Indian Stories Retold From St. Nicholas Part 7

We had some quiet plays which we alternated with the more severe and warlike ones. Among them were throwing wands and snow-arrows. In the winter we coasted much. We had no "double-rippers" nor toboggans, but six or seven of the long ribs of a buffalo, fastened together at the larger end, answered all practical purposes. Sometimes a strip of ba.s.s-wood bark, four feet long and half a foot wide, was used with much skill. We stood on one end and held the other, using the inside of the bark for the outside, and thus coasted down long hills with remarkable speed.

Sometimes we played "Medicine Dance." This to us was almost what "playing church" is among white children. Our people seem to think it an act of irreverence to imitate these dances, but we children thought otherwise; therefore we quite frequently enjoyed in secret one of these performances. We used to observe all the important ceremonies and customs attending it, and it required something of an actor to reproduce the dramatic features of the dance. The real dances usually occupied a day and a night, and the program was long and varied, so that it was not easy to execute all the details perfectly; but the Indian children are born imitators.

I was often selected as choirmaster on these occasions, for I had happened to learn many of the medicine songs, and was quite an apt mimic. My grandmother, who was a noted medicine woman, on hearing of these sacrilegious acts (as she called them), warned me that if any of the medicine men should learn of my conduct, they would punish me terribly by shriveling my limbs with slow disease.

Occasionally we also played "white man." Our knowledge of the pale-face was limited, but we had learned that he brought goods whenever he came, and that our people exchanged furs for his merchandise. We also knew, somehow, that his complexion was white, that he wore short hair on his head and long hair on his face, and that he had coat, trousers, and hat, and did not patronize blankets in the daytime. This was the picture we had formed of the white man. So we painted two or three of our number with white clay, and put on them birchen hats, which we sewed up for the occasion, fastened a piece of fur to their chins for a beard, and altered their costume as much as lay within our power. The white of the birch-bark was made to answer for their white shirts. Their merchandise consisted of sand for sugar, wild beans for coffee, dried leaves for tea, pulverized earth for gunpowder, pebbles for bullets, and clear water for dangerous "fire-water." We traded for these goods with skins of squirrels, rabbits, and small birds.

When we played "hunting buffalo" we would send a few good runners off on the open prairie with meat and other edibles; then start a few of our swiftest runners to chase them and capture the food. Once we were engaged in this sport when a real hunt by the men was going on near by; yet we did not realize that it was so close until, in the midst of our play, an immense buffalo appeared, coming at full speed directly toward us. Our mimic buffalo hunt turned into a very real "buffalo scare"! As it was near the edge of a forest, we soon disappeared among the leaves like a covey of young prairie-chickens, and some hid in the bushes while others took refuge in tall trees.

In the water we always had fun. When we had no ponies, we often had swimming-matches of our own, and we sometimes made rafts with which we crossed lakes and rivers. It was a common thing to "duck" a young or timid boy, or to carry him into deep water to struggle as best he might.

I remember a perilous ride with a companion on an unmanageable log, when we both were less than seven years old. The older boys had put us on this uncertain bark and pushed us out into the swift current of the river. I cannot speak for my comrade in distress, but I can say now that I would rather ride on a wild bronco any day than try to stay on and steady a short log in a river. I never knew how we managed to prevent a shipwreck on that voyage, and to reach the sh.o.r.e!

We had many curious wild pets. There were young foxes, bears, wolves, fawns, racc.o.o.ns, buffalo calves, and birds of all kinds, tamed by various boys. My pets were different at different times, but I particularly remember one. I once had a grizzly cub for a pet, and so far as he and I were concerned our relations were charming and very close. But I hardly know whether he made more enemies for me or I for him. It was his custom to treat unmercifully every boy who injured me.

He was despised for his conduct in my interest, and I was hated on account of his interference.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COPY IN BLACK AND WHITE OF A COLOR-DRAWING BY AN INDIAN BOY]

AN OLD-TIME THANKSGIVING

BY M. ELOISE TALBOT

LITTLE PRUDENCE stood by the window, with her face pressed hard against it. She was not looking out; she could not do that, for the window-frame, instead of being filled with clear panes of gla.s.s, had oiled paper stretched tightly across it.

It was a very curious window, indeed, and it transmitted a dull light into a very curious room. The floor was of uncovered boards; the walls were built of logs of wood with the bark still clinging to them in places, and overhead were great rafters from which hung suspended many things--swords and corselets, coats, bundles of dried herbs, pots and pans.

The furniture was very simple. In the center of the room was a wooden table, scoured to whiteness, stiff-backed chairs were ranged against the wall, and a dresser, where pewter cups and platters stood in shining rows, adorned the farther corner. In a wide chimney-place a royal fire was blazing, and before it stood Prudence's mother, carefully stirring some mixture in an iron pot which hung upon a crane. Within the circle of the firelight, which played upon her yellow hair and turned it to ruddy gold, Mehitable, Prudence's sister, stepped rapidly to and fro, her spinning-wheel making a humming accompaniment to the crackling of the blaze.

Prudence turned to watch her, pushing farther back a little white cap which pressed upon her short curls; for she was a little Puritan maiden, living in the town of Plymouth, and it was not the present year of our Lord, but about two hundred and eighty-four years ago. She was a very different Prudence from what she would have been if she had been living now, and it was a very different Plymouth from the pleasant town we know to-day, with its many houses climbing up the hill, and the busy people in its streets. There were only seven houses then, and they stood in one line leading to the water, and there was but one building besides--a square wooden affair with palisades, which served as a church on Sundays, a fort when enemies were feared, and a storehouse all the time. Beyond these nothing could be seen but woods--trackless, unknown forests--and, away to the east, the ocean, where the waves were booming with a lonesome sound.

