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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moccasin Maker, by E. Pauline Johnson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Moccasin Maker
+
+Author: E. Pauline Johnson
+
+Release Date: June 24, 2004 [EBook #6600]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOCCASIN MAKER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrew Sly
+
+
+
+
+This collection of prose written by Pauline Johnson was first
+assembled and published shortly after her death in 1913.
+
+
+
+
+THE MOCCASIN MAKER
+
+By E. Pauline Johnson
+
+
+With introduction by Sir Gilbert Parker and
+appreciation by Charles Mair.
+
+
+Dedicated to Sir Gilbert Parker, M.P.
+Whose work in literature has brought honour to Canada
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  Introduction
+  Pauline Johnson: An Appreciation
+  My Mother
+  Catharine of the "Crow's Nest"
+  A Red Girl's Reasoning
+  The Envoy Extraordinary
+  A Pagan in St. Paul's Cathedral
+  As It Was in the Beginning
+  The Legend of Lillooet Falls
+  Her Majesty's Guest
+  Mother o' the Men
+  The Nest Builder
+  The Tenas Klootchman
+  The Derelict
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The inducement to be sympathetic in writing a preface to a book like
+this is naturally very great. The authoress was of Indian blood,
+and lived the life of the Indian on the Iroquois Reserve with her
+chieftain father and her white mother for many years; and though
+she had white blood in her veins was insistently and determinedly
+Indian to the end. She had the full pride of the aboriginal of pure
+blood, and she was possessed of a vital joy in the legends, history
+and language of the Indian race from which she came, crossed by
+good white stock. But though the inducement to be sympathetic in
+the case of so chivalrous a being who stood by the Indian blood
+rather than by the white blood in her is great, there is, happily,
+no necessity for generosity or magnanimity in the case of Pauline
+Johnson. She was not great, but her work in verse in sure and
+sincere; and it is alive with the true spirit of poetry. Her skill
+in mere technique is good, her handling of narrative is notable,
+and if there is no striking individuality--which might have been
+expected from her Indian origin--if she was often reminiscent in her
+manner, metre, form and expression, it only proves her a minor poet
+and not a Tennyson or a Browning. That she should have done what
+she did do, devotedly, with an astonishing charm and the delight
+of inspired labour, makes her life memorable, as it certainly made
+both life and work beautiful. The pain and suffering which attended
+the latter part of her life never found its way into her work save
+through increased sweetness and pensiveness. No shadow of death
+fell upon her pages. To the last the soul ruled the body to its
+will. Phenomenon Pauline Johnson was, though to call her a genius
+would be to place her among the immortals, and no one was more
+conscious of her limitations than herself. Therefore, it would do
+her memory poor service to give her a crown instead of a coronet.
+
+Poet she was, lyric and singing and happy, bright-visioned,
+high-hearted, and with the Indian's passionate love of nature
+thrilling in all she did, even when from the hunting-grounds of
+poesy she brought back now and then a poor day's capture. She was
+never without charm in her writing; indeed, mere charm was too
+often her undoing. She could not be impersonal enough, and
+therefore could not be great; but she could get very near to human
+sympathies, to domestic natures, to those who care for pleasant,
+happy things, to the lovers of the wild.
+
+This is what she has done in this book called "The Moccasin Maker."
+Here is a good deal that is biographical and autobiographical in
+its nature; here is the story of her mother's life told with rare
+graciousness and affection, in language which is never without
+eloquence; and even when the dialogue makes you feel that the real
+characters never talked as they do in this monograph, it is still
+unstilted and somehow really convincing. Touching to a degree is
+the first chapter, "My Mother," and it, with all the rest of the
+book, makes one feel that Canadian literature would have been
+poorer, that something would have been missed from this story of
+Indian life if this volume had not been written. It is no argument
+against the book that Pauline Johnson had not learnt the art of
+short-story writing; she was a poetess, not a writer of fiction;
+but the incidents described in many of these chapters show that,
+had she chosen to write fiction instead of verse, and had begun at
+an early stage in her career to do so, she would have succeeded.
+Her style is always picturesque, she has a good sense of the
+salient incident that makes a story, she could give to it the
+touch of drama, and she is always interesting, even when there is
+discursiveness, occasional weakness, and when the picture is not
+well pulled together. The book had to be written; she knew it, and
+she did it. The book will be read, not for patriotic reasons, not
+from admiration of work achieved by one of the Indian race; but
+because it is intrinsically human, interesting and often compelling
+in narrative and event.
+
+May it be permitted to add one word of personal comment? I never
+saw Pauline Johnson in her own land, at her own hearthstone, but
+only in my house in London and at other houses in London, where
+she brought a breath of the wild; not because she dressed in Indian
+costume, but because its atmosphere was round her. The feeling of
+the wild looked out of her eyes, stirred in her gesture, moved in
+her footstep. I am glad to have known this rare creature who had
+the courage to be glad of her origin, without defiance, but with an
+unchanging, if unspoken, insistence. Her native land and the Empire
+should be glad of her for what she was and for what she stood; her
+native land and the Empire should be glad of her for the work,
+interesting, vivid and human, which she has done. It will preserve
+her memory. In an age growing sordid such fresh spirits as she
+should be welcomed for what they are, for what they do. This book
+by Pauline Johnson should be welcomed for what she was and for what
+it is.
+
+                            Gilbert Parker.
+
+
+
+PAULINE JOHNSON: AN APPRECIATION.
+
+By Charles Mair.
+
+
+The writer, having contributed a brief "Appreciation" of the
+late Miss E. Pauline Johnson to the July number of The Canadian
+Magazine, has been asked by the editor of this collection of her
+hitherto unpublished writings to allow it to be used as a Preface,
+with such additions or omissions as might seem desirable. He has
+not yet seen any portion of the book, but quite apart from its
+merits it is eagerly looked for by Miss Johnson's many friends
+and admirers as a final memorial of her literary life. It will now
+be read with an added interest, begot of her painfully sad and
+untimely end.
+
+In the death of Miss Johnson a poet passed away of undoubted
+genius; one who wrote with passion, but without extravagance, and
+upon themes foreign, perhaps, to some of her readers, but, to
+herself, familiar as the air she breathed.
+
+When her racial poetry first appeared, its effect upon the reader
+was as that of something abnormal, something new and strange, and
+certainly unexampled in Canadian verse. For here was a girl whose
+blood and sympathies were largely drawn from the greatest tribe of
+the most advanced nation of Indians on the continent, who spoke
+out, "loud and bold," not for it alone, but for the whole red race,
+and sang of its glories and its wrongs in strains of poetic fire.
+
+However aloof the sympathies of the ordinary business world may be
+from the red man's record, even it is moved at times by his fate,
+and stirred by his persistent, his inevitable romance. For the
+Indian's record is the background, and not seldom the foreground,
+of American history, in which his endless contests with the invader
+were but a counterpart of the unwritten, or recorded, struggles of
+all primitive time.
+
+In that long strife the bitterest charge against him is his
+barbarity, which, if all that is alleged is to be believed--and
+much of it is authentic--constitutes in the annals of pioneer
+settlement and aggression a chapter of horrors.
+
+But equally vindictive was his enemy, the American frontiersman.
+Burnings at the stake, scalping, and other savageries, were not
+confined to the red man. But whilst his are depicted by the
+interested writers of the time in the most lurid colours, those of
+the frontiersman, equally barbarous, are too often palliated, or
+entirely passed by. It is manifestly unjust to characterize a whole
+people by its worst members. Of such, amongst both Indians and
+whites, there were not a few; but it is equally unfair to ascribe
+to a naturally cruel disposition the infuriated red man's reprisals
+for intolerable wrongs. As a matter of fact, impartial history
+not seldom leans to the red man's side; for, in his ordinary and
+peaceful intercourse with the whites, he was, as a rule, both
+helpful and humane. In the records of early explorers we are told
+of savages who possessed estimable qualities lamentably lacking
+in many so-called civilized men. The Illinois, an inland tribe,
+exhibited such tact, courtesy and self-restraint, in a word, such
+good manners, that the Jesuit Fathers described them as a community
+of gentlemen. Such traits, indeed, were natural to the primitive
+Indian, and gave rise, no doubt, to the much-derided phrase--"The
+Noble Red Man."
+
+There may be some readers of these lines old enough to remember
+the great Indians of the plains in times past, who will bear the
+writer out in saying that such traits were not uncommon down to
+comparatively recent years. Tatonkanazin the Dahcota, Sapo-Maxika
+the Blackfoot, Atakakoop the Cree, not to speak of Yellow Quill
+and others, were noted in their day for their noble features and
+dignified deportment.
+
+In our history the Indians hold an honoured place, and the average
+reader need not be told that, at one time, their services were
+essential to Canada. They appreciated British justice, and their
+greatest nations produced great men, who, in the hour of need,
+helped materially to preserve our independence. They failed,
+however, for manifest reasons, to maintain their own. They had to
+yield; but, before quitting the stage, they left behind them an
+abiding memory, and an undying tradition. And, thus, "Romanticism,"
+which will hold its own despite its hostile critics, is their
+debtor. Their closeness to nature, their picturesque life in the
+past, their mythical religion, social system and fateful history
+have begot one of the wide world's "legends," an ideal not wholly
+imaginary, which, as a counterpoise to Realism, our literature
+needs, and probably never shall outgrow.
+
+These references to the Indian character may seem too extended for
+their place, yet they are genre to the writer's subject. For Miss
+Johnson's mentality was moulded by descent, by ample knowledge of
+her people's history, admiration of their character, and profound
+interest in their fate.
+
+Hence the oncoming into the field of letters of a real Indian poet
+had a significance which, aided by its novelty, was immediately
+appreciated by all that was best in Canadian culture. Hence, too,
+and by reason of its strength, her work at once took its fitting
+place without jar or hindrance; for there are few educated Canadians
+who do not possess, in some measure, that aboriginal, historic sense
+which was the very atmosphere of Pauline Johnson's being.
+
+But while "the Indian" was never far from her thoughts, she was a
+poet, and therefore inevitably winged her way into the world of
+art, into the realm common to all countries, and to all peoples.
+Here there was room for her imaginings, endowed, as she was, with
+power to appeal to the heart, with refinement, delicacy, pathos,
+and, above all, sincerity; an Idealist who fused the inner and the
+outer world, and revelled in the unification of scenery and mind.
+
+The delight of genius in the act of composition has been called the
+keenest of intellectual pleasures; and this was the poet's almost
+sole reward in Canada a generation ago, when nothing seemed to
+catch the popular ear but burlesque, or trivial verse. In strange
+contrast this with a remoter age! In old Upper Canada, in its
+primitive days, there was no lack of educated men and women, of
+cultivated pioneers who appreciated art and good literature in all
+its forms. Even the average immigrant brought his favourite books
+with him from the Old Land, and cherished a love of reading, which
+unfortunately was not always inherited by his sons. It was a fit
+audience, no doubt; but in a period when all alike were engrossed in
+a stern struggle for existence, the poets, and we know there were
+some, were forced, like other people, to earn, by labour of hand,
+their daily bread. Thackeray's "dapper" George is credited with the
+saying, that, "If beebles will be boets they must starve." If in
+England their struggle was severe, in Canada it was unrelenting; a
+bald prospect, certainly, which lasted, one is sorry to say, far
+down in our literary history.
+
+Probably owing to this, and partly through advice, and partly by
+inclination, Miss Johnson took to the public platform for a living,
+and certainly justified her choice of a vocation by her admirable
+performances. They were not sensational, and therefore not
+over-attractive to the groundling; but to discerners, who thought
+highly of her art, they seemed the perfection of monologue, graced
+by a musical voice, and by gesture at once simple and dignified.
+
+As this is an appreciation and a tribute to Miss Johnson's memory
+rather than a criticism, the writer will touch but lightly upon
+the more prominent features of her productions. Without being
+obtrusive, not the least of these is her national pride, for
+nothing worthier, she thought, could be said of a man than
+
+"That he was born in Canada, beneath the British flag."
+
+In her political creed wavering and uncertainty had no place. She
+saw our national life from its most salient angles, and, in
+current phrase, she saw it whole. In common, therefore, with every
+Canadian poet of eminence, she had no fears for Canada, if she be
+but true to herself.
+
+Another opinion is not likely to be challenged, viz., that much
+of her poetry is unique, not only in subject, but also in the
+sincerity of her treatment of themes so far removed from the common
+range. Intense feeling distinguishes her Indian poems from all
+others; they flow from her very veins, and are stamped with the seal
+of heredity. This strikes one at every reading, and not less their
+truth to fact, however idealized. Indeed the wildest of them,
+"Ojistoh" (The White Wampum), is based upon an actual occurrence,
+though the incident took place on the Western plains, and the
+heroine was not a Mohawk. The same intensity marks "The Cattle
+Thief," and "A Cry From an Indian Wife." Begot of her knowledge
+of the long-suffering of her race, of iniquities in the past and
+present, they poured red-hot from her inmost heart.
+
+One turns, however, with a sense of relief from those fierce
+dithyrambics to the beauty and pathos of her other poems. Take,
+for example, that exquisite piece of music, "The Lullaby of the
+Iroquois," simple, yet entrancing! Could anything of its kind be
+more perfect in structure and expression? Or the sweet idyll,
+"Shadow River," a transmutation of fancy and fact, which ends with
+her own philosophy:
+
+  "O! pathless world of seeming!
+   O! pathless life of mine whose deep ideal
+   Is more my own than ever was the real.
+   For others fame
+   And Love's red flame,
+   And yellow gold: I only claim
+   The shadows and the dreaming."
+
+And this ideality, the hall-mark of her poetry, has a character of
+its own, a quality which distinguishes it from the general run of
+subjective verse. Though of the Christian faith, there is yet an
+almost pagan yearning manifest in her work, which she indubitably
+drew from her Indian ancestry. That is, she was in constant contact
+with nature, and saw herself, her every thought and feeling,
+reflected in the mysterious world around her.
+
+This sense of harmony is indeed the prime motive of her poetry,
+and therein we discern a brightness, a gleam, however fleeting,
+of mystic light--
+
+  "The light that never was on sea or land,
+   The consecration and the poet's dream."
+
+A suggestion of her attitude and sense of inter-penetration lurks
+in this stanza:
+
+  "There's a spirit on the river, there's a ghost upon the shore,
+   And they sing of love and loving through the starlight evermore,
+   As they steal amid the silence and the shadows of the shore."
+
+And in the following verses this "correspondence" is more
+distinctly drawn:
+
+  "O! soft responsive voices of the night
+     I join your minstrelsy,
+   And call across the fading silver light
+     As something calls to me;
+   I may not all your meaning understand,
+   But I have touched your soul in Shadow Land."
+
+"Sweetness and light" met in Miss Johnson's nature, but free from
+sentimentality; and even a carping critic will find little to cavil
+at in her productions. If fault should be found with any of them it
+would probably be with such a narrative as "Wolverine." It "bites,"
+like all her Indian pieces, and conveys a definite meaning. But,
+written in the conventional slang of the frontier, it jars with her
+other work, and seems out of form, if not out of place.
+
+However, no poet escapes a break at times, and Miss Johnson's
+work is not to be judged, like a chain, by its weakest links.
+Its beauty, its strength, its originality are unmistakable, and
+although, had she lived, we might have looked for still higher
+flights of her genius, yet what we possess is beyond price, and
+fully justifies the feeling, everywhere expressed, that Canada has
+lost a true poet.
+
+Such a loss may not be thought a serious one by the sordid man
+who decries poetry as the useless product of an art already in
+its decay. Should this ever be the case, it would be a monstrous
+symptom, a symptom that the noblest impulses of the human heart are
+decaying also. The truth is, as the greatest of English critics,
+Hazlitt, has told us, that "poetry is an interesting study, for
+this reason, that it relates to whatever is most interesting in
+human life. Whoever, therefore, has a contempt for poetry, has a
+contempt for himself and humanity."
+
+Turning from Miss Johnson's verse to her prose, there is ample
+evidence that, had she applied herself, she would have taken high
+rank as a writer of fiction. Her "Legends of Vancouver" is a
+remarkable book, in which she relates a number of Coast-Indian
+myths and traditions with unerring insight and literary skill.
+These legends had a main source in the person of the famous old
+Chief, Capilano, who, for the first time, revealed them to her in
+Chinook, or in broken English, and, as reproduced in her rich and
+harmonious prose, belong emphatically to what has been called "The
+literature of power." Bound together, so to speak, in the retentive
+memory of the old Chief, they are authentic legends of his people,
+and true to the Indian nature. But we find in them, also, something
+that transcends history. Indefinable forms, earthly and unearthly,
+pass before us in mystical procession, in a world beyond ordinary
+conception, in which nothing seems impossible.
+
+The origin of the Indian's myths, East or West, cannot be traced,
+and must ever remain a mystery. But, from his immemorial ceremonies
+and intense conservatism, we may reasonably infer that many of
+them have been handed down from father to son, unchanged, from
+the prehistoric past to the present day; a past contemporary,
+perhaps, with the mastodon, but certainly far back in the mists of
+antiquity. The importance of rescuing them from oblivion is plain
+enough, and therefore the untimely death of Miss Johnson, who was
+evidently turning with congenital fitness to the task, is doubly to
+be regretted. For as Mr. Bernard McEnvoy well says in his preface
+to her "Vancouver Legends," she "has linked the vivid present with
+the immemorial past.... In the imaginative power that she has
+brought to these semi-historical Sagas, and in the liquid flow
+of her rhythmical prose she has shown herself to be a literary
+worker of whom we may well be proud."
+
+It is believed to be the general wish of Miss Johnson's friends
+that some tribute of a national and permanent character should be
+paid to her memory; not indeed to preserve it--her own works will
+do that--but as a visible mark of public esteem. In this regard,
+what could be better than a bronze statue of life-size, with such
+accompanying symbols as would naturally suggest themselves to a
+competent artist? Vancouver, in which she spent her latter years,
+the city she loved, and in which she died, is its proper home; and,
+as to its site, the spot in Stanley Park where she wished her ashes
+to be laid is surely, of all places, the most appropriate.
+
+But whatever shape, in the opinion of her friends, the memorial
+should take, it is important, in any case, that it should be worthy
+of her genius, and a fitting memento of her services to Canadian
+letters.
+
+Fort Steele, B.C., September, 1913.
+
+
+
+My Mother
+
+The Story of a Life of Unusual Experiences
+
+
+[Author's Note.--This is the story of my mother's life, every
+incident of which she related to me herself. I have neither
+exaggerated nor curtailed a single circumstance in relating this
+story. I have supplied nothing through imagination, nor have I
+heightened the coloring of her unusual experiences. Had I done so
+I could not possibly feel as sure of her approval as I now do, for
+she is as near to me to-day as she was before she left me to join
+her husband, my beloved father, whose feet have long since wandered
+to the "Happy Hunting Grounds" of my dear Red Ancestors.]
+
+
+PART I.
+
+It was a very lonely little girl that stood on the deck of a huge
+sailing vessel while the shores of England slipped down into the
+horizon and the great, grey Atlantic yawned desolately westward.
+She was leaving so much behind her, taking so little with her, for
+the child was grave and old even at the age of eight, and realized
+that this day meant the updragging of all the tiny roots that clung
+to the home soil of the older land. Her father was taking his wife
+and family, his household goods, his fortune and his future to
+America, which, in the days of 1829, was indeed a venturesome
+step, for America was regarded as remote as the North Pole, and
+good-byes were, alas! very real good-byes, when travellers set
+sail for the New World in those times before steam and telegraph
+brought the two continents hand almost touching hand.
+
+So little Lydia Bestman stood drearily watching with sorrow-filled
+eyes the England of her babyhood fade slowly into the distance--eyes
+that were fated never to see again the royal old land of her birth.
+Already the deepest grief that life could hold had touched her
+young heart. She had lost her own gentle, London-bred mother when
+she was but two years old. Her father had married again, and on her
+sixth birthday little Lydia, the youngest of a large family, had
+been sent away to boarding-school with an elder sister, and her
+home knew her no more. She was taken from school to the sailing
+ship; little stepbrothers and sisters had arrived and she was no
+longer the baby. Years afterwards she told her own little children
+that her one vivid recollection of England was the exquisite
+music of the church chimes as the ship weighed anchor in Bristol
+harbor--chimes that were ringing for evensong from the towers of
+the quaint old English churches. Thirteen weeks later that sailing
+vessel entered New York harbor, and life in the New World began.
+
+Like most transplanted Englishmen, Mr. Bestman cut himself
+completely off from the land of his fathers; his interests and
+his friends henceforth were all in the country of his adoption,
+and he chose Ohio as a site for his new home. He was a man of
+vast peculiarities, prejudices and extreme ideas--a man of
+contradictions so glaring that even his own children never
+understood him. He was a very narrow religionist, of the type
+that say many prayers and quote much Scripture, but he beat his
+children--both girls and boys--so severely that outsiders were
+at times compelled to interfere. For years these unfortunate
+children carried the scars left on their backs by the thongs of
+cat-o'-nine-tails when he punished them for some slight misdemeanor.
+They were all terrified at him, all obeyed him like soldiers, but
+none escaped his severity. The two elder ones, a boy and a girl,
+had married before they left England. The next girl married in
+Ohio, and the boys drifted away, glad to escape from a parental
+tyranny that made home anything but a desirable abiding-place.
+Finally but two remained of the first family--Lydia and her sister
+Elizabeth, a most lovable girl of seventeen, whose beauty of
+character and self-sacrificing heart made the one bright memory
+that remained with these scattered fledglings throughout their
+entire lives.
+
+The lady who occupied the undesirable position of stepmother to
+these unfortunate children was of the very cold and chilling type
+of Englishwoman, more frequently met with two generations ago than
+in this age. She simply let her husband's first family alone. She
+took no interest in them, neglected them absolutely, but in her
+neglect was far kinder and more humane than their own father. Yet
+she saw that all the money, all the pretty clothes, all the
+dainties, went to her own children.
+
+Perhaps the reader will think these unpleasant characteristics of a
+harsh father and a self-centred stepmother might better be omitted
+from this narrative, particularly as death claimed these two many
+years ago; but in the light of after events, it is necessary to
+reveal what the home environment of these children had been, how
+little of companionship or kindness or spoken love had entered
+their baby lives. The absence of mother kisses, of father
+comradeship, of endeavor to understand them individually, to probe
+their separate and various dispositions--things so essential to
+the development of all that is best in a child--went far towards
+governing their later actions in life. It drove the unselfish,
+sweet-hearted Elizabeth to a loveless marriage; it flung poor,
+little love-hungry Lydia into alien but, fortunately, loyal and
+noble arms. Outsiders said, "What strange marriages!" But Lydia, at
+least, married where the first real kindness she had ever known
+called to her, and not one day of regret for that marriage ever
+entered into her life.
+
+It came about so strangely, so inevitably, from such a tiny
+source, that it is almost incredible.
+
+One day the stepmother, contrary to her usual custom, went into the
+kitchen and baked a number of little cakelets, probably what we
+would call cookies. For what sinister reason no one could divine,
+but she counted these cakes as she took them from the baking-pans
+and placed them in the pantry. There were forty-nine, all told.
+That evening she counted them again; there were forty-eight.
+Then she complained to her husband that one of the children had
+evidently stolen a cake. (In her mind the two negro servants
+employed in the house did not merit the suspicion.) Mr. Bestman
+inquired which child was fond of the cakes. Mrs. Bestman replied
+that she did not know, unless it was Lydia, who always liked them.
+
+Lydia was called. Her father, frowning, asked if she had taken the
+cake. The child said no.
+
+"You are not telling the truth," Mr. Bestman shouted, as the poor
+little downtrodden girl stood half terrified, consequently half
+guilty-mannered, before him.
+
+"But I am truthful," she said. "I know nothing of the cake."
+
+"You are not truthful. You stole it--you know you did. You shall be
+punished for this falsehood," he stormed, and reached for the
+cat-o'-nine-tails.
+
+The child was beaten brutally and sent to her room until she could
+tell the truth. When she was released she still held that she had
+not taken the cooky. Another beating followed, then a third, when
+finally the stepmother interfered and said magnanimously:
+
+"Don't whip her any more; she has been punished enough." And once
+during one of the beatings she protested, saying, "Don't strike the
+child _on the head_ in that way."
+
+But the iron had entered into Lydia's sister's soul. The injustice
+of it all drove gentle Elizabeth's gentleness to the winds.
+
+"Liddy darling," she said, taking the thirteen-year-old girl-child
+into her strong young arms, "_I_ know truth when I hear it.
+_You_ never stole that cake."
+
+"I didn't," sobbed the child, "I didn't."
+
+"And you have been beaten three times for it!" And the sweet young
+mouth hardened into lines that were far too severe for a girl of
+seventeen. Then: "Liddy, do you know that Mr. Evans has asked me to
+marry him?"
+
+"Mr. Evans!" exclaimed the child. "Why, you can't marry _him_,
+'Liza! He's ever so old, and he lives away up in Canada, among the
+Indians."
+
+"That's one of the reasons that I should like to marry him," said
+Elizabeth, her young eyes starry with zeal. "I want to work among
+the Indians, to help in Christianizing them, to--oh! just to help."
+
+"But Mr. Evans is so _old_," reiterated Lydia.
+
+"Only thirty," answered the sister; "and he is such a splendid
+missionary, dear."
+
+Love? No one talked of love in that household except the
+contradictory father, who continually talked of the love of God,
+but forgot to reflect that love towards his own children.
+
+Human love was considered a non-essential in that family.
+Beautiful-spirited Elizabeth had hardly heard the word. Even Mr.
+Evans had not made use of it. He had selected her as his wife more
+for her loveliness of character than from any personal attraction,
+and she in her untaught womanhood married him, more for the reason
+that she desired to be a laborer in Christ's vineyard than because
+of any wish to be the wife of this one man.
+
+But after the marriage ceremony, this gentle girl looked boldly
+into her father's eyes and said:
+
+"I am going to take Liddy with me into the wilds of Canada."
+
+"Well, well, well!" said her father, English-fashion. "If she wants
+to go, she may."
+
+Go? The child fairly clung to the fingers of this saviour-sister--the
+poor little, inexperienced, seventeen-year-old bride who was giving
+up her youth and her girlhood to lay it all upon the shrine of
+endeavour to bring the radiance of the Star that shone above
+Bethlehem to reflect its glories upon a forest-bred people of the
+North!
+
+It was a long, strange journey that the bride and her little sister
+took. A stage coach conveyed them from their home in Ohio to Erie,
+Pennsylvania, where they went aboard a sailing vessel bound for
+Buffalo. There they crossed the Niagara River, and at Chippewa, on
+the Canadian side, again took a stage coach for the village of
+Brantford, sixty miles west.
+
+At this place they remained over night, and the following day Mr.
+Evans' own conveyance arrived to fetch them to the Indian Reserve,
+ten miles to the southeast.
+
+In after years little Lydia used to tell that during that entire
+drive she thought she was going through an English avenue leading
+up to some great estate, for the trees crowded up close to the
+roadway on either side, giant forest trees--gnarled oaks, singing
+firs, jaunty maples, graceful elms--all stretching their branches
+overhead. But the "avenue" seemed endless. "When do we come to the
+house?" she asked, innocently. "This lane is very long."
+
+But it was three hours, over a rough corduroy road, before the
+little white frame parsonage lifted its roof through the forest,
+its broad verandahs and green outside shutters welcoming the
+travellers with an atmosphere of home at last.
+
+As the horses drew up before the porch the great front door was
+noiselessly opened and a lad of seventeen, lithe, clean-limbed,
+erect, copper-colored, ran swiftly down the steps, lifted his hat,
+smiled, and assisted the ladies to alight. The boy was Indian to
+the finger-tips, with that peculiar native polish and courtesy,
+that absolute ease of manner and direction of glance, possessed
+only by the old-fashioned type of red man of this continent.
+The missionary introduced him as "My young friend, the church
+interpreter, Mr. George Mansion, who is one of our household."
+(Mansion, or "Grand Mansion," is the English meaning of this young
+Mohawk's native name.)
+
+The entire personality of the missionary seemed to undergo a change
+as his eyes rested on this youth. His hitherto rather stilted
+manner relaxed, his eyes softened and glowed, he invited confidence
+rather than repelled it; truly his heart was bound up with these
+forest people; he fairly exhaled love for them with every breath.
+He was a man of marked shyness, and these silent Indians made him
+forget this peculiarity of which he was sorrowfully conscious. It
+was probably this shyness that caused him to open the door and turn
+to his young wife with the ill-selected remark: "Welcome home,
+madam."
+
+_Madam_! The little bride was chilled to the heart with the austere
+word. She hurried within, followed by her wondering child-sister,
+as soon as possible sought her room, then gave way to a storm of
+tears.
+
+"Don't mind me, Liddy," she sobbed. "There's nothing wrong; we'll
+be happy enough here, only I think I looked for a little--petting."
+
+With a wisdom beyond her years, Lydia did not reply, but went to
+the window and gazed absently at the tiny patch of flowers beyond
+the door--the two lilac trees in full blossom, the thread of
+glistening river, and behind it all, the northern wilderness. Just
+below the window stood the missionary and the Indian boy talking
+eagerly.
+
+"Isn't George Mansion _splendid_!" said the child.
+
+"You must call him Mr. Mansion; be very careful about the _Mister_,
+Liddy dear," said her sister, rising and drying her eyes bravely.
+"I have always heard that the Indians treat one just as they are
+treated by one. Respect Mr. Mansion, treat him as you would treat a
+city gentleman. Be sure he will gauge his deportment by ours. Yes,
+dear, he _is_ splendid. I like him already."
+
+"Yes, 'Liza, so do I, and he _is_ a gentleman. He looks it and acts
+it. I believe he _thinks_ gentlemanly things."
+
+Elizabeth laughed. "You dear little soul!" she said. "I know what
+you mean, and I agree with you."
+
+That laugh was all that Lydia wanted to hear in this world, and
+presently the two sisters, with arms entwined, descended the
+stairway and joined in the conversation between Mr. Evans and young
+George Mansion.
+
+"Mrs. Evans," said the boy, addressing her directly for the first
+time, "I hoped you were fond of game. Yesterday I hunted; it was
+partridge I got, and one fine deer. Will you offer me the
+compliment of having some for dinner to-night?"
+
+His voice was low and very distinct, his accent and expressions
+very marked as a foreigner to the tongue, but his English was
+perfect.
+
+"Indeed I shall, Mr. Mansion," smiled the girl-bride, "but I'm
+afraid that I don't know how to cook it."
+
+"We have an excellent cook," said Mr. Evans. "She has been with
+George and me ever since I came here. George is a splendid shot,
+and keeps her busy getting us game suppers."
+
+Meanwhile Lydia had been observing the boy. She had never seen an
+Indian, consequently was trying to reform her ideas regarding
+them. She had not expected to see anything like this self-poised,
+scrupulously-dressed, fine-featured, dark stripling. She thought
+all Indians wore savage-looking clothes, had fierce eyes and stern,
+set mouths. This boy's eyes were narrow and shrewd, but warm and
+kindly, his lips were like Cupid's bow, his hands were narrower,
+smaller, than her own, but the firmness of those slim fingers, the
+power in those small palms, as he had helped her from the carriage,
+remained with her through all the years to come.
+
+That evening at supper she noted his table deportment; it was
+correct in every detail. He ate leisurely, silently, gracefully;
+his knife and fork never clattered, his elbows never were in
+evidence, he made use of the right plates, spoons, forks, knives;
+he bore an ease, an unconsciousness of manner that amazed her. The
+missionary himself was a stiff man, and his very shyness made him
+angular. Against such a setting young Mansion gleamed like a brown
+gem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For seven years life rolled slowly by. At times Lydia went to visit
+her two other married sisters, sometimes she remained for weeks
+with a married brother, and at rare intervals made brief trips to
+her father's house; but she never received a penny from her strange
+parent, and knew of but one home which was worthy the name. That
+was in the Canadian wilderness where the Indian Mission held out
+its arms to her, and the beloved sister made her more welcome than
+words could imply. Four pretty children had come to grace this
+forest household, where young George Mansion, still the veriest
+right hand of the missionary, had grown into a magnificent type
+of Mohawk manhood. These years had brought him much, and he had
+accomplished far more than idle chance could ever throw in his
+way. He had saved his salary that he earned as interpreter in the
+church, and had purchased some desirable property, a beautiful
+estate of two hundred acres, upon which he some day hoped to build
+a home. He had mastered six Indian languages, which, with his
+knowledge of English and his wonderful fluency in his own tribal
+Mohawk, gave him command of eight tongues, an advantage which soon
+brought him the position of Government interpreter in the Council
+of the great "Six Nations," composing the Iroquois race. Added to
+this, through the death of an uncle he came into the younger title
+of his family, which boasted blood of two noble lines. His father,
+speaker of the Council, held the elder title, but that did not
+lessen the importance of young George's title of chief.
+
+Lydia never forgot the first time she saw him robed in the full
+costume of his office. Hitherto she had regarded him through all
+her comings and goings as her playmate, friend and boon companion;
+he had been to her something that had never before entered her
+life--he had brought warmth, kindness, fellowship and a peculiar
+confidential humanity that had been entirely lacking in the chill
+English home of her childhood. But this day, as he stood beside
+his veteran father, ready to take his place among the chiefs of
+the Grand Council, she saw revealed another phase of his life and
+character; she saw that he was destined to be a man among men, and
+for the first time she realized that her boy companion had gone a
+little beyond her, perhaps a little above her. They were a strange
+pair as they stood somewhat apart, unconscious of the picture they
+made. She, a gentle-born, fair English girl of twenty, her simple
+blue muslin frock vying with her eyes in color. He, tawny skinned,
+lithe, straight as an arrow, the royal blood of generations of
+chiefs and warriors pulsing through his arteries, his clinging
+buckskin tunic and leggings fringed and embroidered with countless
+quills, and endless stitches of colored moosehair. From his small,
+neat moccasins to his jet black hair tipped with an eagle plume he
+was every inch a man, a gentleman, a warrior.
+
+But he was approaching her with the same ease with which he wore
+his ordinary "white" clothes--garments, whether buckskin or
+broadcloth, seemed to make but slight impression on him.
+
+"Miss Bestman," he said, "I should like you to meet my mother and
+father. They are here, and are old friends of your sister and Mr.
+Evans. My mother does not speak English, but she knows you are my
+friend."
+
+And presently Lydia found herself shaking hands with the elder
+chief, speaker of the council, who spoke English rather well, and
+with a little dark woman folded within a "broadcloth" and wearing
+the leggings, moccasins and short dress of her people. A curious
+feeling of shyness overcame the girl as her hand met that of
+George Mansion's mother, who herself was the most retiring, most
+thoroughly old-fashioned woman of her tribe. But Lydia felt that
+she was in the presence of one whom the young chief held far and
+away as above himself, as above her, as the best and greatest woman
+of his world; his very manner revealed it, and Lydia honored him
+within her heart at that moment more than she had ever done
+before.
+
+But Chief George Mansion's mother, small and silent through long
+habit and custom, had acquired a certain masterful dignity of her
+own, for within her slender brown fingers she held a power that no
+man of her nation could wrest from her. She was "Chief Matron" of
+her entire blood relations, and commanded the enviable position
+of being the one and only person, man or woman, who could appoint
+a chief to fill the vacancy of one of the great Mohawk law-makers
+whose seat in Council had been left vacant when the voice of the
+Great Spirit called him to the happy hunting grounds. Lydia had
+heard of this national honor which was the right and title of this
+frail little moccasined Indian woman with whom she was shaking
+hands, and the thought flashed rapidly through her girlish mind:
+"Suppose some _one_ lady in England had the marvellous power of
+appointing who the member should be in the British House of Lords
+or Commons. _Wouldn't_ Great Britain honor and tremble before her?"
+
+And here was Chief George Mansion's silent, unpretentious little
+mother possessing all this power among her people, and she, Lydia
+Bestman, was shaking hands with her! It seemed very marvellous.
+
+But that night the power of this same slender Indian mother was
+brought vividly before her when, unintentionally, she overheard
+young George say to the missionary:
+
+"I almost lost my new title to-day, after you and the ladies had
+left the Council."
+
+"Why, George boy!" exclaimed Mr. Evans. "What have you done?"
+
+"Nothing, it seems, except to be successful. The Council objected
+to my holding the title of chief and having a chief's vote in the
+affairs of the people, and at the same time being Government
+interpreter. They said it would give me too much power to retain
+both positions. I must give up one--my title or my Government
+position."
+
+"What did you do?" demanded Mr. Evans, eagerly.
+
+"Nothing, again," smiled the young chief. "But my mother did
+something. She took the floor of the Council, and spoke for forty
+minutes. She said I must hold the positions of chief which she had
+made for me, as well as of interpreter which I had made for myself;
+that if the Council objected, she would forever annul the chief's
+title in her own family; she would never appoint one in my place,
+and that we proud, arrogant Mohawks would then have only eight
+representatives in Council--only be on a level with, as she
+expressed it, 'those dogs of Senecas.' Then she clutched her
+broadcloth about her, turned her back on us all, and left the
+Council."
+
+"What did the Council do?" gasped Mr. Evans.
+
+"Accepted me as chief and interpreter," replied the young man,
+smiling. "There was nothing else to do."
+
+"Oh, you royal woman! You loyal, loyal mother!" cried Lydia to
+herself. "How I love you for it!"
+
+Then she crept away just as Mr. Evans had sprung forward with both
+hands extended towards the young chief, his eyes beaming with
+almost fatherly delight.
+
+Unconsciously to herself, the English girl's interest in the young
+chief had grown rapidly year after year. She was also unconscious
+of his aim at constant companionship with herself. His devotion to
+her sister, whose delicate health alarmed them all, more and more,
+as time went on, was only another royal road to Lydia's heart.
+Elizabeth was becoming frail, shadowy, her appetite was fitful, her
+eyes larger and more wistful, her fingers smaller and weaker. No
+one seemed to realize the insidious oncreepings of "the white man's
+disease," consumption, that was paling Elizabeth's fine English
+skin, heightening her glorious English color, sapping her delicate
+English veins. Only young George would tell himself over and over:
+"Mrs. Evans is going away from us some day, and Lydia will be left
+with no one in the world but me--no one but me to understand--or
+to--care."
+
+So he scoured the forest for dainties, wild fruits, game, flowers,
+to tempt the appetite and the eye of the fading wife of the man
+who had taught him all the English and the white man's etiquette
+that he had ever mastered. Night after night he would return from
+day-long hunting trips, his game-bag filled with delicate quail,
+rare woodcock, snowy-breasted partridge, and when the illusive
+appetite of the sick woman could be coaxed to partake of a morsel,
+he felt repaid for miles of tramping through forest trails, for
+hours of search and skill.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+Perhaps it was this grey shadow stealing on the forest mission, the
+thought of the day when that beautiful mothering sister would leave
+his little friend Lydia alone with a bereft man and four small
+children, or perhaps it was a yet more personal note in his life
+that brought George Mansion to the realization of what this girl
+had grown to be to him.
+
+Indian-wise, his parents had arranged a suitable marriage for him,
+selecting a girl of his own tribe, of the correct clan to mate with
+his own, so that the line of blood heritage would be intact, and
+the sons of the next generation would be of the "Blood Royal,"
+qualified by rightful lineage to inherit the title of chief.
