The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

“Why? Why will the Indian chief bestow so rich a gift upon his white boy-prisoner? For if he buys Tempest from the Captain he will have to pay big money. There isn’t another like the black gelding this side that far-away Kentucky where he was bred.”

“Hear me, Gaspar Keith; prisoner, if you will. But I would rather call you an adopted son of the Black Partridge, and by your new name of Dark-Eye. This is the reason: In these troubles which are coming, you may not only serve yourself, the Sun Maid, and me, by having as your own the gelding Tempest, but you may help the helpless, also. In this one village of Muck-otey-pokee are many old and many very young. The Spotted Adder was the oldest man I ever knew, and though he has died just now, there are others almost of his age. They ought to die, too, and not burden better people. But nobody dies who should while those who should not are snatched away like a feather on the breeze.”

Here Wahneenah became absorbed in her own reflections, and was so long silent that Kitty stole her arms about the woman’s neck and kissed the dark face to remind her that they were still listening.

“Yes, beloved, Child of the Sunshine and Love! You do well to call me back. Let the dead rest. You are the living. I will remember only you,” and she laid the little one against her heart.

“Gaspar, too, Other Mother,” suggested the loyal little maid.

But Gaspar was quite able to speak for himself.

“No decent white person would wish the old to die!” he exclaimed, hotly. “There was a grandmother at our Fort, and she was the best loved, the best cared for, of all the women. That is what a white boy thinks, even if he is an Indian’s prisoner!”

“Ugh! So? You are an odd youth, Dark-Eye. As timid as a wild pigeon one minute, and the next – flouting your chief’s sister.”

“I don’t mean that, Wahneenah. I – I only – I don’t just know what I do mean, except that it seems cowardly to wish the old should die. If you should grow very, very old some day, and Kitty and I should not be – be nice to you, then you would understand what I feel, if I cannot say it rightly.”

Wahneenah laughed.

“Your halting speech makes me happy, Dark-Eye. Kitty and you and I; still all together, even when age shall have dimmed my sight and dulled my hearing. It is well. I am satisfied. But hear me. Herein lies the trouble: when folks are young they forget that they will ever be old. That is a mistake. One should remember that youth flies away, fast, fast. They should teach themselves wisdom. They should learn to be skilled in the things which will make them lovely when they are old. For, despite your judgment, there are some among us whom we would keep till all generations are past. Katasha, the One-Who-Knows; and the Snake-Who-Leaps – why, he is older even than Katasha. Yet there is nobody can ride a horse, or shoot a flying bird, or bring in the game that he can. He is the friend of his chief. He is the most honored one in our whole village. Why? Because he makes few promises, and breaks none. He has never lowered his manhood by drinking the fire-water that addles one’s brains and sets the limbs a-tremble. He has talked little and done much. He is One-To-Be-Trusted. That was his name in his youth, when he began to practise all his virtues. The other name came afterward, because of the swift punishment he can also inflict upon his enemies. You would do well to pattern after your teacher, Dark-Eye.”

Gaspar listened respectfully; but this sounded so very much like the “lectures” he had received at the Fort that it had less originality than most of Wahneenah’s conversations; and, besides that, he had just espied, approaching over the village street, a tall Indian leading the black gelding and Snowbird. Behind this man walked Osceolo; but greatly changed from the bullying youth whom Gaspar had met on the previous day.

Whatever had occurred in the closed tepee of Black Partridge, when its door flaps fell behind himself and the lad he had ordered to accompany him, nobody knew; but, whatever it was, Osceolo was certainly – at least for the time being – a changed young person.

He walked along behind the Snake-Who-Leaps in a meek, subdued manner quite new to him, but which immediately impressed Dark-Eye as being a vast improvement on his former bearing. He paused, when ordered to “Halt!” by the old man, as if he had been stricken into a wooden image, and only when requested to take the Snowbird’s bridle did he make any other motion.

