The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

“Since I am a soldier’s daughter, I can afford to be just, and even generous. It is all nonsense, because we have gained our independence, to say we are better than our fathers were. For they were our fathers, surely; and they had had time in their rich country, with their ages of instruction, to grow learned and great. But we Americans are their children, and, just as is already proving, each generation is wiser than the one which went before. So presently we shall be able to do even better than they – ”

“Give them another dose of Yankee Doodle?”

“If they require it, yes. But come back to just right here in this little town. Besides the schools for white children, can’t we have those for the Indians?”

“No, dear; not here. Not anywhere, I fear, that will ever result in permanent good. At least, the time is not yet ripe for that part of your dreaming to come true.”

“But think of Wahneenah. She is teachable and there is none more noble. Yet she is an Indian.”

“She is one, herself. In all her race I have seen none other like her. There is Black Partridge, too, and Gomo, and old Winnemeg. They are exceptions. But, my love, there are, also, the Black Hawk and the Prophet.”

He did not add his opinion, which agreed with that of the wisest men he knew, that Illinois would know no real prosperity till the savages, which disturbed its peace, were removed from its borders. For she loved them, hoped for them, believed in them; even though her own common sense forced her to agree with him that the time was not ripe then, if it ever would be, for their civilization. So he held his peace and soon they were at home.

“Heigho! There are lights in our cabin. Hear me prophesy: Mother Mercy has come over with a roast for our supper and Mother Wahneenah has quietly set it aside to wait until her own is eaten. Ho there within!” he called merrily. “Who breaches our castle when its lord is absent?”

Mercy promptly appeared in the doorway. She was greatly excited and hastily led them to the rear of the house, pointing with both hands to an animal fastened behind it.

“There’s your fine Indian for you! See that?”

“Indeed I do!” laughed Kitty. “An ox, Jim, isn’t it? with the Doctor’s saddle on his back and his botanizing box, and – What does it mean? I knew he was absent-minded, but not like this.”

“Absent-minded. Absent shucks! That’s Osceolo —that is!” in a tone of fiercest indignation. “He’s such a crooked log he can’t lie still.”

“Is that his work? He dared not play his tricks on the dear Doctor!”

“Yes, it’s his’n. The idee! There was Abel went and gave old Dobbin to the parson, to save his long legs some of their trampin’ after weeds and stuff and ’cause he was afraid to ride ary other horse in the settlement. And there was Osceolo, that for a feller’s hired out to a regular tavern-keeper like us, to be a hostler and such, he don’t earn his salt. All the time prankin’ round on some tomfoolery. And Abel’s just as bad. A man with only two or three little weeny tufts o’ hair left on his head and mighty little sense on the inside, at his time of life, a-fiddlin’ and cuttin’ up jokes, I declare – I declare, I’m beat, and I wish – ”

“But what is it?” demanded Kitty, bringing her old friend back to facts.

“Why, nothing. Only when the dominie came home and stopped here, as he always does after he’s been a-prairieing, to show you his truck and dicker, Osceolo happens along and is took smart! The simpleton! Just set old Dobbin scamperin’ off back into the grass again and clapped the saddle and tin box and what not on to the ox’s back. Spected he’d see the parson come out and mount and never notice. ’Stead of that, along comes Abel – strange how constant he has to visit to your house! – and sees the whole business. Well, he’d caught some sort of a wild animal, and – say, Kitty Briscoe, I mean Keith! —that Indian’d drink whiskey, if he got a chance, just as quick as one raised in the woods, instead of one privileged to set under such a saint as the Doctor all his days. I tell you – Well, what you laughing at, Gaspar Keith? Ain’t I tellin’ the truth?”

“Yes, Mother Mercy, doubtless you are. But it isn’t so long back, as Abel says, that you objected to ‘setting under’ the Doctor yourself.”

“Suppose it wasn’t? I didn’t know him then, not as I do now. He’s orthodox, I found out, and that’s all I wanted. But I know what I’m talkin’ about. Osceolo, he’s always beggin’ for Abel to keep liquor: an’ we teetotallers! An’ he’s teased so much that the other day Abel thought he’d satisfy him. So he got an old bottle, looked as if some tipsy Indian had thrown it away, and filled it with a dose of boneset tea. He made a terrible mystery of the whole matter, pretendin’ to be sly of me, and took it out from under his coat and gave it to Ossy out behind in the stable, like it was a wonderful secret. Do you know, that Indian hain’t never let on a single word about that business yet? Oh! he’s a master hand for bein’ close-mouthed. They all be. They just do– but don’t talk.”

