Oak Openings Part 38

"Juss so; Injin kill him. Mean to kill you, too--dat why I run away.

Saw medicine-priest die. What you t'ink, Blossom?--What you t'ink, Bourdon?--Dat man die asking Great Spirit to do good to Injin!"

"I can believe it, Peter, for he was a good man, and such are our Christian laws, though few of us obey them. I can easily believe that Parson Amen was an exception, however."

"Yes, Peter, such are our Christian laws," put in Margery, earnestly.

"When Christ, the Son of G.o.d, came on earth to redeem lost men, he commanded his followers to do good to them that did evil to us, and to pray for them that tried to harm us. We have his very words, written in our bibles."

"You got him?" said Peter, with interest. "See you read him, of'en. Got dat book here?"

"To be sure I have--it is the last thing I should have forgotten. Dolly has one, and I have another; we read in them every day, and we hope that, before long, brother and Bourdon will read in them, too."

"Why, I'm no great scholar, Margery," returned her husband, scratching his full, curling head of hair, out of pure awkwardness; "to please YOU, however, I'd undertake even a harder job. It was so with the bees, when I began; I thought I should never succeed in lining the first bee to his hive; but, since that time, I think I've lined a thousand!"

"It's easy, it's easy, dear Benjamin, if you will only make a beginning," returned the much interested young wife. "When we get to a place of safety, if it be G.o.d's will that we ever shall, I hope to have you join me in reading the good book, daily. See, Peter, I keep it in this little bag, where it is safe, and always at hand."

"You read dem word for me, Blossom: I want to hear him, out of dis book, himself."

Margery did as he desired. She was very familiar with the New Testament, and, turning to the well-known and G.o.d-like pa.s.sage, she read several verses, in a steady, earnest voice. Perhaps the danger they were in, and the recent communication of the death of their late companions, increased her earnestness and solemnity of manner, for the effect produced on Peter was scarcely less than that he had felt when he witnessed a practical obedience to these sublime principles, in the death of the missionary. Tears actually started to this stern savage's eyes, and he looked back on his late projects and endeavors to immolate a whole race with a shudder. Taking Margery's hand, he courteously thanked her, and prepared to quit the place. Previously to leaving his friends, however, Peter gave a brief account of the manner of the missionary's death, and of the state in which he had left the corporal.

Pigeonswing had told him of the fate of the last, as well as of the eagerness with which the band had set out in quest of more white scalps.

"Peter, we can count on you for a friend, I hope?" said the bee-hunter, as the two were about to part, on the bank of the river. "I fear you were, once, our enemy!"

"Bourdon," said Peter, with dignity, and speaking in the language of his own people, "listen. There are Good Spirits, and there are Bad Spirits.

Our traditions tell us this. Our own minds tell us this, too. For twenty winters a Bad Spirit has been whispering in my ear. I listened to him; and did what he told me to do. I believed what he said. His words were--'Kill your enemies--scalp all the pale-faces--do not leave a squaw, or a pappoose. Make all their hearts heavy. This is what an Injin should do.' So has the Bad Spirit been whispering to me, for twenty winters. I listened to him. What he said, I did. It was pleasant to me to take the scalps of the pale-faces. It was pleasant to think that no more scalps would be left among them, to take. I was Scalping Peter.

"Bourdon, the Good Spirit has, at last, made himself heard. His whisper is so low, that at first my ears did not hear him. They hear him now.

When he spoke loudest, it was with the tongue of the medicine-priest of your people. He was about to die. When we are about to die, our voices become strong and clear. So do our eyes. We see what is before, and we see what is behind. We feel joy for what is before--we feel sorrow for what is behind. Your medicine-priest spoke well. It sounded in my ears as if the Great Spirit, himself, was talking. They say it was his Son.

I believe them. Blossom has read to me out of the good book of your people, and I find it is so. I feel like a child, and could sit down, in my wigwam, and weep.

"Bourdon, you are a pale-face, and I am an Injin. You are strong, and I am weak. This is because the Son of the Great Spirit has talked with your people, and has not talked with mine. I now see why the pale-faces overrun the earth and take the hunting-grounds. They know most, and have been told to come here, and to tell what they know to the poor ignorant Injins. I hope my people will listen. What the Son of the Great Spirit says must be true. He does not know how to do wrong.

"Bourdon, once it seemed sweet to me to take the scalps of my enemies.

When an Injin did me harm, I took his scalp. This was my way. I could not help it, then. The Wicked Spirit told me to do this. The Son of the Manitou has now told me better. I have lived under a cloud. The breath of the dying medicine-priest of your people has blown away that cloud.