It was not quite a year before that Prudence's father had stood with the other brave colonists on the deck of the _Mayflower_, and had looked with eager eyes upon the sh.o.r.e of the New World. This first year in Ma.s.sachusetts had on the whole been a happy one for Prudence. During the cold winter which followed their landing, she had indeed cast longing thoughts toward the home in Holland which they had left; and especially did she long for the Dutch home when she was hungry, and the provisions which had been brought on the ship were scanty; but she had forgotten all such longings in the bounty given by the summer, and now it seemed to her there was no more beautiful place in the world than this New England.

It was Prudence's father who opened the door and came in, carrying on his shoulder an ax with which he had been felling trees for the winter's fuel. Prudence never could get over the queer feeling it gave her to see her father thus employed. When they lived in Holland, he was always writing and studying in books of many languages, but here he did little else than work in the fields, for it was only so that the early settlers obtained their daily bread. He leaned his ax in a corner, and came toward the fire, rubbing his hands to get out the cold.

"I have news for you, dear heart, to-night," he said to his wife. "I have just come from the granary, and indeed there is goodly store laid up of corn and rye, and game that has been shot in the forest. The children's mouths will not hunger this winter."

"Praised be the Lord!" replied his wife, fervently. "But what is your news?"

"The governor hath decided to hold a thanksgiving for the bountiful harvest, and on the appointed day is a great feast to be spread; and he hath sent a messenger to bid Ma.s.sasoit to break bread with us."

"Ma.s.sasoit the Indian?"

"Ay; but a friendly Indian. He will come, and many of his braves with him. You will be kept busy, my heart, with the other housewives to bake sufficient food for this company."

"Oh, mother, _may_ I go?" cried Prudence, her eyes dancing with excitement, clutching at her mother's skirts; but her father continued:

"How now, Mehitable? The news of a coming feast does not seem to make you merry as it was wont to do in Holland."

Mehitable was grave, and there was even a tear in her eye.

"I know," cried Joel, who was two years older than Prudence; "she is thinking of John Andrews, who is across the sea."

But the father frowned, and the mother said, "Peace, foolish children!"

as she placed the porridge on the table.

So Prudence and Joel drew up their benches, and said no more. Chairs and conversation did not belong to children in those days; they sat on little stools and kept silence. That did not keep them from thinking. A thanksgiving feast! What could it be? The only thanksgiving they knew about meant such long prayers in church that the little people grew very tired before the end--but a feast!--that would be something new and interesting.

The feast was to be held on the following Thursday; so, during all the days between, the house was full of the stir of brewing and baking.

Prudence polished the apples, and Joel pounded the corn, in eager antic.i.p.ation; but when the day arrived a disappointment awaited them, for their father decreed that they should remain at home.

"You are over-young, my little Prudence, and Joel is over-bold; besides which, he must stay and care for you."

"And do neither of you leave the house while your father and I are away," added the mother. "I shall not have a moment's peace of mind, if I think you are wandering outside alone."

"I will bring you back a Dutch cake, my little sister," whispered Mehitable, who looked sweeter than ever in her best attire of black silk and a lace kerchief, which with an unwilling heart she had put on in obedience to her mother's command.

But when the elders were gone the disappointment and loneliness were too much for the children. Prudence, being a girl, sat down in a corner and cried; while Joel, being a boy, got angry, and strode up and down the room with his hands in his pockets.

"It is too bad!" he burst out suddenly. "The greedy, grown-up people, I believe they want all the food themselves! It's a downright shame to keep us at home!"

"Joel!" gasped Prudence, horrified--"father and mother!"

"Well, I know," admitted Joel, more mildly; "but they need not have shut us up in the house as if we were babies. Prudence, let's go out in the yard and play, if we can't do anything else."

"But mother forbade us," said Prudence.

"I know. But then, of course, she only meant we must not go into the woods for fear of wild beasts. There is no danger here by the doorsteps, and father won't care; _he's_ not afraid!"

"I--don't--know," faltered Prudence.

"Well, _I'm_ going, anyway," said Joel, resolutely, taking his hat from the peg. "Ah, do come too, Prudence!" he added persuasively.

So Prudence, though she knew in her heart it was a naughty thing to do, took off her cap, and tying her little Puritan bonnet under her chin, followed Joel through the door.

Once outside, I am afraid their scruples were soon forgotten. All the sunshine of the summer and the sparkling air of the winter were fused together to make a wonderful November day. The children felt like colts just loosed, and ran and shouted together till, if there had not been a good deal of noise also at the stone house where the feast was being spread, their shrill little voices must surely have been heard there.

All at once Joel caught Prudence by the arm.

"Hush!" he exclaimed. "Look!"

A beautiful gray squirrel ran across the gra.s.s in front of them. It stopped, poising its little head and intently listening.

"I'm going to catch him," whispered Joel, excitedly. "Father said if I could catch one, he would make me a cage for it. Come along."

He tiptoed softly forward, but the squirrel heard and was up and away in an instant. Joel pursued, and Prudence ran after him. Such a chase as the little creature gave them--up on the fence, under the stones, across the fields, and finally straight to the woods, with the children panting and stumbling after, still keeping him in sight. Breath and patience gave out at last; but when they stopped, where were they? In the very heart of the forest, where the dead leaves rustled, and the sunlight slanted down upon them, and the squirrel, safe in the top of a tree, chattered angrily.