“Why, Osceolo! What’s the matter?” asked the Sun Maid, running toward him in surprise.

But he did not answer, and she was hastily snatched back by the strong hand of the foster-mother.

“The Girl-Child speaks to none who is in disgrace.”

“But I will speak to anybody who is unhappy, Other Mother! I cannot help that, can I? One day, Osceolo was all laughing and clapping; and now – now he looks like Peter Wilson did after his father had whipped him with a musket. Did anybody whip you with a musket, poor, poor Osceolo?”

Not a sign from the disgraced youth.

“Has you lost your tongue, too? Well as your eyes, that you can’t look up? Never mind, Osceolo. Kitty is sorry for you. Some day Kitty will let you ride her beau’ful White Snowbird; some day.”

“The Sun Maid will first learn to ride the Snowbird, herself,” corrected the Snake-Who-Leaps. “She will begin now.”

With unquestioning confidence, a confidence that Gaspar did not share, she ran back to the old warrior’s side, and stood on tiptoe to be lifted into place.

“Ugh!” he grunted in satisfaction. “That is well. The one who has no fear has already conquered the wildest animal. But the White Snowbird is not wild. She has been given an evil name, and it has clung to her as evil always clings,” and the One-To-Be-Trusted turned to give his silent attendant a meaning glance. But Osceolo had not yet raised his gaze from the ground, and the reproof fell pointless.

Nobody had observed that, from another direction, another youth had quietly led up a beautiful chestnut horse, whose cream-colored mane and tail would have made it a conspicuous object anywhere; but Wahneenah had expected this addition to their equestrian party and, as she turned to look for it, exclaimed in pleasure at its prompt appearance.

The Snake-Who-Leaps heard her ejaculation, and evinced his disgust.

“Ugh! Is it to teach a lot of women and a worthless pale-faced lad that I have left the comfort of my own lodge this hot summer day?”

“The old forget. It was long ago, when I was no bigger than the Sun Maid here, that the One-To-Be-Trusted took me behind him on a wild ride over the prairie. It was the only lesson he ever gave – or needed to give —me. I will show him that I am still young enough to remember!” cried Wahneenah, with all the gayety of girlhood, and with so complete a change in her appearance that it was easy to see how she had come to be named The Happy.

Even before the teacher had settled the Sun Maid in her tiny blanket saddle, Wahneenah had sprung upon the chestnut’s back. As she touched it, a clear, determined, if very youthful voice, shouted behind her:

“I am a white man! No Indian shall ever teach me a thing that I can learn for myself!”

For suddenly Gaspar remembered the wrongs he had suffered at the red men’s hands, and leaped to Tempest’s back unaided. Another instant, and the trio of riders dashed away from Muck-otey-pokee in a mad rush that left their disgruntled instructor in doubt which was the better pupil of them all.

“Who begins slow finishes fast; but who begins fast may never live to finish slow,” he remarked, sententiously; then observing that Osceolo had, for the first time, raised his eyes, he promptly laid a heavy hand upon the youth’s shoulder and wheeled him about.

“To my wigwam – march!”

And Osceolo marched – exactly as if all his limbs were sticks and his joints mechanical.

“Ugh! So? Like the jointed dolls of the papooses, eh? Very good. Keep at it. From now till those three return, dead or alive, my fine young warrior, you shall be my pupil. You have set me the pace you like. You may keep at it. From the locust tree east of my lodge to the pawpaw on the west, as the branch swings in the wind, so shall you swing. Ugh! May they ride far and long. One – two – commence!”

It was noonday when he began that weary, weary automatic “step, step”; but when the last rays of the sun had disappeared beyond the prairie, Osceolo was still enduring his discipline, and making his pendulum-like journey from locust-tree to pawpaw, from pawpaw to locust. His head swam, his sight dimmed, but still sat stolid Snake-Who-Leaps in the entrance of his tepee, “instructing” the only pupil fate had left him.

CHAPTER VIII.