+
+This Mohawk girl was attractive, young, and had a partial English
+education. Her parents were fairly prosperous, owners of many
+acres, and much forest and timber country. The arrangement was
+regarded as an ideal one--the young people as perfectly and
+diplomatically mated as it was possible to be; but when his parents
+approached the young chief with the proposition, he met it with
+instant refusal.
+
+"My father, my mother," he begged, "I ask you to forgive me this
+one disobedience. I ask you to forgive that I have, amid my fight
+and struggle for English education, forgotten a single custom of my
+people. I have tried to honor all the ancient rules and usages of
+my forefathers, but I forgot this one thing, and I cannot, cannot do
+it! My wife I must choose for myself."
+
+"You will marry--whom, then?" asked the old chief.
+
+"I have given no thought to it--yet," he faltered.
+
+"Yes," said his mother, urged by the knowing heart of a woman,
+"yes, George, you have thought of it."
+
+"Only this hour," he answered, looking directly into his mother's
+eyes. "Only now that I see you want me to give my life to someone
+else. But my life belongs to the white girl, Mrs. Evans' sister, if
+she will take it. I shall offer it to her to-morrow--to-day."
+
+His mother's face took on the shadow of age. "You would marry a
+_white_ girl?" she exclaimed, incredulously.
+
+"Yes," came the reply, briefly, decidedly.
+
+"But your children, your sons and hers--they could never hold the
+title, never be chief," she said, rising to her feet.
+
+He winced. "I know it. I had not thought of it before--but I know
+it. Still, I would marry her."
+
+"But there would be no more chiefs of the Grand Mansion name,"
+cut in his father. "The title would go to your aunt's sons. She
+is a Grand Mansion no longer; she, being married, is merely a
+Straight-Shot, her husband's name. The Straight-Shots never had
+noble blood, never wore a title. Shall our family title go to
+a _Straight-Shot_?" and the elder chief mouthed the name
+contemptuously.
+
+Again the boy winced. The hurt of it all was sinking in--he hated
+the Straight-Shots, he loved his own blood and bone. With lightning
+rapidity he weighed it all mentally, then spoke: "Perhaps the white
+girl will not marry me," he said slowly, and the thought of it
+drove the dark red from his cheeks, drove his finger-nails into his
+palms.
+
+"Then, then you will marry Dawendine, our choice?" cried his
+mother, hopefully.
+
+"I shall marry no one but the white girl," he answered, with set
+lips. "If she will not marry me, I shall never marry, so the
+Straight-Shots will have our title, anyway."
+
+The door closed behind him. It was as if it had shut forever
+between him and his own.
+
+But even with this threatened calamity looming before her, the old
+Indian mother's hurt heart swelled with a certain pride in his
+wilful actions.
+
+"What bravery!" she exclaimed. "What courage to hold to his
+own choice! What a _man_!"
+
+"Yes," half bemoaned his father, "he is a red man through and
+through. He defies his whole nation in his fearlessness, his
+lawlessness. Even I bow to his bravery, his self-will, but that
+bravery is hurting me here, here!" and the ancient chief laid his
+hand above his heart.
+
+There was no reply to be made by the proud though pained mother.
+She folded her "broadcloth" about her, filled her small carved pipe
+and sat for many hours smoking silently, silently, silently. Now
+and again she shook her head mournfully, but her dark eyes would
+flash at times with an emotion that contradicted her dejected
+attitude. It was an emotion born of self-exaltation, for had she
+not mothered a _man_?--albeit that manhood was revealing itself in
+scorning the traditions and customs of her ancient race.
+
+And young George was returning from his father's house to the
+Mission with equally mixed emotions. He knew he had dealt an almost
+unforgivable blow to those beloved parents whom he had honored and
+obeyed from his babyhood. Once he almost turned back. Then a vision
+arose of a fair young English girl whose unhappy childhood he had
+learned of years ago, a sweet, homeless face of great beauty, lips
+that were made for love they had never had, eyes that had already
+known more of tears than they should have shed in a lifetime.
+Suppose some other youth should win this girl away from him?
+Already several of the young men from the town drove over more
+frequently than they had cause to. Only the week before he had
+found her seated at the little old melodeon playing and singing a
+duet with one of these gallants. He locked his teeth together and
+strode rapidly through the forest path, with the first full
+realization that she was the only woman in all the world for him.
+
+Some inevitable force seemed to be driving him
+towards--circumstances seemed to pave the way to--their ultimate
+union; even now chance placed her in the path, literally, for as he
+threaded his way uphill, across the open, and on to the little log
+bridge which crossed the ravine immediately behind the Mission, he
+saw her standing at the further side, leaning upon the unpeeled
+sapling which formed the bridge guard. She was looking into the
+tiny stream beneath. He made no sound as he approached. Generations
+of moccasin-shod ancestors had made his own movements swift and
+silent. Notwithstanding this, she turned, and, with a bright
+girlish smile, she said:
+
+"I knew you were coming, Chief."
+
+"Why? How?" he asked, accepting his new title from her with a
+graceful indifference almost beyond his four and twenty years.
+
+"I can hardly say just how--but--" she ended with only a smile. For
+a full minute he caught and held her glance. She seemed unable to
+look away, but her grave, blue English eyes were neither shy nor
+confident. They just seemed to answer his--then,
+
+"Miss Bestman, will you be my wife?" he asked gently. She was
+neither surprised nor dismayed, only stood silent, as if she had
+forgotten the art of speech. "You knew I should ask this some day,"
+he continued, rather rapidly. "This is the day."
+
+"I did not really know--I don't know how I feel--" she began,
+faltering.
+
+"I did not know how I felt, either, until an hour ago," he
+explained. "When my father and my mother told me they had arranged
+my marriage with--"
+
+"With whom?" she almost demanded.
+
+"A girl of my own people," he said, grudgingly. "A girl I honor and
+respect, but--"
+
+"But what?" she said weakly, for the mention of his possible
+marriage with another had flung her own feelings into her very
+face.
+
+"But unless you will be my wife, I shall never marry." He folded
+his arms across his chest as he said it--the very action expressed
+finality. For a second he stood erect, dark, slender, lithe,
+immovable, then with sudden impulse he held out one hand to her and
+spoke very quietly. "I love you, Lydia. Will you come to me?"
+
+"Yes," she answered clearly. "I will come."
+
+He caught her hands very tightly, bending his head until his fine
+face rested against her hair. She knew then that she had loved him
+through all these years, and that come what might, she would love
+him through all the years to be.
+
+That night she told her frail and fading sister, whom she found
+alone resting among her pillows.
+
+"'Liza dear, you are crying," she half sobbed in alarm, as the great
+tears rolled slowly down the wan cheeks. "I have made you unhappy,
+and you are ill, too. Oh, how selfish I am! I did not think that
+perhaps it might distress you."
+
+"Liddy, Liddy darling, these are the only tears of joy that I have
+ever shed!" cried Elizabeth. "Joy, joy, girlie! I have wished this
+to come before I left you, wished it for years. I love George
+Mansion better than I ever loved brother of mine. Of all the world
+I should have chosen him for your husband. Oh! I am happy, happy,
+child, and you will be happy with him, too."
+
+And that night Lydia Bestman laid her down to rest, with her heart
+knowing the greatest human love that had ever entered into her
+life.
+
+Mr. Evans was almost beside himself with joyousness when the young
+people rather shyly confessed their engagement to him. He was
+deeply attached to his wife's young sister, and George Mansion had
+been more to him than many a man's son ever is. Seemingly cold and
+undemonstrative, this reserved Scotch missionary had given all his
+heart and life to the Indians, and this one boy was the apple of
+his eye. Far-sighted and cautious, he saw endless trouble shadowing
+the young lovers--opposition to the marriage from both sides of the
+house. He could already see Lydia's family smarting under the
+seeming disgrace of her marriage to an Indian; he could see George's
+family indignant and hurt to the core at his marriage with a white
+girl; he could see how impossible it would be for Lydia's people to
+ever understand the fierce resentment of the Indian parents that
+the family title could never continue under the family name. He
+could see how little George's people would ever understand the
+"white" prejudice against them. But the good man kept his own
+counsel, determining only that when the war did break out, he would
+stand shoulder to shoulder with these young lovers and be their
+friend and helper when even their own blood and kin should cut them
+off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was two years before this shy and taciturn man fully realized
+what the young chief and the English girl really were to him, for
+affliction had laid a heavy hand on his heart. First, his gentle
+and angel-natured wife said her long, last good-night to him. Then
+an unrelenting scourge of scarlet fever swept three of his children
+into graves. Then the eldest, just on the threshold of sweet young
+maidenhood, faded like a flower, until she, too, said good-night
+and slept beside her mother. Wifeless, childless, the stricken
+missionary hugged to his heart these two--George and Lydia--and
+they, who had labored weeks and months, night and day, nursing and
+tending these loved ones, who had helped fight and grapple with
+death five times within two years, only to be driven back heartsore
+and conquered by the enemy--these two put away the thought of
+marriage for the time. Joy would have been ill-fitting in that
+household. Youth was theirs, health was theirs, and duty also was
+theirs--duty to this man of God, whose house was their home, whose
+hand had brought them together. So the marriage did not take place
+at once, but the young chief began making preparations on the estate
+he had purchased to build a fitting home for this homeless girl who
+was giving her life into his hands. After so many dark days, it was
+a relief to get Mr. Evans interested in the plans of the house
+George was to build, to select the proper situation, to arrange for
+a barn, a carriage house, a stable, for young Mansion had saved
+money and acquired property of sufficient value to give his wife a
+home that would vie with anything in the large border towns. Like
+most Indians, he was recklessly extravagant, and many a time the
+thrifty Scotch blood of the missionary would urge more economy,
+less expenditure. But the building went on; George determined it
+was to be a "Grand Mansion." His very title demanded that he give
+his wife an abode worthy of the ancestors who appropriated the name
+as their own.
+
+"When you both go from me, even if it is only across the fields to
+the new home, I shall be very much alone," Mr. Evans had once said.
+Then in an agony of fear that his solitary life would shadow their
+happiness, he added quickly, "But I have a very sweet and lovely
+niece who writes me she will come to look after this desolated home
+if I wish it, and perhaps her brother will come, too, if I want
+him. I am afraid I _shall_ want him sorely, George. For though you
+will be but five minutes walk from me, your face will not be at my
+breakfast table to help me begin each day with a courage it has
+always inspired. So I beg that you two will not delay your
+marriage; give no thought to me. You are young but once, and youth
+has wings of wonderful swiftness. Margaret and Christopher shall
+come to me; but although they are my own flesh and blood, they will
+never become to me what you two have been, and always will be."
+
+Within their recollection, the lovers had never heard the
+missionary make so long a speech. They felt the earnestness of it,
+the truth of it, and arranged to be married when the golden days of
+August came. Lydia was to go to her married sister, in the eastern
+part of Canada, whose husband was a clergyman, and at whose home
+she had spent many of her girlhood years. George was to follow. They
+were to be quietly married and return by sailing vessel up the
+lakes, then take the stage from what is now the city of Toronto,
+arrive at the Indian Reserve, and go direct to the handsome home
+the young chief had erected for his English bride. So Lydia Bestman
+set forth on her long journey from which she was to return as the
+wife of the head chief of a powerful tribe of Indians--a man
+revered, respected, looked up to by a vast nation, a man of
+sterling worth, of considerable wealth as riches were counted in
+those days, a man polished in the usages and etiquette of her own
+people, who conducted himself with faultless grace, who would have
+shone brilliantly in any drawing-room (and who in after years was
+the guest of honor at many a great reception by the governors of
+the land), a man young, stalwart, handsome, with an aristocratic
+lineage that bred him a native gentleman, with a grand old title
+that had come down to him through six hundred years of honor in
+warfare and high places of his people. That this man should be
+despised by her relatives and family connections because of his
+warm, red skin and Indian blood, never occurred to Lydia. Her angel
+sister had loved the youth, the old Scotch missionary little short
+of adored him. Why, then, this shocked amazement of her relatives,
+that she should wish to wed the finest gentleman she had ever met,
+the man whose love and kindness had made her erstwhile blackened
+and cruel world a paradise of sunshine and contentment? She was
+but little prepared for the storm of indignation that met her
+announcement that she was engaged to marry a Mohawk Indian chief.
+
+Her sister, with whom she never had anything in common, who was
+years older, and had been married in England when Lydia was but
+three years of age, implored, entreated, sneered, ridiculed and
+stormed. Lydia sat motionless through it all, and then the outraged
+sister struck a vital spot with: "I don't know what Elizabeth has
+been thinking of all these years, to let you associate with Indians
+on an equality. _She_ is to blame for this."
+
+Then and only then, did Lydia blaze forth. "Don't you _dare_ speak
+of 'Liza like that!" flung the girl. "She was the only human being
+in our whole family, the only one who ever took me in her arms, who
+ever called me 'dear,' who ever kissed me as if she meant it. I
+tell you, she loved George Mansion better than she loved her cold,
+chilly English brothers. She loved _me_, and her house was my home,
+which yours never was. Yes, she loved me, angel girl that she was,
+and she died in a halo of happiness because I was happy and
+because I was to marry the noblest, kingliest gentleman I ever
+met." The girl ceased, breathless.
+
+"Yes," sneered her sister, "yes, marry an _Indian_!"
+
+"Yes," defied Lydia, "an _Indian_, who can give me not only a
+better home than this threadbare parsonage of yours"--here she
+swept scornful eyes about the meagre little, shabby room--"yes, a
+home that any Bestman would be proud to own; but better than that,"
+she continued ragingly, "he has given me love--_love_, that you in
+your chilly, inhuman home sneer at, but that I have cried out for;
+love that my dead mother prayed should come to me, from the moment
+she left me a baby, alone, in England, until the hour when this one
+splendid man took me into his heart."
+
+"Poor mother!" sighed the sister. "I am grateful she is spared
+_this_."
+
+"Don't think that she doesn't know it!" cried Lydia. "If 'Liza
+approved, mother does, and she is glad of her child's happiness."
+
+"Her child--yes, her child," taunted the sister. "Child! child!
+Yes, and what of the _child_ you will probably mother?"
+
+The crimson swept painfully down the young girl's face, but she
+braved it out.
+
+"Yes," she stammered, "a child, perhaps a _son_, a son of mine,
+who, poor boy, can never inherit his father's title."
+
+"And why not, pray?" remarked her sister.
+
+"Because the female line of lineage will be broken," explained the
+girl. "He _should_ marry someone else, so that the family title
+could follow the family name. His father and mother have
+practically cast him off because of me. _Don't_ you see? Can't you
+understand that I am only an untitled commoner to his people? I am
+only a white girl."
+
+"_Only_ a white girl!" repeated the sister, sarcastically. "Do you
+mean to tell me that you believe these wretched Indians don't want
+him to marry you? _You_, a _Bestman_, and an English girl?
+Nonsense, Lydia! You are talking utter nonsense." But the sister's
+voice weakened, nevertheless.
+
+"But it's true," asserted the girl. "You don't understand the
+Indian nation as 'Liza did; it's perfectly true--a son of mine can
+claim no family title; the honor of it must leave the name of
+Mansion forever. Oh, his parents have completely shut him out of
+their lives because I am only a white girl!" and the sweet young
+voice trembled woefully.
+
+"I decline to discuss this disgraceful matter with you any
+further," said the sister coldly. "Perhaps my good husband can
+bring you to your senses," and the lady left the room in a fever of
+indignation.
+
+But her "good husband," the city clergyman, declined the task of
+"bringing Lydia to her senses." He merely sent for her to go to his
+study, and, as she stood timidly in the doorway, he set his small
+steely eyes on her and said:
+
+"You will leave this house at once, to-night. _To-night_, do you
+hear? I'll have no Indian come _here_ after my wife's sister. I
+hope you quite understand me?"
+
+"Quite, sir," replied the girl, and with a stiff bow she turned and
+went back to her room.
+
+In the haste of packing up her poor and scanty wardrobe, she heard
+her sister's voice saying to the clergyman: "Oh! how _could_ you
+send her away? You know she has no home, she has nowhere to go. How
+_could_ you do it?" All Lydia caught of his reply was: "Not another
+night, not another meal, in this house while _I_ am its master."
+
+Presently her sister came upstairs carrying a plate of pudding.
+Her eyes were red with tears, and her hands trembled. "Do eat
+this, my dear; some tea is coming presently," she said.
+
+But Lydia only shook her head, strapped her little box, and,
+putting on her bonnet, she commanded her voice sufficiently to say:
+"I am going now. I'll send for this box later."
+
+"Where are you going to?" her sister's voice trembled.
+
+"I--don't know," said the girl. "But wherever I do go, it will be
+a kindlier place than this. Good-bye, sister." She kissed the
+distressed wife softly on each cheek, then paused at the bedroom
+door to say, "The man I am to marry loves me, honors me too much to
+treat me as a mere possession. I know that _he_ will never tell me
+he is 'master.' George Mansion may have savage blood in his veins,
+but he has grasped the meaning of the word 'Christianity' far more
+fully than your husband has."
+
+Her sister could not reply, but stood with streaming eyes and
+watched the girl slip down the back stairs and out of a side door.
+
+For a moment Lydia Bestman stood on the pavement and glanced up and
+down the street. The city was what was known as a garrison town in
+the days when the British regular troops were quartered in Canada.
+Far down the street two gay young officers were walking, their
+brilliant uniforms making a pleasant splash of color in the
+sunlight. They seemed to suggest to the girl's mind a more than
+welcome thought. She knew the major's wife well, a gracious,
+whole-souled English lady whose kindness had oftentimes brightened
+her otherwise colorless life. Instinctively the girl turned to the
+quarters of the married officers. She found the major's wife at
+home, and, burying her drawn little face in the good lady's lap,
+she poured forth her entire story.
+
+"My dear," blazed out the usually placid lady, "if I were only the
+major for a few moments, instead of his wife, I should--I
+should--well, I should just _swear_! There, now I've said it, and
+I'd _do_ it, too. Why, I never heard of such an outrage! My dear,
+kiss me, and tell me--when, how, do you expect your young chief to
+come for you?"
+
+"Next week," said the girl, from the depths of those sheltering
+arms.
+
+"Then here you stay, right here with me. The major and I shall go
+to the church with you, see you safely married, bring you and your
+Hiawatha home for a cosy little breakfast, put you aboard the boat
+for Toronto, and give you both our blessing and our love." And
+the major's wife nodded her head with such emphasis that her
+quaint English curls bobbed about, setting Lydia off into a fit of
+laughter. "That's right, my dear. You just begin to laugh now, and
+keep it up for all the days to come. I'll warrant you've had little
+of laughter in your young life," she said knowingly. "From what
+I've known of your father, he never ordered laughter as a daily
+ingredient in his children's food. Then that sweet Elizabeth
+leaving you alone, so terribly alone, must have chased the sunshine
+far from your little world. But after this," she added brightly,
+"it's just going to be love and laughter. And now, my dear, we must
+get back the rosy English color in your cheeks, or your young
+Hiawatha won't know his little white sweetheart. Run away to my
+spare room, girlie. The orderly will get a man to fetch your box.
+Then you can change your frock. Leave yesterday behind you forever.
+Have a little rest; you look as if you had not slept for a week.
+Then join the major and me at dinner, and we'll toast you and your
+redskin lover in true garrison style."
+
+And Lydia, with the glorious recuperation of youth, ran joyously
+upstairs, smiling and singing like a lark, transformed with the
+first unadulterated happiness she had ever felt or known.
+
+
+PART III.
+
+Upon George Mansion's arrival at the garrison town he had been met
+on the wharf by the major, who took him to the hotel, while
+hurriedly explaining just why he must not go near Lydia's sister and
+the clergyman whom George had expected would perform the marriage
+ceremony. "So," continued the major, "you and Lydia are not to be
+married at the cathedral after all, but Mrs. Harold and I have
+arranged that the ceremony shall take place at little St. Swithin's
+Church in the West End. So you'll be there at eleven o'clock, eh,
+boy?"
+
+"Yes, major, I'll be there, and before eleven, I'm afraid, I'm so
+anxious to take her home. I shall not endeavour to thank you and
+Mrs. Harold for what you have done for my homeless girl. I can't
+even--"
+
+"Tut, tut, tut!" growled the major. "Haven't done anything. Bless
+my soul, Chief, take my word for it, haven't done a thing to be
+thanked for. Here's your hotel. Get some coffee to brace your
+nerves up with, for I can assure you, boy, a wedding is a trying
+ordeal, even if there is but a handful of folks to see it through.
+Be a good boy, now--good-bye until eleven--St. Swithin's, remember,
+and God bless you!" and the big-hearted, blustering major was
+whisked away in his carriage, leaving the young Indian half
+overwhelmed with his kindness, but as happy as the golden day.
+
+An hour or so later he stood at the hotel door a moment awaiting
+the cab that was to take him to the church. He was dressed in
+the height of the fashion of the early fifties--very dark wine
+broadcloth, the coat shaped tightly to the waist and adorned with
+a silk velvet collar, a pale lavender, flowered satin waistcoat,
+a dull white silk stock collar, a bell-shaped black silk hat. He
+carried his gloves, for throughout his entire life he declared he
+breathed through his hands, and the wearing of gloves was abhorrent
+to him. Suddenly a gentleman accosted him with:
+
+"I hear an Indian chief is in town. Going to be married here this
+morning. Where is the ceremony to take place? Do you know anything
+of it?"
+
+Like all his race, George Mansion had a subtle sense of humor. It
+seized upon him now.
+
+"Certainly I know," he replied. "I happened to come down on the
+boat with the chief. I intend to go to the wedding myself. I
+understand the ceremony was arranged to be at the cathedral."
+
+"Splendid!" said the gentleman. "And thank you, sir."
+
+Just then the cab arrived. Young Mansion stepped hastily in, nodded
+good-bye to his acquaintance, and smilingly said in an undertone to
+the driver, "St. Swithin's Church--and quickly."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"With this ring I thee wed," he found himself saying to a little
+figure in a soft grey gown at his side, while a gentle-faced
+old clergyman in a snowy surplice stood before him, and a
+square-shouldered, soldierly person in a brilliant uniform almost
+hugged his elbow.
+
+"I pronounce you man and wife." At the words she turned towards her
+husband like a carrier pigeon winging for home. Then somehow the
+solemnity all disappeared. The major, the major's wife, two handsome
+young officers, one girl friend, the clergyman, the clergyman's
+wife, were all embracing her, and she was dimpling with laughter
+and happiness; and George Mansion stood proudly by, his fine dark
+face eager, tender and very noble.
+
+"My dear," whispered the major's wife, "he's a perfect prince--he's
+just as royal as he can be! I never saw such manners, such ease.
+Why, girlie, he's a courtier!"
+
+"Confound the young rogue!" growled the major, in her ear. "I
+haven't an officer on my staff that can equal him. You're a lucky
+girl. Yes, confound him, I say!"
+
+"Bless you, child," said the clergyman's wife. "I think he'll make
+you happy. Be very sure that you make _him_ happy."
+
+And to all these whole-hearted wishes and comments, Lydia replied
+with smiles and care-free words. Then came the major, watch in
+hand, military precision and promptitude in his very tone.
+
+"Time's up, everybody! There's a bite to eat at the barracks,
+then these youngsters must be gone. The boat is due at one
+o'clock--time's up."
+
+As the little party drove past the cathedral they observed a huge
+crowd outside, waiting for the doors to be opened. Lydia laughed
+like a child as George told her of his duplicity of the morning,
+when he had misled the inquiring stranger into thinking the Indian
+chief was to be married there. The little tale furnished fun for
+all at the pretty breakfast in the major's quarters.
+
+"Nice way to begin your wedding morning, young man!" scowled the
+major, fiercely. "Starting this great day with a network of
+falsehoods."
+
+"Not at all," smiled the Indian. "It was arranged for the
+cathedral, and I did attend the ceremony."
+
+"No excuses, you bare-faced scoundrel! I won't listen to them. Here
+you are happily married and all those poor would-be sight-seers
+sizzling out there in this glaring August sun. I'm ashamed of you!"
+But his arm was about George's shoulders, and he was wringing the
+dark, slender hand with a genuine good fellowship that was pleasant
+to see. "Bless my soul, I love you, boy!" he added, sincerely.
+"Love you through and through; and remember, I'm your white father
+from this day forth."
+
+"And I am your white mother," said the major's wife, placing her
+hands on his shoulders.
+
+For a second the bridegroom's face sobered. Before him flashed a
+picture of a little old Indian woman with a broadcloth folded about
+her shoulders, a small carven pipe between her lips, a world of
+sorrow in her deep eyes--sorrow that he had brought there. He bent
+suddenly and kissed Mrs. Harold's fingers with a grave and courtly
+deference. "Thank you," he said simply.
+
+But motherlike, she knew that his heart was bleeding. Lydia had
+told of his parents' antagonism, of the lost Mansion title. So the
+good lady just gave his hand a little extra, understanding squeeze,
+and the good-byes began.
+
+"Be off with you, youngsters!" growled the major. "The boat is
+in--post haste now, or you'll miss it. Begone, both of you!"
+
+And presently they found themselves once more in the carriage, the
+horses galloping down to the wharf. And almost before they realized
+it they were aboard, with the hearty "God bless you's" of the
+splendid old major and his lovable wife still echoing in their
+happy young hearts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was evening, five days later, when they arrived at their new
+home. All about the hills, and the woods, above the winding river,
+and along the edge of the distant forest, brooded that purple
+smokiness that haunts the late days of August--the smokiness that
+was born of distant fires, where the Indians and pioneers were
+"clearing" their lands. The air was like amethyst, the setting sun
+a fire opal. As on the day when she first had come into his life,
+George helped her to alight from the carriage, and they stood a
+moment, hand in hand, and looked over the ample acres that composed
+their estate. The young Indian had worked hard to have most of the
+land cleared, leaving here and there vast stretches of walnut
+groves, and long lines of majestic elms, groups of sturdy oaks, and
+occasionally a single regal pine tree. Many a time in later years
+his utilitarian friends would say, "Chief, these trees you are
+preserving so jealously are eating up a great deal of your land.
+Why not cut away and grow wheat?" But he would always resent the
+suggestion, saying that his wheat lands lay back from the river.
+They were for his body, doubtless, but here, by the river, the
+trees must be--they were for his soul. And Lydia would champion him
+immediately with, "Yes, they were there to welcome me as a bride,
+those grand old trees, and they will remain there, I think, as long
+as we both shall live." So, that first evening at home they stood
+and watched the imperial trees, the long, open flats bordering the
+river, the nearby lawns which he had taken such pains to woo from
+the wilderness; stood palm to palm, and that moment seemed to
+govern all their after life.
+
+Someone has said that never in the history of the world have two
+people been perfectly mated. However true this may be, it is an
+undeniable fact that between the most devoted of life-mates there
+will come inharmonious moments. Individuality would cease to exist
+were it not so.
+
+These two lived together for upwards of thirty years, and never had
+one single quarrel, but oddly enough, when the rare inharmonious
+moments came, these groups of trees bridged the fleeting difference
+of opinion or any slight antagonism of will and purpose; when these
+unresponsive moments came, one or the other would begin to admire
+those forest giants, to suggest improvements, to repeat the
+admiration of others for their graceful outlines--to, in fact,
+direct thought and conversation into the common channel of love
+for those trees. This peculiarity was noticeable to outsiders, to
+their own circle, to their children. At mere mention of the trees
+the shadow of coming cloud would lessen, then waste, then grow
+invisible. Their mutual love for these voiceless yet voiceful and
+kingly creations was as the love of children for a flower--simple,
+nameless, beautiful and powerful beyond words.
+
+That first home night, as she stepped within doors, there awaited
+two inexpressible surprises for her. First, on the dining-room
+table a silver tea service of seven pieces, imported from
+England--his wedding gift to her. Second, in the quaint little
+drawing-room stood a piano. In the "early fifties" this latter
+was indeed a luxury, even in city homes. She uttered a little cry
+of delight, and flinging herself before the instrument, ran her
+fingers over the keys, and broke into his favorite song, "Oft in
+the Stilly Night." She had a beautiful voice, the possession of
+which would have made her renowned had opportunity afforded its
+cultivation. She had "picked up" music and read it remarkably well,
+and he, Indian wise, was passionately fond of melody. So they
+laughed and loved together over this new luxurious toy, until
+Milly, the ancient Mohawk maid, tapped softly at the drawing-room
+and bade them come to tea. With that first meal in her new home,
+the darkened hours and days and years smothered their haunting
+voices. She had "left yesterday behind her," as the major's royal
+wife had wished her to, and for the first time in all her checkered
+and neglected life she laughed with the gladness of a bird at song,
+flung her past behind her, and the grim unhappiness of her former
+life left her forever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a golden morning in July when the doctor stood grasping
+George Mansion's slender hands, searching into his dusky, anxious
+eyes, and saying with ringing cheeriness, "Chief, I congratulate
+you. You've got the most beautiful son upstairs--the finest boy I
+ever saw. Hail to the young chief, I say!"
+
+The doctor was white. He did not know of the broken line of
+lineage--that "the boy upstairs" could never wear his father's
+title. A swift shadow fought for a second with glorious happiness.
+The battlefield was George Mansion's face, his heart. His unfilled
+duty to his parents assailed him like a monstrous enemy, then
+happiness conquered, came forth a triumphant victor, and the young
+father dashed noiselessly, fleetly up the staircase, and, despite
+the protesting physician, in another moment his wife and son were
+in his arms. Title did not count in that moment; only Love in its
+tyrannical majesty reigned in that sacred room.
+
+The boy was a being of a new world, a new nation. Before he was two
+weeks old he began to show the undeniable physique of the two great
+races from whence he came; all the better qualities of both bloods
+seemed to blend within his small body. He was his father's son,
+he was his mother's baby. His grey-blue eyes held a hint of the
+dreaming forest, but also a touch of old England's skies. His hair,
+thick and black, was straight as his father's, except just above
+the temples, where a suggestion of his mother's pretty English curls
+waved like strands of fine silk. His small mouth was thin-lipped;
+his nose, which even in babyhood never had the infantile "snub,"
+but grew straight, thin as his Indian ancestors', yet displayed
+a half-haughty English nostril; his straight little back--all
+combined likenesses to his parents. But who could say which blood
+dominated his tiny person? Only the exquisite soft, pale brown of
+his satiny skin called loudly and insistently that he was of a
+race older than the composite English could ever boast; it was the
+hallmark of his ancient heritage--the birthright of his father's
+son.
+
+But the odd little half-blood was extraordinarily handsome even as
+an infant. In after years when he grew into glorious manhood he
+was generally acknowledged to be the handsomest man in the Province
+of Ontario, but to-day--his first day in these strange, new
+surroundings--he was but a wee, brown, lovable bundle, whose tiny
+gossamer hands cuddled into his father's palm, while his little
+velvet cheek lay rich and russet against the pearly whiteness of
+his mother's arm.
+
+"I believe he is like you, George," she murmured, with a wealth of
+love in her voice and eyes.
+
+"Yes," smiled the young chief, "he certainly has Mansion blood; but
+your eyes, Lydia, your dear eyes."
+
+"Which eyes must go to sleep and rest," interrupted the physician,
+severely. "Come, Chief, you've seen your son, you've satisfied
+yourself that Mrs. Mansion is doing splendidly, so away you go,
+or I shall scold."
+
+And George slipped down the staircase, and out into the radiant
+July sunshine, where his beloved trees arose about him, grand and
+majestic, seeming to understand how full of joy, of exultation,
+had been this great new day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The whims of women are proverbial, but the whims of men are things
+never to be accounted for. This beautiful child was but a few weeks
+old when Mr. Bestman wrote, announcing to his daughter his
+intention of visiting her for a few days.
+
+So he came to the Indian Reserve, to the handsome country home his
+Indian son-in-law had built. He was amazed, surprised, delighted.
+His English heart revelled in the trees. "Like an Old Country
+gentleman's estate in the Counties," he declared. He kissed his
+daughter with affection, wrung his son-in-law's hand with a warmth
+and cordiality unmistakable in its sincerity, took the baby in his
+arms and said over and over, "Oh, you sweet little child! You sweet
+little child!" Then the darkness of all those harsh years fell away
+from Lydia. She could afford to be magnanimous, so with a sweet
+silence, a loving forgetfulness of all the dead miseries and bygone
+whip-lashes, she accepted her strange parent just as he presented
+himself, in the guise of a man whom the years had changed from
+harshness to tenderness, and let herself thoroughly enjoy his
+visit.
+
+But when he drove away she had but one thing to say; it was,
+"George, I wonder when _your_ father will come to us, when your
+_mother_ will come. Oh, I want her to see the baby, for I think my
+own mother sees him."
+
+"Some day, dear," he answered hopefully. "They will come some day;
+and when they do, be sure it will be to take you to their hearts."
+
+She sighed and shook her head unbelievingly. But the "some day"
+that he prophesied, but which she doubted, came in a manner all too
+soon--all too unwelcome. The little son had just begun to walk
+about nicely, when George Mansion was laid low with a lingering
+fever that he had contracted among the marshes where much of his
+business as an employee of the Government took him. Evils had begun
+to creep into his forest world. The black and subtle evil of the
+white man's firewater had commenced to touch with its poisonous
+finger the lives and lodges of his beloved people. The curse began
+to spread, until it grew into a menace to the community. It was the
+same old story: the white man had come with the Bible in one hand,
+the bottle in the other. George Mansion had striven side by side
+with Mr. Evans to overcome the dread scourge. Together they fought
+the enemy hand to hand, but it gained ground in spite of all their
+efforts. The entire plan of the white liquor dealer's campaign was
+simply an effort to exchange a quart of bad whiskey for a cord of
+first-class firewood, or timber, which could be hauled off the
+Indian Reserve and sold in the nearby town markets for five or
+six dollars; thus a hundred dollars worth of bad whiskey, if
+judiciously traded, would net the white dealer a thousand dollars
+cash. And the traffic went on, to the depletion of the Indian
+forests and the degradation of the Indian souls.
+
+Then the Canadian Government appointed young Mansion special forest
+warden, gave him a "V. R." hammer, with which he was to stamp
+each and every stick of timber he could catch being hauled off
+the Reserve by white men; licensed him to carry firearms for
+self-protection, and told him to "go ahead." He "went ahead." Night
+after night he lay, concealing himself in the marshes, the forests,
+the trails, the concession lines, the river road, the Queen's
+highway, seizing all the timber he could, destroying all the
+whisky, turning the white liquor traders off Indian lands, and
+fighting as only a young, earnest and inspired man can fight. These
+hours and conditions began to tell on his physique. The marshes
+breathed their miasma into his blood--the dreaded fever had him in
+its claws. Lydia was a born nurse. She knew little of thermometers,
+of charts, of technical terms, but her ability and instincts in the
+sick-room were unerring; and, when her husband succumbed to a
+raging fever, love lent her hands an inspiration and her brain a
+clarity that would have shamed many a professional nurse.
+
+For hours, days, weeks, she waited, tended, watched, administered,
+labored and loved beside the sick man's bed. She neither slept nor
+ate enough to carry her through the ordeal, but love lent her
+strength, and she battled and fought for his life as only an
+adoring woman can. Her wonderful devotion was the common talk of
+the country. She saw no one save Mr. Evans and the doctors. She
+never left the sick-room save when her baby needed her. But it all
+seemed so useless, so in vain, when one dark morning the doctor
+said, "We had better send for his father and mother."
+
+Poor Lydia! Her heart was nearly breaking. She hurriedly told the
+doctor the cause that had kept them away so long, adding, "Is it so
+bad as that? Oh, doctor, _must I send for them_? They don't want to
+come." Before the good man could reply, there was a muffled knock
+at the door. Then Milly's old wrinkled face peered in, and Milly's
+voice said whisperingly, "His people--they here."
+
+"Whose people? Who are here?" almost gasped Lydia.
+
+"His father and his mother," answered the old woman. "They
+downstairs."
+
+For a brief moment there was silence. Lydia could not trust herself
+to speak, but ill as he was, George's quick Indian ear had caught
+Milly's words. He murmured, "Mother! mother! Oh, my mother!"
+
+"Bring her, quickly, _quickly_!" said Lydia to the doctor.
+
+It seemed to the careworn girl that a lifetime followed before the
+door opened noiselessly, and there entered a slender little old
+Indian woman, in beaded leggings, moccasins, "short skirt," and a
+blue "broadcloth" folded about her shoulders. She glanced swiftly
+at the bed, but with the heroism of her race went first towards
+Lydia, laid her cheek silently beside the white girl's, then looked
+directly into her eyes.
+
+"Lydia!" whispered George, "Lydia!" At the word both women moved
+swiftly to his side. "Lydia," he repeated, "my mother cannot speak
+the English, but her cheek to yours means that you are her blood
+relation."
+
+The effort of speech almost cost him a swoon, but his mother's
+cheek was now against his own, and the sweet, dulcet Mohawk
+language of his boyhood returned to his tongue; he was speaking it
+to his mother, speaking it lovingly, rapidly. Yet, although Lydia
+never understood a word, she did not feel an outsider, for the old
+mother's hand held her own, and she knew that at last the gulf was
+bridged.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was two days later, when the doctor pronounced George Mansion
+out of danger, that the sick man said to his wife: "Lydia, it is
+all over--the pain, the estrangement. My mother says that you are
+her daughter. My father says that you are his child. They heard of
+your love, your nursing, your sweetness. They want to know if you
+will call them 'father, mother.' They love you, for you are one of
+their own."
+
+"At last, at last!" half sobbed the weary girl. "Oh, George, I am
+so happy! _You_ are going to get well, and _they_ have come to us
+at last."
+
+"Yes, dear," he replied. Then with a half humorous yet wholly
+pathetic smile flitting across his wan face, he added, "And my
+mother has a little gift for you." He nodded then towards the
+quaint old figure at the further side of the bed. His mother arose,
+and, drawing from her bosom a tiny, russet-colored object, laid it
+in Lydia's hand. It was a little moccasin, just three and a quarter
+inches in length. "Its mate is lost," added the sick man, "but I
+wore it as a baby. My mother says it is yours, and should have been
+yours all these years."
+
+For a second the two women faced each other, then Lydia sat down
+abruptly on the bedside, her arms slipped about the older woman's
+shoulders, and her face dropped quickly, heavily--at last on a
+mother's breast.
+
+George Mansion sighed in absolute happiness, then closed his eyes
+and slept the great, strong, vitalizing sleep of reviving forces.
+
+
+PART IV.
+
+How closely the years chased one another after this! But many a
+happy day within each year found Lydia and her husband's mother
+sitting together, hour upon hour, needle in hand, sewing and
+harmonizing--the best friends in all the world. It mattered not
+that "mother" could not speak one word of English, or that Lydia
+never mastered but a half dozen words of Mohawk. These two were
+friends in the sweetest sense of the word, and their lives swept
+forward in a unison of sympathy that was dear to the heart of the
+man who held them as the two most precious beings in all the world.
