The Last of the Foresters Part 85

"It is half an hour high--that is, it will not get cool until then,"

Verty said.

"Do you think I would catch cold?" asked the girl, smiling.

"I don't know," Verty said.

"Well, I do not think I will, and you shall wrap me in your coat, if I do," she said, laughing.

In ten minutes, Redbud and Verty were strolling through the grove, and admiring the sunset.

"How pretty it is," she said, gazing with pensive pleasure on the clouds; "and the old grove here is so still."

"Yes," Verty said, "I like the old grove very much. Do you see that locust? It was just at the foot of it, that we found the hare's form, when d.i.c.k mowed the gra.s.s. You recollect?"

"Oh, yes," Redbud replied; "and I remember what dear little creatures they were--not bigger than an apple, and with such frightened eyes.

We put them back, you know, Verty--that is, I made you," she added, laughing.

Verty laughed too.

"They were funny little creatures," he said; "and they would have died--you know we never could have got the right things for them to eat--yes! there, in the long gra.s.s! How Molly Cotton jumped away."

They walked on.

"Here, by the filbert bush, we used to bury the apples to get mellow,"

Verty said; "nice, yellow, soft things they were, when we dug them up, with a smell of the earth about 'em! They were not like the June apples we used to get in the garden, where they dropped among the corn--their striped, red sides all covered with dust!"

"I liked the June apples the best," Redbud said, "but I think October is finer than June."

"Oh, yes. Redbud, I am going to get some filberts--will you have some?"

"If you please."

So Verty went to the bushes, and brought his hat full of them, and cracked them on a stone--the sun lighting up his long, tangled curls, and making brighter his bright smile.

Redbud stooped down, and gathered the kernels as they jumped from the sh.e.l.l, laughing and happy.

They had returned to their childhood again--bright and tender childhood, which dowers our after life with so many tender, mournful, happy memorials;--whose breezes fan our weary brows so often as we go on over the th.o.r.n.y path, once a path of flowers. They were once more children, and they wandered thus through the beautiful forest, collecting their memories, laughing here, sighing there--and giving an a.s.sociation or a word to every feature of the little landscape.

"How many things I remember," Verty said, thoughtfully, and smiling; "there, where Milo, the good dog, was buried, and a shot fired over him--there, where we treed the squirrel--and over yonder, by the run, which I used to think flowed by from fairy land--I remember so many things!"

"Yes--I do too," replied the girl, thoughtfully, bending her head.

"How singular it is that an Indian boy like me should have been brought up here," Verty said, buried in thought; "I think my life is stranger than what they call a romance."

Redbud made no reply.

"_Ma mere_ would never tell me anything about myself," the young man went on, wistfully, "and I can't know anything except from her. I must be a Dacotah or a Delaware."

Redbud remained thoughtful for some moments, then raising her head, said:

"I do not believe you are an Indian, Verty. There is some mystery about you which I think the old Indian woman should tell. She certainly is not your mother," said Redbud, with a little smiling air of dogmatism.

"I don't know," Verty replied, "but I wish I did know. I used to be proud of being an Indian, but since I have grown up, and read how wicked they were, I wish I was not.

"You are not."

"Well, I think so, too," he replied; "I am not a bit like _ma mere_, who has long, straight black hair, and a face the color of that maple--dear _ma mere_!--while I have light hair, always getting rolled up. My face is different, too--I mean the color--I am sun-burned, but I remember when my face was very white."

And Verty smiled.

"I would ask her all about it," Redbud said.

"I think I will," was the reply; "but she don't seem to like it, Redbud--it seems to worry her."

"But it is important to you, Verty."

"Yes, indeed it is."

"Ask her this evening."

"Do you advise me?"

"Yes. I think you ought to; indeed I do."

"Well, I will," Verty said; "and I know when _ma mere_ understands that I am not happy as long as she does not tell me everything, she will speak to me."

"I think so, too," said Redbud; "and now, Verty, there is one thing more--trust in G.o.d, you know, is everything. He will do all for the best."

"Oh, yes," the young man said, as they turned toward Apple Orchard house again, "I am getting to do that--and I pray now, Redbud," he added, looking toward the sky, "I pray to the Great Spirit, as we call him--"

Redbud looked greatly delighted, and said:

"That is better than all; I do not see how any one can live without praying."

"I used to," Verty replied.

"It was so wrong."

"Yes, yes."

"And Verty gazed at the sunset with his dreamy, yet kindling eyes.

"If there is a Great Spirit, we ought to talk to him," he said, "and tell him what we want, and ask him to make us good; I think so at least--"

"Indeed we should."

"Then," continued Verty, "if that is true, we ought to think whether there is or is not such a spirit. There may be people in towns who don't believe there is--but I am obliged to. Look at the sun, Redbud--the beautiful sun going away like a great torch dying out;--and look at the clouds, as red as if a thousand deer had come to their death, and poured their blood out in a river! Look at the woods here, every color of the bow in the cloud, and the streams, and rocks, and all! There must be a Great Spirit who loves men, or he never would have made the world so beautiful."