The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

“Dreams have been with me. They were many and strange. Is this another?”

“This a glad reality. It is the Sun Maid. She has no parents. You have no child. She is yours. Take her and learn to laugh once more as in the days that are gone.”

Then he held the little creature toward her; and still amazed, but still obedient, the heart-broken squaw extended her arms and received the unconscious foundling. As the warm, soft flesh touched her own a thrill passed through her desolate heart, and all the tenderness of motherhood returned.

“Who is she? Whence did she come? Where will she go?”

“She is the Sun Maid. From the Fort by the great lake, where are still white men enough to die – as die they must. For there is treachery afoot, and they who were first treacherous must bear their own punishment. Only she shall be saved; and where she will go is in the power of the Woman-Who-Mourns, and of her alone.”

Without another word, and leaving the still blazing fagot lying on the earthen floor, the chief went swiftly away.

But he had brought fresh air and light and comfort with him, as he had prophesied. The small Sun Maid was already brightening the dusky lodge as might an actual ray from her glorious namesake.

It was proof of her utter exhaustion that she still slept soundly while her new foster-mother prepared a bed of softest furs spread over fresh green branches and went hurriedly out to beg from a neighbor squaw a draught of evening’s milk. This action in itself was sufficiently surprising to set all tongues a-chatter.

The lodge of Muck-otey-pokee had many of the comforts common to the white men’s settlements. Its herd of cattle even surpassed that at Fort Dearborn itself, and was a matter of no small pride to the Pottawatomie villagers. From the old mission fathers they had learned, also, some useful arts, and wherever their prairie lands were tilled a rich result was always obtainable.

So it was to a home of plenty, as well as safety, that Black Partridge had brought the little Sun Maid; and when she at length awoke to see a dusky face, full of wonderment and love, bending above her, she put out her arms and gurgled in a glee which brought an answering smile to lips that had not smiled for long.

With an instinct of yearning tenderness, the Woman-Who-Mourns had lightened her sombre attire by all the devices possible, so that while the child slept she had transformed herself. She had neatly plaited her heavy hair, and wound about her head some strings of gay beads. She had fastened a scarlet tanager’s wing to her breast, now covered by a bright-hued cotton gown once sent her from the Fort, and for which she had discarded her dingy blanket. But the greatest alteration of all was in the face itself, where a dawning happiness brought out afresh all the good points of a former comeliness.

“Oh! Pretty! I have so many, many nice mammas. Are you another?”

“Yes. All your mother now. My Sun Maid. My Girl-Child. My papoose!”

“That is nice. But I’m hungry. Give me my breakfast, Other Mother. Then I will go seek my bunny rabbit, that runned away, and my yellow posies that went to sleep when I did. Did you put them to bed, too, Other Mother?”

“There are many which shall wake for you, papoose,” answered the woman, promptly; for though she did not understand about the missing blossoms, it was fortunate that she did both understand and speak the language of her adopted daughter. Her dead husband had been the tribe’s interpreter, and both from him and from the Fort’s chaplain she had acquired considerable knowledge.

Until her widowhood and voluntary seclusion the Woman-Who-Mourns had been a person of note at Muck-otey-pokee; and now by her guardianship of this stranger white child she bade fair to again become such.

CHAPTER II.

TWO FOR BREAKFAST

The dead son of the Woman-Who-Mourns had never been disobedient, and small Kitty Briscoe had never obeyed anybody. She had laughed and frolicked her way through all rules and over all obstacles with a merry indifference that would have been insolent had it been less innocent and charming. During her short life the orphan had heard no voice but was full of tenderness, toward her at least; and every babyish misdemeanor had been pardoned almost before it was committed, by reason of her exceeding loveliness and overflowing affection. She had so loved all that she feared none, and not one of the kind mothers at the Fort had felt it her especial duty to discipline so sweet and fearless a nature. By and by, when she grew older, why, of course, the child must come under the yoke, like other children of that stern generation; but for the present, what was she but an ignorant baby, a motherless babe at that?

So that, on that first morning of their life together, it gave the latest foster-mother a very decided shock when she directed:

“Take your bowl of suppawn and milk, and eat it here by the fire, Girl-Child,” to have the other reply, with equal decision:

“Kitty will take it to the out-doors.”

“How? The papoose must eat her breakfast here, as I command.”

“But Kitty must take it out the doors. What will the pigeons say? Come with me, Other Mother.”

Quite to her own astonishment, the proud daughter of a chief complied. Superstition had suggested to her that this white-robed little creature, with her trustful eyes and her wonderful hair, who seemed rather to float over the space to the threshold than to tread upon the earthen floor, was the re-embodied spirit of her own lost child come back to comfort her sorrow and to be a power for good in her tribe.

But if the Sun Maid were a spirit, she had many earthly qualities; and with a truly human carelessness she had no sooner stepped beyond the tent flap than she let fall her heavy bowl and spilled her breakfast. For there stood her last night’s rescuer, his arms full of flowers.

“Oh, the posies! the posies! Nice Feather-man did bring them.”

“Ugh! Black Partridge, the Truth-Teller. I have come to take my leave. Also to ask you, my sister, shall I carry away the Sun Maid to her own people? Or shall she abide with you?”

“Take her away, my brother? Do you not guess, then, who she is?”