+
+And with the years came new duties, new responsibilities, new
+little babies to love and care for until a family, usually called
+"A King's Desire," gathered at their hearthside--four children, the
+eldest a boy, the second a girl, then another boy, then another
+girl. These children were reared on the strictest lines of both
+Indian and English principles. They were taught the legends, the
+traditions, the culture and the etiquette of both races to which
+they belonged; but above all, their mother instilled into them from
+the very cradle that they were of their father's people, not of
+hers. Her marriage had made her an Indian by the laws which govern
+Canada, as well as by the sympathies and yearnings and affections
+of her own heart. When she married George Mansion she had repeated
+to him the centuries-old vow of allegiance, "Thy people shall be my
+people, and thy God my God." She determined that should she ever be
+mother to his children, those children should be reared as Indians
+in spirit and patriotism, and in loyalty to their father's race as
+well as by heritage of blood. The laws of Canada held these children
+as Indians. They were wards of the Government; they were born on
+Indian lands, on Indian Reservations. They could own and hold
+Indian lands, and their mother, English though she was, made it her
+life service to inspire, foster and elaborate within these children
+the pride of the race, the value of that copper-tinted skin which
+they all displayed. When people spoke of blood and lineage and
+nationality, these children would say, "We are Indians," with the
+air with which a young Spanish don might say, "I am a Castilian."
+She wanted them to grow up nationalists, and they did, every
+mother's son and daughter of them. Things could never have been
+otherwise, for George Mansion and his wife had so much in common
+that their offspring could scarcely evince other than inherited
+parental traits. Their tastes and distastes were so synonymous; they
+hated hypocrisy, vulgarity, slovenliness, imitations.
+
+After forty years spent on a Canadian Indian Reserve, Lydia
+Mansion still wore real lace, real tortoise shell combs, real furs.
+If she could not have procured these she would have worn plain
+linen collars, no combs, and a woven woolen scarf about her throat;
+but the imitation fabrics, as well as the "imitation people," had
+no more part in her life than they had in her husband's, who
+abhorred all such pinchbeck. Their loves were identical. They loved
+nature--the trees, best of all, and the river, and the birds. They
+loved the Anglican Church, they loved the British flag, they loved
+Queen Victoria, they loved beautiful, dead Elizabeth Evans, they
+loved strange, reticent Mr. Evans. They loved music, pictures and
+dainty china, with which George Mansion filled his beautiful home.
+They loved books and animals, but, most of all, these two loved
+the Indian people, loved their legends, their habits, their
+customs--loved the people themselves. Small wonder, then, that
+their children should be born with pride of race and heritage, and
+should face the world with that peculiar, unconquerable courage
+that only a fighting ancestry can give.
+
+As the years drifted on, many distinctions came to the little family
+of the "Grand Mansions." The chief's ability as an orator, his
+fluency of speech, his ceaseless war against the inroads of the
+border white men and their lawlessness among his own people--all
+gradually but surely brought him, inch by inch, before the notice
+of those who sat in the "seats of the mighty" of both church and
+state. His presence was frequently demanded at Ottawa, fighting for
+the cause of his people before the House of Commons, the Senate,
+and the Governor-General himself. At such times he would always
+wear his native buckskin costume, and his amazing rhetoric,
+augmented by the gorgeous trappings of his office and his
+inimitable courtesy of manner, won him friends and followers among
+the lawmakers of the land. He never fought for a cause and lost
+it, never returned to Lydia and his people except in a triumph
+of victory. Social honors came to him as well as political
+distinctions. Once, soon after his marriage, a special review of
+the British troops quartered at Toronto was called in his honor
+and he rode beside the general, making a brilliant picture, clad as
+he was in buckskins and scarlet blanket and astride his pet black
+pony, as he received the salutes of company after company of
+England's picked soldiers as they wheeled past. And when King
+Edward of England visited Canada as Prince of Wales, he fastened
+with his own royal hands a heavy silver medal to the buckskin
+covering George Mansion's breast, and the royal words were very
+sincere as they fell from the prince's lips: "This medal is for
+recognition of your loyalty in battling for your own people, even
+as your ancestors battled for the British Crown." Then in later
+years, when Prince Arthur of Connaught accepted the title of
+"Chief," conferred upon him with elaborate ceremony by the
+chiefs, braves and warriors of the great Iroquois Council, it
+was George Mansion who was chosen as special escort to the royal
+visitor--George Mansion and his ancient and honored father, who,
+hand-in-hand with the young prince, walked to and fro, chanting the
+impressive ritual of bestowing the title. Even Bismarck, the "Iron
+Chancellor" of Germany, heard of this young Indian warring for the
+welfare of his race, and sent a few kindly words, with his own
+photograph, from across seas to encourage the one who was fighting,
+single-handed, the menace of white man's greed and white man's
+firewater.
+
+And Lydia, with her glad and still girlish heart, gloried in her
+husband's achievements and in the recognition accorded him by the
+great world beyond the Indian Reserve, beyond the wilderness,
+beyond the threshold of their own home. In only one thing were
+their lives at all separated. She took no part in his public life.
+She hated the glare of the fierce light that beat upon prominent
+lives, the unrest of fame, the disquiet of public careers.
+
+"No," she would answer, when oftentimes he begged her to accompany
+him and share his success and honors, "no, I was homeless so long
+that 'home' is now my ambition. My babies need me here, and you
+need me here when you return, far more than you need me on platform
+or parade. Go forth and fight the enemy, storm the battlements and
+win the laurels, but let me keep the garrison--here at home, with
+our babies all about me and a welcome to our warrior husband and
+father when he returns from war."
+
+Then he would laugh and coax again, but always with the same
+result. Every day, whether he went forth to the Indian Council
+across the river, or when more urgent duties called him to the
+Capital, she always stood at the highest window waving her
+handkerchief until he was out of sight, and that dainty flag lent
+strength to his purpose and courage to his heart, for he knew the
+home citadel was there awaiting his return--knew that she would be
+at that selfsame window, their children clustered about her skirts,
+her welcoming hands waving a greeting instead of a good-bye, as
+soon as he faced the home portals once more, and in his heart of
+hearts George Mansion felt that his wife had chosen the wiser,
+greater part; that their children would some day arise and call her
+blessed because she refused to wing away from the home nest, even
+if by so doing she left him to take his flights alone.
+
+But in all their world there was no one prouder of his laurels
+and successes than his home-loving, little English wife, and the
+mother-heart of her must be forgiven for welcoming each new honor
+as a so much greater heritage for their children. Each distinction
+won by her husband only established a higher standard for their
+children to live up to. She prayed and hoped and prayed again that
+they would all be worthy such a father, that they would never fall
+short of his excellence. To this end she taught, labored for,
+and loved them, and they, in turn, child-wise, responded to her
+teaching, imitating her allegiance to their father, reflecting her
+fealty, and duplicating her actions. So she molded these little
+ones with the mother-hand that they felt through all their after
+lives, which were but images of her own in all that concerned their
+father.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first great shadow that fell on this united little circle was
+when George Mansion's mother quietly folded her "broadcloth" about
+her shoulders for the last time, when the little old tobacco pipe
+lay unfilled and unlighted, when the finely-beaded moccasins were
+empty of the dear feet that had wandered so gently, so silently
+into the Happy Hunting Grounds. George Mansion was bowed with woe.
+His mother had been to him the queen of all women, and her death
+left a desolation in his heart that even his wife could not assuage.
+It was a grief he really never overcame. Fortunately his mother had
+grown so attached to Lydia that his one disobedience--that of his
+marriage--never reproached him. Had the gentle little old Indian
+woman died before the episode of the moccasin which brought complete
+reconciliation, it is doubtful if her son would ever have been quite
+the same again. As it was, with the silence and stoicism of his race
+he buried his grief in his own heart, without allowing it to cast a
+gloom over his immediate household.
+
+But after that the ancient chief, his father, came more frequently
+to George's home, and was always an honored guest. The children
+loved him, Lydia had the greatest respect and affection for him,
+the greatest sympathy for his loneliness, and she ever made him
+welcome and her constant companion when he visited them. He used
+to talk to her much of George, and once or twice gave her grave
+warnings as to his recklessness and lack of caution in dealing with
+the ever-growing menace of the whisky traffic among the Indians.
+The white men who supplied and traded this liquor were desperadoes,
+a lawless set of ruffians who for some time had determined to rid
+their stamping-ground of George Mansion, as he was the chief
+opponent to their business, and with the way well cleared of him
+and his unceasing resistance, their scoundrelly trade would be an
+easy matter.
+
+"Use all your influence, Lydia," the old father would say, "to urge
+him never to seize the ill-gotten timber or destroy their whisky,
+unless he has other Indian wardens with him. They'll kill him if
+they can, those white men. They have been heard to threaten."
+
+For some time this very thing had been crowding its truth about his
+wife's daily life. Threatening and anonymous letters had more than
+once been received by her husband--letters that said he would be
+"put out of the way" unless he stopped interfering in the liquor
+trade. There was no ignoring the fact that danger was growing
+daily, that the fervent young chief was allowing his zeal to
+overcome his caution, was hazarding his life for the protection of
+his people against a crying evil. Once a writer of these unsigned
+letters threatened to burn his house down in the dead of night,
+another to maim his horses and cattle, others to "do away" with
+him. His crusade was being waged under the weight of a cross that
+was beginning to fall on his loyal wife, and to overshadow his
+children. Then one night the blow fell. Blind with blood, crushed
+and broken, he staggered and reeled home, unaided, unassisted,
+and in excruciating torture. Nine white men had attacked him from
+behind in a border village a mile from his home, where he had gone
+to intercept a load of whisky that was being hauled into the Indian
+Reserve. Eight of those lawbreakers circled about him, while the
+ninth struck him from behind with a leaden plumb attached to an
+elastic throw-string. The deadly thing crushed in his skull; he
+dropped where he stood, as if shot. Then brutal boots kicked his
+face, his head, his back, and, with curses, his assailants left
+him--for dead.
+
+With a vitality born of generations of warriors, he regained
+consciousness, staggered the mile to his own gate, where he met a
+friend, who, with extreme concern, began to assist him into his
+home. But he refused the helping arm with, "No, I go alone; it
+would alarm Lydia if I could not walk alone." These, with the
+few words he spoke as he entered the kitchen, where his wife
+was overseeing old Milly get the evening meal, were the last
+intelligent words he spoke for many a day.
+
+"Lydia, they've hurt me at last," he said, gently.
+
+She turned at the sound of his strained voice. A thousand emotions
+overwhelmed her at the terrifying sight before her. Love, fear,
+horror, all broke forth from her lips in a sharp, hysterical cry,
+but above this cry sounded the gay laughter of the children who
+were playing in the next room, their shrill young voices raised in
+merriment over some new sport. In a second the mother-heart asserted
+itself. Their young eyes must not see this ghastly thing.
+
+"Milly!" she cried to the devoted Indian servant, "help Chief
+George." Then dashing into the next room, she half sobbed,
+"Children, children! hush, oh, hush! Poor father--"
+
+She never finished the sentence. With a turn of her arm she swept
+them all into the drawing-room, closed the door, and flew back to
+her patriot husband.
+
+For weeks and weeks he lay fighting death as only a determined
+man can--his upper jaw broken on both sides, his lower jaw
+splintered on one side, his skull so crushed that to the end
+of his days a silver dollar could quite easily be laid flat in
+the cavity, a jagged and deep hole in his back, and injuries
+about the knees and leg bones. And all these weeks Lydia hovered
+above his pillow, night and day, nursing, tending, helping,
+cheering. What effort it cost her to be bright and smiling no
+tongue can tell, for her woman's heart saw that this was but the
+beginning of the end. She saw it when in his delirium he raved to
+get better, to be allowed to get up and go on with the fight; saw
+that his spirit never rested, for fear that, now he was temporarily
+inactive, the whisky dealers would have their way. She knew then
+that she must school herself to endure this thing again; that she
+must never ask him to give up his life work, never be less
+courageous than he, tough that courage would mean never a peaceful
+moment to her when he was outside their own home.
+
+Mr. Evans was a great comfort to her during those terrible weeks.
+Hour after hour he would sit beside the injured man, never speaking
+or moving, only watching quietly, while Lydia barely snatched the
+necessary sleep a nurse must have, or attended to the essential
+needs of the children, who, however, were jealously cared for by
+faithful Milly. During those times the children never spoke except
+in whispers, their rigid Indian-English training in self-effacement
+and obedience being now of untold value.
+
+But love and nursing and bravery all counted in the end, and one
+day George Mansion walked downstairs, the doctor's arm on one side,
+Lydia's on the other. He immediately asked for his pistol and his
+dagger, cleaned the one, oiled and sharpened the other, and said,
+"I'll be ready for them again in a month's time."
+
+But while he lay injured his influential white friends and the
+Government at Ottawa had not been idle. The lawless creature who
+dealt those unmerited blows was tried, convicted and sent to
+Kingston Penitentiary for seven years. So one enemy was out of the
+way for the time being. It was at this time that advancing success
+lost him another antagonist, who was placed almost in the rank of
+an ally.
+
+George Mansion was a guest of the bishop of his diocese, as he was
+a lay delegate accompanying Mr. Evans to the Anglican Synod. The
+chief's work had reached other ears than those of the Government at
+Ottawa, and the bishop was making much of the patriot, when in the
+See House itself an old clergyman approached him with outstretched
+hand and the words, "I would like you to call bygones just
+bygones."
+
+"I don't believe I have the honor of knowing you, sir," replied the
+Indian, with a puzzled but gracious look.
+
+"I am your wife's brother-in-law," said the old clergyman, "the man
+who would not allow her to be married from my house--that is,
+married to _you_."
+
+The Indian bit his lip and instinctively stepped backward. Added
+to his ancestral creed of never forgiving such injury, came a rush
+of memory--the backward-surging picture of his homeless little
+sweetheart and all that she had endured. Then came the memory of
+his dead mother's teaching--teaching she had learned from her own
+mother, and she in turn from her mother: "Always forget yourself
+for _old_ people, always honor the _old_."
+
+Instantly George Mansion arose--arose above the prejudices of his
+blood, above the traditions of his race, arose to the highest
+plane a man can reach--the memory of his mother's teaching.
+
+"I would hardly be here as a lay delegate of my church were I not
+willing to let bygones be bygones," he said, simply, and laid his
+hand in that of the old clergyman, about whose eyes there was
+moisture, perhaps because this opportunity for peacemaking had
+come so tardily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The little family of "Grand Mansions" were now growing to very "big
+childhood," and the inevitable day came when Lydia's heart must bear
+the wrench of having her firstborn say good-bye to take his college
+course. She was not the type of mother who would keep the boy at
+home because of the heartache the good-byes must bring, but the
+parting was certainly a hard one, and she watched his going with a
+sense of loss that was almost greater than her pride in him. He had
+given evidence of the most remarkable musical talent. He played
+classical airs even before he knew a note, and both his parents
+were in determined unison about this talent being cultivated. The
+following year the oldest daughter also entered college, having
+had a governess at home for a year, as some preparation. But these
+changes brought no difference into the home, save that George
+Mansion's arm grew stronger daily in combat against the old foe.
+Then came the second attack of the enemy, when six white men beset
+him from behind, again knocking him insensible, with a heavy blue
+beech hand-spike. They broke his hand and three ribs, knocked out
+his teeth, injured his side and head; then seizing his pistol, shot
+at him, the ball fortunately not reaching a vital spot. As his
+senses swam he felt them drag his poor maimed body into the middle
+of the road, so it would appear as if horses had trampled him, then
+he heard them say, "_This_ time the devil is dead." But hours
+afterwards he again arose, again walked home, five interminable
+miles, again greeted his ever watchful and anxious wife with,
+"Lydia, they've hurt me once more." Then came weeks of renewed
+suffering, of renewed care and nursing, of renewed vitality, and
+at last of conquered health.
+
+These two terrible illnesses seemed to raise Lydia into a peculiar,
+half-protecting attitude towards him. In many ways she "mothered"
+him almost as though he were her son--he who had always been the
+leader, and so strong and self-reliant. After this, when he went
+forth on his crusades, she watched his going with the haunting fear
+with which one would watch a child wandering on the edge of a
+chasm. She waited on him when he returned, served him with the
+tenderness with which one serves a cripple or a baby. Once he caught
+her arm, as she carried to him a cup of broth, after he had spent
+wearisome hours at the same old battle, and turning towards her,
+said softly: "You are like my mother used to be to me." She did not
+ask him in what way--she knew--and carried broth to him when next
+he came home half exhausted. Gradually he now gathered about him
+a little force of zealous Indians who became enthusiastic to take
+up arms with him against the whisky dealers. He took greater
+precautions in his work, for the growing mist of haunting anxiety
+in Lydia's eyes began to call to him that there were other claims
+than those of the nation. His splendid zeal had brought her many
+a sleepless night, when she knew he was scouring the forests for
+hidden supplies of the forbidden merchandise, and that a whole army
+of desperadoes would not deter him from fulfilling his duty of
+destroying it. He felt, rather than saw, that she never bade him
+good-bye but that she was prepared not to see him again alive.
+Added to this he began to suffer as she did--to find that in his
+good-byes was the fear of never seeing her again. He, who had
+always been so fearless, was now afraid of the day when he should
+not return and she would be once more alone.
+
+So he let his younger and eager followers do some of the battling,
+though he never relaxed his vigilance, never took off his armor, so
+to speak. But now he spent long days and quiet nights with Lydia
+and his children. They entertained many guests, for the young people
+were vigorous and laughter-loving, and George and Lydia never grew
+old, never grew weary, never grew commonplace. All the year round
+guests came to the hospitable country house--men and women of
+culture, of learning, of artistic tastes, of congenial habits.
+Scientists, authors, artists, all made their pilgrimages to this
+unique household, where refinement and much luxury, and always a
+glad welcome from the chief and his English wife, made their visits
+long remembered. And in some way or other, as their children grew
+up, those two seemed to come closer together once more. They walked
+among the trees they had once loved in those first bridal days,
+they rested by the river shore, they wandered over the broad meadows
+and bypaths of the old estate, they laughed together frequently like
+children, and always and ever talked of and acted for the good of
+the Indian people who were so unquestionably the greatest interest
+in their lives, outside their own children. But one day, when the
+beautiful estate he was always so proud of was getting ready to
+smile under the suns of spring, he left her just when she needed
+him most, for their boys had plunged forward into the world of
+business in the large cities, and she wanted a strong arm to lean
+on. It was the only time he failed to respond to her devoted
+nursing, but now she could not bring him back from the river's
+brink, as she had so often done before. Cold had settled in all the
+broken places of his poor body, and he slipped away from her, a
+sacrifice to his fight against evil on the altar of his nation's
+good. In his feverish wanderings he returned to the tongue of his
+childhood, the beautiful, dulcet Mohawk. Then recollecting and
+commanding himself, he would weakly apologize to Lydia with: "I
+forgot; I thought it was my mother," and almost his last words were,
+"It must be by my mother's side," meaning his resting-place. So his
+valiant spirit went fearlessly forth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Do you ever think, dear," said Lydia to her youngest child, some
+years later, "that you are writing the poetry that always lived in
+an unexpressed state here in my breast?"
+
+"No, Marmee," answered the girl, who was beginning to mount the
+ladder of literature, "I never knew you wanted to _write_ poetry,
+although I knew you loved it."
+
+"Indeed, I did," answered the mother, "but I never could find
+expression for it. I was made just to sing, I often think, but I
+never had the courage to sing in public. But I did want to write
+poetry, and now you, dear, are doing it for me. How proud your
+father would have been of you!"
+
+"Oh, he knows! I'm sure he knows all that I have written," answered
+the girl, with the sublime faith that youth has in its own
+convictions. "And if you like my verses, Marmee, I am sure he does,
+for he knows."
+
+"Perhaps," murmured the older woman. "I often feel that he is very
+near to us. I never have felt that he is really gone very far away
+from me."
+
+"Poor little Marmee!" the girl would say to herself. "She misses him
+yet. I believe she will always miss him."
+
+Which was the truth. She saw constantly his likeness in all her
+children, bits of his character, shades of his disposition,
+reflections of his gifts and talents, hints of his bravery, and she
+always spoke of these with a commending air, as though they were
+characteristics to be cultivated, to be valued and fostered.
+
+At first her fear of leaving her children, even to join him, was
+evident, she so believed in a mother's care and love being a
+necessity to a child. She had sadly missed it all out of her own
+strange life, and she felt she _must_ live until this youngest
+daughter grew to be a woman. Perhaps this desire, this mother-love,
+kept her longer beside her children than she would have stayed
+without it, for the years rolled on, and her hair whitened, her
+once springing step halted a little, the glorious blue of her
+English eyes grew very dreamy, and tender, and wistful. Was she
+seeing the great Hereafter unfold itself before her as her steps
+drew nearer and nearer?
+
+And one night the Great Messenger knocked softly at her door,
+and with a sweet, gentle sigh she turned and followed where he
+led--joining gladly the father of her children in the land that
+holds both whites and Indians as one.
+
+And the daughter who writes the verses her mother always felt, but
+found no words to express, never puts a last line to a story, or a
+sweet cadence into a poem, but she says to herself as she holds her
+mother's memory within her heart:
+
+"She knows--she knows."
+
+
+
+Catharine of the "Crow's Nest"
+
+
+The great transcontinental railway had been in running order for
+years before the managers thereof decided to build a second line
+across the Rocky Mountains. But "passes" are few and far between
+in those gigantic fastnesses, and the fearless explorers, followed
+by the equally fearless surveyors, were many a toilsome month
+conquering the heights, depths and dangers of the "Crow's Nest
+Pass."
+
+Eastward stretched the gloriously fertile plains of southern
+"Sunny Alberta," westward lay the limpid blue of the vast and
+indescribably beautiful Kootenay Lakes, but between these two
+arose a barrier of miles and miles of granite and stone and rock,
+over and through which a railway must be constructed. Tunnels,
+bridges, grades must be bored, built and blasted out. It was the
+work of science, endurance and indomitable courage. The summers
+in the canyons were seething hot, the winters in the mountains
+perishingly cold, with apparently inexhaustible snow clouds
+circling forever about the rugged peaks--snows in which many a
+good, honest laborer was lost until the eagles and vultures came
+with the April thaws, and wheeled slowly above the pulseless
+sleeper, if indeed the wolves and mountain lions had permitted him
+to lie thus long unmolested. Those were rough and rugged days,
+through which equally rough and rugged men served and suffered to
+find foundations whereon to lay those two threads of steel that now
+cling like a cobweb to the walls of the wonderful "gap" known as
+Crow's Nest Pass.
+
+Work progressed steadily, and before winter set in construction
+camps were built far into "the gap," the furthermost one being close
+to the base of a majestic mountain, which was also named "The
+Crow's Nest." It arose beyond the camp with almost overwhelming
+immensity. Dense forests of Douglas fir and bull pines shouldered
+their way up one-third of its height, but above the timber line
+the shaggy, bald rock reared itself thousands of feet skyward,
+desolate, austere and deserted by all living things; not even the
+sure-footed mountain goat travelled up those frowning, precipitous
+heights; no bird rested its wing in that frozen altitude. The
+mountain arose, distinct, alone, isolated, the most imperial
+monarch of all that regal Pass.
+
+The construction gang called it "Old Baldy," for after working some
+months around its base, it began to grow into their lives. Not so,
+however, with the head engineer from Montreal, who regarded it
+always with baleful eye, and half laughingly, half seriously,
+called it his "Jonah."
+
+"Not a thing has gone right since we worked in sight of that old
+monster," he was heard to say frequently; and it did seem as if
+there were some truth in it. There had been deaths, accidents and
+illness among the men. Once, owing to transportation difficulties,
+the rations were short for days, and the men were in rebellious
+spirit in consequence. Twice whiskey had been smuggled in, to the
+utter demoralization of the camp; and one morning, as a last straw,
+"Cookee" had nearly severed his left hand from his arm with a meat
+axe. Young Wingate, the head engineer, and Mr. Brown, the foreman,
+took counsel together. For the three meals of that day they tried
+three different men out of the gang as "cookees." No one could eat
+the atrocious food they manufactured. Then Brown bethought himself.
+"There's an Indian woman living up the canyon that can cook like
+a French chef," he announced, after a day of unspeakable gnawing
+beneath his belt. "How about getting her? I've tasted pork and
+beans at her shack, and flapjacks, and--"
+
+"Get her! get her!" clamored Wingate. "Even if she poisons us, it's
+better than starving. I'll ride over to-night and offer her big
+wages."
+
+"How about her staying here?" asked Brown. "The boys are pretty
+rough and lawless at times, you know."
+
+"Get the axe men to build her a good, roomy shack--the best logs in
+the place. We'll give her a lock and key for it, and you, Brown,
+report the very first incivility to her that you hear of," said
+Wingate crisply.
+
+That evening Mr. Wingate himself rode over to the canyon; it was a
+good mile, and the trail was rough in the extreme. He did not
+dismount when he reached the lonely log lodge, but rapping on the
+door with the butt of his quirt, he awaited its opening. There was
+some slight stirring about inside before this occurred; then the
+door slowly opened, and she stood before him--a rather tall woman,
+clad in buckskin garments, with a rug made of coyote skins about
+her shoulders; she wore the beaded leggings and moccasins of her
+race, and her hair, jet black, hung in ragged plaits about her dark
+face, from which mournful eyes looked out at the young Montrealer.
+
+Yes, she would go for the wages he offered, she said in halting
+English; she would come to-morrow at daybreak; she would cook their
+breakfast.
+
+"Better come to-night," he urged. "The men get down the grade to
+work very early; breakfast must be on time."
+
+"I be on time," she replied. "I sleep here this night, every night.
+I not sleep in camp."
+
+Then he told her of the shack he had ordered and that was even now
+being built.
+
+She shook her head. "I sleep here every night," she reiterated.
+
+Wingate had met many Indians in his time, so dropped the subject,
+knowing full well that persuasion or argument would be utterly
+useless.
+
+"All right," he said; "you must do as you like; only remember, an
+early breakfast to-morrow."
+
+"I 'member," she replied.
+
+He had ridden some twenty yards, when he turned to call back: "Oh,
+what's your name, please?"
+
+"Catharine," she answered, simply.
+
+"Thank you," he said, and, touching his hat lightly, rode down
+towards the canyon. Just as he was dipping over its rim he looked
+back. She was still standing in the doorway, and above and about her
+were the purple shadows, the awful solitude, of Crow's Nest
+Mountain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Catharine had been cooking at the camp for weeks. The meals were
+good, the men respected her, and she went her way to and from her
+shack at the canyon as regularly as the world went around. The
+autumn slipped by, and the nipping frosts of early winter and the
+depths of early snows were already daily occurrences. The big group
+of solid log shacks that formed the construction camp were all made
+weather-tight against the long mountain winter. Trails were
+beginning to be blocked, streams to freeze, and "Old Baldy,"
+already wore a canopy of snow that reached down to the timber line.
+
+"Catharine," spoke young Wingate, one morning, when the clouds hung
+low and a soft snow fell, packing heavily on the selfsame snows of
+the previous night, "you had better make up your mind to occupy the
+shack here. You won't be able to go to your home much longer now
+at night; it gets dark so early, and the snows are too heavy."
+
+"I go home at night," she repeated.
+
+"But you can't all winter," he exclaimed. "If there was one single
+horse we could spare from the grade work, I'd see you got it for
+your journeys, but there isn't. We're terribly short now; every
+animal in the Pass is overworked as it is. You'd better not try
+going home any more."
+
+"I go home at night," she repeated.
+
+Wingate frowned impatiently; then in afterthought he smiled. "All
+right, Catharine," he said, "but I warn you. You'll have a
+search-party out after you some dark morning, and you know it won't
+be pleasant to be lost in the snows up that canyon."
+
+"But I go home, night-time," she persisted, and that ended the
+controversy.
+
+But the catastrophe he predicted was inevitable. Morning after
+morning he would open the door of the shack he occupied with the
+other officials, and, looking up the white wastes through the
+gray-blue dawn, he would watch the distances with an anxiety that
+meant more than a consideration for his breakfast. The woman
+interested him. She was so silent, so capable, so stubborn. What
+was behind all this strength of character? What had given that
+depth of mournfulness to her eyes? Often he had surprised her
+watching him, with an odd longing in her face; it was something of
+the expression he could remember his mother wore when she looked
+at him long, long ago. It was a vague, haunting look that always
+brought back the one great tragedy of his life--a tragedy he was
+even now working night and day at his chosen profession to obliterate
+from his memory, lest he should be forever unmanned--forever a prey
+to melancholy.
+
+He was still a young man, but when little more than a boy he had
+married, and for two years was transcendently happy. Then came the
+cry of "Kootenay Gold" ringing throughout Canada--of the untold
+wealth of Kootenay mines. Like thousands of others he followed the
+beckoning of that yellow finger, taking his young wife and baby
+daughter West with him. The little town of Nelson, crouching on its
+beautiful hills, its feet laved by the waters of Kootenay Lake, was
+then in its first robust, active infancy. Here he settled, going
+out alone on long prospecting expeditions; sometimes he was away a
+week, sometimes a month, with the lure of the gold forever in his
+veins, but the laughter of his child, the love of his wife, forever
+in his heart. Then--the day of that awful home-coming! For three
+weeks the fascination of searching for the golden pay-streak had
+held him in the mountains. No one could find him when it happened,
+and now all they could tell him was the story of an upturned canoe
+found drifting on the lake, of a woman's light summer shawl caught
+in the thwarts, of a child's little silken bonnet washed ashore.
+[Fact.] The great-hearted men of the West had done their utmost
+in the search that followed. Miners, missionaries, prospectors,
+Indians, settlers, gamblers, outlaws, had one and all turned out,
+for they liked young Wingate, and they adored his loving wife and
+dainty child. But the search was useless. The wild shores of
+Kootenay Lake alone held the secret of their resting-place.
+
+Young Wingate faced the East once more. There was but one thing
+to do with his life--work, _work_, WORK; and the harder, the more
+difficult, that work, the better. It was this very difficulty that
+made the engineering on the Crow's Nest Pass so attractive to him.
+So here he was building grades, blasting tunnels, with Catharine's
+mournful eyes following him daily, as if she divined something of
+that long-ago sorrow that had shadowed his almost boyish life.
+
+He liked the woman, and his liking quickened his eye to her
+hardships, his ear to the hint of lagging weariness in her footsteps;
+so he was the first to notice it the morning she stumped into the
+cook-house, her feet bound up in furs, her face drawn in agony.
+
+"Catharine," he exclaimed, "your feet have been frozen!"
+
+She looked like a culprit, but answered: "Not much; I get lose in
+storm las' night."
+
+"I thought this would happen," he said, indignantly. "After this
+you sleep here."
+
+"I sleep home." she said, doggedly.
+
+"I won't have it," he declared. "I'll cook for the men myself
+first."
+
+"Allight," she replied. "You cookee; I go home--me."
+
+That night there was a terrible storm. The wind howled down the
+throat of the Pass, and the snow fell like bales of sheep's wool,
+blanketing the trails and drifting into the railroad cuts until
+they attained their original level. But after she had cooked supper
+Catharine started for home as usual. The only unusual thing about
+it was that the next morning she did not return. It was Sunday, the
+men's day "off." Wingate ate no breakfast, but after swallowing
+some strong tea he turned to the foreman. "Mr. Brown, will you come
+with me to try and hunt up Catharine?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, if we can get beyond the door," assented Brown. "But I doubt
+if we can make the canyon, sir."
+
+"We'll have a try at it, anyway," said the young engineer. "I
+almost doubt myself if she made it last night."
+
+"She's a stubborn woman," commented Brown.
+
+"And has her own reasons for it, I suppose," replied Wingate. "But
+that has nothing to do with her being lost or frozen. If something
+had not happened I'm sure she would have come to-day, notwithstanding
+I scolded her yesterday, and told her I'd rather cook myself than let
+her run such risks. How will we go, Mr. Brown; horses or snowshoes?"
+
+"Shoes," said the foreman decidedly. "That snow'll be above the
+middle of the biggest horse in the outfit."
+
+So they set forth on their tramp up the slopes, peering right and
+left as they went for any indication of the absent woman. Wingate's
+old grief was knocking at his heart once more. A woman lost in the
+appalling vastness of this great Western land was entering into
+his life again. It took them a full hour to go that mile, although
+both were experts on the shoes, but as they reached the rim of the
+canyon they were rewarded by seeing a thin blue streak of smoke
+curling up from her lodge "chimney." Wingate sat down in the snows
+weakly. The relief had unmanned him.
+
+"I didn't know how much I cared," he said, "until I knew she was
+safe. She looks at me as my mother used to; her eyes are like
+mother's, and I loved my mother."
+
+It was a simple, direct speech, but Brown caught its pathos.
+
+"She's a good woman," he blurted out, as they trudged along towards
+the shack. They knocked on the door. There was no reply. Then just
+as Wingate suggested forcing it in case she were ill and lying
+helpless within, a long, low call from the edge of the canyon
+startled them. They turned and had not followed the direction from
+which the sound came more than a few yards when they met her coming
+towards them on snowshoes; in her arms she bore a few faggots, and
+her face, though smileless, was very welcoming.
+
+She opened the door, bidding them enter. It was quite warm inside,
+and the air of simple comfort derived from crude benches, tables
+and shelves, assured them that she had not suffered. Near the fire
+was drawn a rough home-built couch, and on it lay in heaped
+disorder a pile of gray blankets. As the two men warmed their hands
+at the grateful blaze, the blankets stirred. Then a small hand
+crept out and a small arm tossed the covers a little aside.
+
+"_Catharine_," exclaimed Wingate, "have you a child here?"
+
+"Yes," she said simply.
+
+"How long is it that you have had it here?" he demanded.
+
+"Since before I work at your camp," she replied.
+
+"Whew!" said the foreman, "I now understand why she came home
+nights."
+
+"To think I never guessed it!" murmured Wingate. Then to Catharine:
+"Why didn't you bring it into camp and keep it there day and night
+with you, instead of taking these dangerous tramps night and
+morning?"
+
+"It is a girl child," she answered.
+
+"Well what of it?" he asked impatiently.
+
+"Your camp no place for girl child," she replied, looking directly
+at him. "Your men they rough, they get whisky sometimes. They
+fight. They speak bad words, what you call _swear_. I not want her
+hear that. I not want her see whisky man."
+
+"Oh, Brown!" said Wingate, turning to his companion. "What a
+reproach! What a reproach! Here our gang is--the vanguard of the
+highest civilization, but unfit for association with a little
+Indian child!"
+
+Brown stood speechless, although in his rough, honest mind he was
+going over a list of those very "swears" she objected to, but
+they were mentally directed at the whole outfit of his ruffianly
+construction gang. He was silently swearing at them for their own
+shortcomings in that very thing.
+
+The child on the couch stirred again. This time the firelight fell
+full across the little arm. Wingate stared at it, then his eyes
+widened. He looked at the woman, then back at the bare arm. It was
+the arm of a _white_ child.
+
+"Catharine, was your husband _white_?" he asked, in a voice that
+betrayed anxiety.
+
+"I got no husban'," she replied, somewhat defiantly.
+
+"Then--" he began, but his voice faltered.
+
+She came and stood between him and the couch.
+
+Something of the look of a she-panther came into her face, her
+figure, her attitude. Her eyes lost their mournfulness and blazed a
+black-red at him. Her whole body seemed ready to spring.
+
+"You not touch the girl child!" she half snarled. "I not let you
+touch her; she _mine_, though I have no husban'!"
+
+"I don't want to touch her, Catharine," he said gently, trying to
+pacify her. "Believe me, I don't want to touch her."
+
+The woman's whole being changed. A thousand mother-lights gleamed
+from her eyes, a thousand measures of mother-love stormed at her
+heart. She stepped close, very close to him and laid her small
+brown hand on his, then drawing him nearer to her said: "Yes you
+_do_ want to touch her; you not speak truth when you say 'no.' You
+_do_ want to touch her!" With a rapid movement she flung back the
+blankets, then slipping her bare arm about him she bent his form
+until he was looking straight into the child's face--a face the
+living miniature of his own! His eyes, his hair, his small kindly
+mouth, his fair, perfect skin. He staggered erect.
+
+"Catharine! what does it mean? What does it mean?" he cried
+hoarsely.
+
+"_Your child_--" she half questioned, half affirmed.
+
+"Mine? Mine?" he called, without human understanding in his voice.
+"Oh, Catharine! Where did you get her?"
+
+"The shores of Kootenay Lake," she answered.
+
+"Was--was--she _alone_?" he cried.
+
+The woman looked away, slowly shaking her head, and her voice was
+very gentle as she replied: "No, she alive a little, but _the
+other_, whose arms 'round her, she not alive; my people, the
+Kootenay Indians, and I--we--we bury that other."
+
+For a moment there was a speaking silence, the young Wingate, with
+the blessed realization that half his world had been saved for him,
+flung himself on his knees, and, with his arms locked about the
+little girl, was calling:
+
+"Margie! Margie! Papa's little Margie girl! Do you remember papa?
+Oh, Margie! Do you? Do you?"
+
+Something dawned in the child's eyes--something akin to a far-off
+memory. For a moment she looked wonderingly at him, then put her
+hand up to his forehead and gently pulled a lock of his fair hair
+that always curled there--an old trick of hers. Then she looked
+down at his vest pocket, slowly pulled out his watch and held it to
+her ear. The next minute her arms slipped round his neck.
+
+"Papa," she said, "papa been away from Margie a long time."
+
+Young Wingate was sobbing. He had not noticed that the big, rough
+foreman had gone out of the shack with tear-dimmed eyes, and had
+quietly closed the door behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was evening before Wingate got all the story from Catharine, for
+she was slow of speech, and found it hard to explain her feelings.
+But Brown, who had returned alone to the camp in the morning, now
+came back, packing an immense bundle of all the tinned delicacies
+he could find, which, truth to tell, were few. He knew some words
+in Kootenay, and led Catharine on to reveal the strange history
+that sounded like some tale from fairyland. It appeared that the
+reason Catharine did not attempt to go to the camp that morning was
+that Margie was not well, so she would not leave her, but in her
+heart of hearts she knew young Wingate would come searching to her
+lodge. She loved the child as only an Indian woman can love an
+adopted child. She longed for him to come when she found Margie
+was ill, yet dreaded that coming from the depths of her soul. She
+dreaded the hour he would see the child and take it away. For the
+moment she looked upon his face, the night he rode over to engage
+her to cook, months ago, she had known he was Margie's father. The
+little thing was the perfect mirror of him, and Catharine's strange
+wild heart rejoiced to find him, yet hid the child from him for
+very fear of losing it out of her own life.
+
+After finding it almost dead in its dead mother's arms on the
+shore, the Indians had given it to Catharine for the reason that
+she could speak some English. They were only a passing band of
+Kootenays, and as they journeyed on and on, week in and week out,
+they finally came to Crow's Nest Mountain. Here the child fell ill,
+so they built Catharine a log shack, and left her with plenty of
+food, sufficient to last until the railway gang had worked that
+far up the Pass, when more food would be available. When she had
+finished the strange history, Wingate looked at her long and
+lovingly.
+
+"Catharine," he said, "you were almost going to fight me once
+to-day. You stood between the couch and me like a panther. What
+changed you so that you led me to my baby girl yourself?"
+
+"I make one last fight to keep her," she said, haltingly. "She mine
+so long, I want her; I want her till I die. Then I think many
+times I see your face at camp. It look like sky when sun does not
+shine--all cloud, no smile, no laugh. I know you think of your baby
+then. Then I watch you many times. Then after while my heart is
+sick for you, like you are my own boy, like I am your own mother. I
+hate see no sun in your face. I think I not good mother to you; if
+I was good mother I would give you your child; make the sun come in
+your face. To-day I make last fight to keep the child. She's mine so
+long, I want her till I die. Then somet'ing in my heart say, 'He's
+like son to you, as if he your own boy; make him glad--happy. Oh,
+ver' glad! Be like his own mother. Find him his baby.'"