I see clearer. I hear him telling the Manitou to do me good, though I wanted his scalp. He was answered in my heart. Then my ears opened wider, and I heard what the Good Spirit whispered. The ear in which the Bad Spirit had been talking for twenty winters shut, and was deaf. I hear him no more. I do not want to hear him again. The whisper of the Son of the Manitou is very pleasant to me. It sounds like the wren singing his sweetest song. I hope he will always whisper so. My ear shall never again be shut to his words.

"Bourdon, it is pleasant to me to look forward. It is not pleasant to me to look back. I see how many things I have done in one way, that ought to have been done in another way. I feel sorry, and wish it had not been so. Then I hear the Son of the Manitou asking His Father, who liveth above the clouds, to do good to the Jews who took his life. I do not think Injins are Jews. In this, my brother was wrong. It was his own notion, and it is easy for a man to think wrong. It is not so with the Son of the Manitou. He thinketh always as His Father thinketh, which is right.

"Bourdon, I am no longer Peter--I must be another Injin. I do not feel the same. A scalp is a terrible thing in my eyes--I wish never to take another--never to see another--a scalp is a bad thing. I now LOVE the Yankees. I wish to do them good, and not to do them harm. I love most the Great Spirit, that let his own Son die for all men. The medicine-priest said he died for Injins, as well as for pale-faces. This we did not know, or we should have talked of him more in our traditions.

We love to talk of good acts. But we are such ignorant Injins! The Son of the Manitou will have pity on us, and tell us oftener what we ought to do. In time, we shall learn. Now, I feel like a child: I hope I shall one day be a man."

Having made this "confession of faith," one that would have done credit to a Christian church, Peter shook the bee-hunter kindly by the hand, and took his departure. He did not walk into the swamp, though it was practicable with sufficient care, but he stepped into the river, and followed its margin, knowing that "water leaves no trail." Nor did Peter follow the direct route toward the now blazing hut, the smoke from which was rising high above the trees, but he ascended the stream, until reaching a favorable spot, he threw aside all of his light dress, made it into a bundle, and swam across the Kalamazoo, holding his clothes above the element with one hand. On reaching the opposite sh.o.r.e, he moved on to the upper margin of the swamp, where he resumed his clothes.

Then he issued into the Openings, carrying neither rifle, bow, tomahawk, nor knife. All his weapons he had left in his canoe, fearful that they might tempt him to do evil, instead of good, to his enemies. Neither Bear's Meat, nor Bough of the Oak, was yet regarded by Peter with the eye of love. He tried not to hate them, and this he found sufficiently difficult; conscious of this difficulty, he had laid aside his arms, accordingly. This mighty change had been gradually in progress, ever since the chief's close communication with Margery, but it had received its consummation in the last acts, and last words, of the missionary!

Having got out into the Openings, it was not difficult for Peter to join his late companions without attracting observation from whence he came.

He kept as much under cover as was convenient, and reached the kitchen, just as the band broke into the defences, and burst open the door of the blazing and already roofless hut. Here Peter paused, unwilling to seem inactive in such a scene, yet averse to doing anything that a sensitively tender conscience might tell him was wrong. He knew there was no human being there to save, and cared little for the few effects that might be destroyed. He did not join the crowd, therefore, until it was ascertained that the bee-hunter and his companions had escaped.

"The pale-faces have fled," said Bear's Meat to the great chief, when the last did approach him. "We have looked for their bones among the ashes, but there are none. That medicine-bee-hunter has told them that their scalps were wanted, and they have gone off!"

"Have any of the young men been down to the river, to look for their canoes?" quietly demanded Peter. "If the canoes are gone, too, they have taken the route toward the Great Lake."

This was so obvious and probable, that a search was immediately set on foot. The report was soon made, and great was the eagerness to pursue.

The Kalamazoo was so crooked, that no one there doubted of overtaking the fugitives, and parties were immediately organized for the chase.

This was done with the customary intelligence and shrewdness of Indians.

The canoes that belonged to Crowsfeather and his band had been brought up the river, and they lay concealed in rushes, not a mile from the hut.

A party of warriors brought them to the landing, and they carried one division of the party to the opposite sh.o.r.e, it being the plan to follow each bank of the river, keeping close to the stream, even to its mouth, should it prove necessary. Two other parties were sent in direct lines, one on each side of the river, also, to lay in ambush at such distant points, ahead, as would be almost certain to antic.i.p.ate the arrival of the fugitives. The canoes were sent down the stream, to close the net against return, while Bear's Meat, Bough of the Oak, Crowsfeather, and several others of the leading chiefs, remained near the still burning hut, with a strong party, to examine the surrounding Openings for foot-prints and trails. It was possible that the canoes had been sent adrift, in order to mislead them, while the pale-faces had fled by land.