“Mercy, if you were only a little more talkative, you’d be better company!” teased Gaspar, who was eager for the finish of the story and his supper.

“Now – you! Well, laugh away. I don’t mind. All is, when Abel saw the trick Ossy had played on the Doctor, he plays one on Ossy. He’d caught a queer sort of animal, as I said, and he was fetchin’ it to Kit. Everybody brings her everything, from rattlesnakes up. But when he saw that ox, he just opens the tin box and claps the creature inside and then hunts up Ossy. He says: ‘There’s something in that box pretty suspicious, boy. You might look an’ see what ’tis but don’t let on.’ He’s that curiosity, Osceolo has, that he forgot everything else and stuck his hand in sly. I expect he thought it was something to eat, or likely to drink, and he got bit. Hand’s all tore and sore, and now Abel’s scared and gone off with him to the surgeon at the Fort, and there’ll be trouble. Ossy was muttering something about the ‘Black Hawk coming and that he’d had enough of the white folks. He was born an Indian, and an Indian he’d die’; and to the land! I hope he will! He makes more mischief in this settlement than you can shake a stick at!”

“‘It’s hard for a bird to get away from its tail,’” quoted Gaspar, lightly. “Osceolo began life wrong and his reputation clings to him. I’ll take the saddle off Jim, and let’s go in to supper. None of my Sun Maid’s tribe is to be feared, I think, no matter how direly they may threaten.”

Yet the young husband glanced toward his wife with an anxiety that he would not have liked her to see. During the weeks since his return to the village he had learned much more than he had told her of a movement far beyond the Indian encampments she was accustomed to visit, which would bring serious trouble, if not complete disaster, upon their beloved home. Osceolo was the Sun Maid’s devoted follower; yet the prank he had played upon the old Doctor, whom she so reverenced, showed that he was already throwing aside the restraints of his enforced civilization; and the sign was ominous.

CHAPTER XX.

ENEMIES, SEEN AND UNSEEN

But the time passed on and the rumors died away, or ended in nothing more serious than had always disturbed the dwellers in that lonely land. Now and again a friendly, peace-loving chief would ride up to the door of the Sun Maid’s home, and, after a brief consultation she would put on her Indian attire and ride back with him across the prairies. As of old, she went with a heart full of love for her Indian friends, but it was not the undivided love that she had once been able to give them.

Over her beautiful features had settled the brooding look which wifehood and motherhood gives; and though she listened as attentively as of old and counselled as wisely, she could not for one moment forget the little children waiting for her by her own hearthside or the brave husband who was so often away on his long journeys to the north; and the keen intelligence of the red men perceived this.

“She is ours no longer,” said a venerable warrior, after one such visit. “She has taken to herself a pale-face, he who met her on the prairie in the morning light, and her heart has gone from her. It is the way of life. The old passes, the new comes to reign. We are her past. Her Dark-Eye is her present. Her papooses are her future. The parting draws near. She is still the Sun Maid, the White Spirit, the Unafraid. As far as the Great Spirit wills, she will be faithful to us; but now when she rides homeward from a visit to our lodge it is no longer at the easy pace of one whose life is all her own, but wildly, swiftly, following her heart which has leaped before.”

Each morning, nearly, as the Sun Maid ministered to her little ones or busied herself among the domestic duties of her simple home she would joyfully exclaim to Wahneenah:

“I don’t believe there was ever a woman in the world so happy as I am!” And the Indian foster-mother would gravely reply:

“Ask the Great Spirit that the peace may long continue.”

Till, on one especial day, the younger woman demanded:

“Well, why should it not, my Mother? It is now many weeks since I have been called to settle any little quarrel among our people. Surely they are learning wisdom fast. Do you know something? I intend that some of the squaws who are idle shall make my baby, Gaspar the Second, a little costume of our own tribe. It shall be all complete; as if he were a tiny chief himself, with his leggings and head-dress, and – yes, even a little bow and quiver. I’ll have it finished, maybe, before his father comes down from this last trip into the far-away woods. Oh! I shall be glad when my ‘brave’ can trust all his business of mining and fur-buying and lumbering to somebody else. I miss him so. But won’t he be pleased with our little lad in feathers and buckskin?”