+
+"Bless the mother heart of her!" growled the big foreman, frowning
+to keep his face from twitching.
+
+It was twilight when they mounted the horses one of the men had
+brought up for them to ride home on, Wingate with his treasure-child
+hugged tightly in his arms. Words were powerless to thank the woman
+who had saved half his world for him. His voice choked when he
+tried, but she understood, and her woman's heart was very, very
+full.
+
+Just as they reached the rim of the canyon Wingate turned and
+looked back. His arms tightened about little Margie as his eyes
+rested on Catharine--as once before she was standing in the
+doorway, alone; alone, and above and about her were the purple
+shadows, the awful solitude of Crow's Nest Mountain.
+
+"Brown!" he called. "Hold on, Brown! I can't do it! I can't leave
+her like that!"
+
+He wheeled his horse about and, plunging back through the snow,
+rode again to her door. Her eyes radiated as she looked at him.
+Years had been wiped from his face since the morning. He was a
+laughing boy once more.
+
+"You are right," he said, "I cannot keep my little girl in that
+rough camp. You said it was no place for a girl child. You are
+right. I will send her into Calgary until my survey is over.
+Catharine, will you go with her, take care of her, nurse her,
+guard her for me? You said I was as your own son; will you be that
+good mother to me that you want to be? Will you do this for your
+white boy?"
+
+He had never seen her smile before. A moment ago her heart had been
+breaking, but now she knew with a great gladness that she was not
+only going to keep and care for Margie, but that this laughing boy
+would be as a son to her for all time. No wonder Catharine of the
+Crow's Nest smiled!
+
+
+
+A Red Girl's Reasoning
+
+
+"Be pretty good to her, Charlie, my boy, or she'll balk sure as
+shooting."
+
+That was what old Jimmy Robinson said to his brand new son-in-law,
+while they waited for the bride to reappear.
+
+"Oh! you bet, there's no danger of much else. I'll be good to her,
+help me Heaven," replied Charlie McDonald, brightly.
+
+"Yes, of course you will," answered the old man, "but don't you
+forget, there's a good big bit of her mother in her, and," closing
+his left eye significantly, "you don't understand these Indians as
+I do."
+
+"But I'm just as fond of them, Mr. Robinson," Charlie said
+assertively, "and I get on with them too, now, don't I?"
+
+"Yes, pretty well for a town boy; but when you have lived forty
+years among these people, as I have done; when you have had your
+wife as long as I have had mine--for there's no getting over it,
+Christine's disposition is as native as her mother's, every bit--and
+perhaps when you've owned for eighteen years a daughter as dutiful,
+as loving, as fearless, and, alas! as obstinate as that little piece
+you are stealing away from me to-day--I tell you, youngster, you'll
+know more than you know now. It is kindness for kindness, bullet for
+bullet, blood for blood. Remember, what you are, she will be," and
+the old Hudson Bay trader scrutinized Charlie McDonald's face like
+a detective.
+
+It was a happy, fair face, good to look at, with a certain ripple of
+dimples somewhere about the mouth, and eyes that laughed out the
+very sunniness of their owner's soul. There was not a severe nor yet
+a weak line anywhere. He was a well-meaning young fellow, happily
+dispositioned, and a great favorite with the tribe at Robinson's
+Post, whither he had gone in the service of the Department of
+Agriculture, to assist the local agent through the tedium of a long
+census-taking.
+
+As a boy he had had the Indian relic-hunting craze, as a youth
+he had studied Indian archaeology and folk-lore, as a man he
+consummated his predilections for Indianology, by loving, winning
+and marrying the quiet little daughter of the English trader, who
+himself had married a native woman twenty years ago. The country was
+all backwoods, and the Post miles and miles from even the semblance
+of civilization, and the lonely young Englishman's heart had gone
+out to the girl who, apart from speaking a very few words of
+English, was utterly uncivilized and uncultured, but had withal
+that marvellously innate refinement so universally possessed by the
+higher tribes of North American Indians.
+
+Like all her race, observant, intuitive, having a horror of
+ridicule, consequently quick at acquirement and teachable in
+mental and social habits, she had developed from absolute pagan
+indifference into a sweet, elderly Christian woman, whose broken
+English, quiet manner, and still handsome copper-colored face, were
+the joy of old Robinson's declining years.
+
+He had given their daughter Christine all the advantages of his own
+learning--which, if truthfully told, was not universal; but the girl
+had a fair common education, and the native adaptability to
+progress.
+
+She belonged to neither and still to both types of the cultured
+Indian. The solemn, silent, almost heavy manner of the one so
+commingled with the gesticulating Frenchiness and vivacity of the
+other, that one unfamiliar with native Canadian life would find it
+difficult to determine her nationality.
+
+She looked very pretty to Charles McDonald's loving eyes, as she
+reappeared in the doorway, holding her mother's hand and saying some
+happy words of farewell. Personally she looked much the same as her
+sisters, all Canada through, who are the offspring of red and white
+parentage--olive-complexioned, gray-eyed, black-haired, with figure
+slight and delicate, and the wistful, unfathomable expression in her
+whole face that turns one so heart-sick as they glance at the young
+Indians of to-day--it is the forerunner too frequently of "the white
+man's disease," consumption--but McDonald was pathetically in love,
+and thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his
+life.
+
+There had not been much of a wedding ceremony. The priest had
+cantered through the service in Latin, pronounced the benediction
+in English, and congratulated the "happy couple" in Indian, as a
+compliment to the assembled tribe in the little amateur structure
+that did service at the post as a sanctuary.
+
+But the knot was tied as firmly and indissolubly as if all Charlie
+McDonald's swell city friends had crushed themselves up against the
+chancel to congratulate him, and in his heart he was deeply thankful
+to escape the flower-pelting, white gloves, rice-throwing, and
+ponderous stupidity of a breakfast, and indeed all the regulation
+gimcracks of the usual marriage celebrations, and it was with a
+hand trembling with absolute happiness that he assisted his little
+Indian wife into the old muddy buckboard that, hitched to an
+underbred-looking pony, was to convey them over the first stages of
+their journey. Then came more adieus, some hand-clasping, old Jimmy
+Robinson looking very serious just at the last, Mrs. Jimmy, stout,
+stolid, betraying nothing of visible emotion, and then the pony,
+rough-shod and shaggy, trudged on, while mutual hand-waves were
+kept up until the old Hudson Bay Post dropped out of sight, and
+the buckboard with its lightsome load of hearts deliriously happy,
+jogged on over the uneven trail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was "all the rage" that winter at the provincial capital. The
+men called her a "deuced fine little woman." The ladies said she
+was "just the sweetest wildflower." Whereas she was really but an
+ordinary, pale, dark girl who spoke slowly and with a strong accent,
+who danced fairly well, sang acceptably, and never stirred outside
+the door without her husband.
+
+Charlie was proud of her; he was proud that she had "taken" so well
+among his friend, proud that she bore herself so complacently in
+the drawing-rooms of the wives of pompous Government officials, but
+doubly proud of her almost abject devotion to him. If ever human
+being was worshipped that being was Charlie McDonald; it could
+scarcely have been otherwise, for the almost godlike strength of his
+passion for that little wife of his would have mastered and melted
+a far more invincible citadel than an already affectionate woman's
+heart.
+
+Favorites socially, McDonald and his wife went everywhere. In
+fashionable circles she was "new"--a potent charm to acquire
+popularity, and the little velvet-clad figure was always the centre
+of interest among all the women in the room. She always dressed in
+velvet. No woman in Canada, has she but the faintest dash of native
+blood in her veins, but loves velvets and silks. As beef to the
+Englishman, wine to the Frenchman, fads to the Yankee, so are velvet
+and silk to the Indian girl, be she wild as prairie grass, be she on
+the borders of civilization, or, having stepped within its boundary,
+mounted the steps of culture even under its superficial heights.
+
+"Such a dolling little appil blossom," said the wife of a local
+M.P., who brushed up her etiquette and English once a year at
+Ottawa. "Does she always laugh so sweetly, and gobble you up with
+those great big gray eyes of her, when you are togetheah at home,
+Mr. McDonald? If so, I should think youah pooah brothah would feel
+himself terrible _de trop_."
+
+He laughed lightly. "Yes, Mrs. Stuart, there are not two of
+Christie; she is the same at home and abroad, and as for Joe, he
+doesn't mind us a bit; he's no end fond of her."
+
+"I'm very glad he is. I always fancied he did not care for her,
+d'you know."
+
+If ever a blunt woman existed it was Mrs. Stuart. She really meant
+nothing, but her remark bothered Charlie. He was fond of his
+brother, and jealous for Christie's popularity. So that night when
+he and Joe were having a pipe, he said:
+
+"I've never asked you yet what you thought of her, Joe." A brief
+pause, then Joe spoke. "I'm glad she loves you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because that girl has but two possibilities regarding
+humanity--love or hate."
+
+"Humph! Does she love or hate _you_?"
+
+"Ask her."
+
+"You talk bosh. If she hated you, you'd get out. If she loved you
+I'd _make_ you get out."
+
+Joe McDonald whistled a little, then laughed.
+
+"Now that we are on the subject, I might as well ask--honestly, old
+man, wouldn't you and Christie prefer keeping house alone to having
+me always around?"
+
+"Nonsense, sheer nonsense. Why, thunder, man, Christie's no end fond
+of you, and as for me--you surely don't want assurances from me?"
+
+"No, but I often think a young couple--"
+
+"Young couple be blowed! After a while when they want you and your
+old surveying chains, and spindle-legged tripod telescope kickshaws,
+farther west, I venture to say the little woman will cry her eyes
+out--won't you, Christie?" This last in a higher tone, as through
+clouds of tobacco smoke he caught sight of his wife passing the
+doorway.
+
+She entered. "Oh, no, I would not cry; I never do cry, but I would
+be heart-sore to lose you Joe, and apart from that"--a little
+wickedly--"you may come in handy for an exchange some day, as
+Charlie does always say when he hoards up duplicate relics."
+
+"Are Charlie and I duplicates?"
+
+"Well--not exactly"--her head a little to one side, and eyeing
+them both merrily, while she slipped softly on to the arm of
+her husband's chair--"but, in the event of Charlie's failing
+me"--everyone laughed then. The "some day" that she spoke of was
+nearer than they thought. It came about in this wise.
+
+There was a dance at the Lieutenant-Governor's, and the world and
+his wife were there. The nobs were in great feather that night,
+particularly the women, who flaunted about in new gowns and much
+splendor. Christie McDonald had a new gown also, but wore it with
+the utmost unconcern, and if she heard any of the flattering remarks
+made about her she at least appeared to disregard them.
+
+"I never dreamed you could wear blue so splendidly," said Captain
+Logan, as they sat out a dance together.
+
+"Indeed she can, though," interposed Mrs. Stuart, halting in one of
+her gracious sweeps down the room with her husband's private
+secretary.
+
+"Don't shout so, captain. I can hear every sentence you uttah--of
+course Mrs. McDonald can wear blue--she has a morning gown of cadet
+blue that she is a picture in."
+
+"You are both very kind," said Christie. "I like blue; it is the
+color of all the Hudson's Bay posts, and the factor's residence is
+always decorated in blue."
+
+"Is it really? How interesting--do tell us some more of your old
+home, Mrs. McDonald; you so seldom speak of your life at the post,
+and we fellows so often wish to hear of it all," said Logan eagerly.
+
+"Why do you not ask me of it, then?"
+
+"Well--er, I'm sure I don't know; I'm fully interested in the
+Ind--in your people--your mother's people, I mean, but it always
+seems so personal, I suppose; and--a--a--"
+
+"Perhaps you are, like all other white people, afraid to mention my
+nationality to me."
+
+The captain winced and Mrs. Stuart laughed uneasily. Joe McDonald
+was not far off, and he was listening, and chuckling, and saying to
+himself, "That's you, Christie, lay 'em out; it won't hurt 'em to
+know how they appear once in a while."
+
+"Well, Captain Logan," she was saying, "what is it you would like to
+hear--of my people, or my parents, or myself?"
+
+"All, all, my dear," cried Mrs. Stuart clamorously. "I'll speak for
+him--tell us of yourself and your mother--your father is delightful,
+I am sure--but then he is only an ordinary Englishman, not half as
+interesting as a foreigner, or--or, perhaps I should say, a native."
+
+Christie laughed. "Yes," she said, "my father often teases my mother
+now about how _very_ native she was when he married her; then, how
+could she have been otherwise? She did not know a word of English,
+and there was not another English-speaking person besides my father
+and his two companions within sixty miles."
+
+"Two companions, eh? one a Catholic priest and the other a wine
+merchant, I suppose, and with your father in the Hudson Bay, they
+were good representatives of the pioneers in the New World,"
+remarked Logan, waggishly.
+
+"Oh, no, they were all Hudson Bay men. There were no rumsellers and
+no missionaries in that part of the country then."
+
+Mrs. Stuart looked puzzled. "No _missionaries_?" she repeated with
+an odd intonation.
+
+Christie's insight was quick. There was a peculiar expression of
+interrogation in the eyes of her listeners, and the girl's blood
+leapt angrily up into her temples as she said hurriedly, "I know
+what you mean; I know what you are thinking. You were wondering how
+my parents were married--"
+
+"Well--er, my dear, it seems peculiar--if there was no priest, and
+no magistrate, why--a--" Mrs. Stuart paused awkwardly.
+
+"The marriage was performed by Indian rites," said Christie.
+
+"Oh, do tell me about it; is the ceremony very interesting and
+quaint--are your chieftains anything like Buddhist priests?" It was
+Logan who spoke.
+
+"Why, no," said the girl in amazement at that gentleman's ignorance.
+"There is no ceremony at all, save a feast. The two people just
+agree to live only with and for each other, and the man takes his
+wife to his home, just as you do. There is no ritual to bind them;
+they need none; an Indian's word was his law in those days, you
+know."
+
+Mrs. Stuart stepped backwards. "Ah!" was all she said. Logan removed
+his eye-glass and stared blankly at Christie. "And did McDonald
+marry you in this singular fashion?" He questioned.
+
+"Oh, no, we were married by Father O'Leary. Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because if he had, I'd have blown his brain out to-morrow."
+
+Mrs. Stuart's partner, who had hitherto been silent, coughed and
+began to twirl his cuff stud nervously, but nobody took any notice
+of him. Christie had risen, slowly, ominously--risen, with the
+dignity and pride of an empress.
+
+"Captain Logan," she said, "what do you dare to say to me? What do
+you dare to mean? Do you presume to think it would not have been
+lawful for Charlie to marry me according to my people's rites? Do
+you for one instant dare to question that my parents were not as
+legally--"
+
+"Don't, dear, don't," interrupted Mrs. Stuart hurriedly; "it is bad
+enough now, goodness knows; don't make--" Then she broke off blindly.
+Christie's eyes glared at the mumbling woman, at her uneasy partner,
+at the horrified captain. Then they rested on the McDonald brothers,
+who stood within earshot, Joe's face scarlet, her husband's white as
+ashes, with something in his eyes she had never seen before. It was
+Joe who saved the situation. Stepping quickly across towards his
+sister-in-law, he offered her his arm, saying, "The next dance is
+ours, I think, Christie."
+
+Then Logan pulled himself together, and attempted to carry Mrs.
+Stuart off for the waltz, but for once in her life that lady had
+lost her head. "It is shocking!" she said, "outrageously shocking!
+I wonder if they told Mr. McDonald before he married her!" Then
+looking hurriedly round, she too saw the young husband's face--and
+knew that they had not.
+
+"Humph! deuced nice kettle of fish--and poor old Charlie has always
+thought so much of honorable birth."
+
+Logan thought he spoke in an undertone, but "poor old Charlie" heard
+him. He followed his wife and brother across the room. "Joe," he
+said, "will you see that a trap is called?" Then to Christie, "Joe
+will see that you get home all right." He wheeled on his heel then
+and left the ball-room.
+
+Joe _did_ see.
+
+He tucked a poor, shivering, pallid little woman into a cab, and
+wound her bare throat up in the scarlet velvet cloak that was
+hanging uselessly over her arm. She crouched down beside him,
+saying, "I am so cold, Joe; I am so cold," but she did not seem to
+know enough to wrap herself up. Joe felt all through this long drive
+that nothing this side of Heaven would be so good as to die, and he
+was glad when the little voice at his elbow said, "What is he so
+angry at, Joe?"
+
+"I don't know exactly, dear," he said gently, "but I think it was
+what you said about this Indian marriage."
+
+"But why should I not have said it? Is there anything wrong about
+it?" she asked pitifully.
+
+"Nothing, that I can see--there was no other way; but Charlie is
+very angry, and you must be brave and forgiving with him, Christie,
+dear."
+
+"But I did never see him like that before, did you?"
+
+"Once."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Oh, at college, one day, a boy tore his prayer book in half, and
+threw it into the grate, just to be mean, you know. Our mother had
+given it to him at his confirmation."
+
+"And did he look so?"
+
+"About, but it all blew over in a day--Charlie's tempers are short
+and brisk. Just don't take any notice of him; run off to bed, and
+he'll have forgotten it by the morning."
+
+They reached home at last. Christie said goodnight quietly, going
+directly to her room. Joe went to his room also, filled a pipe and
+smoked for an hour. Across the passage he could hear her slippered
+feet pacing up and down, up and down the length of her apartment.
+There was something panther-like in those restless footfalls, a
+meaning velvetyness that made him shiver, and again he wished he
+were dead--or elsewhere.
+
+After a time the hall door opened, and someone came upstairs, along
+the passage, and to the little woman's room. As he entered, she
+turned and faced him.
+
+"Christie," he said harshly, "do you know what you have done?"
+
+"Yes," taking a step nearer him, her whole soul springing up into
+her eyes, "I have angered you, Charlie, and--"
+
+"Angered me? You have disgraced me; and, moreover, you have
+disgraced yourself and both your parents."
+
+"_Disgraced_?"
+
+"Yes, _disgraced_; you have literally declared to the whole city
+that your father and mother were never married, and that you are the
+child of--what shall we call it--love? certainly not legality."
+
+Across the hallway sat Joe McDonald, his blood freezing; but it
+leapt into every vein like fire at the awful anguish in the little
+voice that cried simply, "Oh! Charlie!"
+
+"How could you do it, how could you do it, Christie, without shame
+either for yourself or for me, let alone your parents?"
+
+The voice was like an angry demon's--not a trace was there in it of
+the yellow-haired, blue-eyed, laughing-lipped boy who had driven
+away so gaily to the dance five hours before.
+
+"Shame? Why should I be ashamed of the rites of my people any more
+than you should be ashamed of the customs of yours--of a marriage
+more sacred and holy than half of your white man's mockeries."
+
+It was the voice of another nature in the girl--the love and the
+pleading were dead in it.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, Charlie--you who have studied my race and
+their laws for years--do you mean to tell me that, because there was
+no priest and no magistrate, my mother was not married? Do you mean
+to say that all my forefathers, for hundreds of years back, have been
+illegally born? If so, you blacken my ancestry beyond--beyond--beyond
+all reason."
+
+"No, Christie, I would not be so brutal as that; but your father
+and mother live in more civilized times. Father O'Leary has been at
+the post for nearly twenty years. Why was not your father straight
+enough to have the ceremony performed when he _did_ get the chance?"
+
+The girl turned upon him with the face of a fury. "Do you suppose,"
+she almost hissed, "that my mother would be married according to
+your _white_ rites after she had been five years a wife, and I had
+been born in the meantime? No, a thousand times I say, _no_. When
+the priest came with his notions of Christianizing, and talked
+to them of re-marriage by the Church, my mother arose and said,
+'Never--never--I have never had but this one husband; he has had
+none but me for wife, and to have you re-marry us would be to say as
+much to the whole world as that we had never been married before.
+[Fact.] You go away; _I_ do not ask that _your_ people be re-married;
+talk not so to me. I _am_ married, and you or the Church cannot do
+or undo it.'"
+
+"Your father was a fool not to insist upon the law, and so was the
+priest."
+
+"Law? _My_ people have _no_ priest, and my nation cringes not to
+law. Our priest is purity, and our law is honor. Priest? Was there a
+_priest_ at the most holy marriage know to humanity--that stainless
+marriage whose offspring is the God you white men told my pagan
+mother of?"
+
+"Christie--you are _worse_ than blasphemous; such a profane remark
+shows how little you understand the sanctity of the Christian
+faith--"
+
+"I know what I _do_ understand; it is that you are hating me because
+I told some of the beautiful customs of my people to Mrs. Stuart and
+those men."
+
+"Pooh! who cares for them? It is not them; the trouble is they won't
+keep their mouths shut. Logan's a cad and will toss the whole tale
+about at the club to-morrow night; and as for the Stuart woman, I'd
+like to know how I'm going to take you to Ottawa for presentation
+and the opening, while she is blabbing the whole miserable scandal
+in every drawing-room, and I'll be pointed out as a romantic fool,
+and you--as worse; I _can't_ understand why your father didn't tell
+me before we were married; I at least might have warned you never to
+mention it." Something of recklessness rang up through his voice,
+just as the panther-likeness crept up from her footsteps and couched
+herself in hers. She spoke in tones quiet, soft, deadly.
+
+"Before we were married! Oh! Charlie, would it have--made--any--
+difference?"
+
+"God knows," he said, throwing himself into a chair, his blonde hair
+rumpled and wet. It was the only boyish thing about him now.
+
+She walked towards him, then halted in the centre of the room.
+"Charlie McDonald," she said, and it was as if a stone had spoken,
+"look up." He raised his head, startled by her tone. There was a
+threat in her eyes that, had his rage been less courageous, his
+pride less bitterly wounded, would have cowed him.
+
+"There was no such time as that before our marriage, for we _are not
+married now_. Stop," she said, outstretching her palms against him
+as he sprang to his feet, "I tell you we are not married. Why should
+I recognize the rites of your nation when you do not acknowledge the
+rites of mine? According to your own words, my parents should have
+gone through your church ceremony as well as through an Indian
+contract; according to _my_ words, _we_ should go through an Indian
+contract as well as through a church marriage. If their union is
+illegal, so is ours. If you think my father is living in dishonor
+with my mother, my people will think I am living in dishonor with
+you. How do I know when another nation will come and conquer you as
+you white men conquered us? And they will have another marriage rite
+to perform, and they will tell us another truth, that you are not my
+husband, that you are but disgracing and dishonoring me, that you
+are keeping me here, not as your wife, but as your--your--_squaw_."
+
+The terrible word had never passed her lips before, and the blood
+stained her face to her very temples. She snatched off her wedding
+ring and tossed it across the room, saying scornfully, "That thing
+is as empty to me as the Indian rites to you."
+
+He caught her by the wrists; his small white teeth were locked
+tightly, his blue eyes blazed into hers.
+
+"Christine, do you dare doubt my honor towards you? _you_, whom I
+should have died for; do you _dare_ to think I have kept you here,
+not as my wife, but--"
+
+"Oh, God! You are hurting me; you are breaking my arm," she gasped.
+
+The door was flung open, and Joe McDonald's sinewy hands clinched
+like vices on his brother's shoulders.
+
+"Charlie, you're mad, mad as the devil. Let go of her this minute."
+
+The girl staggered backwards as the iron fingers loosed her wrists.
+"Oh! Joe," she cried, "I am not his wife, and he says I am
+born--nameless."
+
+"Here," said Joe, shoving his brother towards the door. "Go
+downstairs till you can collect your senses. If ever a being acted
+like an infernal fool, you're the man."
+
+The young husband looked from one to the other, dazed by his wife's
+insult, abandoned to a fit of ridiculously childish temper. Blind
+as he was with passion, he remembered long afterwards seeing
+them standing there, his brother's face darkened with a scowl
+of anger--his wife, clad in the mockery of her ball dress, her
+scarlet velvet cloak half covering her bare brown neck and arms,
+her eyes like flames of fire, her face like a piece of sculptured
+graystone.
+
+Without a word he flung himself furiously from the room, and
+immediately afterwards they heard the heavy hall door bang behind
+him.
+
+"Can I do anything for you, Christie?" asked her brother-in-law
+calmly.
+
+"No, thank you--unless--I think I would like a drink of water,
+please."
+
+He brought her up a goblet filled with wine; her hand did not even
+tremble as she took it. As for Joe, a demon arose in his soul as he
+noticed she kept her wrists covered.
+
+"Do you think he will come back?" she said.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course; he'll be all right in the morning. Now go to
+bed like a good little girl, and--and, I say, Christie, you can call
+me if you want anything; I'll be right here, you know."
+
+"Thank you, Joe; you are kind--and good."
+
+He returned then to his apartment. His pipe was out, but he picked
+up a newspaper instead, threw himself into an armchair, and in a
+half-hour was in the land of dreams.
+
+When Charlie came home in the morning, after a six-mile walk into
+the country and back again, his foolish anger was dead and buried.
+Logan's "Poor old Charlie" did not ring so distinctly in his ears.
+Mrs. Stuart's horrified expression had faded considerably from his
+recollection. He thought only of that surprisingly tall, dark girl,
+whose eyes looked like coals, whose voice pierced him like a
+flint-tipped arrow. Ah, well, they would never quarrel again like
+that, he told himself. She loved him so, and would forgive him after
+he had talked quietly to her, and told her what an ass he was. She
+was simple-minded and awfully ignorant to pitch those old Indian
+laws at him in her fury, but he could not blame her; oh, no, he
+could not for one moment blame her. He had been terribly severe and
+unreasonable, and the horrid McDonald temper had got the better of
+him; and he loved her so. Oh! He loved her so! She would surely feel
+that, and forgive him, and-- He went straight to his wife's room.
+The blue velvet evening dress lay on the chair into which he had
+thrown himself when he doomed his life's happiness by those two
+words, "God knows." A bunch of dead daffodils and her slippers were
+on the floor, everything--but Christie.
+
+He went to his brother's bedroom door.
+
+"Joe," he called, rapping nervously thereon; "Joe, wake up; where's
+Christie, d'you know?"
+
+"Good Lord, no," gasped that youth, springing out of his armchair
+and opening the door. As he did so a note fell from off the handle.
+Charlie's face blanched to his very hair while Joe read aloud, his
+voice weakening at every word:--
+
+"DEAR OLD JOE,--I went into your room at daylight to get that
+picture of the Post on your bookshelves. I hope you do not mind, but
+I kissed your hair while your slept; it was so curly, and yellow,
+and soft, just like his. Good-bye, Joe.
+
+"CHRISTIE."
+
+And when Joe looked into his brother's face and saw the anguish
+settle in those laughing blue eyes, the despair that drove the
+dimples away from that almost girlish mouth; when he realized that
+this boy was but four-and-twenty years old, and that all his future
+was perhaps darkened and shadowed for ever, a great, deep sorrow
+arose in his heart, and he forgot all things, all but the agony that
+rang up through the voice of the fair, handsome lad as he staggered
+forward, crying, "Oh! Joe--what shall I do--what shall I do!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was months and months before he found her, but during all that
+time he had never known a hopeless moment; discouraged he often
+was, but despondent, never. The sunniness of his ever-boyish heart
+radiated with warmth that would have flooded a much deeper gloom
+than that which settled within his eager young life. Suffer? ah! yes,
+he suffered, not with locked teeth and stony stoicism, not with the
+masterful self-command, the reserve, the conquered bitterness of the
+still-water sort of nature, that is supposed to run to such depths.
+He tried to be bright, and his sweet old boyish self. He would laugh
+sometimes in a pitiful, pathetic fashion. He took to petting dogs,
+looking into their large, solemn eyes with his wistful, questioning
+blue ones; he would kiss them, as women sometimes do, and call them
+"dear old fellow," in tones that had tears; and once in the course
+of his travels while at a little way-station, he discovered a huge
+St. Bernard imprisoned by some mischance in an empty freight car;
+the animal was nearly dead from starvation, and it seemed to salve
+his own sick heart to rescue back the dog's life. Nobody claimed the
+big starving creature, the train hands knew nothing of its owner,
+and gladly handed it over to its deliverer. "Hudson," he called
+it, and afterwards when Joe McDonald would relate the story of his
+brother's life he invariably terminated it with, "And I really
+believe that big lumbering brute saved him." From what, he was never
+to say.
+
+But all things end, and he heard of her at last. She had never
+returned to the Post, as he at first thought she would, but had gone
+to the little town of B----, in Ontario, where she was making her
+living at embroidery and plain sewing.
+
+The September sun had set redly when at last he reached the
+outskirts of the town, opened up the wicket gate, and walked up the
+weedy, unkept path leading to the cottage where she lodged.
+
+Even through the twilight, he could see her there, leaning on the
+rail of the verandah--oddly enough she had about her shoulders the
+scarlet velvet cloak she wore when he had flung himself so madly
+from the room that night.
+
+The moment the lad saw her his heart swelled with a sudden heat,
+burning moisture leapt into his eyes, and clogged his long, boyish
+lashes. He bounded up the steps--"Christie," he said, and the word
+scorched his lips like audible flame.
+
+She turned to him, and for a second stood magnetized by his
+passionately wistful face; her peculiar grayish eyes seemed to
+drink the very life of his unquenchable love, though the tears that
+suddenly sprang into his seemed to absorb every pulse in his body
+through those hungry, pleading eyes of his that had, oh! so often
+been blinded by her kisses when once her whole world lay in their
+blue depths.
+
+"You will come back to me, Christie, my wife? My wife, you will let
+me love you again?"
+
+She gave a singular little gasp, and shook her head. "Don't, oh!
+don't," he cried piteously. "You will come to me, dear? it is all
+such a bitter mistake--I did not understand. Oh! Christie, I did not
+understand, and you'll forgive me, and love me again, won't
+you--won't you?"
+
+"No," said the girl with quick, indrawn breath.
+
+He dashed the back of his hand across his wet eyelids. His lips were
+growing numb, and he bungled over the monosyllable "Why?"
+
+"I do not like you," she answered quietly.
+
+"God! Oh! God, what is there left?"
+
+She did not appear to hear the heart-break in his voice; she stood
+like one wrapped in sombre thought; no blaze, no tear, nothing in
+her eyes; no hardness, no tenderness about her mouth. The wind was
+blowing her cloak aside, and the only visible human life in her
+whole body was once when he spoke the muscles of her brown arm
+seemed to contract.
+
+"But, darling, you are mine--_mine_--we are husband and wife! Oh,
+heaven, you _must_ love me, and you _must_ come to me again."
+
+"You cannot _make_ me come," said the icy voice, "neither church,
+nor law, nor even"--and the vice softened--"nor even love can make
+a slave of a red girl."
+
+"Heaven forbid it," he faltered. "No, Christie, I will never claim
+you without your love. What reunion would that be? But oh, Christie,
+you are lying to me, you are lying to yourself, you are lying to
+heaven."
+
+She did not move. If only he could touch her he felt as sure of her
+yielding as he felt sure there was a hereafter. The memory of the
+times when he had but to lay his hand on her hair to call a most
+passionate response from her filled his heart with a torture that
+choked all words before they reached his lips; at the thought of
+those days he forgot she was unapproachable, forgot how forbidding
+were her eyes, how stony her lips. Flinging himself forward, his
+knee on the chair at her side, his face pressed hardly in the folds
+of the cloak on her shoulder, he clasped his arms about her with a
+boyish petulance, saying, "Christie, Christie, my little girl wife,
+I love you, I love you, and you are killing me."
+
+She quivered from head to foot as his fair, wavy hair brushed her
+neck, his despairing face sank lower until his cheek, hot as fire,
+rested on the cool, olive flesh of her arm. A warm moisture oozed up
+through her skin, and as he felt its glow he looked up. Her teeth,
+white and cold, were locked over her under lip, and her eyes were
+as gray stones.
+
+Not murderers alone know the agony of a death sentence.
+
+"Is it all useless? all useless, dear?" he said, with lips starving
+for hers.
+
+"All useless," she repeated. "I have no love for you now. You
+forfeited me and my heart months ago, when you said _those two
+words_."
+
+His arms fell away from her wearily, he arose mechanically, he
+placed his little gray checked cap on the back of his yellow curls,
+the old-time laughter was dead in the blue eyes that now looked
+scared and haunted, the boyishness and the dimples crept away for
+ever from the lips that quivered like a child's; he turned from her,
+but she had looked once into his face as the Law Giver must have
+looked at the land of Canaan outspread at his feet. She watched
+him go down the long path and through the picket gate, she watched
+the big yellowish dog that had waited for him lumber up on to its
+feet--stretch--then follow him. She was conscious of but two things,
+the vengeful lie in her soul, and a little space on her arm that his
+wet lashes had brushed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was hours afterwards when he reached his room. He had said
+nothing, done nothing--what use were words or deeds? Old Jimmy
+Robinson was right; she had "balked" sure enough.
+
+What a bare, hotelish room it was! He tossed off his coat and sat
+for ten minutes looking blankly at the sputtering gas jet. Then
+his whole life, desolate as a desert, loomed up before him with
+appalling distinctness. Throwing himself on the floor beside
+his bed, with clasped hands and arms outstretched on the white
+counterpane, he sobbed. "Oh! God, dear God, I thought you loved me;
+I thought you'd let me have her again, but you must be tired of me,
+tired of loving me too. I've nothing left now, nothing! it doesn't
+seem that I even have you to-night."
+
+He lifted his face then, for his dog, big and clumsy and yellow,
+was licking at his sleeve.
+
+
+
+The Envoy Extraordinary
+
+
+There had been a great deal of trouble in the Norris family, and
+for weeks old Bill Norris had gone about scowling as blackly as a
+thunder-cloud, speaking to no one but his wife and daughter, and
+oftentimes muttering inaudible things that, however, had the tone
+of invective; and accompanied, as these mutterings were, with a
+menacing shake of his burley head, old Bill finally grew to be an
+acquaintance few desired.
+
+Mrs. Norris showed equal, though not similar, signs of mental
+disturbance; for, womanlike, she clothed her worry in placidity and
+silence. Her kindly face became drawn and lined; she laughed less
+frequently. She never went "neighboring" or "buggy-riding" with
+old Bill now. But the trim farmhouse was just as spotless, just as
+beautifully kept, the cooking just as wholesome and homelike, the
+linen as white, the garden as green, the chickens as fat, the geese
+as noisy, as in the days when her eyes were less grave and her lips
+unknown to sighs. And what was it all about but the simple matter
+of a marriage--Sam's marriage? Sam, the big, genial, curly-headed
+only son of the house of Norris, who saw fit to take unto himself as
+a life partner tiny, delicate, college-bred Della Kennedy, who
+taught school over on the Sixth Concession, and knew more about
+making muslin shirtwaists than cooking for the threshers, could
+quote from all the mental and moral philosophers, could wrestle with
+French and Latin verbs, and had memorized half the things Tennyson
+and Emerson had ever written, but could not milk a cow or churn up
+a week's supply of butter if the executioner stood ready with his
+axe to chop off her pretty yellow mop of a head in case she failed.
+How old Billy stormed when Sam started "keeping company" with her!
+
+"Nice young goslin' fer you to be a-goin' with!" he scowled when
+Sam would betake himself towards the red gate every evening after
+chores were done. "Nice gal fer you to bring home to help yer
+mother; all she'll do is to play May Queen and have the hull lot of
+us a-trottin' to wait on her. You'll marry a farmer's gal, _I_ say,
+one that's brung up like yerself and yer mother and me, or I tell
+yer yer shan't have one consarned acre of this place. I'll leave
+the hull farm to yer sister Jane's man. _She_ married somethin'
+like--decent, stiddy, hard-working man is Sid Simpson, and _he'll_
+git what land I have to leave."
+
+"I quite know that, dad," Sam blazed forth, irritably; "so does he.
+That's what he married  Janie for--the whole township knows that.
+He's never given her a kind word, or a holiday, or a new dress,
+since they were married--eight years. She slaves and toils, and he
+rich as any man need be; owns three farms already, money in the
+bank, cattle, horses--everything. But look at Janie; she looks as
+old as mother. I pity _his_ son, if he ever has one. Thank heaven,
+Janie has no children!"
+
+"Come, come, father--Sam!" a patient voice would interrupt, and
+Mrs. Norris would appear at the door, vainly endeavoring to make
+peace. "I'll own up to both of you I'd sooner have a farmer's
+daughter for mine-in-law than Della Kennedy. But, father, he ain't
+married yet, and--"
+
+"Ain't married, eh?" blurted in old Bill. "But he's a-goin' to
+marry her. But I'll tell you both right here, she'll never set foot
+in my house, ner I in her'n. Sam ken keep her, but what on, I don't
+know. He gits right out of this here farm the day he marries her,
+and he don't come back, not while I'm a-livin'."
+
+It was all this that made old Billy Norris morose, and Mrs. Norris
+silent and patient and laughless, for Sam married the despised
+"gosling" right at harvest time, when hands were so scarce that
+farmers wrangled and fought, day in and day out, to get one single
+man to go into the field.
+
+This was Sam's golden opportunity. His father's fields stood yellow
+with ripening grain to be cut on the morrow, but he deliberately
+hired himself out to a neighbor, where he would get good wages
+to start a little home with; for, farmer-like, old Billy Norris
+never paid his son wages. Sam was supposed to work for nothing but
+his clothes and board as reward, and a possible slice of the farm
+when the old man died, while a good harvest hand gets board and
+high wages, to boot. This then was the hour to strike, and the
+morning the grain stood ready for the reaper Sam paused at the
+outside kitchen door at sunrise.
+
+"Mother," he said, "I've got to have her. I'm going to marry her
+to-day, and to-morrow start working for Mr. Willson, who will pay me
+enough to keep a wife. I'm sorry, mother, but--well, I've got to
+have her. Some day you'll know her, and you'll love her, I know you
+will; and if there's ever any children--"
+
+But Mrs. Norris had clutched him by the arm. "Sammy," she
+whispered, "your father will be raging mad at your going, and
+harvest hands so scarce. I _know_ he'll never let me go near you,
+never. But if there's ever any children, Sammy, you just come for
+your mother, and I'll go to you and her _without_ his letting."
+
+Then with one of the all too few kisses that are ever given or
+received in a farmhouse life, she let him go. The storm burst at
+breakfast time when Sam did not appear, and the poor mother tried
+to explain his absence, as only a mother will. Old Billy waxed
+suspicious, then jumped at facts. The marriage was bad enough,
+but this being left in the lurch at the eleventh hour, his son's
+valuable help transferred from the home farm to Mr. Willson's, with
+whom he always quarreled in church, road, and political matters, was
+too much.
+
+"But, father, you never paid him wages," ventured the mother.
+
+"Wages? Wages to one's own son, that one has raised and fed and
+shod from the cradle? Wages, when he knowed he'd come in fer part
+of the farm when I'd done with it? Who in consarnation ever gives
+their son wages?"
+
+"But, father, you told him if he married her he was never to have
+the farm--that you'd leave it to Sid, that he was to get right off
+the day he married her."
+
+"An' Sid'll get it--bet yer life he will--fer I ain't got no son
+no more. A sneakin' hulk that leaves me with my wheat standin' an'
+goes over to help that Methodist of a Willson is no son of mine.
+I ain't never had a son, and you ain't, neither; remember that,
+Marthy--don't you ever let me ketch you goin' a-near them. We're
+done with Sam an' his missus. You jes' make a note of that." And
+old Billy flung out to his fields like a general whose forces had
+fled.