AN ISLAND RETREAT

Under the incentive of love and excitement – heightened by a tinge of jealousy – all Wahneenah’s former skill in horsemanship returned to her. When the Snake-Who-Leaps lifted the Sun Maid to the back of the Snowbird the woman felt an unreasoning anger against him. She could not patiently endure to have any other hand than her own touch the small body of her adopted child, upon whom had now centred all the pent-up affection of her starved heart.

“If my darling must be taught, I will teach her myself!” she suddenly resolved, and promptly acted upon the resolution. Previously, and when she ordered the chestnut to be brought to her tepee, she had merely intended to ride in company with the others and in a limited circle about the village. Now a mad impulse seized her to be off over the prairie, farther than sight could reach, and on half-forgotten trails once familiar to her. It was the first time she had mounted any animal since her widowhood.

When she heard Gaspar’s daring declaration, she thrilled with delight. All the savage in her nature roused to enjoy this wild escapade, and, catching firm hold of the Sun Maid’s bridle rein, she nodded over her shoulder to the lad, and led the way northward.

“It’s like that strange fairy story, in the book given Peter Wilson, that came from way over in England, and was the only one in the world, I guess. Was the only one at our Fort, anyway,” thought Gaspar, as he followed in equal speed, and at imminent risk of his life. For a night’s rest had restored the black gelding to all his spirit, and had the boy attempted to guide or control him there would have been serious trouble.

As it was, Gaspar confined his efforts to just sticking on, and had all he could do at that; but after a short distance, the three horses broke into an even lope, keeping well together, and all under the command of the Indian woman.

“Oh, I love it!” she cried, the rich blood flaming under her dusky skin, her eyes sparkling, and her long black hair streaming on the wind which their own motion created.

“Kitty loves it – too – Kitty guesses!” echoed the child, entering into the other’s mood with quick sympathy. Indeed, she was the safer of the three. There is a hidden understanding between horses and children, and numberless instances prove how carefully even an untamed beast will treat a little child – if nobody interferes. But let an adult attempt to avert a seeming danger, and the animal will promptly throw the responsibility on human shoulders, and act out its own mood at its own will.

Wahneenah understood this, and, simply leaving her hand upon the Snowbird’s rein, but quite without any pressure, rode where that frolicsome creature chose to lead. A strap, which the Snake-Who-Leaps had fastened around the waist of the Sun Maid, held her securely to her saddle, though her small hands clutched the flying mane of her mount so tightly that she could not well have been shaken off.

It was a rough school in which to learn so dangerous an art, but it sufficed; and that one day’s ride did more to help Gaspar and Kitty to good horsemanship than all the instruction they afterward received.

“How far – nice Other Mother?” asked the little girl, when the three horses of their own accord began to slacken speed.

“Not far now, papoose. See yonder, where the trees fringe the river? Among those trees is a wonderful spot I know. I’ve not seen it for years, but in its shelter my warrior and I spent many happy hours. There we used to take our son, and tell him the story of his people. It was a hiding-place, in the ancient years, when enemies of the Pottawatomies were on the war-path, and the chief would save his women and children. But nobody remembers that trail, at this late day, except those of my father’s house. Besides me, not one soul lives who could find his way thither, save Black Partridge. It is even many moons since he has talked with me about it, and he may not recall it still. Though he is a man who never forgets, and the knowledge is doubtless merely sleeping in his brain.”

Kitty Briscoe understood but little of this speech, but Gaspar’s interest was roused. Amid the discipline and routine of his old life at the Fort, his lighter, gayer qualities had lain dormant, but they were now rapidly awakening under the influence of his recent adventures. It was impossible, too, for anybody to be long with Wahneenah, in her present mood, without catching her spirit and gayety; and though the Sun Maid comprehended little save the liveliness of her companions, she could enter into that with all her heart.

Therefore, it was a merry party which came at last to the river bank, where the horses were glad to pause for rest, and where they would eagerly have slaked their thirst, had they been permitted.