It has been stated that the Openings had a beautiful sward, near Castle Meal, This was true of that particular spot, and was the reason why le Bourdon had selected it for his princ.i.p.al place of residence. The abundance of flowers drew the bees there, a reason of itself why he should like the vicinity. Lest the reader should be misled, however, it may be well to explain that an absence of sward is characteristic of these Openings, rather than the reverse, it being, to a certain degree, a cause of complaint, now that the country is settled, that the lands of the Oak Openings are apt to be so light that the gra.s.ses do not readily form as firm a turf as is desirable for meadows and pastures. We apprehend this is true, however, less as a rule than as exceptions; there being variety in the soils of these Openings, as well as in other quarters.

Nevertheless, the savages were aware that the country around the burned hut, for a considerable extent, differed, in this particular, from most of that which lay farther east, or more inland. On the last a trail would be much more easily detected than on the first, and a party, under the direction of a particularly experienced leader, was dispatched several miles to the eastward, to look for the usual signs of the pa.s.sage of any toward Detroit, taking that route. This last expedient troubled Peter exceedingly, since it placed a body of enemies in the rear of the fugitives; thereby rendering their position doubly perilous.

There was no help for the difficulty, however; and the great chief saw the party depart without venturing on remonstrance, advice, or any other expedient to arrest the movement. Bear's Meat now called the head chiefs, who remained, into a circle, and asked for opinions concerning the course that ought next to be taken.

"What does my brother, the tribeless chief, say?" he asked, looking at Peter, in a way to denote the expectation which all felt, that he ought to be able to give useful counsel in such a strait. "We have got but two scalps from six heads; and one of THEM is buried with the medicine-priest."

"Scalps cannot be taken from them that get off," returned Peter, evasively. "We must first catch these pale-faces. When they are found it will be easy to scalp them. If the canoes are gone, I think the medicine-bee-hunter and his squaws have gone in them. We may find the whole down the river."

To this opinion most of the chiefs a.s.sented, though the course of examining for a trail farther east was still approved. The band was so strong, while the pale-faces were so few, that a distribution of their own force was of no consequence, and it was clearly the most prudent to send out young men in all directions. Every one, however, expected that the fugitives would be overtaken on, or near, the river, and Bear's Meat suggested the propriety of their moving down stream, themselves, very shortly.

"When did my brother last see the pale-faces?" asked Crowsfeather. "This bee-hunter knows the river well, and may have started yesterday; or even after he came from the Great Council of the Prairie."

This was a new idea, but one that seemed probable enough. All eyes turned toward Peter, who saw, at once, that such a notion must greatly favor the security of the fugitives, and felt a strong desire to encourage it. He found evasion difficult, however, and well knew the danger of committing himself. Instead of giving a straightforward answer, therefore, he had recourse to circ.u.mlocution and subterfuge.

"My brother is right," he answered. "The pale-faces HAVE had time to get far down the stream. As my brothers know, I slept among them at the Round Prairie. To-day, they know I was with them at the council of the spring of gushing waters."

All this was true, as far as it went, although the omissions were very material. No one seemed to suspect the great chief, whose fidelity to his own principles was believed to be of a character amounting to enthusiasm. Little did any there know of the power of the unseen Spirit of G.o.d to alter the heart, producing what religionists term the new birth. We do not wish, however, to be understood that Peter had, as yet, fully experienced this vast change. It is not often the work of a moment, though well-authenticated modern instances do exist, in which we have every reason to believe that men have been made to see and feel the truth almost as miraculously as was St. Paul himself. As for this extraordinary savage, he had entered into the strait and narrow way, though he was not far advanced on its difficult path.

When men tell us of the great progress that the race is making toward perfection, and point to the acts which denote its wisdom, its power to control its own affairs, its tendencies toward good when most left to its own self-control, our minds are filled with scepticism. The every-day experience of a life now fast verging toward threescore, contradicts the theory and the facts. We believe not in the possibility of man's becoming even a strictly rational being, unaided by a power from on high; and all that we have seen and read goes to convince us that HE is most of a philosopher, the most accurate judge of his real state, the most truly learned, who most vividly sees the necessity of falling back on the precepts of revelation for all his higher principles and practice. We conceive that this mighty truth furnishes unanswerable proof of the unceasing agency of a Providence, and when we once admit this, we concede that our own powers are insufficient for our own wants.

That the world, as a whole, is advancing toward a better state of things, we as firmly believe as we do that it is by ways that have not been foreseen by man; and that, whenever the last has been made the agent of producing portions of this improvement, it has oftener been without design, or calculation, than with it. Who, for instance, supposes that the inst.i.tutions of this country, of which we boast so much, could have stood as long as they have, without the conservative principles that are to be found in the Union; and who is there so vain as to ascribe the overshadowing influence of this last great power to any wisdom in man? We all know that perfectly fortuitous circ.u.mstances, or what appear to us to be such, produced the Federal Government, and that its strongest and least exceptionable features are precisely those which could not be withstood, much less invented, as parts of the theory of a polity.