+
+It was but a tiny, two-room shack, away up in the back lots, that
+Sam was able to get for Della, but no wayfarer ever passed up the
+side road but they heard her clear, young voice singing like a
+thrush; no one ever met Sam but he ceased whistling only to greet
+them. He proved invaluable to Mr. Willson, for after the harvest
+was in and the threshing over, there was the root crop and the
+apple crop, and eventually Mr. Willson hired him for the entire
+year. Della, to the surprise of the neighborhood, kept on with her
+school until Christmas.
+
+"She's teachin' instid of keepin' Sam's house, jes' to git money
+fer finery, you bet!" sneered old Billy. But he never knew that
+every copper for the extra term was put carefully away, and was
+paid out for a whole year's rent in advance on a gray little
+two-room house, and paid by a very proud little yellow-haired bride.
+She had insisted upon this before her marriage, for she laughingly
+said, "No wife ever gets her way afterwards."
+
+"I'm not good at butter-making, Sam," she said, "but I _can_ make
+money teaching, and for this first year _I_ pay the rent." And she
+did.
+
+And the sweet, brief year swung on through its seasons, until
+one brown September morning the faint cry of a little human lamb
+floated through the open window of the small gray house on the
+back lots. Sam did not go to Willson's to work that day, but
+stayed home, playing the part of a big, joyful, clumsy nurse, his
+roughened hands gentle and loving, his big rugged heart bursting
+with happiness. It was twilight, and the gray shadows were creeping
+into the bare little room, touching with feathery fingers a tangled
+mop of yellow curls that aureoled a pillowed head that was not now
+filled with thoughts of Tennyson and Emerson and frilly muslin
+shirtwaists. That pretty head held but two realities--Sammy,
+whistling robin-like as he made tea in the kitchen, and the little
+human lamb hugged up on her arm.
+
+But suddenly the whistling ceased, and Sammy's voice, thrilling
+with joy, exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, mother!"
+
+"Mrs. Willson sent word to me. Your father's gone to the
+village, and I ran away, Sammy boy," whispered Mrs. Norris,
+eagerly. "I just ran away. Where's Della and--the baby?"
+
+"In here, mother, and--bless you for coming!" said the big fellow,
+stepping softly towards the bedroom. But his mother was there
+before him, her arms slipping tenderly about the two small beings
+on the bed.
+
+"It wasn't my fault, daughter," she said, tremulously.
+
+"I know it," faintly smiled Della. "Just these last few hours I
+know I'd stand by this baby boy of mine here until the Judgement
+Day, and so I now know it must have nearly broken your heart not
+to stand by Sammy."
+
+"Well, grandmother!" laughed Sam, "what do you think of the new
+Norris?"
+
+"Grandmother?" gasped Mrs. Norris. "Why, Sammy, _am I a
+grandmother_? Grandmother to this little sweetheart?" And the proud
+old arms lifted the wee "new Norris" right up from its mother's
+arms, and every tiny toe and finger was kissed and crooned over,
+while Sam shyly winked at Della and managed to whisper, "You'll
+see, girl, that dad will come around now; but he can just keep out
+of _our house_. There are two of us that can be harsh. I'm not
+going to come at _his_ first whistle."
+
+Della smiled to herself, but said nothing. Much wisdom had come to
+her within the last year, with the last day--wisdom not acquired
+within the covers of books, nor yet beneath college roofs, and one
+truth she had mastered long ago--that
+
+  "To help and to heal a sorrow
+   Love and silence are always best."
+
+But late that night, when Martha Norris returned home, another
+storm broke above her hapless head. Old Billy sat on the kitchen
+steps waiting for her, frowning, scowling, muttering. "Where have
+you been?" he demanded, glaring at her, although some inner
+instinct told him what her answer would be.
+
+"I've been to Sammy's," she said, in a peculiarly still voice, "and
+I'm going again to-morrow." Then with shoulders more erect and eyes
+calmer than they had been for many months, she continued: "And I'm
+going again the next day, and the next. Billy, you and I've got a
+grandson--a splendid, fair, strong boy, and--"
+
+"What!" snapped old Billy. "A grandson! I got a grandson, an' no
+person told me afore? Not even that there sneak Sam, cuss him! He
+always was too consarned mean to live. A grandson? I'm a-goin' over
+termorrer, sure's I'm alive."
+
+"No use for you to go, Billy," said Mrs. Norris, with marvellous
+diplomacy for such a simple, unworldly farmer's wife to suddenly
+acquire. "Sammy wouldn't let you set foot on his place. He wouldn't
+let you put an eye or a finger on that precious baby--not for the
+whole earth."
+
+"What! Not _me_, the little chap's _grandfather_?" blurted old
+Billy in a rage. "I'm a-goin' to see that baby, that's all there
+is to it. I tell yer, I'm a-goin'."
+
+"No use, father; you'll only make things worse," sighed Sam's
+mother, plaintively; but in her heart laughter gurgled like a
+spring. To the gift of diplomacy Mrs. Norris was fast adding the
+art of being an actress. "If you go there Sam'll set the dog on
+you. I _know_ he will, from the way he was talking," she concluded.
+
+"Oh! got a _dog_, have they? Well, I bet they've got no _cow_,"
+sneered Billy. Then after a meaning pause: "I say Marthy, _have_
+they got a cow?"
+
+"No," replied Mrs. Norris, shortly.
+
+"_No cow_, an' a sick woman and a baby--_my_ grandchild--in the
+house? Now ain't that jes' like that sneak Sam? They'll jes' kill
+that baby atween them, they're that igner'nt. Hev they got enny
+milk fer them two babbling kids, Della an' the baby--my
+grandchild?"
+
+"No!" snapped Mrs. Norris, while through her mind echoed some
+terrifying lines she had heard as a child:
+
+  "All liars dwell with him in hell,
+   And many more who cursed and swore."
+
+"An' there's that young Shorthorn of ours, Marthy. Couldn't we
+spare her?" he asked with a pathetic eagerness. "We've got eight
+other cows to milk. Can't we spare her? If you think Sam'll set the
+dog on _me_, I'll have her driv over in the mornin'. Jim'll take
+her."
+
+"I don't think it's any use, Bill; but you can try it," remarked
+Mrs. Norris, her soul singing within her like a celestial choir.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Where are you driving that cow to?" yelled Sam from the kitchen
+door, at sunrise the following morning. "Take her out of there!
+You're driving her into my yard, right over my cabbages."
+
+But Jim, the Norris' hired man, only grinned, and proceeding with
+his driving, yelled back:
+
+"Cow's yourn, Sam. Yer old man sent it--a present to yer missus and
+the babby."
+
+"You take and drive that cow back again!" roared Sam. "And tell my
+dad I won't have hide nor hair of her on my place."
+
+Back went the cow.
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" mourned Mrs. Norris. "Sam's that stubborn and
+contrary. It's no use, Billy; he just doesn't care for his poor old
+father nor mother any more."
+
+"By the jumping Jiminy Christmas! I'll _make_ him care!" thundered
+old Billy. "I'm a-goin' ter see that grandchild of mine." Then
+followed a long silence.
+
+"I say, Marthy, how are they fixed in the house?" he questioned,
+after many moments of apparently brown study.
+
+"Pretty poor," answered Sam's mother, truthfully this time.
+
+"Got a decent stove, an' bed, an' the like?" he finally asked.
+
+"Stove seems to cook all right, but the bed looks just like straw
+tick--not much good, I'd say," responded Mrs. Norris, drearily.
+
+"A straw tick!" fairly yelled old Billy. "A straw tick fer my
+grandson ter sleep on? Jim, you fetch that there cow here, right
+ter the side door."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Martha, anxiously.
+
+"I'll show yer!" blurted old Billy. And going to his own room, he
+dragged off all the pretty patchwork quilts above his neatly-made
+bed, grabbed up the voluminous feather-bed, staggered with it in
+his arms down the hall, through the side door, and flung it on to
+the back of the astonished cow.
+
+"Now you, Jim, drive that there cow over to Sam's, and if you dare
+bring her back agin, I'll hide yer with the flail till yer can't
+stand up."
+
+"Me drive that lookin' circus over to Sam's?" sneered Jim. "I'll
+quit yer place first. Yer kin do it yerself;" and the hired man
+turned on his lordly heel and slouched over to the barn.
+
+"That'll be the best way, Billy," urged Sam's mother. "Do it
+yourself."
+
+"I'll do it too," old Billy growled. "I ain't afraid of no dog on
+four legs. Git on there, bossy! Git on, I say!" and the ridiculous
+cavalcade started forth.
+
+For a moment Martha Norris watched the receding figure through
+blinding tears. "Oh, Sammy, I'm going to have you back again! I'm
+going to have my boy once more!" she half sobbed. Then sitting down
+on the doorsill, she laughed like a schoolgirl until the cow with
+her extraordinary burden, and old Billy in her wake, disappeared up
+the road. [This incident actually occurred on an Ontario farm
+within the circle of the author's acquaintance.]
+
+From the pillow, pretty Della could just see out of the low window,
+and her wide young eyes grew wider with amazement as the gate swung
+open and the "circus," as Jim called it, entered.
+
+"Sammy!" she called, "Sammy! For goodness sake, what's that coming
+into our yard?"
+
+Instantly Sam was at the door.
+
+"Well, if that don't beat anything I ever saw!" he exclaimed. Then
+"like mother, like son," he, too, sat down on the doorsill and
+laughed as only youth and health and joy can laugh, for, heading
+straight for the door was the fat young Shorthorn, saddled with an
+enormous feather-bed, and plodding at her heels was old Billy Norris,
+grinning sheepishly.
+
+It took just three seconds for the hands of father and son to meet.
+"How's my gal an' my grandson?" asked the old farmer, excitedly.
+
+"Bully, just bully, both of them!" smiled Sam, proudly. Then more
+seriously, "Ah, dad, you old tornado, you! Here you fired thunder
+at us for a whole year, pretty near broke my mother's heart, and
+made my boy's little mother old before she ought to be. But you've
+quit storming now, dad. I know it from the look of you."
+
+"Quit forever, Sam," replied old Billy, "fer these mother-wimmen
+don't never thrive where there's rough weather, somehow. They're
+all fer peace. They're worse than King Edward an' Teddy Roosevelt
+fer patchin' up rows, an' if they can't do it no other way, they
+jes' hike along with a baby, sort o' treaty of peace like. Yes, I
+guess I thundered some; but, Sam, boy, there ain't a deal of harm
+in thunder--but _lightnin'_, now that's the worst, but I once heard
+a feller say that feathers was non-conductive." Then with a sly
+smile, "An' Sam, you'd better hustle an' git the gal an' the baby
+on ter this here feather-bed, or they may be in danger of gittin'
+struck, fer there's no tellin' but I may jes' start an' storm
+thunder an' _lightnin'_ this time."
+
+
+
+A Pagan in St. Paul's Cathedral
+
+Iroquois Poetess' Impressions in London's Cathedral
+
+
+It is a far cry from a wigwam to Westminster, from a prairie trail
+to the Tower Bridge, and London looks a strange place to the Red
+Indian whose eyes still see the myriad forest trees, even as they
+gaze across the Strand, and whose feet still feel the clinging
+moccasin even among the scores of clicking heels that hurry along
+the thoroughfares of this camping-ground of the paleface.
+
+So this is the place where dwells the Great White Father, ruler of
+many lands, lodges, and tribes, in the hollow of whose hands is the
+peace that rests between the once hostile red man and white. They
+call him the King of England, but to us, the powerful Iroquois
+nation of the north, he is always the "Great White Father." For
+once he came to us in our far-off Canadian reserves, and with his
+own hand fastened decorations and medals on the buckskin coats of
+our oldest chiefs, just because they and their fathers used their
+tomahawks in battle in the cause of England.
+
+So I, one of his loyal allies, have come to see his camp, known to
+the white man as London, his council which the whites call his
+Parliament, where his sachems and chiefs make the laws of his
+tribes, and to see his wigwam, known to the palefaces as Buckingham
+Palace, but to the red man as the "Tepee of the Great White
+Father." And this is what I see:--
+
+  What the Indian Sees.
+
+Lifting toward the sky are vast buildings of stone, not the same
+kind of stone from which my forefathers fashioned their carven
+pipes and corn-pounders, but a grayer, grimier rock that would not
+take the polish we give by fingers dipped in sturgeon oil, and long
+days of friction with fine sand and deer-hide.
+
+I stand outside the great palace wigwam, the huge council-house by
+the river. My seeing eyes may mark them, but my heart's eyes are
+looking beyond all this wonderment, back to the land I have left
+behind me. I picture the tepees by the far Saskatchewan; there
+the tent poles, too, are lifting skyward, and the smoke ascending
+through them from the smouldering fires within curls softly on the
+summer air. Against the blurred sweep of horizon other camps etch
+their outlines, other bands of red men with their herds of wild
+cattle have sought the river lands. I hear the untamed hoofs
+thundering up the prairie trail.
+
+But the prairie sounds are slipping away, and my ears catch other
+voices that rise above the ceaseless throb about me--voices that
+are clear, high, and calling; they float across the city like the
+music of a thousand birds of passage beating their wings through
+the night, crying and murmuring plaintively as they journey
+northward. They are the voices of St. Paul's calling, calling
+me--St. Paul's where the paleface worships the Great Spirit, and
+through whose portals he hopes to reach the happy hunting grounds.
+
+  The Great Spirit.
+
+As I entered its doorways it seemed to me to be the everlasting
+abiding-place of the white man's Great Spirit.
+
+The music brooded everywhere. It beat in my ears like the far-off
+cadences of the Sault Ste. Marie rapids, that rise and leap and
+throb--like a storm hurling through the fir forest--like the
+distant rising of an Indian war-song; it swept up those mighty
+archways until the gray dome above me faded, and in its place
+the stars came out to look down, not on these paleface kneeling
+worshippers, but on a band of stalwart, sinewy, copper-coloured
+devotees, my own people in my own land, who also assembled to do
+honour to the Manitou of all nations.
+
+The deep-throated organ and the boy's voices were gone; I heard
+instead the melancholy incantations of our own pagan religionists.
+The beautiful dignity of our great sacrificial rites seemed to
+settle about me, to enwrap me in its garment of solemnity and
+primitive stateliness.
+
+  Beat of the Drum.
+
+The atmosphere pulsed with the beat of the Indian drum, the
+eerie penetrations of the turtle rattle that set the time of the
+dancers' feet. Dance? It is not a dance, that marvellously slow,
+serpentine-like figure with the soft swish, swish of moccasined
+feet, and the faint jingling of elks'-teeth bracelets, keeping
+rhythm with every footfall. It is not a dance, but an invocation
+of motion. Why may we not worship with the graceful movement of
+our feet? The paleface worships by moving his lips and tongue;
+the difference is but slight.
+
+The altar-lights of St. Paul's glowed for me no more. In their
+place flared the camp fires of the Onondaga "long-house," and the
+resinous scent of the burning pine drifted across the fetid London
+air. I saw the tall, copper-skinned fire-keeper of the Iroquois
+council enter, the circle of light flung fitfully against the black
+surrounding woods. I have seen their white bishops, but none so
+regal, so august as he. His garb of fringed buckskin and ermine was
+no more grotesque than the vestments worn by the white preachers in
+high places; he did not carry a book or a shining golden symbol,
+but from his splendid shoulders was suspended a pure white lifeless
+dog.
+
+Into the red flame the strong hands gently lowered it, scores of
+reverent, blanketed figures stood silent, awed, for it is the
+highest, holiest festival of the year. Then the wild, strange chant
+arose--the great pagan ritual was being intoned by the fire-keeper,
+his weird, monotonous tones voicing this formula:
+
+"The Great Spirit desires no human sacrifice, but we, His children,
+must give to Him that which is nearest our hearts and nearest our
+lives. Only the spotless and stainless can enter into His presence,
+only that which is purified by fire. So--this white dog--a
+member of our household, a co-habitant of our wigwam, and on the
+smoke that arises from the purging fires will arise also the
+thanksgivings of all those who desire that the Great Spirit in His
+happy hunting grounds will forever smoke His pipe of peace, for
+peace is between Him and His children for all time."
+
+The mournful voice ceases. Again the hollow pulsing of the Indian
+drum, the purring, flexible step of cushioned feet. I lift my head,
+which has been bowed on the chair before me. It is St. Paul's after
+all--and the clear boy-voices rise above the rich echoes of the
+organ.
+
+
+
+As It Was in the Beginning
+
+
+They account for it by the fact that I am a Redskin, but I am
+something else, too--I am a woman.
+
+I remember the first time I saw him. He came up the trail with some
+Hudson's Bay trappers, and they stopped at the door of my father's
+tepee. He seemed even then, fourteen years ago, an old man; his hair
+seemed just as thin and white, his hands just as trembling and
+fleshless as they were a month since, when I saw him for what I pray
+his God is the last time.
+
+My father sat in the tepee, polishing buffalo horns and smoking; my
+mother, wrapped in her blanket, crouched over her quill-work, on the
+buffalo-skin at his side; I was lounging at the doorway, idling,
+watching, as I always watched, the thin, distant line of sky and
+prairie; wondering, as I always wondered, what lay beyond it. Then
+he came, this gentle old man with his white hair and thin, pale
+face. He wore a long black coat, which I now know was the sign of
+his office, and he carried a black leather-covered book, which, in
+all the years I have known him, I have never seen him without.
+
+The trappers explained to my father who he was, the Great Teacher,
+the heart's Medicine Man, the "Blackcoat" we had heard of, who
+brought peace where there was war, and the magic of whose black book
+brought greater things than all the Happy Hunting Grounds of our
+ancestors.
+
+He told us many things that day, for he could speak the Cree tongue,
+and my father listened, and listened, and when at last they left us,
+my father said for him to come and sit within the tepee again.
+
+He came, all the time he came, and my father welcomed him, but my
+mother always sat in silence at work with the quills; my mother
+never liked the Great "Blackcoat."
+
+His stories fascinated me. I used to listen intently to the tale of
+the strange new place he called "heaven," of the gold crown, of the
+white dress, of the great music; and then he would tell of that
+other strange place--hell. My father and I hated it; we feared it,
+we dreamt of it, we trembled at it. Oh, if the "Blackcoat" would
+only cease to talk of it! Now I know he saw its effect upon us, and
+he used it as a whip to lash us into his new religion, but even then
+my mother must have known, for each time he left the tepee she would
+watch him going slowly away across the prairie; then when he was
+disappearing into the far horizon she would laugh scornfully, and
+say:
+
+"If the white man made this Blackcoat's hell, let him go to it. It
+is for the man who found it first. No hell for Indians, just Happy
+Hunting Grounds. Blackcoat can't scare me."
+
+And then, after weeks had passed, one day as he stood at the tepee
+door he laid his white, old hand on my head and said to my father:
+"Give me this little girl, chief. Let me take her to the mission
+school; let me keep her, and teach her of the great God and His
+eternal heaven. She will grow to be a noble woman, and return
+perhaps to bring her people to the Christ."
+
+My mother's eyes snapped. "No," she said. It was the first word she
+ever spoke to the "Blackcoat." My father sat and smoked. At the end
+of a half-hour he said:
+
+"I am an old man, Blackcoat. I shall not leave the God of my fathers.
+I like not your strange God's ways--all of them. I like not His two
+new places for me when I am dead. Take the child, Blackcoat, and
+save her from hell."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first grief of my life was when we reached the mission. They
+took my buckskin dress off, saying I was now a little Christian girl
+and must dress like all the white people at the mission. Oh, how I
+hated that stiff new calico dress and those leather shoes. But,
+little as I was, I said nothing, only thought of the time when I
+should be grown, and do as my mother did, and wear the buckskins
+and the blanket.
+
+My next serious grief was when I began to speak the English, that
+they forbade me to use any Cree words whatever. The rule of the
+school was that any child heard using its native tongue must get
+a slight punishment. I never understood it, I cannot understand
+it now, why the use of my dear Cree tongue could be a matter for
+correction or an action deserving punishment.
+
+She was strict, the matron of the school, but only justly so, for
+she had a heart and a face like her brother's, the "Blackcoat."
+I had long since ceased to call him that. The trappers at the
+post called him "St. Paul," because, they told me, of his
+self-sacrificing life, his kindly deeds, his rarely beautiful old
+face; so I, too, called him "St. Paul," thought oftener "Father
+Paul," though he never liked the latter title, for he was a
+Protestant. But as I was his pet, his darling of the whole school,
+he let me speak of him as I would, knowing it was but my heart
+speaking in love. His sister was a widow, and mother to a laughing
+yellow-haired boy of about my own age, who was my constant playmate
+and who taught me much of English in his own childish way. I used
+to be fond of this child, just as I was fond of his mother and of
+his uncle, my "Father Paul," but as my girlhood passed away, as
+womanhood came upon me, I got strangely wearied of them all; I
+longed, oh, God, how I longed for the old wild life! It came with
+my womanhood, with my years.
+
+What mattered it to me now that they had taught me all their
+ways?--their tricks of dress, their reading, their writing, their
+books. What mattered it that "Father Paul" loved me, that the
+traders at the post called me pretty, that I was a pet of all, from
+the factor to the poorest trapper in the service? I wanted my own
+people, my own old life, my blood called out for it, but they always
+said I must not return to my father's tepee. I heard them talk
+amongst themselves of keeping me away from pagan influences; they
+told each other that if I returned to the prairies, the tepees, I
+would degenerate, slip back to paganism, as other girls had done;
+marry, perhaps, with a pagan--and all their years of labor and
+teaching would be lost.
+
+I said nothing, but I waited. And then one night the feeling
+overcame me. I was in the Hudson's Bay store when an Indian came
+in from the north with a large pack of buckskin. As they unrolled
+it a dash of its insinuating odor filled the store. I went over
+and leaned above the skins a second, then buried my face in them,
+swallowing, drinking the fragrance of them, that went to my head
+like wine. Oh, the wild wonder of that wood-smoked tan, the
+subtilty of it, the untamed smell of it! I drank it into my lungs,
+my innermost being was saturated with it, till my mind reeled
+and my heart seemed twisted with a physical agony. My childhood
+recollections rushed upon me, devoured me. I left the store in a
+strange, calm frenzy, and going rapidly to the mission house I
+confronted my Father Paul and demanded to be allowed to go "home,"
+if only for a day. He received the request with the same refusal and
+the same gentle sigh that I had so often been greeted with, but this
+time the desire, the smoke-tan, the heart-ache, never lessened.
+
+Night after night I would steal away by myself and go to the border
+of the village to watch the sun set in the foothills, to gaze at the
+far line of sky and prairie, to long and long for my father's lodge.
+And Laurence--always Laurence--my fair-haired, laughing, child
+playmate, would come calling and calling for me: "Esther, where are
+you? We miss you; come in, Esther, come in with me." And if I did
+not turn at once to him and follow, he would come and place his
+strong hands on my shoulders and laugh into my eyes and say,
+"Truant, truant, Esther; can't _we_ make you happy?"
+
+My old childhood playmate had vanished years ago. He was a tall,
+slender young man now, handsome as a young chief, but with laughing
+blue eyes, and always those yellow curls about his temples. He was
+my solace in my half-exile, my comrade, my brother, until one night
+it was, "Esther, Esther, can't _I_ make you happy?"
+
+I did not answer him; only looked out across the plains and thought
+of the tepees. He came close, close. He locked his arms about me,
+and with my face pressed up to his throat he stood silent. I felt
+the blood from my heart sweep to my very finger-tips. I loved him.
+O God, how I loved him! In a wild, blind instant it all came, just
+because he held me so and was whispering brokenly, "Don't leave me,
+don't leave me, Esther; _my_ Esther, my child-love, my playmate, my
+girl-comrade, my little Cree sweetheart, will you go away to your
+people, or stay, stay for me, for my arms, as I have you now?"
+
+No more, no more the tepees; no more the wild stretch of prairie,
+the intoxicating fragrance of the smoke-tanned buckskin; no more the
+bed of buffalo hide, the soft, silent moccasin; no more the dark
+faces of my people, the dulcet cadence of the sweet Cree tongue--only
+this man, this fair, proud, tender man who held me in his arms, in
+his heart. My soul prayed his great white God, in that moment, that
+He would let me have only this. It was twilight when we re-entered
+the mission gate. We were both excited, feverish. Father Paul was
+reading evening prayers in the large room beyond the hallway; his
+soft, saint-like voice stole beyond the doors, like a benediction
+upon us. I went noiselessly upstairs to my own room and sat there
+undisturbed for hours.
+
+The clock downstairs struck one, startling me from my dreams of
+happiness, and at the same moment a flash of light attracted me. My
+room was in an angle of the building, and my window looked almost
+directly down into those of Father Paul's study, into which at that
+instant he was entering, carrying a lamp. "Why, Laurence," I heard
+him exclaim, "what are you doing here? I thought, my boy, you were
+in bed hours ago."
+
+"No, uncle, not in bed, but in dreamland," replied Laurence, arising
+from the window, where evidently he, too, had spent the night hours
+as I had done.
+
+Father Paul fumbled about a moment, found his large black book,
+which for once he seemed to have got separated from, and was turning
+to leave, when the curious circumstance of Laurence being there at
+so unusual an hour seemed to strike him anew. "Better go to sleep,
+my son," he said simply, then added curiously, "Has anything
+occurred to keep you up?"
+
+Then Laurence spoke: "No, uncle, only--only, I'm happy, that's all."
+
+Father Paul stood irresolute. Then: "It is--?"
+
+"Esther," said Laurence quietly, but he was at the old man's side,
+his hand was on the bent old shoulder, his eyes proud and appealing.
+
+Father Paul set the lamp on the table, but, as usual, one hand held
+that black book, the great text of his life. His face was paler than
+I had ever seen it--graver.
+
+"Tell me of it," he requested.
+
+I leaned far out of my window and watched them both. I listened with
+my very heart, for Laurence was telling him of me, of his love, of
+the new-found joy of that night.
+
+"You have said nothing of marriage to her?" asked Father Paul.
+
+"Well--no; but she surely understands that--"
+
+"Did you speak of _marriage_?" repeated Father Paul, with a harsh
+ring in his voice that was new to me.
+
+"No, uncle, but--"
+
+"Very well, then, very well."
+
+There was a brief silence. Laurence stood staring at the old man as
+though he were a stranger; he watched him push a large chair up to
+the table, slowly seat himself; then mechanically following his
+movements, he dropped on to a lounge. The old man's head bent low,
+but his eyes were bright and strangely fascinating. He began:
+
+"Laurence, my boy, your future is the dearest thing to me of all
+earthly interests. Why you _can't_ marry this girl--no, no, sit, sit
+until I have finished," he added, with raised voice, as Laurence
+sprang up, remonstrating. "I have long since decided that you marry
+well; for instance, the Hudson's Bay factor's daughter."
+
+Laurence broke into a fresh, rollicking laugh. "What, uncle," he
+said, "little Ida McIntosh? Marry that little yellow-haired fluff
+ball, that kitten, that pretty little dolly?"
+
+"Stop," said Father Paul. Then with a low, soft persuasiveness, "She
+is _white_, Laurence."
+
+My lover started. "Why, uncle, what do you mean?" he faltered.
+
+"Only this, my son: poor Esther comes of uncertain blood; would it
+do for you--the missionary's nephew, and adopted son, you might
+say--to marry the daughter of a pagan Indian? Her mother is
+hopelessly uncivilized; her father has a dash of French
+somewhere--half-breed, you know, my boy, half-breed." Then, with
+still lower tone and half-shut, crafty eyes, he added: "The blood is
+a bad, bad mixture, _you_ know that; you know, too, that I am very
+fond of the girl, poor dear Esther. I have tried to separate her
+from evil pagan influences; she is the daughter of the Church; I
+want her to have no other parent; but you never can tell what lurks
+in a caged animal that has once been wild. My whole heart is with
+the Indian people, my son; my whole heart, my whole life, has been
+devoted to bringing them to Christ, _but it is a different thing to
+marry with one of them_."
+
+His small old eyes were riveted on Laurence like a hawk's on a rat.
+My heart lay like ice in my bosom.
+
+Laurence, speechless and white, stared at him breathlessly.
+
+"Go away somewhere," the old man was urging; "to Winnipeg, Toronto,
+Montreal; forget her, then come back to Ida McIntosh. A union of the
+Church and Hudson's Bay will mean great things, and may ultimately
+result in my life's ambition, the civilization of this entire tribe,
+that we have worked so long to bring to God."
+
+I listened, sitting like one frozen. Could those words have been
+uttered by my venerable teacher, by him whom I revered as I would
+one of the saints in his own black book? Ah, there was no mistaking
+it. My white father, my life-long friend who pretended to love me,
+to care for my happiness, was urging the man I worshipped to forget
+me, to marry with the factor's daughter--because of what? Of my red
+skin; my good, old, honest pagan mother; my confiding French-Indian
+father. In a second all the care, the hollow love he had given me
+since my childhood, were as things that never existed. I hated that
+old mission priest as I hated his white man's hell. I hated his
+long, white hair; I hated his thin, white hands; I hated his body,
+his soul, his voice, his black book--oh, how I hated the very
+atmosphere of him.
+
+Laurence sat motionless, his face buried in his hands, but the old
+man continued, "No, no; not the child of that pagan mother; you
+can't trust her, my son. What would you do with a wife who might any
+day break from you to return to her prairies and her buckskins? _You
+can't trust her_." His eyes grew smaller, more glittering, more
+fascinating then, and leaning with an odd, secret sort of movement
+towards Laurence, he almost whispered, "Think of her silent ways,
+her noiseless step; the girl glides about like an apparition; her
+quick fingers, her wild longings--I don't know why, but with all my
+fondness for her, she reminds me sometimes of a strange--_snake_."
+
+Laurence shuddered, lifted his face, and said hoarsely: "You're
+right, uncle; perhaps I'd better not; I'll go away, I'll forget her,
+and then--well, then--yes, you are right, it _is_ a different thing
+to marry one of them." The old man arose. His feeble fingers still
+clasped his black book; his soft white hair clung about his forehead
+like that of an Apostle; his eyes lost their peering, crafty
+expression; his bent shoulders resumed the dignity of a minister
+of the living God; he was the picture of what the trader called
+him--"St. Paul."
+
+"Good-night, son," he said.
+
+"Good-night, uncle, and thank you for bringing me to myself."
+
+They were the last words I ever heard uttered by either that old
+arch-fiend or his weak, miserable kinsman. Father Paul turned and
+left the room. I watched his withered hand--the hand I had so often
+felt resting on my head in holy benedictions--clasp the door-knob,
+turn it slowly, then, with bowed head and his pale face wrapped in
+thought, he left the room--left it with the mad venom of my hate
+pursuing him like the very Evil One he taught me of.
+
+What were his years of kindness and care now? What did I care for
+his God, his heaven, his hell? He had robbed me of my native faith,
+of my parents, of my people, of this last, this life of love that
+would have made a great, good woman of me. God! how I hated him!
+
+I crept to the closet in my dark little room. I felt for the bundle
+I had not looked at for years--yes, it was there, the buckskin dress
+I had worn as a little child when they brought me to the mission. I
+tucked it under my arm and descended the stairs noiselessly. I would
+look into the study and speak good-bye to Laurence; then I would--
+
+I pushed open the door. He was lying on the couch where a short time
+previously he had sat, white and speechless, listening to Father
+Paul. I moved towards him softly. God in heaven, he was already
+asleep. As I bent over him the fullness of his perfect beauty
+impressed me for the first time; his slender form, his curving mouth
+that almost laughed even in sleep, his fair, tossed hair, his
+smooth, strong-pulsing throat. God! how I loved him!
+
+Then there arose the picture of the factor's daughter. I hated her.
+I hated her baby face, her yellow hair, her whitish skin. "She shall
+not marry him," my soul said. "I will kill him first--kill his
+beautiful body, his lying, false heart." Something in my heart
+seemed to speak; it said over and over again, "Kill him, kill him;
+she will never have him then. Kill him. It will break Father Paul's
+heart and blight his life. He has killed the best of you, of your
+womanhood; kill _his_ best, his pride, his hope--his sister's son,
+his nephew Laurence." But how? how?
+
+What had that terrible old man said I was like? A _strange snake_.
+A snake? The idea wound itself about me like the very coils of a
+serpent. What was this in the beaded bag of my buckskin dress? This
+little thing rolled in tan that my mother had given me at parting
+with the words, "Don't touch much, but some time maybe you want it!"
+Oh! I knew well enough what it was--a small flint arrow-head dipped
+in the venom of some _strange snake_.
+
+I knelt beside him and laid my hot lips on his hand. I worshipped
+him, oh, how, how I worshipped him! Then again the vision of _her_
+baby face, _her_ yellow-hair--I scratched his wrist twice with the
+arrow-tip. A single drop of red blood oozed up; he stirred. I turned
+the lamp down and slipped out of the room--out of the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I dream nightly of the horrors of the white man's hell. Why did they
+teach me of it, only to fling me into it?
+
+Last night as I crouched beside my mother on the buffalo-hide, Dan
+Henderson, the trapper, came in to smoke with my father. He said old
+Father Paul was bowed with grief, that with my disappearance I was
+suspected, but that there was no proof. Was it not merely a snake
+bite?
+
+They account for it by the fact that I am a Redskin.
+
+They seem to have forgotten I am a woman.
+
+
+
+The Legend of Lillooet Falls
+
+
+No one could possibly mistake the quiet little tap at the door. It
+could be given by no other hand west of the Rockies save that of my
+old friend The Klootchman. I dropped a lap full of work and sprang
+to open the door; for the slanting rains were chill outside, albeit
+the December grass was green and the great masses of English ivy
+clung wet and fresh as in summer about the low stone wall that ran
+between my verandah and the street.
+
+"Kla-how-ya, Tillicum," I greeted, dragging her into the warmth and
+comfort of my "den," and relieving her of her inseparable basket,
+and removing her rain-soaked shawl. Before she spoke she gave that
+peculiar gesture common to the Indian woman from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific. She lifted both hands and with each forefinger
+smoothed gently along her forehead from the parting of her hair to
+the temples. It is the universal habit of the red woman, and simply
+means a desire for neatness in her front locks.
+
+I busied myself immediately with the teakettle, for, like all her
+kind, The Klootchman dearly loves her tea.
+
+The old woman's eyes sparkled as she watched the welcome brewing,
+while she chatted away in half English, half Chinook, telling me
+of her doings in all these weeks that I had not seen her. But it
+was when I handed her a huge old-fashioned breakfast cup fairly
+brimming with tea as strong as lye that she really described her
+journeyings.
+
+She had been north to the Skeena River, south to the great "Fair"
+at Seattle, but, best of all seemingly to her, was her trip into
+the interior. She had been up the trail to Lillooet in the great
+"Cariboo" country. It was my turn then to have sparkling eyes, for
+I traversed that inexpressibly beautiful trail five years ago, and
+the delight of that journey will remain with me for all time.
+
+"And, oh! Tillicum," I cried, "have your good brown ears actually
+listened to the call of the falls across the canyon--the Falls of
+Lillooet?"
+
+"My ears have heard them whisper, laugh, weep," she replied in
+Chinook.
+
+"Yes," I answered, "they do all those things. They have magic
+voices--those dear, far-off falls!"
+
+At the word "magic" her keen eyes snapped, she set her empty cup
+aside and looked at me solemnly.
+
+"Then you know the story--the strange tale?" she asked almost
+whisperingly.
+
+I shook my head. This was always the crucial moment with my
+Klootchman, when her voice lowers, and she asks if you know things.
+You must be diplomatic, and never question her in turn. If you do
+her lips will close in unbreakable silence.
+
+"I have heard no story, but I have heard the Falls 'whisper, laugh
+and weep.' That is enough for me," I said, with seeming
+indifference.
+
+"What do you see when you look at them from across the canyon?" she
+asked. "Do they look to you like anything else but falling water?"
+
+I thought for a moment before replying. Memory seemed to hold up
+against an indistinct photograph of towering fir-crested heights,
+where through a broken ridge of rock a shower of silvery threads
+cascaded musically down, down, down, until they lost themselves in
+the mighty Fraser, that hurled itself through the yawning canyon
+stretched at my feet. I have never seen such slender threads of
+glowing tissue save on early morning cobwebs at sun-up.
+
+"The Falls look like cobwebs," I said, as the memory touched me.
+"Millions of fine misty cobwebs woven together."
+
+"Then the legend must be true," she uttered, half to herself. I
+slipped down on my treasured wolf-skin rug near her chair, and with
+hands locked about my knees, sat in silence, knowing it was the one
+and only way to lure her to speech. She arose, helped herself to
+more tea, and with the toe of her beaded moccasin idly stroked one
+of the wolf-skin paws. "Yes," she said, with some decision, "the
+Indian men of magic say that the falls are cobwebs twisted and
+braided together."
+
+I nodded, but made no comment; then her voice droned into the
+broken English, that, much as I love it, I must leave to the
+reader's imagination. "Indian mothers are strange," she began.
+I nodded again.
+
+"Yes, they are strange, and there is a strange tie between them
+and their children. The men of magic say they can _see_ that tie,
+though you and I cannot. It is thin, fine silvery as a cobweb, but
+strong as the ropes of wild vine that swing down the great canyons.
+No storm ever breaks those vines; the tempests that drag the giant
+firs and cedars up by their roots, snap their branches and break
+their boles, never break the creeping vines. They may be torn from
+their strongholds, but in the young months of the summer the vine
+will climb up, and cling again. _Nothing_ breaks it. So is the
+cobweb tie the Men of Magic see between the Indian mother and her
+child.
+
+"There was a time when no falls leapt and sang down the heights at
+Lillooet, and in those days our men were very wild and warlike; but
+the women were gentle and very beautiful, and they loved and lived
+and bore children as women have done before, and since.
+
+"But there was one, more gentle, more beautiful than all others of
+the tribe. 'Be-be,' our people call her; it is the Chinook word for
+'a kiss.' None of our people knew her real name; but it was a kiss
+of hers that made this legend, so as 'Be-be' we speak of her.
+
+"She was a mother-woman, but save for one beautiful girl-child, her
+family of six were all boys, splendid, brave boys, too, but this
+one treasured girl-child they called 'Morning-mist.' She was little
+and frail and beautiful, like the clouds one sees at daybreak
+circling about the mountain peaks. Her father and her brothers
+loved her, but the heart of Be-be, her mother, seemed wrapped round
+and about that misty-eyed child.
+
+"'I love you,' the mother would say many times a day, as she caught
+the girl-child in her arms. 'And I love you,' the girl-child would
+answer, resting for a moment against the warm shoulder. 'Little
+Flower,' the woman would murmur, 'thou art morning to me, thou art
+golden mid-day, thou art slumbrous nightfall to my heart.'
+
+"So these two loved and lived, mother and daughter, made for each
+other, shaped into each other's lives as the moccasin is shaped to
+the foot.
+
+"Then came that long, shadowed, sunless day, when Be-be, returning
+from many hours of ollallie picking, her basket filled to the brim
+with rich fruit, her heart reaching forth to her home even before
+her swift feet could traverse the trail, found her husband and
+her boys stunned with a dreadful fear, searching with wild eyes,
+hurrying feet, and grief-wrung hearts for her little 'Morning-child,'
+who had wandered into the forest while her brothers played--the
+forest which was deep and dark and dangerous,--and had not returned."
+
+The Klootchman's voice ceased. For a long moment she gazed straight
+before her, then looking at me said:
+
+"You have heard the Falls of Lillooet weep?" I nodded.
+
+"It is the weeping of that Indian mother, sobbing through the
+centuries, that you hear." She uttered the words with a cadence
+of grief in her voice.