“Why should I guess when I know. I saw her father die, and I stood beside her mother’s grave. The white papoose has neither tribe nor kinsman.”

“There for once the Truth-Teller speaks unwisely. The Sun Maid, whom you found asleep on the path, is my own flesh and blood.”

In surprise Black Partridge stared at the woman, whose face glowed with delight. Then he reflected that it would be as well to leave her undisturbed in her strange notion. The helpless little one would be the better cared for, under such circumstances, and the time might speedily come when she would need all the protection possible for anybody to give.

“It is well – as you believe; yet then you are no longer the Woman-Who-Mourns, but again Wahneenah, the Happy.”

For a moment they silently regarded the child who had thrown herself face downward upon the great heap of orchids that Black Partridge had brought, and which he had risen very early to gather. They were of the same sort that the little one had grieved over on the night before, only much larger and fairer, and of far greater number. Talking to the blossoms and caressing them as if they were human playmates, the Sun Maid forgot that she was hungry, until Wahneenah had brought a second bowl of porridge and, gently lifting her charge to a place upon the mat, had bidden her eat.

“Oh, yes! My breakfast. I did forget it, didn’t I? Oh, the darling posies! Oh! the pretty Feather-man, that couldn’t tell a naughty story. I know ’bout him. We all know ’bout him to our Fort. My Captain says he is the bestest Feather-man in all the – everywhere.”

“Ugh! Ugh!”

The low grunt of assent seemed to come from every side the big wigwam. At all times there were many idle Indians at Muck-otey-pokee, but of late their number had been largely increased by bands of visiting Pottawatomies. These had come to tarry with their tribesmen in the village till the distribution of goods should be made from Fort Dearborn, as had been ordered by General Hull; or until the hour was ripe for their treacherous assault upon the little garrison.

The Man-Who-Kills was in the very centre of the group which had squatted in a semi-circle as near as it dared before the tepee of their chief’s sister, and the low grunts came from this band of spectators.

“We will sit and watch. So will we learn what the Black Partridge means,” and when Spotted Rabbit so advised his brothers, they had come in the darkness and arranged themselves as has been described.

The chief had found them there when, before dawn, he came with his offering of flowers, and Wahneenah had seen them when she raised the curtain of her tent and looked out to learn what manner of day was coming. But neither had noticed them any more than they did the birds rustling in the cottonwood beside the wigwam, or the wild creatures skurrying across the path for their early drink at the stream below.

Neither had the Sun Maid paid them any attention, for she had always been accustomed to meeting the savages both at the Fort and on her rides abroad with any of her garrison friends; so she deliberately sipped her breakfast, pausing now and then to arrange the pouch-like petals of some favored blossoms and to converse with them in her fantastic fashion, quite believing that they heard and understood.

“Did the nice Feather-man bring you all softly, little posies? Aren’t you glad you’ve come to live with Kitty? Other Mother will give you all some breakfast, too, of coldest water in the brook. Then you will sit up straight and hold your heads high. That’s the way the children do when my Captain takes the book with the green cover and makes them spell things out of it. Oscar doesn’t like the green book. It makes him wriggle his nose – so; but Margaret is as fond of it as I am of you. Oh, dear! Some day, all my mothers say, I, too, will have to sit and look on the printing and spell words. I can, though, even now. Listen, posies. D-o-g – that’s – that’s – I guess it’s ‘cat.’ Isn’t it, posies? But you don’t have to spell things, do you? I needn’t either. Not to-day, and maybe not to-morrow day. Because, you see, I runned away. Oh, how I did run! So fast, so far, before I found your little sisters, posies, dear. Then I guess I went to sleep, without ever saying my ‘Now I lay me,’ and the black Feather-man came, and – that’s all.”

Wahneenah had gone back to her household duties, for she had many things on hand that day. Not the least, to make her neglected tepee a brighter, fitter home for this stray sunbeam which the Great Spirit had sent to her out of the sky, and into which He had breathed the soul of her lost one. Indistinctly, she heard the murmuring of the babyish voice at the threshold and occasionally caught some of the words it uttered. These served but to establish her in her belief that the child had more than mortal senses; else how should she fancy that the blossoms would hear and understand her prattle?

“Listen. She talks to the weeds as the white men talk to us. She is a witch,” said the Man-Who-Kills to his neighbor in the circle, the White Pelican.

“She is only a child of the pale-faces. The Black Partridge has set her among us to move our hearts to pity.”

“The White Pelican was ever a coward,” snorted the Man-Who-Kills.

But the younger warrior merely turned his head and smiled contemptuously. Then he critically scrutinized the ill-proportioned figure of the ugly-tempered brave. The fellow’s crooked back, abnormally long arms and short legs were an anomaly in that race of stalwart Indians, and the soul of the savage corresponded to his outward development. For his very name had been given him in derision; because, though he always threatened and always sneaked after his prey, he had never been known to slay an enemy in open combat.

“That is as the tomahawks prove. The scalps hang close on the pole of my wigwam,” finally remarked the Pelican.

“Ugh! But there was never such a scalp as that of the papoose yonder. It shall hang above all others in my tepee. I have said it.”

“Having said it, you may unsay it. That is no human fleece upon that small head. She is sacred.”