A great and spasmodic political movement is, at this moment, convulsing Christendom. That good will come of it, we think is beyond a question; but we greatly doubt whether it will come in the particular form, or by the specified agencies, that human calculations would lead us to expect.

It must be admitted that the previous preparations, which have induced the present effort, are rather in opposition to, than the consequences of, calculated agencies; overturning in their progress the very safeguards which the sagacity of men had interposed to the advance of those very opinions that have been silently, and by means that would perhaps baffle inquiry, preparing the way for the results that have been so suddenly and unexpectedly obtained. If the course is onward, it is more as the will of G.o.d, than from any calculations of man; and it is when the last are the most active, that there is the greatest reason to apprehend the consequences.

Of such a dispensation of the Providence of Almighty G.o.d, do we believe Peter to have been the subject. Among the thousand ways that are employed to touch the heart, he had been most affected by the sight of a dying man's asking benedictions on his enemies! It was a.s.sailing his besetting sin; attacking the very citadel of his savage character, and throwing open, at once, an approach into the deepest recesses of his habits and dispositions. It was like placing a master-key in the hands of him who would go through the whole tenement, for the purpose of purifying it.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Thou to whom every faun and satyr flies For willing service; whether to surprise The squatted hare, while in half sleeping fits, Or upward ragged precipices flit To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw; Or by mysterious enticement draw Bewildered shepherds to their path again;-- --KEATS.

It can easily be understood that the party with the canoes were left by Peter in a state of great anxiety. The distance between the site of the hut and their place of concealment was but little more than a quarter of a mile, and the yell of the savages had often reached their ears, notwithstanding the cover of the woods. This proximity, of itself, was fearful; but the uncertainty that le Bourdon felt on the subject of Peter's real intentions added greatly to his causes of concern. Of course, he knew but little of the sudden change that had come over this mysterious chief's feelings; nor is it very likely that he would have been able to appreciate it, even had the fact been more fully stated.

Our hero had very little acquaintance with the dogmas of Christianity, and would have, most probably, deemed it impossible that so great a revolution of purpose could have been so suddenly wrought in the mind of man, had the true state of the case been communicated to him. He would have been ready enough to allow that, with G.o.d, nothing is impossible; but might have been disposed to deny the influence of His Holy Spirit, as exhibited in this particular form, for a reason no better than the circ.u.mstance that he himself had never been the subject of such a power.

All that Peter had said, therefore, served rather to mystify him, than to explain, in its true colors, what had actually occurred. With Margery it was different. Her schooling had been far better than that of any other of the party, and, while she admired the manly appearance, and loved the free, generous character of her husband, she had more than once felt pained at the pa.s.sing thoughts of his great indifference to sacred things. This feeling in le Bourdon, however, was pa.s.sive rather than active, and gave her a kind interest in his future welfare, rather than any present pain through acts and words.

But, as respects their confidence in Peter, this young couple were much farther apart than in their religious notions. The bee-hunter had never been without distrust, though his apprehensions had been occasionally so far quieted as to leave him nearly free of them altogether; while his wife had felt the utmost confidence in the chief, from the very commencement of their acquaintance. It would be useless, perhaps, to attempt to speculate on the causes; but it is certain that there are secret sources of sympathy that draw particular individuals toward each other and antipathies that keep them widely separated. Men shall meet for the first time, and feel themselves attracted toward each other, like two drops of water, or repelled, like the corks of an electric machine.

The former had been the case with Peter and Margery. They liked each other from the first, and kind orifices had soon come to increase this feeling. The girl had now seen so much of the Indians, as to regard them much as she did others, or with the discriminations, and tastes, or distastes, with which we all regard our fellow-creatures; feeling no particular cause of estrangement. It is true that Margery would not have been very likely to fall in love with a young Indian, had one come in her way of a suitable age and character; for her American notions on the subject of color might have interposed difficulties; but, apart from the tender sentiments, she could see good and bad qualities in one of the aborigines, as well as in a white man. As a consequence of this sympathy between Peter and Margery, the last had ever felt the utmost confidence in the protection and friendship of the first. This she did, even while the struggle was going on in his breast on the subject of including her in his fell designs, or of making an exception in her favor. It shows the waywardness of our feelings that Margery had never reposed confidence in Pigeonswing, who was devotedly the friend of le Bourdon, and who remained with them for no other reason than a general wish to be of use. Something BRUSQUE in his manner, which was much less courteous and polished than that of Peter, had early rendered her dissatisfied with him, and once estranged, she had never felt disposed to be on terms of intimacy sufficient to ascertain his good or bad qualities.