+
+"Hours, nights, days, they searched for the morning-child," she
+continued. "And each moment of that unending agony to the
+mother-woman is repeated to-day in the call, the wail, the
+everlasting sobbing of the falls. At night the wolves howled up
+the canyon. 'God of my fathers, keep safe my Morning-child' the
+mother would implore. In the glare of day eagles poised, and
+vultures wheeled above the forest, their hungry claws, their
+unblinking eyes, their beaks of greed shining in the sunlight.
+'God of my fathers, keep safe my Morning-child' was again wrung
+from the mother's lips. For one long moon, that dawned, and
+shone and darkened, that mother's heart lived out its torture.
+Then one pale daybreak a great fleet of canoes came down the
+Frazer River. Those that paddled were of a strange tribe, they
+spoke in a strange tongue, but their hearts were human, and their
+skins were of the rich copper-color of the Upper Lillooet country.
+As they steered downstream, running the rapids, braving the
+whirlpools, they chanted, in monotone:
+
+  "'We have a lost child
+    A beautiful lost child.
+    We love this lost child,
+    But the heart of the child
+    Calls the mother of the child.
+    Come and claim this lost child.'
+
+"The music of the chant was most beautiful, but no music in the
+world of the white man's Tyee could equal that which rang through
+the heart of Be-be, the Indian mother-woman.
+
+"Heart upon heart, lips upon lips, the Morning-child and the
+mother caught each other in embrace. The strange tribe told of how
+they had found the girl-child wandering fearfully in the forest,
+crouching from the claws of eagles, shrinking from the horror of
+wolves, but the mother with her regained treasure in her arms
+begged them to cease their tales. 'I have gone through agonies
+enough, oh, my friends,' she cried aloud. 'Let me rest from torture
+now.' Then her people came and made a great feast and potlatch for
+this strange Upper Lillooet tribe, and at the feast Be-be arose,
+and, lifting the girl-child to her shoulder, she commanded silence
+and spoke:
+
+"'O Sagalie Tyee (God of all the earth), You have given back to me
+my treasure; take my tears, my sobs, my happy laughter, my joy--take
+the cobweb chains that bind my Morning-child and me--make them
+sing to others, that they may know my gratitude. O Sagalie Tyee,
+make them sing.' As she spoke, she kissed the child. At that moment
+the Falls of Lillooet came like a million strands, dashing and
+gleaming down the canyon, sobbing, laughing, weeping, calling,
+singing. You have listened to them."
+
+The Klootchman's voice was still. Outside, the rains still slanted
+gently, like a whispering echo of the far-away falls. "Thank you,
+Tillicum of mine; it is a beautiful legend," I said. She did not
+reply until, wrapped about in her shawl, she had clasped my hand
+in good-bye. At the door she paused. "Yes," she said--"and it is
+true." I smiled to myself. I love my Klootchman. She is so _very_
+Indian.
+
+
+
+Her Majesty's Guest
+
+[Author's Note.--The "Onondaga Jam" occurred late in the seventies,
+and this tale is founded upon actual incidents in the life of the
+author's father, who was Forest Warden on the Indian Reserve.]
+
+
+I have never been a good man, but then I have never pretended to be
+one, and perhaps that at least will count in my favor in the day
+when the great dividends are declared.
+
+I have been what is called "well brought up" and I would give some
+years of my life to possess now the money spent on my education;
+how I came to drop from what I should have been to what I am would
+scarcely interest anyone--if indeed I were capable of detailing the
+process, which I am not. I suppose I just rolled leisurely down
+hill like many another fellow.
+
+My friends, however, still credit me with one virtue; that is an
+absolute respect for my neighbor's wife, a feeling which, however,
+does not extend to his dollars. His money is mine if I can get it,
+and to do myself justice I prefer getting it from him honestly, at
+least without sufficient dishonesty to place me behind prison bars.
+
+Some experience has taught me that when a man is reduced to getting
+his living, as I do, by side issues and small deals, there is no
+better locality for him to operate than around the borders of some
+Indian Reserve.
+
+The pagan Indian is an unsuspicious fool. You can do him up right
+and left. The Christian Indian is as sharp as a fox, and with a
+little gloved handling he will always go in with you on a few lumber
+and illicit whiskey deals, which means that you have the confidence
+of his brethren and their dollars at the same time.
+
+I had outwitted the law for six years. I had smuggled more liquor
+into the Indian Bush on the Grand River Reserve and drawn more
+timber out of it to the Hamilton and Brantford markets than any
+forty dealers put together. Gradually, the law thinned the whole
+lot out--all but me; but I was slippery as an eel and my bottles of
+whiskey went on, and my loads of ties and timber came off, until
+every officer and preacher in the place got up and demanded an
+inspection.
+
+The Government at Ottawa awoke, stretched, yawned, then printed
+some flaring posters and stuck them around the border villages. The
+posters were headed by a big print of the British Coat of Arms,
+and some large type beneath announced terrible fines and heavy
+imprisonments for anyone caught hauling Indian timber off the
+Reserve, or hauling whiskey on to it. Then the Government rubbed
+its fat palms together, settled itself in its easy chair, and
+snored again.
+
+I? Oh, I went on with my operations.
+
+And at Christmas time Tom Barrett arrived on the scene. Not much of
+an event, you'd say if you saw him, still less if you heard him.
+According to himself, he knew everything and could do everything in
+the known world; he was just twenty-two and as obnoxiously fresh a
+thing as ever boasted itself before older men.
+
+He was the old missionary's son and had come up from college at
+Montreal to help his father preach salvation to the Indians on
+Sundays, and to swagger around week-days in his brand new
+clerical-cut coat and white tie.
+
+He enjoyed what is called, I believe, "deacon's orders." They tell
+me he was recently "priested," to use their straight English Church
+term, and is now parson of a swell city church. Well! they can have
+him. I'll never split on him, but I could tell them some things
+about Tom Barrett that would soil his surplice--at least in my
+opinion, but you never can be sure when even religious people will
+make a hero out of a rogue.
+
+The first time I ever saw him he came into "Jake's" one night,
+quite late. We were knocked clean dumb. "Jake's" isn't the place
+you would count on seeing a clerical-cut coat in.
+
+It's not a thoroughly disreputable place, for Jake has a decent
+enough Indian wife; but he happens also to have a cellar which has
+a hard name for illicit-whiskey supplies, though never once has the
+law, in its numerous and unannounced visits to the shanty, ever
+succeeded in discovering barrel or bottle. I consider myself a
+pretty smart man, but Jake is cleverer than I am.
+
+When young Barrett came in that night, there was a clatter of hiding
+cups. "Hello, boys," he said, and sat down wearily opposite me,
+leaning his arms on the table between us like one utterly done out.
+
+Jake, it seemed, had the distinction of knowing him; so he said
+kind of friendly-like,
+
+"Hello, parson--sick?"
+
+"Sick? Sick nothing," said Barrett, "except sick to death of this
+place. And don't 'parson' me! I'm 'parson' on Sundays; the rest of
+the six days I'm Tom Barrett--Tom, if you like."
+
+We were dead silent. For myself, I thought the fellow clean
+crazy; but the next moment he had turned half around, and with a
+quick, soft, coaxing movement, for all the world like a woman, he
+slipped his arm around Jake's shoulders, and said, "Say, Jake,
+don't let the fellows mind me," Then in a lower tone--"What have
+you got to drink?"
+
+Jake went white-looking and began to talk of some cider he'd got in
+the cellar; but Barrett interrupted with, "Look here, Jake, just
+drop that rot; I know all about _you_." He tipped a half wink at
+the rest of us, but laid his fingers across his lips. "Come, old
+man," he wheedled like a girl, "you don't know what it is to be
+dragged away from college and buried alive in this Indian bush. The
+governor's good enough, you know--treats me white and all that--but
+you know what he is on whiskey. I tell you I've got a throat as
+long and dry as a fence rail--"
+
+No one spoke.
+
+"You'll save my life if you do," he added, crushing a bank note
+into Jake's hand.
+
+Jake looked at me. The same thought flashed on us both; if we could
+get this church student on our side--Well! Things would be easy
+enough and public suspicion never touch us. Jake turned,
+resurrected the hidden cups, and went down cellar.
+
+"You're Dan McLeod, aren't you?" suggested Barrett, leaning across
+the table and looking sharply at me.
+
+"That's me," I said in turn, and sized him up. I didn't like his
+face; it was the undeniable face of a liar--small, uncertain eyes,
+set together close like those of a fox, a thin nose, a narrow,
+womanish chin that accorded with his girlish actions of coaxing,
+and a mouth I didn't quite understand.
+
+Jake had come up with the bottle, but before he could put it on the
+table Barrett snatched it like a starving dog would a hunk of meat.
+
+He peered at the label, squinting his foxy eyes, then laughed up at
+Jake.
+
+"I hope you don't sell the Indians _this_," he said, tapping the
+capsule.
+
+No, Jake never sold a drop of whiskey to Indians,--the law, you
+know, was very strict and--
+
+"Oh, I don't care whatever else you sell them," said Barrett, "but
+their red throats would never appreciate fine twelve-year-old like
+this. Come, boys."
+
+We came.
+
+"So you're Dan McLeod," he continued after the first long pull,
+"I've heard about you, too. You've got a deck of cards in your
+pocket--haven't you? Let's have a game."
+
+I looked at him, and though, as I said in the beginning, I'm not a
+good man, I felt honestly sorry for the old missionary and his wife
+at that moment.
+
+"It's no use," said the boy, reading my hesitation. "I've broken
+loose. I must have a slice of the old college life, just for
+to-night."
+
+I decided the half-cut of Indian blood on his mother's side was
+showing itself; it was just enough to give Tom a good red flavoring
+and a rare taste for gaming and liquor.
+
+We played until daylight, when Barrett said he must make his sneak
+home, and reaching for his wide-brimmed, soft felt preacher's hat,
+left--having pocketed twenty-six of our good dollars, swallowed
+unnumbered cups of twelve-year-old and won the combined respect of
+everyone at Jake's.
+
+The next Sunday Jake went to church out of curiosity. He said Tom
+Barrett "officiated" in a surplice as white as snow and with a face
+as sinless as your mother's. He preached most eloquently against
+the terrible evil of the illicit liquor trade, and implored his
+Indian flock to resist this greatest of all pitfalls. Jake even
+seemed impressed as he told us.
+
+But Tom Barrett's "breaking loose for once" was like any other
+man's. Night after night saw him at Jake's, though he never
+played to win after that first game. As the weeks went on, he got
+anxious-looking; his clerical coat began to grow seedy, his white
+ties uncared for; he lost his fresh, cheeky talk, and the climax
+came late in March when one night I found him at Jake's sitting
+alone, his face bowed down on the table above his folded arms, and
+something so disheartened in his attitude that I felt sorry for
+the boy. Perhaps it was that I was in trouble myself that day; my
+biggest "deal" of the season had been scented by the officers and
+the chances were they would come on and seize the five barrels
+of whiskey I had been as many weeks smuggling into the Reserve.
+However it was, I put my hand on his shoulder, and told him to
+brace up, asking at the same time what was wrong.
+
+"Money," he answered, looking up with kind of haggard eyes. "Dan, I
+must have money. City bills, college debts--everything has rolled
+up against me. I daren't tell the governor, and he couldn't help me
+anyway, and I can't go back for another term owing every man in my
+class." He looked suicidal. And then I made the plunge I'd been
+thinking on all day.
+
+"Would a hundred dollars be any good to you?" I eyed him hard as I
+said it, and sat down in my usual place, opposite him.
+
+"Good?" he exclaimed, half rising. "It would be an eternal
+godsend." His foxy eyes glittered. I thought I detected greed in
+them; perhaps it was only relief.
+
+I told him it was his if he would only help me, and making sure we
+were quite alone, I ran off a hurried account of my "deal," then
+proposed that he should "accidentally" meet the officers near the
+border, ring in with them as a parson would be likely to do, tell
+them he suspicioned the whiskey was directly at the opposite side
+of the Reserve to where I really had stored it, get them wild-goose
+chasing miles away, and give me a chance to clear the stuff and
+myself as well; in addition to the hundred I would give him twenty
+per cent. on the entire deal. He changed color and the sweat stood
+out on his forehead.
+
+"One hundred dollars this time to-morrow night," I said. He didn't
+move. "And twenty per cent. One hundred dollars this time to-morrow
+night," I repeated.
+
+He began to weaken. I lit my pipe and looked indifferent, though
+I knew I was a lost man if he refused--and informed. Suddenly he
+stretched his hand across the table, impulsively, and closed it
+over mine. I knew I had him solid then.
+
+"Dan," he choked up, "it's a terrible thing for a divinity student
+to do; but--" his fingers tightened nervously. "I'm with you!" Then
+in a moment, "Find some whiskey, Dan. I'm done up."
+
+He soon got braced enough to ask me who was in the deal, and what
+timber we expected to trade for. When I told him Lige Smith and
+Jack Jackson were going to help me, he looked scared and asked me
+if I thought they would split on him. He was so excited I thought
+him cowardly, but the poor devil had reason enough, I supposed, to
+want to keep the transaction from the ears of his father, or worse
+still--the bishop. He seemed easier when I assured him the boys
+were square, and immensely gratified at the news that I had already
+traded six quarts of the stuff for over a hundred dollars' worth of
+cordwood.
+
+"We'll never get it across the river to the markets," he said
+dolefully. "I came over this morning in a canoe. Ice is all out."
+
+"What about the Onondaga Jam?" I said. He winked.
+
+"That'll do. I'd forgotten it," he answered, and chirped up right
+away like a kid.
+
+But I hadn't forgotten the Jam. It had been a regular gold-mine to
+me all that open winter, when the ice froze and thawed every week
+and finally jammed itself clean to the river bottom in the throat
+of the bend up at Onondaga, and the next day the thermometer fell
+to eleven degrees below zero, freezing it into a solid block that
+bridged the river for traffic, and saved my falling fortunes.
+
+"And where's the whiskey hidden?" he asked after awhile.
+
+"No you don't," I laughed. "Parson or pal, no man living knows or
+will know where it is till he helps me haul it away. I'll trust
+none of you."
+
+"I'm not a thief," he pouted.
+
+"No," I said, "but you're blasted hard up, and I don't intend to
+place temptation in your way."
+
+He laughed good-naturedly and turned the subject aside just as Lige
+Smith and Jack Jackson came in with an unusual companion that put
+a stop to all further talk. Women were never seen at night time
+around Jake's; even his wife was invisible, and I got a sort of
+shock when I saw old Cayuga Joe's girl, Elizabeth, following at the
+boys' heels. It had been raining and the girl, a full blood Cayuga,
+shivered in the damp and crouched beside the stove.
+
+Tom Barrett started when he saw her. His color rose and he began to
+mark up the table with his thumb nail. I could see he felt his fix.
+The girl--Indian right through--showed no surprise at seeing him
+there, but that did not mean she would keep her mouth shut about it
+next day, Tom was undoubtedly _discovered_.
+
+Notwithstanding her unwelcome presence, however, Jackson managed to
+whisper to me that the Forest Warden and his officers were alive
+and bound for the Reserve the following day. But it didn't worry me
+worth a cent; I knew we were safe as a church with Tom Barrett's
+clerical coat in our midst. He was coming over to our corner now.
+
+"That hundred's right on the dead square, Dan?" he asked anxiously,
+taking my arm and moving to the window.
+
+I took a roll of bank notes from my trousers' pocket and with my
+back to the gang counted out ten tens. I always carry a good wad
+with me with a view to convenience if I have to make a hurried exit
+from the scene of my operations.
+
+He shook his head and stood away. "Not till I've earned it, McLeod."
+
+What fools very young men make of themselves sometimes. The girl
+arose, folding her damp shawl over her head, and made towards the
+door; but he intercepted her, saying it was late and as their ways
+lay in the same direction, he would take her home. She shot a quick
+glance at him and went out. Some little uneasy action of his caught
+my notice. In a second my suspicions were aroused; the meeting had
+been arranged, and I knew from what I had seen him to be that the
+girl was doomed.
+
+It was all very well for me to do up Cayuga Joe--he was the Indian
+whose hundred dollars' worth of cordwood I owned in lieu of
+six quarts of bad whiskey--but his women-folks were entitled to be
+respected at least while I was around. I looked at my watch; it was
+past midnight. I suddenly got boiling hot clean through.
+
+"Look here, Tom Barrett," I said, "I ain't a saint, as everybody
+knows; but if you don't treat that girl right, you'll have to
+square it up with me, d'you understand?"
+
+He threw me a nasty look. "Keep your gallantry for some occasion
+when it's needed, Dan McLeod," he sneered, and with a laugh I
+didn't like, he followed the girl out into the rain.
+
+I walked some distance behind them for two miles. When they reached
+her father's house and went in, I watched her through the small
+uncurtained window put something on the fire to cook, then arouse
+her mother, who even at that late hour sat beside the stove smoking
+a clay pipe. The old woman had apparently met with some accident;
+her head and shoulders were bound up, and she seemed in pain.
+Barrett talked with her considerably and once when I caught sight
+of his face, it was devilish with some black passion I did not
+recognize. Although I felt sure the girl was now all right for the
+night, there was something about this meeting I didn't like; so I
+lay around until just daylight when Jackson and Lige Smith came
+through the bush as pre-arranged should I not return to Jake's.
+
+It was not long before Elizabeth and Tom came out again and entered
+a thick little bush behind the shanty. Lige lifted the axe off the
+woodpile with a knowing look, and we all three followed silently.
+I was surprised to find it a well beaten and equally well concealed
+trail. All my suspicions returned. I knew now that Barrett was a
+bad lot all round, and as soon as I had quit using him and his
+coat, I made up my mind to rid my quarters of him; fortunately I
+knew enough about him to use that knowledge as a whip-lash.
+
+We followed them for something over a mile, when--heaven and hell!
+The trail opened abruptly on the clearing where lay my recently
+acquired cordwood with my five barrels of whiskey concealed in its
+midst.
+
+The girl strode forward, and with the strength of a man, pitched
+down a dozen sticks with lightning speed.
+
+"There!" she cried, turning to Tom. "There you find him--you find
+him whiskey. You say you spill. No more my father he's drunk all
+day, he beat my mother."
+
+I stepped out.
+
+"So, Tom Barrett," I said, "you've played the d----d sneak and
+hunted it out!"
+
+He fairly jumped at the sound of my voice; then he got white as
+paper, and then--something came into his face that I never saw
+before. It was a look like his father's, the old missionary.
+
+"Yes, McLeod," he answered. "And I've hunted _you_ out. It's cost
+me the loss of a whole term at college and a considerable amount of
+self-respect, but I've got my finger on you now!"
+
+The whole infernal trick burst right in on my intelligence. If I
+had had a revolver, he would have been a dead man; but border
+traders nowadays are not desperadoes with bowie knives and hip
+pockets--
+
+"You surely don't mean to split on me?" I asked.
+
+"I surely don't mean to do anything else," he cheeked back.
+
+"Then, Tom Barrett," I sputtered, raging, "you're the dirtiest cad
+and the foulest liar that ever drew the breath of life."
+
+"I dare say I am," he said smoothly. Then with rising anger he
+advanced, peering into my face with his foxy eyes. "And I'll tell
+you right here, Dan McLeod, I'd be a hundred times a cad, and a
+thousand times a liar to save the souls and bodies of our Indians
+from going to hell, through your cursed whiskey."
+
+I have always been a brave man, but I confess I felt childishly
+scared before the wild, mesmeric power of his eyes. I was unable to
+move a finger, but I blurted out boastfully: "If it wasn't for your
+preacher's hat and coat I'd send your sneaking soul to Kingdom
+Come, right here!"
+
+Instantly he hauled off his coat and tie and stood with clenched
+fists while his strange eyes fairly spat green fire.
+
+"Now," he fumed, "I've discarded my cloth, Dan McLeod. You've got
+to deal with a man now, not with a minister."
+
+To save my immortal soul I can't tell why I couldn't stir. I only
+know that everything seemed to drop out of sight except his two
+little blazing eyes. I stood like a fool, queered, dead queered
+right through.
+
+He turned politely to the girl. "You may go, Elizabeth," he said,
+"and thank you for your assistance." The girl turned and went up
+the trail without a word.
+
+With the agility of a cat he sprang on to the wood-pile, pitched
+off enough cordwood to expose my entire "cellar;" then going across
+to Lige, he coolly took the axe out of his hand. His face was
+white and set, but his voice was natural enough as he said:
+
+"Now, gentlemen, whoever cares to interrupt me will get the blade
+of this axe buried in his brain, as heaven is my witness."
+
+I didn't even curse as he split the five barrels into slivers and
+my well-fought-for whiskey soaked into the slush. Once he lifted
+his head and looked at me, and the mouth I didn't understand
+revealed itself; there was something about it like a young
+Napoleon's.
+
+I never hated a man in my life as I hated Tom Barrett then. That
+I daren't resist him made it worse. I watched him finish his caddish
+job, throw down the axe, take his coat over his arm, and leave the
+clearing without a word.
+
+But no sooner was he out of sight than my devilish temper broke
+out, and I cursed and blasphemed for half an hour. I'd have his
+blood if it cost my neck a rope, and that too before he could inform
+on us. The boys were with me, of course, poor sort of dogs with no
+grit of their own, and with the axe as my only weapon we left the
+bush and ran towards the river.
+
+I fairly yelled at my good luck as I reached the high bank. There,
+a few rods down shore, beside the open water sat Tom Barrett,
+calling something out to his folks across the river, and from
+upstream came the deafening thunder of the Onondaga Jam that,
+loosened by the rain, was shouldering its terrific force downwards
+with the strength of a million drunken demons.
+
+We had him like a rat in a trap, but his foxy eyes had seen us. He
+sprang to his feet, hesitated for a fraction of a moment, saw the
+murder in our faces, then did what any man but a fool would have
+done--ran.
+
+We were hot on his heels. Fifty yards distant an old dug-out lay
+hauled up. He ran it down into the water, stared wildly at the
+oncoming jam, then at us, sprang into the canoe and grabbed the
+paddle.
+
+I was murderously mad. I wheeled the axe above my shoulder and let
+fly at him. It missed his head by three inches.
+
+He was paddling for dear life now, and, our last chance gone, we
+stood riveted to the spot, watching him. On the bluff across the
+river stood his half-blood mother, the raw March wind whipping her
+skirts about her knees; but her strained, ashen face showed she
+never felt its chill. Below with his feet almost in the rapidly
+rising water, stood the old missionary, his scant grey hair blowing
+across his eyes that seemed to look out into eternity--amid stream
+Tom, paddling with the desperation of death, his head turning every
+second with the alertness of an animal to gauge the approaching
+ice-shove.
+
+Even I wished him life then. Twice I thought him caught in the
+crush, but he was out of it like an arrow, and in another moment he
+had leapt ashore while above the roar of the grinding jam I heard
+him cry out with a strange exultation:
+
+"Father, I've succeeded. I have had to be a scoundrel and a cad,
+but I've trapped them at last!"
+
+He staggered forward then, sobbing like a child, and the old man's
+arms closed round him, just as two heavy jaws of ice snatched the
+dug-out, hurled it off shore and splintered it to atoms.
+
+Well! I had made a bad blunder, which I attempted to rectify by
+reaching Buffalo that night; but Tom Barrett had won the game. I
+was arrested at Fort Erie, handcuffed, jailed, tried, convicted
+of attempted assault and illicit whiskey-trading on the Grand
+River Indian Reserve--and spent the next five years in Kingston
+Penitentiary, the guest of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen
+Victoria.
+
+
+
+Mother o' the Men
+
+A Story of the Canadian North-West Mounted Police
+
+
+The commander's wife stood on the deck of the "North Star" looking
+at the receding city of Vancouver as if to photograph within her
+eyes and heart every detail of its wonderful beauty--its
+clustering, sisterly houses, its holly hedges, its ivied walls, its
+emerald lawns, its teeming streets and towering spires. She seemed
+to realize that this was the end of the civilized trail; that
+henceforth, for many years, her sight would know only the unbroken
+line of icy ridge and sky of the northernmost outposts of the great
+Dominion. To her hand clung a little boy of ten, and about her
+hovered some twenty young fellows, gay in the scarlet tunics, the
+flashing buffalo-head buttons, that bespoke the soldierly uniform
+of the Canadian North-West Mounted Police. They were the first
+detachment bound for the Yukon, and were under her husband's
+command.
+
+She was the only woman in the "company." The major had purposely
+selected unmarried men for his staff, for in the early nineties the
+Arctic was no place for a woman. But when the Government at Ottawa
+saw fit to commission Major Lysle to face the frozen North, and
+with a handful of men build and garrison a fort at the rim of the
+Polar Seas, Mrs. Lysle quietly remarked, "I shall accompany you, so
+shall the boy," and the major blessed her in his heart, for had she
+not so decided, it would mean absolute separation from wife and
+child for from three to five years, as in those days no railways,
+no telegraph lines, stretched their pulsing fingers into the
+Klondyke. One mail went in, one mail came out, each year--that was
+all.
+
+"It's good-bye, Graham lad," said one of the scarlet-coated
+soldiers, tossing the little boy to his back. "Look your longest
+at those paved streets, and the green, green things. There'll be
+months of just snow away up there," and he nodded towards the
+north.
+
+"Oh, but father says it won't be lonely at all up there," asserted
+the child. "He says I'll grow _terribly_ big in a few years; that
+people always grow in the North, and maybe I'll soon be able to
+wear buffalo buttons and have stripes on my sleeve like you;" and
+the childish fingers traced the outline of the sergeant's chevrons.
+
+"I hope, dear, that you shall do all that, soon," said Mrs. Lysle;
+"but first you must _win_ those stripes, my boy, and if you win them
+as the sergeant did, mother shall be very proud of you."
+
+At which, the said sergeant hastily set the boy down, and, with
+confusion written all over his strong young face, made some excuse
+to disappear, for no man in the world is as shy or modest about his
+deeds of valor as is a North-West "Mounted."
+
+"Won't you tell me, mother, how Sergeant Black got those stripes on
+his sleeve?" begged the boy.
+
+"Perhaps to-night, son, when you are in bed--just before mother
+says good-night--we'll see. But look! there is the city, fading,
+fading." Then after a short silence: "There, Graham, it has gone."
+
+"But isn't that it 'way over there, mother?" persisted the boy. "I
+see the sun shining on the roofs."
+
+Mrs. Lysle shook her head. "No, dearie; that is the snow on the
+mountain peaks. The city has--gone."
+
+But far into the twilight she yet stood watching the purple sea,
+the dove-gray coast. Her world was with her--the man she had chosen
+for her life partner, and the little boy that belonged to them
+both--but there are times even in the life of a wife and mother
+when her soul rebels at cutting herself off from her womenkind, and
+all that environment of social life among women means, even if the
+act itself is voluntary on her part. It was a relief, then, from
+her rather sombre musing at the ship's rail, when the major lightly
+placed both hands on her shoulders and said, "Grahamie has toddled
+off to the stateroom. The sea air is weighting down his eyelids."
+
+"Sea air?" laughed Mrs. Lysle. "Don't you believe it, Horace. The
+young monkey had been just scampering about the deck with the men
+until his little legs are tired out. I'm half afraid our 'Mounted'
+boys bid fair to spoil him. I'll go to him, for I promised him a
+story to-night."
+
+"Which you would rather perish than not tell him, if you promised,"
+smiled the major. "You govern that boy the same way I do my men,
+eh, dear?"
+
+"It's the only way to govern boys or soldiers," she laughed back
+from the head of the companionway. "Then both boy and soldier will
+keep their promises to you."
+
+The Major watched her go below, then said to himself, "She's
+right--she's always right. She was right to come north, and bring
+him, too. But I am a coward, for I daren't tell her she'll have to
+part from him, or from me, some day. He will have to be sent to the
+front again; he can't grow up unlearned, untaught, and there are no
+schools in our Arctic world, and she must go with him, or stay with
+me; but I can't tell her. Yes, I'm a coward." But Major Lysle was
+the only person in all the world who would have thought or said so.
+
+"And will you tell me how Sergeant Black won his stripes, mother,
+before I go to sleep?" begged Graham.
+
+"Yes, little 'North-West,'" she replied, using the pet name the men
+in barracks frequently called the child. "It's just a wee story of
+one man fighting it out alone--just alone, single-handed--with no
+reinforcements but his own courage, his own self-reliance."
+
+"That's just what father says, isn't it, mother, to just do things
+yourself?" asked the boy.
+
+"That's it, dear, and that is what Sergeant Black did. He was only
+corporal then, and he was dispatched from headquarters to arrest
+some desperate horse thieves who were trying to drive a magnificent
+bunch of animals across the boundary line into the United States,
+and then sell them. These men were breaking two laws. They had not
+only stolen the horses, but were trying to evade the American
+Customs. Your father always called them 'The Rapparees,' for they
+were Irish, and fighters, and known from the Red River to the
+Rockies as plunderers and desperadoes. There was some trouble to
+the north at the same time; barracks was pretty well thinned; not
+a man could be spared to help him. But when Corporal Black got his
+instructions and listened to the commanding officer say, 'If that
+detachment returns from the Qu'Appelle Valley within twenty-four
+hours, I'll order them out to assist you, corporal,' the plucky
+little soldier just stood erect, clicked his heels together,
+saluted, and replied, 'I can do it alone, sir.'
+
+"'I notice you don't say you _think_ you can do it alone,' remarked
+the officer dryly. He was a lenient man and often conversed with
+his men.
+
+"'It is not my place to _think_, sir. I've just got to _do_,'
+replied the corporal, and saluting again he was gone.
+
+"All that night he galloped up the prairie trail on the track of
+the thieves, and just before daybreak he sighted them, entrenched
+in a coulee, where their campfires made no glow, and the neighing
+horses could not be heard. There were six men all told, busying
+themselves getting breakfast and staking the animals preparatory to
+hiding through the day hours, and getting across the boundary line
+the next night. Both men and beasts were wearied with the long
+journey, but Corporal Black is the sort of man that _never_ wearies
+in either brain or body. He never hesitated a second. Jerking his
+rat-skin cap down, covering his face as much as possible, he rode
+silently around to the south of the encampment, clutched a revolver
+in each hand, and rode within earshot, then said four words:
+
+"'Stand, or I fire!' If a cyclone had swooped down on them, the
+thieves could not have been more astounded. But they stood, and
+stood yards away from their own guns. Then they demanded to know
+who he was, for of course they thought him a thief like themselves,
+probably following them to capture their spoil. Then Corporal Black
+unbuttoned his great-coat and flung it wide open, displaying the
+brilliant scarlet tunic of our own dear Mounted Police. They needed
+no other reply. At the point of his revolver he ordered them to
+unstake the horses. Then not one man was allowed to mount, but,
+breakfastless and frenzied, they were compelled to walk before him,
+driving the stolen animals ahead, mile upon mile, league after
+league.
+
+"Father says it was a strange-looking procession that trudged into
+barracks. Twenty beautiful, spirited horses, six hangdog-looking
+thieves, with a single exhausted horse in the rear, on which was
+mounted an alert, keen-eyed and very hungry young soldier who wore
+a scarlet tunic and buffalo-head buttons. The next day Corporal
+Black had another stripe on his sleeve." [The foregoing story is an
+actual occurrence. The author had the honor of knowing personally
+the North-West Mounted Policeman who achieved his rank through this
+action.]
+
+Her voice ceased, and she looked down at her son. The child lay for
+a moment, wide-eyed and tense. Then some indescribable quality
+seemed to make him momentarily too large, too tall, for the narrow
+ship's berth. Then:
+
+"And he fought it out _alone_, mother, just alone--single-handed?"
+
+"Yes, Grahamie," she said, softly.
+
+"Fought alone!" he said almost to himself. Then aloud: "Thank you,
+mother, for telling me that story. Perhaps some day I'll have to
+fight it out alone, and when I do, I'll try to remember Sergeant
+Black. Good-night, mother."
+
+"Good-night, my boy."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The long, long winter was doing its worst, and that was unspeakable
+in its dreariness and its misery. The "Fort" was just about
+completed before things froze up--narrow, small quarters
+constructed of rough logs, surrounded by a stockade--but above its
+roof the Union Jack floated, and beneath it flashed the scarlet
+tunics, the buffalo-head buttons, the clanking spurs of as brave
+a band of men, "queened over" by as courageous a woman, as ever
+Gibraltar or the Throne Room knew.
+
+As time went on the major's wife began to find herself "Mother o'
+the Men" (as an old Klondyker named her), as well as of her own
+boy. Those blizzard-blown, snow-hardened, ice-toughened soldiers
+went to her for everything--sympathy, assistance, advice--for in
+that lonely outpost military lines were less strictly drawn, and
+she could oftentimes do for the men what would be considered
+amazingly unofficial, were those little humane kindnesses done in
+barracks at Regina or Macleod or Calgary. She nursed the men
+through every illness, preparing the food herself for the invalids.
+She attended to many a frozen face and foot and finger. She
+smoothed out their differences, inspirited them when they grew
+discouraged, talked to them of their own people, so that their
+home ties should not be entirely severed because they could write
+letters or receive them but once a year. But there were days when
+the sight of a woman's face would have been a glimpse of paradise
+to her, days when she almost wildly regretted her boy had not been
+a girl--just a little sweet-voiced girl, a thing of her own sex and
+kind. But it always seemed at these moments that Grahamie would
+providentially rush in to her with some glad story of sport or
+adventure, and she would snatch him tightly in her arms and say,
+"No, no, boy of mine, I don't want even a girlie, if I may only
+keep you." And once when her thoughts had been more than usually
+traitorous in wishing he had been a girl, the child seemed to
+divine some idea of her struggle; for a moment his firm little
+fingers caught her hand encouragingly, and he said in a whisper,
+"Are you fighting it out alone, mother--just single-handed?"
+
+"Just single-handed, dearest," she replied.
+
+Then he scampered away, but paused to call back gravely, "Remember
+Sergeant Black, mother."
+
+"Yes, Grahamie, I'll try to," she replied brightly. At that moment
+he was the lesser child of the two.
+
+And so the winter crept slowly on, and the brief, brilliant summer
+flitted in, then out, like a golden dream. The second snows were
+upon the little fort, the second Christmas, the second long, long
+weeks and months of the new year. An unspoken horror was staring
+them all in the face: navigation did not open when expected, and
+supplies were running low, pitifully low. The smoked and dried
+meats, the canned things, flour, sealed lard, oatmeal, hard-tack,
+dried fruits--_everything_ was slowly but inevitably giving out day
+upon day. Before and behind them stretched hummocks of trailless
+snow. Not an Indian, not a dog train, not even a wild animal, had
+set foot in that waste for weeks. In early March the major's wife
+had hidden a single package of gelatine, a single tin of dried
+beef, and a single half pound of cornstarch. "If sickness comes
+to my boys" (she did not say boy), "I shall at least have saved
+these," she told herself, in justification of her act. "A sick man
+cannot live on beans." But now they were down to beans--just beans
+and lard boiled together. Then a day dawned when there was not even
+a spoonful of lard left. "Beans straight!"--it was the death knell,
+for beans straight--beans without grease--kill the strongest man in
+a brief span of days. Oh, that the ice bridges would melt, the seas
+open, the ships come!
+
+But that night the men at mess had beans with unlimited grease, its
+peculiar flavor peppered and spiced out of it. Life, life was to be
+theirs even yet! What had renewed it?
+
+But one of the men had caught something on his fork and extracted
+it from the food on his plate. It was an overlooked _wick_. The
+major's wife had begun to boil up the tallow candles. [Fact.] But
+the cheer that shook that rough log roof came right from hearts
+that blessed her, and brought her to the door of the men's
+mess-room. The men were on their feet instantly. "A light has
+broken upon us, or rather _within_ us, Mrs. Lysle!" cried a
+self-selected spokesman.
+
+"Illuminating, isn't it, boys?" She laughed, then turned away, for
+the cheers and tears were very close together.
+
+Then one day when even starving stomachs almost revolted at the
+continued coarse mixture, a ribbon of blue proclaimed the open sea,
+and into those waters swept the longed-for ship. Yet, strangely
+enough, that night the "Mother o' the Men" wept a storm of tears,
+the only tears she had yielded to in those long five years. For
+with its blessing of food the ship had her hold bursting with
+liquors and wines, the hideous commerce that invades the pioneer
+places of the earth. Should the already weakened, ill-fed and
+scurvy-threatened garrison break into those supplies, all the labor
+and patience and mothering of this courageous woman would be
+useless, for after a bean diet in the Northern latitudes, whiskey
+is deadly to brain and body, and the victim maddens or dies.
+
+"You are crying, mother, and the ship here at last!" said Grahamie's
+voice at her shoulder. "Crying when we are all so happy."
+
+"Mother is a little upset, dear. You must try to forget you ever
+saw her eyes wet."
+
+"I'll forget," said the boy with a finality she could not question.
+"The ship is so full of good things, mother. We'll think of that,
+and--forget, won't we?" he added.
+
+"_All_ the things in the ship are not good, Grahamie, boy. If they
+were, mother would not cry," she said.
+
+"I see," he said, but stole from her side with a strained, puzzled
+look in his young eyes.
+
+Outside he was met by a laughing, joyous dozen of men. One swung
+the child to his shoulder, shouting, "Hurrah, little 'North-West'!
+Hurrah! we are all coming to pay tribute to your mother. Look at
+the dainties we have got for her from the ship!"
+
+"I'm afraid you can't see mother just now," said the boy. "Mother
+is a little upset. You see, the ship is so full of good things--but
+then, _all_ the things in the ship are not good. If they were,
+mother would not cry." In the last words he unconsciously imitated
+his mother's voice.
+
+A profound silence enveloped the men. Then one spoke. "She'll never
+have cause to cry about anything _I_ do, boys."
+
+"Nor I!" "Nor I!" "Nor I!" rang out voice after voice.
+
+"Run back, you blessed little 'North-West,' and tell mother not to
+be scared for the boys. We'll stand by her to a man. She'll never
+regret that ship's coming in," said the gallant soldier, slipping
+the boy to the ground. And to the credit of the men who wore
+buffalo-head buttons, she never did.
+
+And in all her Yukon years the major's wife had but one more
+heartache. That agonizing winter had taught her many things, but
+the bitterest knowledge to come to her was the fact that her boy
+must be sent "to the front." To be sure, he was growing up the pet
+of all the police; he was becoming manlier, sturdier, more
+self-reliant every day. But education he _must_ have, and another
+winter of such deprivation and horror he was too young, too tender,
+to endure. It was then that the battle arose in her heart. The boy
+was to be sent to college. Was it her place to accompany him to the
+distant South-east, to live by herself alone in the college town,
+just to be near him and watch over his young life, or was it here
+with her pioneer soldier husband, and his little isolated garrison
+of "boys" whom she had mothered for two years?
+
+The inevitable day came when she had to shut her teeth and watch
+Grahamie go aboard the southward-bound vessel alone, in the care of
+a policeman who was returning on sick leave--to watch him stand at
+the rail, his little face growing dimmer and more shadowy as the
+sea widened between them--watch him through tearless, courageous
+eyes, then turn away with the hopelessness of knowing that for one
+entire endless year she must wait for word of his arrival. [Fact.]
+But his last brave good-bye words rang through her ears every day
+of that eternal year: "We'll remember Sergeant Black, won't we,
+mother? And we'll each fight it out alone, single-handed, and maybe
+they'll give us a chevron for our sleeves when it's over."
