The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

“How? Is the White Pelican a man of dreams?”

The elder brave also used a tone of contempt, though not with marked success. His thought reverted to the night before, when the chief had stood beside the council fire holding the sleeping child in his arms. Her wonderful yellow hair, fine as spun cobwebs and almost as light, had blown over the breast of Black Partridge like a cloud, and it had glistened and shimmered in the firelight as if possessed of restless life. The little figure was clothed in white, as the Fort mothers had fancied best suited their charge’s fairness, even though the fabric must of necessity be coarse; and this garment likewise caught the glow of the dancing flames till it seemed luminous in itself.

As an idle rumor spreads and grows among better cultured people so superstition held in power these watchful Indians. Said one:

“The father of his tribe has met a spirit on the prairie and brought it to our village. Is the deed for good or evil?”

This was what the men in the semi-circle had come to find out. So they relapsed again into silence, but kept a fixed gaze upon the indifferent child before them. She continued her playing and feeding as unconsciously as if she, the flowers, and the sunshine, were quite alone. Some even fancied that they could hear the orchids whispering in return; and it was due to that morning’s incident that, thereafter, few among the Pottawatomies would lightly bruise or break a blossom which they then learned to believe was gifted with a sensate life.

But presently a sibilant “Hst!” ran the length of the squatting line, and warriors who feared not death for themselves felt their muscles stiffen under a tension of dread as they saw the slow, sinuous approach of a poisonous reptile to the child on the mat; and the thought of each watcher was the same:

“Now, indeed, the test – spirit or mortal?”

The snake glided onward, its graceful body showing through the grass, its head slightly upraised, and its intention unmistakable.

An Indian can be the most silent thing on earth, if he so wills, and at once it was as if all that row of red men had become stone. Even Wahneenah, in the wigwam behind, was startled by the stillness, and cautiously tiptoed forward to learn its cause. Then her heart, like theirs, hushed its beating and she rigidly awaited the outcome.

Only the child herself was undisturbed. She did not cease the slow lifting of the clay spoon to her lips, and between sips she still prattled and gurgled in sheer content.

“Kitty is most fulled up, ’cause she did have so big a breakfast, she did. Nice Other Mother did give it me. I wish my bunny rabbit had not runned away. Then he could have some. Never mind. Here comes a beau’ful cunning snake. I did see one two times to my Fort. Bad Jacky soldier did kill him dead, and that made Kitty cry. Come, pretty thing, do you want Kitty’s breakfast? Then you may have it every bit.”

So she tossed her hair from her eyes and sat with uplifted spoon while the moccasin glided up to the mat and over it, till its mouth could reach the shallow bowl in the child’s lap.

“Oh! the funny way it eats. Poor thing! It hasn’t any spoon. It might have Kitty’s, only – ”

The bright eyes regarded the rudely shaped implement and the mouth it was to feed; then the little one’s ready laughter bubbled forth.

“Funny Kitty! How could it hold a spoon was bigger ’n itself – when its hands have never grown? Other pretty one, that Jacky killed, that didn’t have its hands, either. Hush, snaky. Did I make you afraid, I laugh so much? Now I will keep very, very still till you are through. Then you may go back home to your childrens, and tell them all about your nice breakfast. Where do you live? Is it in a Fort, as Kitty does? Oh, I forgot! I did promise to keep still. Quite, quite still, till you go way away.”

So she did; while not only the red-skins, but all nature seemed to pause and watch the strange spectacle; for the light breeze that had come with the sunrise now died away, and every leaf stood still in the great heat which descended upon the earth.

It seemed to Wahneenah, watching in a very motherly fear, and to the squatting braves, in their increasing awe, as if hours passed while the child and the reptile remained messmates. But at length the dangerous serpent was satisfied and, turning slowly about, retreated whence it came.

Then Mistress Kitty lifted her voice and called merrily:

“Come, Other Mother! Come and see. I did have a lovely, lovely creepy one to eat with me. He did eat so funny Kitty had to laugh. Then I remembered that my other peoples to my Fort tell all the children to be good and I was good, wasn’t I? Say, Other Mother, my posies want some water.”

“They shall have it, White Papoose, my Girl-Child-Who-Is-Safe. She whom the Great Spirit has restored nothing can harm.”

Then she led the Sun Maid away, after she had gathered up every flower, not daring that anything beloved of her strange foster-child should be neglected.

The watching Indians also rose and returned into the village from that point on its outskirts where Wahneenah’s wigwam stood. They spoke little, for in each mind the conviction had become firm that the Sun Maid was, in deed and truth, a being from the Great Beyond, safe from every mortal hurt.

Yet still, the Man-Who-Kills fingered the edge of his tomahawk with regret and remarked in a manner intended to show his great prowess:

“Even a mighty warrior cannot fight against the powers of the sky.”