Wahneenah’s dark eyes looked keenly at her daughter’s face.

“No, beloved; he will not be pleased. In his heart of hearts, the white chief was ever the red man’s enemy. Me he loves and a few more. But let the White Papoose” (Wahneenah still called her foster-child by the old love names of her childhood) “let the White Papoose hear and remember: the day is near when the Dark-Eye will choose between his friends and the friends of his wife. It is time to prepare. There is a distress coming which shall make of this Chicago a burying-ground. Our Dark-Eye has bought much land. He is always, always buying. Some day he will sell and the gold in his purse will be too heavy for one man’s carrying. But first the darkness, the blood, the death. Let him choose now a house of refuge for you and the little children; choose it where there are trees to shelter and water to refresh. Let him build there a tepee large enough for all your needs, – a wigwam, remember, not a house. Let him stock it well with food and clothing and the guns which protect.”

“Why, Other Mother! What has come over you? Such a dismal prophecy as that is worse than any which old Katasha ever breathed. Are you ill, Wahneenah, dearest?”

“There is no sickness in my flesh; yet in my heart is a misery that bows it to the earth. But I warn you. If you would find favor in the eyes of your brave, clothe not his son in the costume of the red man.”

Kitty was unaccountably depressed. Hitherto she had been able to laugh aside the sometimes sombre auguries of the chief’s sister; but now something in the woman’s manner made her believe that she knew more than she disclosed of some impending disaster. However, it was not in her nature, nor did she believe it right, that she should worry over vague suggestions. So she answered once more before quite dismissing the subject:

“Well, we were already discussing the comfort of having another home out in the forest, and Abel has suggested that we build it on the land which was his farm and which Gaspar has bought. We both liked that; to have our own children play where we played as children. I want my little ones to learn about the wild things of the woods, and the dear old Doctor is still alive to teach them. You will like it, too, Other Mother. When the days grow hot and long we will ride to the ‘Refuge’; and I think the wigwam idea is better, after all, than the house; though I do not know what my husband will decide.”

“Before the days grow long, the ‘Refuge’ must be finished, and the earlier the better. It is rightly named, my daughter, and the time is ripe.”

Ere many hours had passed, and most unexpectedly to his wife, Gaspar returned. In the first happiness of welcoming him she did not observe that his face was stern and troubled; but she did notice, when bedtime came, that he did what had never before been done in their home: he locked or bolted the doors and stoutly barred the heavy wooden shutters. He had also brought Osceolo with him, from Abel’s tavern, and had peremptorily bidden the Indian to “Lie there!” pointing to a heap of skins on the floor beside the fire.

Toward morning Kitty woke. To her utter amazement, she saw in her living room her Gaspar and Osceolo engaged in what seemed a battle to the death. Then she sprang up and ran toward them, but her husband motioned her back.

“Leave him to me. I’ll fix him so that he’ll do no more mischief for the present.”

“But, Gaspar! What is it?”

“Treachery, as usual. Get into your clothes, my girl, and call Wahneenah. Let the children be dressed, – warmly, for the air is cool and we may have to leave suddenly.”

“What is it?”

“An outbreak! The settlers are flocking into the Fort in droves. Black Hawk and his followers have come too close for comfort. This miserable fellow has been tampering with the stores. He couldn’t get at the ammunition, but he’s done all the evil he could. I caught him hobnobbing with a low Sac; a spy, I think. There. He’s bound, and now I’ll fasten him in the wood-shed. He knows too much about this town to be left in freedom.”

Yet, after all, they did not have to flee from home, as Gaspar had feared, though the Sun Maid put on her peace dress and unbound her glorious hair, ready at any moment to ride forth and meet the Indians and to try her powers of promoting good-feeling. The Snowbird stood saddled for many days: yet it was only upon errands of hospitality and charity that he was needed.

Gaspar, however, was always in the saddle. When he was not riding far afield, scouting the movements of the Black Hawk forces, he was searching the countryside for provisions and himself guiding the wagons that brought in the scant supplies. One evening he returned more cheerful than he had seemed for many days and exclaimed as he tossed aside his cap:

“This has been a good trip, for two reasons.”

“What are they, dear?”