+
+But that night when the barracks was wrapped in gloom over the
+loss of its boy chum, the surgeon appeared in the men's quarters.
+"Hello, boys!" he said, none too cheerfully. "Dull doings, I say.
+I'm busy enough, though, keeping an eye on Madam, the major's lady.
+She's so deadly quiet, so self-controlled, I'm just a little afraid.
+I wish something would happen to--well, make her less calm."
+
+"_I'll_ 'happen,' doctor," chirped up a genial-looking young chap
+named O'Keefe. "I'll get sick and threaten to die. You say it's
+serious; she'll be all interest and medicine spoons, and making me
+jelly inside an hour."
+
+The surgeon eyed him sternly, then: "O'Keefe," he said, "you're the
+cleverest man I ever came across in the force, and I've been in it
+eleven years. But, man alive! what have you been doing to yourself?
+Overwork, no food--why, man, you're sick; look as if you had fever
+and a touch of pneumonia. You're a very sick man. Go to bed at
+once--at once, I say!"
+
+O'Keefe looked the surgeon in the eye, winked meaningly, and
+O'Keefe turned in, although it was but early afternoon. At six
+o'clock an orderly stood at the door of the major's quarters. Mrs.
+Lysle was standing on the steps, her eyes fixed on the far horizon
+across which a ship had melted away.
+
+"Beg pardon, madam," said the orderly, saluting, "but young O'Keefe
+is very ill. We have had the surgeon, but the--the--pain's getting
+worse. He's just yelling with agony."
+
+"I'll go at once, orderly. I should have been told before," she
+replied; and burying her own heartache, she hurried to the men's
+quarters. Her anxious eyes sought the surgeon's. "Oh, doctor!" she
+said, "this poor fellow must be looked after. What can I do to
+help?"
+
+"Everything, Mrs. Lysle," gruffed the surgeon with a professional
+air. "He is very ill. He must be kept wrapped in hot linseed
+poultices and--"
+
+"Oh, I say, doctor," remonstrated poor O'Keefe, "I'm not that bad."
+
+"You're a very sick man," scowled the surgeon. "Now, Mrs. Lysle has
+graciously offered to help nurse you. She'll see that you have hot
+fomentations every half hour. I'll drop in twice a day to see how
+you are getting along." And with that miserable prospect before
+him, poor O'Keefe watched the surgeon disappear.
+
+"I simply _had_ to order those half-hour fomentations, old man,"
+apologized the surgeon that night. "You see, she must be kept
+busy--just kept at it every minute we can make her do so. Do you
+think you can stand it?"
+
+"Of course I can," fumed the victim. "But for goodness' sake, don't
+put me on sick rations! I'll die, sure, if you do."
+
+"I've ordered you the best the commissariat boasts--heaps of meat,
+butter, even eggs, my boy. Think of it--_eggs_--you lucky young
+Turk!" laughed the surgeon.
+
+Then followed nights and days of torture. The "boys" would line up
+to the "sick-room" four times daily, and blandly ask how he was.
+
+"How _am_ I?" young O'Keefe would bellow. "How _am_ I? I'm well and
+strong enough to brain every one of you fellows, surgeon included,
+when I get out of this!"
+
+"But when _are_ you going to get out? When will you be out danger?"
+they would chuckle.
+
+"Just when I see that haunted look go out of her eyes, and not till
+then!" he would roar.
+
+And he kept his word. He was really weak when he got up, and
+pretended to be weaker, but the lines of acute self-control had
+left Mrs. Lysle's face, the suffering had gone from her eyes, the
+day the noble O'Keefe took his first solid meal in her presence.
+
+Even the major never discovered that worthy bit of deception. But
+a year later, when the mail went out, the surgeon sent the entire
+story to Graham, who, in writing to his mother the following year,
+perplexed her by saying:
+
+"....But there are three men in the force I love better than
+anyone in the world except you, mother. The first, of course, is
+father, the others, Sergeant Black and Private O'Keefe."
+
+"Why O'Keefe?" she asked herself.
+
+But loyal little "North-West" never told her.
+
+
+
+The Nest Builder
+
+
+"Well! if some women aren't born just to laugh!" remarked the
+station agent's wife. "Have you seen that round-faced woman in the
+waiting-room?"
+
+"No," replied the agent. "I've been too busy; I've had to help
+unload freight. I heard some children in there, though; they were
+playing and laughing to beat the band."
+
+"_Nine_ of them, John! _Nine_ of them, and the oldest just twelve!"
+gasped his wife. "Why, I'd be crazy if I were in her place.
+She's come all the way from Grey or Bruce in Ontario--I forget
+which--with not a soul to help her with that flock. Three of them
+are almost babies. The smallest one is a darling--just sits on the
+bench in there and dimples and gurgles and grins all the time."
+
+"Hasn't she got a husband?" asked John.
+
+"Of course," asserted his wife. "But that's just the problem now,
+or rather he's the problem. He came to Manitoba a year ago, and
+was working right here in this town. He doesn't seem to have had
+much luck, and left last week for some ranch away back of Brandon,
+she now finds out; she must have crossed his letter as she came
+out. She expected to find him here, and now she is in that
+waiting-room with nine children, no money to go further, or to
+go to a hotel even, and she's--well, she's just good-natured and
+smiling, and not a bit worried. As I say, some women are born just
+to laugh."
+
+"Have they anything to eat?" asked the agent, anxiously.
+
+"Stacks of it--a huge hamper. But I took the children what milk we
+had, and made her take a cup of good hot tea. She _would_ pay me,
+however, I couldn't stop her. But I noticed she has mighty little
+change in her purse, and she said she had no money, and said it
+with a round, untroubled, smiling face." The agent's wife spoke
+the last words almost with envy.
+
+"I'll try and locate the husband," said the agent.
+
+"Yes, she'll get his address to-night, she says," explained the
+wife; "but no one knows when he will get here. Most likely he's
+twenty miles away from Brandon, and they will have to send out
+for him."
+
+Which eventually proved to be the case; and three days elapsed
+before the husband and father was able to reach the little border
+town where his wife and ample family had been installed as
+residents of the general waiting-room of a small, scantily-equipped
+station. No beds, no washing conveniences, no table, no chairs;
+just the wall seats, with a roof above them and the pump water
+at the end of the platform to drink from and dabble in. The
+distressed man arrived, harrassed and anxious, only to be met by a
+round-faced, laughing wife and nine round-faced, laughing children,
+who all made sport of their "camping" experience, and assured him
+they could have "stood it" a little longer, if need be.
+
+But they slept in beds that night--glorious, feathery beds,
+that were in reality but solid hemp mattresses--in the cheapest
+lodging-house in town.
+
+Then began the home-building. Henderson had secured a quarter
+section of land and made two payments on it when his wife and
+children arrived, with all their "settlers' effects" in a freight
+car, which, truth to tell, were meagre enough. They had never
+really owned a home in the East, and when, with saving and selling,
+she managed to follow her husband into the promising world of
+Manitoba, she determined to possess a home, no matter how crude,
+how small, how remote. So Henderson hired horses and "teamed" out
+sufficient lumber and tar-paper to erect a shack which measured
+exactly eighteen by twelve feet, then sodded the roof in true
+Manitoba style, and into this cramped abode Mrs. Henderson stowed
+her household goods and nine small children. With the stove, table,
+chairs, tubs and trunks, there was room for but one bed to be
+put up. Poor, unresourceful Henderson surveyed the crowded shack
+helplessly, but that round-faced, smiling wife of his was not a
+particle discouraged. "We'll just build in two sets of bunks, on
+each end of the house," she laughed. "The children won't mind
+sleeping on 'shelves,' for the bread-winners must have the bed."
+
+So they economized space with a dozen such little plans, and all
+through the unpacking and settling and arranging, she would say
+every hour or two, "Oh, it's a little crowded and stuffy, but it's
+_ours_--it's _home_," until Henderson and the children caught
+something of her inspiration, and the sod-roof shack became "home"
+in the sweetest sense of the word.
+
+There are some people who "make" time for everything, and this
+remarkable mother was one. That winter she baked bread for every
+English bachelor ranchman within ten miles. She did their washing
+and ironing, and never neglected her own, either. She knitted socks
+for them, and made and sold quantities of Saskatoon berry jam. When
+spring came she had over fifty dollars of her own, with which she
+promptly bought a cow. Then late in March they made a small first
+payment of a team of horses, and "broke land" for the first time,
+plowing and seeding a few acres of virgin prairie and getting a
+start.
+
+But her quaintest invention to utilize every resource possible was
+a novel scheme for chicken-raising. One morning the children came
+in greatly excited over finding a wild duck's nest in the nearby
+"slough." Mrs. Henderson told them to be very careful not to
+frighten the bird, but to go back and search every foot of the
+grassy edges and try to discover other nests. They succeeded in
+finding three. That day a neighboring English rancher, driving past
+on his way to Brandon, twenty miles distant, called out, "Want
+anything from town, Mrs. Henderson?"
+
+"Eggs, just eggs, if you will bring them, like a good boy," she
+answered, running out to the trail to meet him.
+
+"Why, you _are_ luxurious to-day, and eggs at fifty cents a dozen,"
+he exclaimed.
+
+"Never mind," she replied, "they're not nearly so luxurious as
+chickens. You just bring me a dozen and a half. Pay _any_ price,
+but be sure they are fresh, new laid, right off the nest. Now just
+insist on that, or we shall quarrel." And with a menacing shake of
+a forefinger and a customary laugh, she handed him a precious bank
+note to pay for the treasures.
+
+The next day Mrs. Henderson adroitly substituted hen's eggs for the
+wild ducks' own, and the shy, pretty water fowls, returning from
+their morning's swim, never discovered the fraud. [Fact.]
+
+"Six eggs under three sitters--eighteen chicks, if we're lucky
+enough to have secured fertile eggs," mused Mrs. Henderson. "Oh,
+well, we'll see." And they _did_ see. They saw exactly eighteen
+fluffy, peeping chicks, whose timid little mothers could not
+understand why their broods disappeared one by one from the long,
+wet grasses surrounding the nest. But in a warm canton flannel
+lined basket near the Henderson's stove the young arrivals chirped
+and picked at warm meal as sturdily as if hatched in a coop by a
+commonplace barnyard "Biddy." And every one of those chicks lived
+and grew and fattened into a splendid flock, and the following
+spring they began sitting on their own eggs. But the good-hearted
+woman, in relating the story, would always say that she felt like
+a thief and a robber whenever she thought of that shy, harmless
+little wild duck who never had the satisfaction of seeing her brood
+swim in the "slough."
+
+All this happened more than twenty years ago, yet when I met Mrs.
+Henderson last autumn, as she was journeying to Prince Albert to
+visit a married daughter, her wonderfully youthful face was as
+round and smiling as if she had never battled through the years
+in a hand-to-hand fight to secure a home in the pioneer days
+of Manitoba. She is well off now, and lives no more in the
+twelve-by-eighteen-foot bunk-house, but when I asked her how she
+accomplished so much, she replied, "I just jollied things along,
+and laughed over the hard places. It makes them easier then."
+
+So perhaps the station agent's wife was really right, after all,
+when she remarked that "some women were just born to laugh."
+
+
+
+The Tenas Klootchman
+
+[In Chinook language "Tenas Klootchman" means "girl baby."]
+
+
+This story came to me from the lips of Maarda herself. It was hard
+to realize, while looking at her placid and happy face, that Maarda
+had ever been a mother of sorrows, but the healing of a wounded
+heart oftentimes leaves a light like that of a benediction on a
+receptive face, and Maarda's countenance held something greater
+than beauty, something more like lovableness, than any other
+quality.
+
+We sat together on the deck of the little steamer throughout the
+long violet twilight, that seems loath to leave the channels and
+rocky of the Upper Pacific in June time. We had dropped easily
+into conversation, for nothing so readily helps one to an
+introduction as does the friendly atmosphere of the extreme West,
+and I had paved the way by greeting her in the Chinook, to which
+she responded with a sincere and friendly handclasp.
+
+Dinner on the small coast-wise steamers is almost a function. It is
+the turning-point of the day, and is served English fashion, in
+the evening. The passengers "dress" a little for it, eat the meal
+leisurely and with relish. People who perhaps have exchanged no
+conversation during the day, now relax, and fraternize with their
+fellow men and women.
+
+I purposely secured a seat at the dining-table beside Maarda.
+Even she had gone through a simple "dressing" for dinner, having
+smoothed her satiny black hair, knotted a brilliant silk
+handkerchief about her throat, and laid aside her large, heavy
+plaid shawl, revealing a fine delaine gown of green, bordered with
+two flat rows of black silk velvet ribbon. That silk velvet ribbon,
+and the fashion in which it was applied, would have bespoken her
+nationality, even had her dark copper-colored face failed to do so.
+
+The average Indian woman adores silk and velvet, and will have none
+of cotton, and these decorations must be in symmetrical rows, not
+designs. She holds that the fabric is in itself excellent enough.
+Why twist it and cut it into figures that would only make it less
+lovely?
+
+We chatted a little during dinner. Maarda told me that she and her
+husband lived at the Squamish River, some thirty-five miles north
+of Vancouver City, but when I asked if they had any children, she
+did not reply, but almost instantly called my attention to a
+passing vessel seen through the porthole. I took the hint, and
+said no more of family matters, but talked of the fishing and the
+prospects of a good sockeye run this season.
+
+Afterwards, however, while I stood alone on deck watching the sun
+set over the rim of the Pacific, I felt a feathery touch on my arm.
+I turned to see Maarda, once more enveloped in her shawl, and
+holding two deck stools. She beckoned with a quick uplift of her
+chin, and said, "We'll sit together here, with no one about us, and
+I'll tell you of the child." And this was her story:
+
+She was the most beautiful little Tenas Klootchman a mother could
+wish for, bright, laughing, pretty as a spring flower, but--just as
+frail. Such tiny hands, such buds of feet! One felt that they must
+never take her out of her cradle basket for fear that, like a
+flower stem, she would snap asunder and her little head droop like
+a blossom.
+
+But Maarda's skilful fingers had woven and plaited and colored the
+daintiest cradle basket in the entire river district for his little
+woodland daughter. She had fished long and late with her husband,
+so that the canner's money would purchase silk "blankets" to enwrap
+her treasure; she had beaded cradle bands to strap the wee body
+securely in its cosy resting-nest. Ah, it was such a basket, fit
+for an English princess to sleep in! Everything about it was fine,
+soft, delicate, and everything born of her mother-love.
+
+So, for weeks, for even months, the little Tenas Klootchman laughed
+and smiled, waked and slept, dreamed and dimpled in her pretty
+playhouse. Then one day, in the hot, dry summer, there was no
+smile. The dimples did not play. The little flower paled, the small
+face grew smaller, the tiny hands tinier; and one morning, when the
+birds awoke in the forests of the Squamish, the eyes of the little
+Tenas Klootchman remained closed.
+
+They put her to sleep under the giant cedars, the lulling, singing
+firs, the whispering pines that must now be her lullaby, instead of
+her mother's voice crooning the child-songs of the Pacific, that
+tell of baby foxes and gamboling baby wolves and bright-eyed baby
+birds. Nothing remained to Maarda but an empty little cradle
+basket, but smoothly-folded silken "blankets," but disused beaded
+bands. Often at nightfall she would stand alone, and watch the sun
+dip into the far waters, leaving the world as gray and colorless
+as her own life; she would outstretch her arms--pitifully empty
+arms--towards the west, and beneath her voice again croon the
+lullabies of the Pacific, telling of the baby foxes, the soft,
+furry baby wolves, and the little downy fledglings in the nests.
+Once in an agony of loneliness she sang these things aloud, but her
+husband heard her, and his face turned gray and drawn, and her soul
+told her she must not be heard again singing these things aloud.
+
+And one evening a little steamer came into harbor. Many Indians
+came ashore from it, as the fishing season had begun. Among others
+was a young woman over whose face the finger of illness had traced
+shadows and lines of suffering. In her arms she held a baby, a
+beautiful, chubby, round-faced, healthy child that seemed too heavy
+for her wasted form to support. She looked about her wistfully,
+evidently seeking a face that was not there, and as the steamer
+pulled out of the harbor, she sat down weakly on the wharf, laid
+the child across her lap, and buried her face in her hands. Maarda
+touched her shoulder.
+
+"Who do you look for?" she asked.
+
+"For my brother Luke 'Alaska,'" replied the woman. "I am ill, my
+husband is dead, my brother will take care of me; he's a good man."
+
+"Luke 'Alaska,'" said Maarda. What had she heard of Luke "Alaska?"
+Why, of course, he was one of the men her own husband had taken a
+hundred miles up the coast as axeman on a surveying party, but she
+dared not tell this sick woman. She only said: "You had better come
+with me. My husband is away, but in a day of two he will be able to
+get news to your brother. I'll take care of you till they come."
+
+The woman arose gratefully, then swayed unsteadily under the weight
+of the child. Maarda's arms were flung out, yearningly, longingly,
+towards the baby.
+
+"Where is your cradle basket to carry him in?" she asked, looking
+about among the boxes and bales of merchandise the steamer had left
+on the wharf.
+
+"I have no cradle basket. I was too weak to make one, too poor to
+buy one. I have _nothing_," said the woman.
+
+"Then let me carry him," said Maarda. "It's quite a walk to my
+place; he's too heavy for you."
+
+The woman yielded the child gratefully, saying, "It's not a boy,
+but a Tenas Klootchman."
+
+Maarda could hardly believe her senses. That splendid, sturdy,
+plump, big baby a Tenas Klootchman! For a moment her heart surged
+with bitterness. Why had her own little girl been so frail, so
+flower-like? But with the touch of that warm baby body, the
+bitterness faded. She walked slowly, fitting her steps to those of
+the sick woman, and jealously lengthening the time wherein she
+could hold and hug the baby in her yearning arms.
+
+The woman was almost exhausted when they reached Maarda's home, but
+strong tea and hot, wholesome food revived her; but fever burned
+brightly in her cheeks and eyes. The woman was very ill, extremely
+ill. Maarda said, "You must go to bed, and as soon as you are
+there, I will take the canoe and go for a doctor. It is two or
+three miles, but you stay resting, and I'll bring him. We will put
+the Tenas Klootchman beside you in--" she hesitated. Her glance
+travelled up to the wall above, where a beautiful empty cradle
+basket hung, with folded silken "blankets" and disused beaded
+bands.
+
+The woman's gaze followed hers, a light of beautiful understanding
+pierced the fever glare of her eyes, she stretched out her hot hand
+protestingly, and said, "Don't put her in--that. Keep that, it is
+yours. She is used to being rolled only in my shawl."
+
+But Maarda had already lifted the basket down, and was tenderly
+arranging the wrappings. Suddenly her hands halted, she seemed to
+see a wee flower face looking up to her like the blossom of a
+russet-brown pansy. She turned abruptly, and, going to the door,
+looked out speechlessly on the stretch of sea and sky glimmering
+through the tree trunks.
+
+For a time she stood. Then across the silence broke the little
+murmuring sound of the baby half crooning, half crying, indoors,
+the little cradleless baby that, homeless, had entered her home.
+Maarda returned, and, lifting the basket, again arranged the
+wrappings. "The Tenas Klootchman shall have this cradle," she said,
+gently. The sick woman turned her face to the wall and sobbed.
+
+It was growing dark when Maarda left her guests, and entered her
+canoe on the quest for a doctor. The clouds hung low, and a fine,
+slanting rain fell, from which she protected herself as best she
+could with a shawl about her shoulders, crossed in front, with each
+end tucked into her belt beneath her arms--Indian-fashion. Around
+rocks and boulders, headlands and crags, she paddled, her little
+craft riding the waves like a cork, but pitching and plunging with
+every stroke. By and by the wind veered, and blew head on, and now
+and again she shipped water; her skirts began dragging heavily
+about her wet ankles, and her moccasins were drenched. The wind
+increased, and she discarded her shawl to afford greater freedom to
+her arm-play. The rain drove and slanted across her shoulders and
+head, and her thick hair was dripping with sea moisture and the
+downpour.
+
+Sometimes she thought of beaching the canoe and seeking shelter
+until daylight. Then she again saw those fever-haunted eyes of the
+stranger who was within her gates, again heard the half wail of the
+Tenas Klootchman in her own baby's cradle basket, and at the sound
+she turned her back on the possible safety of shelter, and forged
+ahead.
+
+It was a wearied woman who finally knocked at the doctor's door and
+bade him hasten. But his strong man's arm found the return journey
+comparatively easy paddling. The wind helped him, and Maarda also
+plied her bow paddle, frequently urging him to hasten.
+
+It was dawn when they entered her home. The sick woman moaned, and
+the child fretted for food. The doctor bent above his patient,
+shaking his head ruefully as Maarda built the fire, and attended to
+the child's needs before she gave thought to changing her drenched
+garments. All day she attended her charges, cooked, toiled,
+watched, forgetting her night of storm and sleeplessness in the
+greater anxieties of ministering to others. The doctor came and
+went between her home and the village, but always with that solemn
+headshake, that spoke so much more forcibly than words.
+
+"She shall not die!" declared Maarda. "The Tenas Klootchman needs
+her, she shall not die!" But the woman grew feebler daily, her eyes
+grew brighter, her cheeks burned with deeper scarlet.
+
+"We must fight for it now," said the doctor. And Maarda and he
+fought the dread enemy hour after hour, day after day.
+
+Bereft of its mother's care, the Tenas Klootchman turned to Maarda,
+laughed to her, crowed to her, until her lonely heart embraced the
+child as a still evening embraces a tempestuous day. Once she had a
+long, terrible fight with herself. She had begun to feel her
+ownership in the little thing, had begun to regard it as her right
+to tend and pet it. Her heart called out for it; and she wanted it
+for her very own. She began to feel a savage, tigerish joy in
+thinking--aye, _knowing_ that it really would belong to her and to
+her alone soon--very soon.
+
+When this sensation first revealed itself to her, the doctor was
+there--had even told her the woman could not recover. Maarda's
+gloriously womanly soul was horrified at itself. She left the
+doctor in charge, and went to the shore, fighting out this
+outrageous gladness, strangling it--killing it.
+
+She returned, a sanctified being, with every faculty in her body,
+every sympathy of her heart, every energy of her mind devoted to
+bringing this woman back from the jaws of death. She greeted the
+end of it all with a sorrowing, half-breaking heart, for she had
+learned to love the woman she had envied, and to weep for the
+little child who lay so helplessly against her unselfish heart.
+
+A beautifully lucid half-hour came to the fever-stricken one just
+before the Call to the Great Beyond!
+
+"Maarda," she said, "you have been a good Tillicum to me, and I
+can give you nothing for all your care, your kindness--unless--"
+Her eyes wandered to her child peacefully sleeping in the
+delicately-woven basket. Maarda saw the look, her heart leaped with
+a great joy. Did the woman wish to give the child to her? She dared
+not ask for it. Suppose Luke "Alaska" wanted it. His wife loved
+children, though she had four of her own in their home far inland.
+Then the sick woman spoke:
+
+"Your cradle basket and your heart were empty before I came. Will
+you keep my Tenas Klootchman as your own?--to fill them both
+again?"
+
+Maarda promised. "Mine was a Tenas Klootchman, too," she said.
+
+"Then I will go to her, and be her mother, wherever she is, in the
+Spirit Islands they tell us of," said the woman. "We will be but
+exchanging our babies, after all."
+
+When morning dawned, the woman did not awake.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Maarda had finished her story, but the recollections had saddened
+her eyes, and for a time we both sat on the deck in the violet
+twilight without exchanging a word.
+
+"Then the little Tenas Klootchman is yours now?" I asked.
+
+A sudden radiance suffused her face, all trace of melancholy
+vanished. She fairly scintillated happiness.
+
+"Mine!" she said. "All mine! Luke 'Alaska' and his wife said she
+was more mine than theirs, that I must keep her as my own. My
+husband rejoiced to see the cradle basket filled, and to hear me
+laugh as I used to."
+
+"How I should like to see the baby!" I began.
+
+"You shall," she interrupted. Then with a proud, half-roguish
+expression, she added:
+
+"She is so strong, so well, so heavy; she sleeps a great deal, and
+wakes laughing and hungry."
+
+As night fell, an ancient Indian woman came up the companion-way.
+In her arms she carried a beautifully-woven basket cradle, within
+which nestled a round-cheeked, smiling-eyes baby. Across its little
+forehead hung locks of black, straight hair, and its sturdy limbs
+were vainly endeavoring to free themselves from the lacing of the
+"blankets." Maarda took the basket, with an expression on her face
+that was transfiguring.
+
+"Yes, this is my little Tenas Klootchman," she said, as she unlaced
+the bands, then lifted the plump little creature out on to her lap.
+
+Soon afterwards the steamer touched an obscure little harbor, and
+Maarda, who was to join her husband there, left me, with a happy
+good-night. As she was going below, she faltered, and turned back
+to me. "I think sometimes," she said, quietly, "the Great Spirit
+thought my baby would feel motherless in the far Spirit Islands, so
+He gave her the woman I nursed for a mother; and He knew I was
+childless, and He gave me this child for my daughter. Do you think
+I am right? Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I think you are right, and I understand."
+
+Once more she smiled radiantly, and turning, descended the
+companionway. I caught a last glimpse of her on the wharf. She was
+greeting her husband, her face a mirror of happiness. About the
+delicately-woven basket cradle she had half pulled her heavy plaid
+shawl, beneath which the two rows of black velvet ribbon bordering
+her skirt proclaimed once more her nationality.
+
+
+
+The Derelict
+
+
+Cragstone had committed what his world called a crime--an
+inexcusable offence that caused him to be shunned by society and
+estranged from his father's house. He had proved a failure.
+
+Not one of his whole family connections could say unto the others,
+"I told you so," when he turned out badly.
+
+They had all predicted that he was born for great things, then to
+discover that they had over-estimated him was irritating, it told
+against their discernment, it was unflattering, and they thought
+him inconsiderate.
+
+So, in addition to his failure, Cragstone had to face the fact that
+he had made himself unpopular among his kin.
+
+As a boy he had been the pride of his family, as a youth, its hope
+of fame and fortune; he was clever, handsome, inventive, original,
+everything that society and his kind admired, but he criminally
+fooled them and their expectation, and they never forgave him for
+it.
+
+He had dabbled in music, literature, law, everything--always with
+semi-success and brilliant promise; he had even tried the stage,
+playing the Provinces for an entire season; then, ultimately
+sinking into mediocrity in all these occupations, he returned to
+London, a hopelessly useless, a pitiably gifted man. His chilly
+little aristocratic mother always spoke of him as "poor, dear
+Charles." His brothers, clubmen all, graciously alluded to him
+with, "deuced hard luck, poor Charlie." His father never mentioned
+his name.
+
+Then he went into "The Church," sailed for Canada, idled about for
+a few weeks, when one of the great colonial bishops, not knowing
+what else to do with him, packed him off north as a missionary to
+the Indians.
+
+And, after four years of disheartening labor amongst a
+semi-civilized people, came this girl Lydia into his life. This
+girl of the mixed parentage, the English father, who had been swept
+northward with the rush of lumber trading, the Chippewa mother, who
+had been tossed to his arms by the tide of circumstances. The girl
+was a strange composition of both, a type of mixed blood, pale,
+dark, slender, with the slim hands, the marvellously beautiful
+teeth of her mother's people, the ambition, the small tender
+mouth, the utter fearlessness of the English race. But the
+strange, laughless eyes, the silent step, the hard sense of honor,
+proclaimed her far more the daughter of red blood than of white.
+
+And, with the perversity of his kind, Cragstone loved her; he
+meant to marry her because he knew that he should not. What a
+monstrous thing it would be if he did! He, the shepherd of this
+half-civilized flock, the modern John Baptist; he, the voice of the
+great Anglican Church crying in this wilderness, how could he wed
+with this Indian girl who had been a common serving-maid in a house
+in Penetanguishene, and been dismissed therefrom with an accusation
+of theft that she could never prove untrue? How could he bring
+this reproach upon the Church? Why, the marriage would have no
+precedent; and yet he loved her, loved her sweet, silent ways,
+her listening attitudes, her clear, brown, consumptive-suggesting
+skin. She was the only thing in all the irksome mission life that
+had responded to him, had encouraged him to struggle anew for
+the spiritual welfare of this poor red race. Of course, in
+Penetanguishene they had told him she was irreclaimable, a thief,
+with ready lies to cover her crimes; for that very reason he felt
+tender towards her, she was so sinful, so pathetically human.
+
+He could have mastered himself, perhaps, had she not responded, had
+he not seen the laughless eyes laugh alone for him, had she not once
+when a momentary insanity possessed them both confessed in words
+her love for him as he had done to her. But now? Well, now only
+this horrible tale of theft and untruth hung between them like a
+veil; now even with his arms locked about her, his eyes drowned in
+hers, his ears caught the whispers of calumny, his thoughts were
+perforated with the horror of his Bishop's censure, and these
+things rushed between his soul and hers, like some bridgeless deep
+he might not cross, and so his lonely life went on.
+
+And then one night his sweet humanity, his grand, strong love rose
+up, battled with him, and conquered. He cast his pharisaical ideas,
+and the Church's "I am better than thou," aside forever; he would
+go now, to-night, he would ask her to be his wife, to have and to
+hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for--
+
+A shadow fell across the doorway of his simple home; it was August
+Beaver, the trapper, with the urgent request that he would come
+across to French Island at once, for old "Medicine" Joe was there,
+dying, and wished to see the minister. At another time Cragstone
+would have felt sympathetic, now he was only irritated; he wanted
+to find Lydia, to look in her laughless eyes, to feel her fingers
+in his hair, to tell her he did not care if she were a hundred
+times a thief, that he loved her, loved her, loved her, and he
+would marry her despite the Church, despite--
+
+"Joe, he's near dead, you come now?" broke in August's voice.
+Cragstone turned impatiently, got his prayer-book, followed the
+trapper, took his place in the canoe, and paddled in silence up
+the bay.
+
+The moon arose, large, limpid, flooding the cabin with a wondrous
+light, and making more wan the features of a dying man, whose
+fever-wasted form lay on some lynx skins on the floor.
+
+Cragstone was reading from the Book of Common Prayer the exquisite
+service of the Visitation of the Sick. Outside, the loons clanged
+up the waterways, the herons called across the islands, but no
+human things ventured up the wilds. Inside, the sick man lay,
+beside him August Beaver holding a rude lantern, while Cragstone's
+matchless voice repeated the Anglican formula. A spasm, an uplifted
+hand, and Cragstone paused. Was the end coming even before a
+benediction? But the dying man was addressing Beaver in Chippewa,
+whispering and choking out the words in his death struggle.
+
+"He says he's bad man," spoke Beaver. A horrible, humorous
+sensation swept over Cragstone; he hated himself for it, but at
+college he had always ridiculed death-bed confessions; but in a
+second that feeling had vanished, he bent his handsome, fair face
+above the copper-colored countenance of the dying man. "Joe," he
+said, with that ineffable tenderness that had always drawn human
+hearts to him; "Joe, tell me before I pronounce the Absolution,
+how you have been 'bad'?"
+
+"I steal three times," came the answer. "Oncet horses, two of them
+from farmer near Barrie. Oncet twenty fox-skins at North Bay;
+station man he in jail for those fox-skins now. Oncet gold watch
+from doctor at Penetanguishene."
+
+The prayer-book rattled from Cragstone's hands and fell to the
+floor.
+
+"Tell me about this watch," he mumbled. "How did you come to
+do it?"
+
+"I liffe at the doctor's; I take care his horse, long time; old
+River's girl, Lydia, she work there too; they say she steal it;
+I sell to trader, the doctor he nefer know, he think Lydia."
+
+Cragstone was white to the lips. "Joe,"  he faltered, "you are
+dying; do you regret this sin, are you sorry?"
+
+An indistinct "yes" was all; death was claiming him rapidly.
+
+But a great, white, purified love had swept over the young
+clergyman. The girl he worshipped could never now be a reproach to
+his calling, she was proved blameless as a baby, and out of his
+great human love arose the divine calling, the Christ-like sense
+of forgiveness, the God-like forgetfulness of injury and suffering
+done to his and to him, and once more his soft, rich voice broke
+the stillness of the Northern night, as the Anglican absolution of
+the dying fell from his lips in merciful tenderness:
+
+"O Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve
+all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy
+forgive thee thine offences, and by His authority committed to me
+I absolve thee from all thy sins in the name of the Father, and of
+the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
+
+Beaver was holding the lantern close to the penitent's face;
+Cragstone, kneeling beside him, saw that the end had come already,
+and, after making the sign of the Cross on the dead Indian's
+forehead, the young priest arose and went silently out into the
+night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sun was slipping down into the far horizon, fretted by the
+inimitable wonder of islands that throng the Georgian Bay; the
+blood-colored skies, the purpling clouds, the extravagant beauty
+of a Northern sunset hung in the west like the trailing robes of
+royalty, soundless in their flaring, their fading; soundless as the
+unbroken wilds which lay bathed in the loneliness of a dying day.
+
+But on the color-flooded shore stood two, blind to the purple, the
+scarlet, the gold, blind to all else save the tense straining of
+the other's eyes; deaf to nature's unsung anthem, hearing only the
+other's voice. Cragstone stood transfixed with consternation. The
+memory of the past week of unutterable joy lay blasted with the
+awfulness of this moment, the memory of even that first day--when
+he had stood with his arms about her, had told her how he had
+declared her reclaimed name far and wide, how even Penetanguishene
+knew now that she had suffered blamelessly, how his own heart
+throbbed suffocatingly with the honor, the delight of being the
+poor means through which she had been righted in the accusing eyes
+of their little world, and that now she would be his wife, his
+sweet, helping wife, and she had been great enough not to remind
+him that he had not asked her to be his wife until her name was
+proved blameless, and he was great enough not to make excuse of the
+resolve he had set out upon just when August Beaver came to turn
+the current of his life.
+
+But he had other eyes to face to-night, eyes that blurred the past,
+that burned themselves into his being--the condemning, justly and
+righteously indignant eyes of his Bishop--while his numb heart,
+rather than his ears, listened to the words that fell from the
+prelate's lips like curses on his soul, like the door that would
+shut him forever outside the holy place.
+
+"What have you done, you pretended servant of the living God?
+What use is this you have made of your Holy Orders? You hear the
+confessions of a dying man, you absolve and you bless him, and come
+away from the poor dead thief to shout his crimes in the ears of
+the world, to dishonor him, to be a discredit to your calling. Who
+could trust again such a man as you have proved to be--faithless to
+himself, faithless to his Church, faithless to his God?"
+
+But Cragstone was on the sands at his accuser's feet. "Oh! my
+Lord," he cried, "I meant only to save the name of a poor,
+mistrusted girl, selfishly, perhaps, but I would have done the
+same thing just for humanity's sake had it been another to whom
+injustice was done."
+
+"Your plea of justice is worse than weak; to save the good name
+of the living is it just to rob the dead?"
+
+The Bishop's voice was like iron.
+
+"I did not realize I was a priest, I only knew I was a _man_," and
+with these words Cragstone arose and looked fearlessly, even
+proudly, at the one who stood his judge.
+
+"Is it not better, my Lord, to serve the living than the dead?"
+
+"And bring reproach upon your Church?" said the Bishop, sternly.
+
+It was the first thought Cragstone ever had of his official crime;
+he staggered under the horror of it, and the little, dark, silent
+figure, that had followed them unseen, realized in her hiding amid
+the shadows that the man who had lifted her into the light was
+himself being thrust down into irremediable darkness. But Cragstone
+only saw the Bishop looking at him as from a supreme height, he
+only felt the final stinging lash in the words: "When a man
+disregards the most sacred offices of his God, he will hardly
+reverence the claims of justice of a simple woman who knows not his
+world, and if he so easily flings his God away for a woman, just so
+easily will he fling her away for other gods."
+
+And Lydia, with eyes that blazed like flame, watched the Bishop
+turn and walk frigidly up the sands, his indignation against this
+outrager of the Church declaring itself in every footfall.
+
+Cragstone flung himself down, burying his face in his hands. What a
+wreck he had made of life! He saw his future, loveless, for no woman
+would trust him now; even the one whose name he had saved would
+probably be more unforgiving than the Church; it was the way
+with women when a man abandoned God and honor for them; and this
+nameless but blackest of sins, this falsity to one poor dying
+sinner, would stand between him and heaven forever, though through
+that very crime he had saved a fellow being. Where was the justice
+of it?
+
+The purple had died from out the western sky, the waters of the
+Georgian Bay lay colorless at his feet, night was covering the
+world and stealing with inky blackness into his soul.
+
+She crept out of her hiding-place, and, coming, gently touched his
+tumbled fair hair; but he shrank from her, crying: "Lydia, my girl,
+my girl, I am not for a good woman now! I, who thought you an
+outcast, a thief, not worthy to be my wife, to-night I am not an
+outcast of man alone, but of God."
+
+But what cared she for his official crimes? She was a woman. Her
+arms were about him, her lips on his; and he who had, until now,
+been a portless derelict, who had vainly sought a haven in art,
+an anchorage in the service of God, had drifted at last into the
+world's most sheltered harbor--a woman's love.
+
+But, of course, the Bishop took away his gown.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Moccasin Maker, by E. Pauline Johnson
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+
+
+
+This collection of prose written by Pauline Johnson was first
+assembled and published shortly after her death in 1913.
+
+
+
+THE MOCCASIN MAKER
+
+By E. Pauline Johnson
+
+
+With introduction by Sir Gilbert Parker and
+appreciation by Charles Mair.
+
+
+Dedicated to Sir Gilbert Parker, M.P.
+Whose work in literature has brought honour to Canada
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  Introduction
+  Pauline Johnson: An Appreciation
+  My Mother
+  Catharine of the "Crow's Nest"
+  A Red Girl's Reasoning
+  The Envoy Extraordinary
+  A Pagan in St. Paul's Cathedral
+  As It Was in the Beginning
+  The Legend of Lillooet Falls
+  Her Majesty's Guest
+  Mother o' the Men
+  The Nest Builder
+  The Tenas Klootchman
+  The Derelict
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The inducement to be sympathetic in writing a preface to a book like
+this is naturally very great. The authoress was of Indian blood,
+and lived the life of the Indian on the Iroquois Reserve with her
+chieftain father and her white mother for many years; and though
+she had white blood in her veins was insistently and determinedly
+Indian to the end. She had the full pride of the aboriginal of pure
+blood, and she was possessed of a vital joy in the legends, history
+and language of the Indian race from which she came, crossed by
+good white stock. But though the inducement to be sympathetic in
+the case of so chivalrous a being who stood by the Indian blood
+rather than by the white blood in her is great, there is, happily,
+no necessity for generosity or magnanimity in the case of Pauline
+Johnson. She was not great, but her work in verse in sure and
+sincere; and it is alive with the true spirit of poetry. Her skill
+in mere technique is good, her handling of narrative is notable,
+and if there is no striking individuality--which might have been
+expected from her Indian origin--if she was often reminiscent in her
+manner, metre, form and expression, it only proves her a minor poet
+and not a Tennyson or a Browning. That she should have done what
+she did do, devotedly, with an astonishing charm and the delight
+of inspired labour, makes her life memorable, as it certainly made
+both life and work beautiful. The pain and suffering which attended
+the latter part of her life never found its way into her work save
+through increased sweetness and pensiveness. No shadow of death
+fell upon her pages. To the last the soul ruled the body to its
+will. Phenomenon Pauline Johnson was, though to call her a genius
+would be to place her among the immortals, and no one was more
+conscious of her limitations than herself. Therefore, it would do
+her memory poor service to give her a crown instead of a coronet.