After a little, one, less credulous than his fellows, replied boastfully:

“Before the sun shall rise and set a second time the white scalp will hang at my belt.”

Nobody answered the boast till at length a voice seemed to come out of the ground before them, and at its first sound every brave stood still to listen for that which was to follow. All recognized the voice, even the strangers from the most distant settlements. It was heard in prophecy only, and it belonged to old Katasha, the One-Who-Knows.

“No. It is not so. Long after every one of this great Pottawatomie nation shall have passed out of sight, toward the place where the day dies, the hair of the Sun Maid’s head shall be still shining. Its gold will have turned to snow, but generation after generation shall bow down to it in honor. Go. The road is plain. There is blood upon it, and some of this is yours. But the scalp of the Sun Maid is in the keeping of the Great Spirit. It is sacred. It cannot be harmed. Go.”

Then the venerable woman, who had risen from her bed upon the ground to utter her message, returned to her repose, and the warriors filed past her with bowed heads and great dejection of spirit. In this mood they joined another company about the dead council fire, and in angry resentment listened to the speech of the Black Partridge as he pleaded with them for the last time.

“For it is the last. This day I make one more journey to the Fort, and there I will remain until you join me. We have promised safe escort for our white neighbors through the lands of the hostile tribes who dare not wage war against us. The white man trusts us. He counts us his friends. Shall we keep our promise and our honor, or shall we become traitors to the truth?”

It was Shut-Hand who answered for his tribesmen:

“It is the pale-face who is a traitor to honesty. The goods which our Great Father gave him in trust for his red children have been destroyed. The white soldiers have forgotten their duty and have taught us to forget ours. When the sun rises on the morrow we will join the Black Partridge at the Fort by the great water, and we will do what seems right in our eyes. The Black Partridge is our father and our chief. He must not then place the good of our enemies before the good of his own people. We have spoken.”

So the great Indian, who was more noble than his clansmen, went out from among them upon a hopeless errand. This time he did not make his journey on foot, but upon the back of his fleetest horse; and the medal he meant to relinquish was wrapped in a bit of deerskin and fastened to his belt.

“Well, at least the Sun Maid will be safe. When the braves, with the squaws and children, join their brothers at the camp, Wahneenah will remain at Muck-otey-pokee; as should every other woman of the Pottawatomie nation, were I as powerful in reality as I appear. It is the squaws who urge the men to the darkest deeds. Ugh! What will be must be. Tchtk! Go on!”

But the bay horse was already travelling at its best, slow as its pace seemed to the Black Partridge.

CHAPTER III.

IN INDIAN ATTIRE

Not many hours after Black Partridge turned his back upon Muck-otey-pokee, all its fighting men, with their squaws and children, also left it, as their chief had foreseen they would. They followed the direction he had taken, though they did not proceed to the garrison itself.

The camp to which they repaired was a little distance from the Fort, and had been pitched beside the river, where was then a fringe of cottonwoods and locusts affording a grateful shade. Here the squaws cooked and gossiped, while their sons played the ancient games of throwing the spear through the ring, casting the hatchet, and shooting birds on the wing.

The braves tested their weapons and boasted of many valorous deeds; or were else entirely silent, brooding upon mischief yet to come. Over all was the thrill of excitement and anticipation, which the great heat of the season seemed to deepen rather than dispel.

At the Fort, Black Partridge pleaded finally and in vain.

“We have been ordered to evacuate, and we will obey. All things are in readiness. The stores are already in the wagons, and other wagons wait for the sick, the women, and the children. Your people have promised us a safe conveyance through their country, and as far as we shall need it. They will be well paid. Part they have received, and the rest of their reward will be promptly delivered at the end of the journey. There is no more to be said”; and with this conclusion the weary commandant sat down in his denuded home to take a bit of food and a few moments’ rest. He nodded hospitably toward an empty chair on the farther side of the deal table, by way of invitation that the Indian should join him, but this the honest chief declined to do.

“No, good father, that can no longer be. I have come to return you this medal. I have worn it long and in peace. It was the gift of your people, a pledge between us of friendship. My friendship remains unbroken, but there also remains a tie which is stronger. I am the chief of my tribe. My young men are brave, and they have been deceived. They will punish the deceivers, and I have no power to prevent this. Nor do I blame them, though I would hold them to their compact if I could.”

“Cannot the Truth-Teller compel his sons to his own habit?”

“Not when his white father sets them a bad example.”

“Black Partridge, your words are bold.”

“Your deed was bolder, father. It was the deed of a fool.”

“Take care!”

As if he had not heard, the chief spoke steadily on:

“My tribesman, Winnemeg – the white man’s friend – brought the order that all goods stored here should be justly distributed among my people, to every man his portion. Was it thus done?”