’ up, your service belonged to us. Same’s if you’d been bound by the authorities.”

“Get over there, Dobbin!”

“Pshaw! You must be real tried in your mind to hit a four-footed creatur’ like that. I hain’t never noticed that you was short-spoke with the stock – not before this morning. I wish you wouldn’t get out of sorts to-day, boy! I – well, there’s things afoot ’at I think you’d like to take a share in. There. That’ll do. Now, just turn another edge on them reapin’ knives, an’ see that there’s plenty o’ water in the troughs, an’ feed them fattin’ pigs in the pen, an’ – Shucks! He’s off already. I wonder what’s took him so short! I wonder if he’s got wind of anything out the common!”

The latter part of Abel’s words were spoken to himself, for Gaspar had taken his knives to the grindstone in the yard and was now calling for Kitty to turn the stone for him, while he should hold the blades against its surface.

But it was Mercy who answered his summons, appearing in the doorway with her sleeves rolled up, her apron floured, and her round face aglow with haste and excitement.

“Well? well, Gaspar Keith? What you want of Kit?”

“To help me.”

“Help yourself. I can’t spare her.”

“Then I can’t grind the knives. That’s all.” He tossed them down to wait her pleasure, and Mercy groaned.

“If I ain’t the worst bestead woman in the world! Here’s all creation coming to be fed, an’ no help but a little girl like Kit an’ a grumpy old squaw ’t don’t know enough to ’preciate her privileges. Hey! Gaspar! Call Abel in to breakfast. An’ after that maybe sissy can turn the stun. Here ’tis goin’ on six o’clock, if it’s a minute, an’ some the folks’ll be pokin’ over here by seven, sure!”

Then Mercy retreated within doors and directed the Sun Maid to:

“Fly ’round right smart now an’ set the house to one side. Whisk them flapjacks over quicker ’an that, then they’ll not splish-splash all over the griddle. When I was a little girl nine years old I could fry cakes as round as an apple. No reason why you shouldn’t, too, if you put your mind to it.”

The Sun Maid laughed. No amount of fret or labor had ever yet had power to dim the brightness of her nature. Was it the Sun Maid, though? One had to look twice to see. For this tall, slender girl now wore her glorious hair in a braid, and her frock was of coarse blue homespun.

Her feet were bare, and her plump shoulders bowed a little because of the heavy burdens which her “mother Mercy” saw fit to put upon them.

“But I guess I don’t want to put my mind to it. I can’t see anything pretty in ’jacks which are to be eaten right up. Only I like to have them taste right for the folks. That’s all.”