+
+Poet she was, lyric and singing and happy, bright-visioned,
+high-hearted, and with the Indian's passionate love of nature
+thrilling in all she did, even when from the hunting-grounds of
+poesy she brought back now and then a poor day's capture. She was
+never without charm in her writing; indeed, mere charm was too
+often her undoing. She could not be impersonal enough, and
+therefore could not be great; but she could get very near to human
+sympathies, to domestic natures, to those who care for pleasant,
+happy things, to the lovers of the wild.
+
+This is what she has done in this book called "The Moccasin Maker."
+Here is a good deal that is biographical and autobiographical in
+its nature; here is the story of her mother's life told with rare
+graciousness and affection, in language which is never without
+eloquence; and even when the dialogue makes you feel that the real
+characters never talked as they do in this monograph, it is still
+unstilted and somehow really convincing. Touching to a degree is
+the first chapter, "My Mother," and it, with all the rest of the
+book, makes one feel that Canadian literature would have been
+poorer, that something would have been missed from this story of
+Indian life if this volume had not been written. It is no argument
+against the book that Pauline Johnson had not learnt the art of
+short-story writing; she was a poetess, not a writer of fiction;
+but the incidents described in many of these chapters show that,
+had she chosen to write fiction instead of verse, and had begun at
+an early stage in her career to do so, she would have succeeded.
+Her style is always picturesque, she has a good sense of the
+salient incident that makes a story, she could give to it the
+touch of drama, and she is always interesting, even when there is
+discursiveness, occasional weakness, and when the picture is not
+well pulled together. The book had to be written; she knew it, and
+she did it. The book will be read, not for patriotic reasons, not
+from admiration of work achieved by one of the Indian race; but
+because it is intrinsically human, interesting and often compelling
+in narrative and event.
+
+May it be permitted to add one word of personal comment? I never
+saw Pauline Johnson in her own land, at her own hearthstone, but
+only in my house in London and at other houses in London, where
+she brought a breath of the wild; not because she dressed in Indian
+costume, but because its atmosphere was round her. The feeling of
+the wild looked out of her eyes, stirred in her gesture, moved in
+her footstep. I am glad to have known this rare creature who had
+the courage to be glad of her origin, without defiance, but with an
+unchanging, if unspoken, insistence. Her native land and the Empire
+should be glad of her for what she was and for what she stood; her
+native land and the Empire should be glad of her for the work,
+interesting, vivid and human, which she has done. It will preserve
+her memory. In an age growing sordid such fresh spirits as she
+should be welcomed for what they are, for what they do. This book
+by Pauline Johnson should be welcomed for what she was and for what
+it is.
+
+                            Gilbert Parker.
+
+
+
+PAULINE JOHNSON: AN APPRECIATION.
+
+By Charles Mair.
+
+
+The writer, having contributed a brief "Appreciation" of the
+late Miss E. Pauline Johnson to the July number of The Canadian
+Magazine, has been asked by the editor of this collection of her
+hitherto unpublished writings to allow it to be used as a Preface,
+with such additions or omissions as might seem desirable. He has
+not yet seen any portion of the book, but quite apart from its
+merits it is eagerly looked for by Miss Johnson's many friends
+and admirers as a final memorial of her literary life. It will now
+be read with an added interest, begot of her painfully sad and
+untimely end.
+
+In the death of Miss Johnson a poet passed away of undoubted
+genius; one who wrote with passion, but without extravagance, and
+upon themes foreign, perhaps, to some of her readers, but, to
+herself, familiar as the air she breathed.
+
+When her racial poetry first appeared, its effect upon the reader
+was as that of something abnormal, something new and strange, and
+certainly unexampled in Canadian verse. For here was a girl whose
+blood and sympathies were largely drawn from the greatest tribe of
+the most advanced nation of Indians on the continent, who spoke
+out, "loud and bold," not for it alone, but for the whole red race,
+and sang of its glories and its wrongs in strains of poetic fire.
+
+However aloof the sympathies of the ordinary business world may be
+from the red man's record, even it is moved at times by his fate,
+and stirred by his persistent, his inevitable romance. For the
+Indian's record is the background, and not seldom the foreground,
+of American history, in which his endless contests with the invader
+were but a counterpart of the unwritten, or recorded, struggles of
+all primitive time.
+
+In that long strife the bitterest charge against him is his
+barbarity, which, if all that is alleged is to be believed--and
+much of it is authentic--constitutes in the annals of pioneer
+settlement and aggression a chapter of horrors.
+
+But equally vindictive was his enemy, the American frontiersman.
+Burnings at the stake, scalping, and other savageries, were not
+confined to the red man. But whilst his are depicted by the
+interested writers of the time in the most lurid colours, those of
+the frontiersman, equally barbarous, are too often palliated, or
+entirely passed by. It is manifestly unjust to characterize a whole
+people by its worst members. Of such, amongst both Indians and
+whites, there were not a few; but it is equally unfair to ascribe
+to a naturally cruel disposition the infuriated red man's reprisals
+for intolerable wrongs. As a matter of fact, impartial history
+not seldom leans to the red man's side; for, in his ordinary and
+peaceful intercourse with the whites, he was, as a rule, both
+helpful and humane. In the records of early explorers we are told
+of savages who possessed estimable qualities lamentably lacking
+in many so-called civilized men. The Illinois, an inland tribe,
+exhibited such tact, courtesy and self-restraint, in a word, such
+good manners, that the Jesuit Fathers described them as a community
+of gentlemen. Such traits, indeed, were natural to the primitive
+Indian, and gave rise, no doubt, to the much-derided phrase--"The
+Noble Red Man."
+
+There may be some readers of these lines old enough to remember
+the great Indians of the plains in times past, who will bear the
+writer out in saying that such traits were not uncommon down to
+comparatively recent years. Tatonkanazin the Dahcota, Sapo-Maxika
+the Blackfoot, Atakakoop the Cree, not to speak of Yellow Quill
+and others, were noted in their day for their noble features and
+dignified deportment.
+
+In our history the Indians hold an honoured place, and the average
+reader need not be told that, at one time, their services were
+essential to Canada. They appreciated British justice, and their
+greatest nations produced great men, who, in the hour of need,
+helped materially to preserve our independence. They failed,
+however, for manifest reasons, to maintain their own. They had to
+yield; but, before quitting the stage, they left behind them an
+abiding memory, and an undying tradition. And, thus, "Romanticism,"
+which will hold its own despite its hostile critics, is their
+debtor. Their closeness to nature, their picturesque life in the
+past, their mythical religion, social system and fateful history
+have begot one of the wide world's "legends," an ideal not wholly
+imaginary, which, as a counterpoise to Realism, our literature
+needs, and probably never shall outgrow.
+
+These references to the Indian character may seem too extended for
+their place, yet they are genre to the writer's subject. For Miss
+Johnson's mentality was moulded by descent, by ample knowledge of
+her people's history, admiration of their character, and profound
+interest in their fate.
+
+Hence the oncoming into the field of letters of a real Indian poet
+had a significance which, aided by its novelty, was immediately
+appreciated by all that was best in Canadian culture. Hence, too,
+and by reason of its strength, her work at once took its fitting
+place without jar or hindrance; for there are few educated Canadians
+who do not possess, in some measure, that aboriginal, historic sense
+which was the very atmosphere of Pauline Johnson's being.
+
+But while "the Indian" was never far from her thoughts, she was a
+poet, and therefore inevitably winged her way into the world of
+art, into the realm common to all countries, and to all peoples.
+Here there was room for her imaginings, endowed, as she was, with
+power to appeal to the heart, with refinement, delicacy, pathos,
+and, above all, sincerity; an Idealist who fused the inner and the
+outer world, and revelled in the unification of scenery and mind.
+
+The delight of genius in the act of composition has been called the
+keenest of intellectual pleasures; and this was the poet's almost
+sole reward in Canada a generation ago, when nothing seemed to
+catch the popular ear but burlesque, or trivial verse. In strange
+contrast this with a remoter age! In old Upper Canada, in its
+primitive days, there was no lack of educated men and women, of
+cultivated pioneers who appreciated art and good literature in all
+its forms. Even the average immigrant brought his favourite books
+with him from the Old Land, and cherished a love of reading, which
+unfortunately was not always inherited by his sons. It was a fit
+audience, no doubt; but in a period when all alike were engrossed in
+a stern struggle for existence, the poets, and we know there were
+some, were forced, like other people, to earn, by labour of hand,
+their daily bread. Thackeray's "dapper" George is credited with the
+saying, that, "If beebles will be boets they must starve." If in
+England their struggle was severe, in Canada it was unrelenting; a
+bald prospect, certainly, which lasted, one is sorry to say, far
+down in our literary history.
+
+Probably owing to this, and partly through advice, and partly by
+inclination, Miss Johnson took to the public platform for a living,
+and certainly justified her choice of a vocation by her admirable
+performances. They were not sensational, and therefore not
+over-attractive to the groundling; but to discerners, who thought
+highly of her art, they seemed the perfection of monologue, graced
+by a musical voice, and by gesture at once simple and dignified.
+
+As this is an appreciation and a tribute to Miss Johnson's memory
+rather than a criticism, the writer will touch but lightly upon
+the more prominent features of her productions. Without being
+obtrusive, not the least of these is her national pride, for
+nothing worthier, she thought, could be said of a man than
+
+"That he was born in Canada, beneath the British flag."
+
+In her political creed wavering and uncertainty had no place. She
+saw our national life from its most salient angles, and, in
+current phrase, she saw it whole. In common, therefore, with every
+Canadian poet of eminence, she had no fears for Canada, if she be
+but true to herself.
+
+Another opinion is not likely to be challenged, viz., that much
+of her poetry is unique, not only in subject, but also in the
+sincerity of her treatment of themes so far removed from the common
+range. Intense feeling distinguishes her Indian poems from all
+others; they flow from her very veins, and are stamped with the seal
+of heredity. This strikes one at every reading, and not less their
+truth to fact, however idealized. Indeed the wildest of them,
+"Ojistoh" (The White Wampum), is based upon an actual occurrence,
+though the incident took place on the Western plains, and the
+heroine was not a Mohawk. The same intensity marks "The Cattle
+Thief," and "A Cry From an Indian Wife." Begot of her knowledge
+of the long-suffering of her race, of iniquities in the past and
+present, they poured red-hot from her inmost heart.
+
+One turns, however, with a sense of relief from those fierce
+dithyrambics to the beauty and pathos of her other poems. Take,
+for example, that exquisite piece of music, "The Lullaby of the
+Iroquois," simple, yet entrancing! Could anything of its kind be
+more perfect in structure and expression? Or the sweet idyll,
+"Shadow River," a transmutation of fancy and fact, which ends with
+her own philosophy:
+
+  "O! pathless world of seeming!
+   O! pathless life of mine whose deep ideal
+   Is more my own than ever was the real.
+   For others fame
+   And Love's red flame,
+   And yellow gold: I only claim
+   The shadows and the dreaming."
+
+And this ideality, the hall-mark of her poetry, has a character of
+its own, a quality which distinguishes it from the general run of
+subjective verse. Though of the Christian faith, there is yet an
+almost pagan yearning manifest in her work, which she indubitably
+drew from her Indian ancestry. That is, she was in constant contact
+with nature, and saw herself, her every thought and feeling,
+reflected in the mysterious world around her.
+
+This sense of harmony is indeed the prime motive of her poetry,
+and therein we discern a brightness, a gleam, however fleeting,
+of mystic light--
+
+  "The light that never was on sea or land,
+   The consecration and the poet's dream."
+
+A suggestion of her attitude and sense of inter-penetration lurks
+in this stanza:
+
+  "There's a spirit on the river, there's a ghost upon the shore,
+   And they sing of love and loving through the starlight evermore,
+   As they steal amid the silence and the shadows of the shore."
+
+And in the following verses this "correspondence" is more
+distinctly drawn:
+
+  "O! soft responsive voices of the night
+     I join your minstrelsy,
+   And call across the fading silver light
+     As something calls to me;
+   I may not all your meaning understand,
+   But I have touched your soul in Shadow Land."
+
+"Sweetness and light" met in Miss Johnson's nature, but free from
+sentimentality; and even a carping critic will find little to cavil
+at in her productions. If fault should be found with any of them it
+would probably be with such a narrative as "Wolverine." It "bites,"
+like all her Indian pieces, and conveys a definite meaning. But,
+written in the conventional slang of the frontier, it jars with her
+other work, and seems out of form, if not out of place.
+
+However, no poet escapes a break at times, and Miss Johnson's
+work is not to be judged, like a chain, by its weakest links.
+Its beauty, its strength, its originality are unmistakable, and
+although, had she lived, we might have looked for still higher
+flights of her genius, yet what we possess is beyond price, and
+fully justifies the feeling, everywhere expressed, that Canada has
+lost a true poet.
+
+Such a loss may not be thought a serious one by the sordid man
+who decries poetry as the useless product of an art already in
+its decay. Should this ever be the case, it would be a monstrous
+symptom, a symptom that the noblest impulses of the human heart are
+decaying also. The truth is, as the greatest of English critics,
+Hazlitt, has told us, that "poetry is an interesting study, for
+this reason, that it relates to whatever is most interesting in
+human life. Whoever, therefore, has a contempt for poetry, has a
+contempt for himself and humanity."
+
+Turning from Miss Johnson's verse to her prose, there is ample
+evidence that, had she applied herself, she would have taken high
+rank as a writer of fiction. Her "Legends of Vancouver" is a
+remarkable book, in which she relates a number of Coast-Indian
+myths and traditions with unerring insight and literary skill.
+These legends had a main source in the person of the famous old
+Chief, Capilano, who, for the first time, revealed them to her in
+Chinook, or in broken English, and, as reproduced in her rich and
+harmonious prose, belong emphatically to what has been called "The
+literature of power." Bound together, so to speak, in the retentive
+memory of the old Chief, they are authentic legends of his people,
+and true to the Indian nature. But we find in them, also, something
+that transcends history. Indefinable forms, earthly and unearthly,
+pass before us in mystical procession, in a world beyond ordinary
+conception, in which nothing seems impossible.
+
+The origin of the Indian's myths, East or West, cannot be traced,
+and must ever remain a mystery. But, from his immemorial ceremonies
+and intense conservatism, we may reasonably infer that many of
+them have been handed down from father to son, unchanged, from
+the prehistoric past to the present day; a past contemporary,
+perhaps, with the mastodon, but certainly far back in the mists of
+antiquity. The importance of rescuing them from oblivion is plain
+enough, and therefore the untimely death of Miss Johnson, who was
+evidently turning with congenital fitness to the task, is doubly to
+be regretted. For as Mr. Bernard McEnvoy well says in his preface
+to her "Vancouver Legends," she "has linked the vivid present with
+the immemorial past.... In the imaginative power that she has
+brought to these semi-historical Sagas, and in the liquid flow
+of her rhythmical prose she has shown herself to be a literary
+worker of whom we may well be proud."
+
+It is believed to be the general wish of Miss Johnson's friends
+that some tribute of a national and permanent character should be
+paid to her memory; not indeed to preserve it--her own works will
+do that--but as a visible mark of public esteem. In this regard,
+what could be better than a bronze statue of life-size, with such
+accompanying symbols as would naturally suggest themselves to a
+competent artist? Vancouver, in which she spent her latter years,
+the city she loved, and in which she died, is its proper home; and,
+as to its site, the spot in Stanley Park where she wished her ashes
+to be laid is surely, of all places, the most appropriate.
+
+But whatever shape, in the opinion of her friends, the memorial
+should take, it is important, in any case, that it should be worthy
+of her genius, and a fitting memento of her services to Canadian
+letters.
+
+Fort Steele, B.C., September, 1913.
+
+
+
+
+My Mother
+
+The Story of a Life of Unusual Experiences
+
+
+[Author's Note.--This is the story of my mother's life, every
+incident of which she related to me herself. I have neither
+exaggerated nor curtailed a single circumstance in relating this
+story. I have supplied nothing through imagination, nor have I
+heightened the coloring of her unusual experiences. Had I done so
+I could not possibly feel as sure of her approval as I now do, for
+she is as near to me to-day as she was before she left me to join
+her husband, my beloved father, whose feet have long since wandered
+to the "Happy Hunting Grounds" of my dear Red Ancestors.]
+
+
+PART I.
+
+It was a very lonely little girl that stood on the deck of a huge
+sailing vessel while the shores of England slipped down into the
+horizon and the great, grey Atlantic yawned desolately westward.
+She was leaving so much behind her, taking so little with her, for
+the child was grave and old even at the age of eight, and realized
+that this day meant the updragging of all the tiny roots that clung
+to the home soil of the older land. Her father was taking his wife
+and family, his household goods, his fortune and his future to
+America, which, in the days of 1829, was indeed a venturesome
+step, for America was regarded as remote as the North Pole, and
+good-byes were, alas! very real good-byes, when travellers set
+sail for the New World in those times before steam and telegraph
+brought the two continents hand almost touching hand.
+
+So little Lydia Bestman stood drearily watching with sorrow-filled
+eyes the England of her babyhood fade slowly into the distance--eyes
+that were fated never to see again the royal old land of her birth.
+Already the deepest grief that life could hold had touched her
+young heart. She had lost her own gentle, London-bred mother when
+she was but two years old. Her father had married again, and on her
+sixth birthday little Lydia, the youngest of a large family, had
+been sent away to boarding-school with an elder sister, and her
+home knew her no more. She was taken from school to the sailing
+ship; little stepbrothers and sisters had arrived and she was no
+longer the baby. Years afterwards she told her own little children
+that her one vivid recollection of England was the exquisite
+music of the church chimes as the ship weighed anchor in Bristol
+harbor--chimes that were ringing for evensong from the towers of
+the quaint old English churches. Thirteen weeks later that sailing
+vessel entered New York harbor, and life in the New World began.
+
+Like most transplanted Englishmen, Mr. Bestman cut himself
+completely off from the land of his fathers; his interests and
+his friends henceforth were all in the country of his adoption,
+and he chose Ohio as a site for his new home. He was a man of
+vast peculiarities, prejudices and extreme ideas--a man of
+contradictions so glaring that even his own children never
+understood him. He was a very narrow religionist, of the type
+that say many prayers and quote much Scripture, but he beat his
+children--both girls and boys--so severely that outsiders were
+at times compelled to interfere. For years these unfortunate
+children carried the scars left on their backs by the thongs of
+cat-o'-nine-tails when he punished them for some slight misdemeanor.
+They were all terrified at him, all obeyed him like soldiers, but
+none escaped his severity. The two elder ones, a boy and a girl,
+had married before they left England. The next girl married in
+Ohio, and the boys drifted away, glad to escape from a parental
+tyranny that made home anything but a desirable abiding-place.
+Finally but two remained of the first family--Lydia and her sister
+Elizabeth, a most lovable girl of seventeen, whose beauty of
+character and self-sacrificing heart made the one bright memory
+that remained with these scattered fledglings throughout their
+entire lives.
+
+The lady who occupied the undesirable position of stepmother to
+these unfortunate children was of the very cold and chilling type
+of Englishwoman, more frequently met with two generations ago than
+in this age. She simply let her husband's first family alone. She
+took no interest in them, neglected them absolutely, but in her
+neglect was far kinder and more humane than their own father. Yet
+she saw that all the money, all the pretty clothes, all the
+dainties, went to her own children.
+
+Perhaps the reader will think these unpleasant characteristics of a
+harsh father and a self-centred stepmother might better be omitted
+from this narrative, particularly as death claimed these two many
+years ago; but in the light of after events, it is necessary to
+reveal what the home environment of these children had been, how
+little of companionship or kindness or spoken love had entered
+their baby lives. The absence of mother kisses, of father
+comradeship, of endeavor to understand them individually, to probe
+their separate and various dispositions--things so essential to
+the development of all that is best in a child--went far towards
+governing their later actions in life. It drove the unselfish,
+sweet-hearted Elizabeth to a loveless marriage; it flung poor,
+little love-hungry Lydia into alien but, fortunately, loyal and
+noble arms. Outsiders said, "What strange marriages!" But Lydia, at
+least, married where the first real kindness she had ever known
+called to her, and not one day of regret for that marriage ever
+entered into her life.
+
+It came about so strangely, so inevitably, from such a tiny
+source, that it is almost incredible.
+
+One day the stepmother, contrary to her usual custom, went into the
+kitchen and baked a number of little cakelets, probably what we
+would call cookies. For what sinister reason no one could divine,
+but she counted these cakes as she took them from the baking-pans
+and placed them in the pantry. There were forty-nine, all told.
+That evening she counted them again; there were forty-eight.
+Then she complained to her husband that one of the children had
+evidently stolen a cake. (In her mind the two negro servants
+employed in the house did not merit the suspicion.) Mr. Bestman
+inquired which child was fond of the cakes. Mrs. Bestman replied
+that she did not know, unless it was Lydia, who always liked them.
+
+Lydia was called. Her father, frowning, asked if she had taken the
+cake. The child said no.
+
+"You are not telling the truth," Mr. Bestman shouted, as the poor
+little downtrodden girl stood half terrified, consequently half
+guilty-mannered, before him.
+
+"But I am truthful," she said. "I know nothing of the cake."
+
+"You are not truthful. You stole it--you know you did. You shall be
+punished for this falsehood," he stormed, and reached for the
+cat-o'-nine-tails.
+
+The child was beaten brutally and sent to her room until she could
+tell the truth. When she was released she still held that she had
+not taken the cooky. Another beating followed, then a third, when
+finally the stepmother interfered and said magnanimously:
+
+"Don't whip her any more; she has been punished enough." And once
+during one of the beatings she protested, saying, "Don't strike the
+child _on the head_ in that way."
+
+But the iron had entered into Lydia's sister's soul. The injustice
+of it all drove gentle Elizabeth's gentleness to the winds.
+
+"Liddy darling," she said, taking the thirteen-year-old girl-child
+into her strong young arms, "_I_ know truth when I hear it.
+_You_ never stole that cake."
+
+"I didn't," sobbed the child, "I didn't."
+
+"And you have been beaten three times for it!" And the sweet young
+mouth hardened into lines that were far too severe for a girl of
+seventeen. Then: "Liddy, do you know that Mr. Evans has asked me to
+marry him?"
+
+"Mr. Evans!" exclaimed the child. "Why, you can't marry _him_,
+'Liza! He's ever so old, and he lives away up in Canada, among the
+Indians."
+
+"That's one of the reasons that I should like to marry him," said
+Elizabeth, her young eyes starry with zeal. "I want to work among
+the Indians, to help in Christianizing them, to--oh! just to help."
+
+"But Mr. Evans is so _old_," reiterated Lydia.
+
+"Only thirty," answered the sister; "and he is such a splendid
+missionary, dear."
+
+Love? No one talked of love in that household except the
+contradictory father, who continually talked of the love of God,
+but forgot to reflect that love towards his own children.
+
+Human love was considered a non-essential in that family.
+Beautiful-spirited Elizabeth had hardly heard the word. Even Mr.
+Evans had not made use of it. He had selected her as his wife more
+for her loveliness of character than from any personal attraction,
+and she in her untaught womanhood married him, more for the reason
+that she desired to be a laborer in Christ's vineyard than because
+of any wish to be the wife of this one man.
+
+But after the marriage ceremony, this gentle girl looked boldly
+into her father's eyes and said:
+
+"I am going to take Liddy with me into the wilds of Canada."
+
+"Well, well, well!" said her father, English-fashion. "If she wants
+to go, she may."
+
+Go? The child fairly clung to the fingers of this saviour-sister--
+the poor little, inexperienced, seventeen-year-old bride who was
+giving up her youth and her girlhood to lay it all upon the shrine
+of endeavour to bring the radiance of the Star that shone above
+Bethlehem to reflect its glories upon a forest-bred people of the
+North!
+
+It was a long, strange journey that the bride and her little sister
+took. A stage coach conveyed them from their home in Ohio to Erie,
+Pennsylvania, where they went aboard a sailing vessel bound for
+Buffalo. There they crossed the Niagara River, and at Chippewa, on
+the Canadian side, again took a stage coach for the village of
+Brantford, sixty miles west.
+
+At this place they remained over night, and the following day Mr.
+Evans' own conveyance arrived to fetch them to the Indian Reserve,
+ten miles to the southeast.
+
+In after years little Lydia used to tell that during that entire
+drive she thought she was going through an English avenue leading
+up to some great estate, for the trees crowded up close to the
+roadway on either side, giant forest trees--gnarled oaks, singing
+firs, jaunty maples, graceful elms--all stretching their branches
+overhead. But the "avenue" seemed endless. "When do we come to the
+house?" she asked, innocently. "This lane is very long."
+
+But it was three hours, over a rough corduroy road, before the
+little white frame parsonage lifted its roof through the forest,
+its broad verandahs and green outside shutters welcoming the
+travellers with an atmosphere of home at last.
+
+As the horses drew up before the porch the great front door was
+noiselessly opened and a lad of seventeen, lithe, clean-limbed,
+erect, copper-colored, ran swiftly down the steps, lifted his hat,
+smiled, and assisted the ladies to alight. The boy was Indian to
+the finger-tips, with that peculiar native polish and courtesy,
+that absolute ease of manner and direction of glance, possessed
+only by the old-fashioned type of red man of this continent.
+The missionary introduced him as "My young friend, the church
+interpreter, Mr. George Mansion, who is one of our household."
+(Mansion, or "Grand Mansion," is the English meaning of this young
+Mohawk's native name.)
+
+The entire personality of the missionary seemed to undergo a change
+as his eyes rested on this youth. His hitherto rather stilted
+manner relaxed, his eyes softened and glowed, he invited confidence
+rather than repelled it; truly his heart was bound up with these
+forest people; he fairly exhaled love for them with every breath.
+He was a man of marked shyness, and these silent Indians made him
+forget this peculiarity of which he was sorrowfully conscious. It
+was probably this shyness that caused him to open the door and turn
+to his young wife with the ill-selected remark: "Welcome home,
+madam."
+
+_Madam_! The little bride was chilled to the heart with the austere
+word. She hurried within, followed by her wondering child-sister,
+as soon as possible sought her room, then gave way to a storm of
+tears.
+
+"Don't mind me, Liddy," she sobbed. "There's nothing wrong; we'll
+be happy enough here, only I think I looked for a little--petting."
+
+With a wisdom beyond her years, Lydia did not reply, but went to
+the window and gazed absently at the tiny patch of flowers beyond
+the door--the two lilac trees in full blossom, the thread of
+glistening river, and behind it all, the northern wilderness. Just
+below the window stood the missionary and the Indian boy talking
+eagerly.
+
+"Isn't George Mansion _splendid_!" said the child.
+
+"You must call him Mr. Mansion; be very careful about the _Mister_,
+Liddy dear," said her sister, rising and drying her eyes bravely.
+"I have always heard that the Indians treat one just as they are
+treated by one. Respect Mr. Mansion, treat him as you would treat a
+city gentleman. Be sure he will gauge his deportment by ours. Yes,
+dear, he _is_ splendid. I like him already."
+
+"Yes, 'Liza, so do I, and he _is_ a gentleman. He looks it and acts
+it. I believe he _thinks_ gentlemanly things."
+
+Elizabeth laughed. "You dear little soul!" she said. "I know what
+you mean, and I agree with you."
+
+That laugh was all that Lydia wanted to hear in this world, and
+presently the two sisters, with arms entwined, descended the
+stairway and joined in the conversation between Mr. Evans and young
+George Mansion.
+
+"Mrs. Evans," said the boy, addressing her directly for the first
+time, "I hoped you were fond of game. Yesterday I hunted; it was
+partridge I got, and one fine deer. Will you offer me the
+compliment of having some for dinner to-night?"
+
+His voice was low and very distinct, his accent and expressions
+very marked as a foreigner to the tongue, but his English was
+perfect.
+
+"Indeed I shall, Mr. Mansion," smiled the girl-bride, "but I'm
+afraid that I don't know how to cook it."
+
+"We have an excellent cook," said Mr. Evans. "She has been with
+George and me ever since I came here. George is a splendid shot,
+and keeps her busy getting us game suppers."
+
+Meanwhile Lydia had been observing the boy. She had never seen an
+Indian, consequently was trying to reform her ideas regarding
+them. She had not expected to see anything like this self-poised,
+scrupulously-dressed, fine-featured, dark stripling. She thought
+all Indians wore savage-looking clothes, had fierce eyes and stern,
+set mouths. This boy's eyes were narrow and shrewd, but warm and
+kindly, his lips were like Cupid's bow, his hands were narrower,
+smaller, than her own, but the firmness of those slim fingers, the
+power in those small palms, as he had helped her from the carriage,
+remained with her through all the years to come.
+
+That evening at supper she noted his table deportment; it was
+correct in every detail. He ate leisurely, silently, gracefully;
+his knife and fork never clattered, his elbows never were in
+evidence, he made use of the right plates, spoons, forks, knives;
+he bore an ease, an unconsciousness of manner that amazed her. The
+missionary himself was a stiff man, and his very shyness made him
+angular. Against such a setting young Mansion gleamed like a brown
+gem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For seven years life rolled slowly by. At times Lydia went to visit
+her two other married sisters, sometimes she remained for weeks
+with a married brother, and at rare intervals made brief trips to
+her father's house; but she never received a penny from her strange
+parent, and knew of but one home which was worthy the name. That
+was in the Canadian wilderness where the Indian Mission held out
+its arms to her, and the beloved sister made her more welcome than
+words could imply. Four pretty children had come to grace this
+forest household, where young George Mansion, still the veriest
+right hand of the missionary, had grown into a magnificent type
+of Mohawk manhood. These years had brought him much, and he had
+accomplished far more than idle chance could ever throw in his
+way. He had saved his salary that he earned as interpreter in the
+church, and had purchased some desirable property, a beautiful
+estate of two hundred acres, upon which he some day hoped to build
+a home. He had mastered six Indian languages, which, with his
+knowledge of English and his wonderful fluency in his own tribal
+Mohawk, gave him command of eight tongues, an advantage which soon
+brought him the position of Government interpreter in the Council
+of the great "Six Nations," composing the Iroquois race. Added to
+this, through the death of an uncle he came into the younger title
+of his family, which boasted blood of two noble lines. His father,
+speaker of the Council, held the elder title, but that did not
+lessen the importance of young George's title of chief.
+
+Lydia never forgot the first time she saw him robed in the full
+costume of his office. Hitherto she had regarded him through all
+her comings and goings as her playmate, friend and boon companion;
+he had been to her something that had never before entered her
+life--he had brought warmth, kindness, fellowship and a peculiar
+confidential humanity that had been entirely lacking in the chill
+English home of her childhood. But this day, as he stood beside
+his veteran father, ready to take his place among the chiefs of
+the Grand Council, she saw revealed another phase of his life and
+character; she saw that he was destined to be a man among men, and
+for the first time she realized that her boy companion had gone a
+little beyond her, perhaps a little above her. They were a strange
+pair as they stood somewhat apart, unconscious of the picture they
+made. She, a gentle-born, fair English girl of twenty, her simple
+blue muslin frock vying with her eyes in color. He, tawny skinned,
+lithe, straight as an arrow, the royal blood of generations of
+chiefs and warriors pulsing through his arteries, his clinging
+buckskin tunic and leggings fringed and embroidered with countless
+quills, and endless stitches of colored moosehair. From his small,
+neat moccasins to his jet black hair tipped with an eagle plume he
+was every inch a man, a gentleman, a warrior.
+
+But he was approaching her with the same ease with which he wore
+his ordinary "white" clothes--garments, whether buckskin or
+broadcloth, seemed to make but slight impression on him.
+
+"Miss Bestman," he said, "I should like you to meet my mother and
+father. They are here, and are old friends of your sister and Mr.
+Evans. My mother does not speak English, but she knows you are my
+friend."
+
+And presently Lydia found herself shaking hands with the elder
+chief, speaker of the council, who spoke English rather well, and
+with a little dark woman folded within a "broadcloth" and wearing
+the leggings, moccasins and short dress of her people. A curious
+feeling of shyness overcame the girl as her hand met that of
+George Mansion's mother, who herself was the most retiring, most
+thoroughly old-fashioned woman of her tribe. But Lydia felt that
+she was in the presence of one whom the young chief held far and
+away as above himself, as above her, as the best and greatest woman
+of his world; his very manner revealed it, and Lydia honored him
+within her heart at that moment more than she had ever done
+before.
+
+But Chief George Mansion's mother, small and silent through long
+habit and custom, had acquired a certain masterful dignity of her
+own, for within her slender brown fingers she held a power that no
+man of her nation could wrest from her. She was "Chief Matron" of
+her entire blood relations, and commanded the enviable position
+of being the one and only person, man or woman, who could appoint
+a chief to fill the vacancy of one of the great Mohawk law-makers
+whose seat in Council had been left vacant when the voice of the
+Great Spirit called him to the happy hunting grounds. Lydia had
+heard of this national honor which was the right and title of this
+frail little moccasined Indian woman with whom she was shaking
+hands, and the thought flashed rapidly through her girlish mind:
+"Suppose some _one_ lady in England had the marvellous power of
+appointing who the member should be in the British House of Lords
+or Commons. _Wouldn't_ Great Britain honor and tremble before her?"
+
+And here was Chief George Mansion's silent, unpretentious little
+mother possessing all this power among her people, and she, Lydia
+Bestman, was shaking hands with her! It seemed very marvellous.
+
+But that night the power of this same slender Indian mother was
+brought vividly before her when, unintentionally, she overheard
+young George say to the missionary:
+
+"I almost lost my new title to-day, after you and the ladies had
+left the Council."
+
+"Why, George boy!" exclaimed Mr. Evans. "What have you done?"
+
+"Nothing, it seems, except to be successful. The Council objected
+to my holding the title of chief and having a chief's vote in the
+affairs of the people, and at the same time being Government
+interpreter. They said it would give me too much power to retain
+both positions. I must give up one--my title or my Government
+position."
+
+"What did you do?" demanded Mr. Evans, eagerly.
+
+"Nothing, again," smiled the young chief. "But my mother did
+something. She took the floor of the Council, and spoke for forty
+minutes. She said I must hold the positions of chief which she had
+made for me, as well as of interpreter which I had made for myself;
+that if the Council objected, she would forever annul the chief's
+title in her own family; she would never appoint one in my place,
+and that we proud, arrogant Mohawks would then have only eight
+representatives in Council--only be on a level with, as she
+expressed it, 'those dogs of Senecas.' Then she clutched her
+broadcloth about her, turned her back on us all, and left the
+Council."
+
+"What did the Council do?" gasped Mr. Evans.
+
+"Accepted me as chief and interpreter," replied the young man,
+smiling. "There was nothing else to do."
+
+"Oh, you royal woman! You loyal, loyal mother!" cried Lydia to
+herself. "How I love you for it!"
+
+Then she crept away just as Mr. Evans had sprung forward with both
+hands extended towards the young chief, his eyes beaming with
+almost fatherly delight.
+
+Unconsciously to herself, the English girl's interest in the young
+chief had grown rapidly year after year. She was also unconscious
+of his aim at constant companionship with herself. His devotion to
+her sister, whose delicate health alarmed them all, more and more,
+as time went on, was only another royal road to Lydia's heart.
+Elizabeth was becoming frail, shadowy, her appetite was fitful, her
+eyes larger and more wistful, her fingers smaller and weaker. No
+one seemed to realize the insidious oncreepings of "the white man's
+disease," consumption, that was paling Elizabeth's fine English
+skin, heightening her glorious English color, sapping her delicate
+English veins. Only young George would tell himself over and over:
+"Mrs. Evans is going away from us some day, and Lydia will be left
+with no one in the world but me--no one but me to understand--or
+to--care."
+
+So he scoured the forest for dainties, wild fruits, game, flowers,
+to tempt the appetite and the eye of the fading wife of the man
+who had taught him all the English and the white man's etiquette
+that he had ever mastered. Night after night he would return from
+day-long hunting trips, his game-bag filled with delicate quail,
+rare woodcock, snowy-breasted partridge, and when the illusive
+appetite of the sick woman could be coaxed to partake of a morsel,
+he felt repaid for miles of tramping through forest trails, for
+hours of search and skill.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+Perhaps it was this grey shadow stealing on the forest mission, the
+thought of the day when that beautiful mothering sister would leave
+his little friend Lydia alone with a bereft man and four small
+children, or perhaps it was a yet more personal note in his life
+that brought George Mansion to the realization of what this girl
+had grown to be to him.
+
+Indian-wise, his parents had arranged a suitable marriage for him,
+selecting a girl of his own tribe, of the correct clan to mate with
+his own, so that the line of blood heritage would be intact, and
+the sons of the next generation would be of the "Blood Royal,"
+qualified by rightful lineage to inherit the title of chief.
+
+This Mohawk girl was attractive, young, and had a partial English
+education. Her parents were fairly prosperous, owners of many
+acres, and much forest and timber country. The arrangement was
+regarded as an ideal one--the young people as perfectly and
+diplomatically mated as it was possible to be; but when his parents
+approached the young chief with the proposition, he met it with
+instant refusal.
+
+"My father, my mother," he begged, "I ask you to forgive me this
+one disobedience. I ask you to forgive that I have, amid my fight
+and struggle for English education, forgotten a single custom of my
+people. I have tried to honor all the ancient rules and usages of
+my forefathers, but I forgot this one thing, and I cannot, cannot do
+it! My wife I must choose for myself."
+
+"You will marry--whom, then?" asked the old chief.
+
+"I have given no thought to it--yet," he faltered.
+
+"Yes," said his mother, urged by the knowing heart of a woman,
+"yes, George, you have thought of it."
+
+"Only this hour," he answered, looking directly into his mother's
+eyes. "Only now that I see you want me to give my life to someone
+else. But my life belongs to the white girl, Mrs. Evans' sister, if
+she will take it. I shall offer it to her to-morrow--to-day."
+
+His mother's face took on the shadow of age. "You would marry a
+_white_ girl?" she exclaimed, incredulously.
+
+"Yes," came the reply, briefly, decidedly.
+
+"But your children, your sons and hers--they could never hold the
+title, never be chief," she said, rising to her feet.
+
+He winced. "I know it. I had not thought of it before--but I know
+it. Still, I would marry her."
+
+"But there would be no more chiefs of the Grand Mansion name,"
+cut in his father. "The title would go to your aunt's sons. She
+is a Grand Mansion no longer; she, being married, is merely a
+Straight-Shot, her husband's name. The Straight-Shots never had
+noble blood, never wore a title. Shall our family title go to
+a _Straight-Shot_?" and the elder chief mouthed the name
+contemptuously.
+
+Again the boy winced. The hurt of it all was sinking in--he hated
+the Straight-Shots, he loved his own blood and bone. With lightning
+rapidity he weighed it all mentally, then spoke: "Perhaps the white
+girl will not marry me," he said slowly, and the thought of it
+drove the dark red from his cheeks, drove his finger-nails into his
+palms.
+
+"Then, then you will marry Dawendine, our choice?" cried his
+mother, hopefully.
+
+"I shall marry no one but the white girl," he answered, with set
+lips. "If she will not marry me, I shall never marry, so the
+Straight-Shots will have our title, anyway."
+
+The door closed behind him. It was as if it had shut forever
+between him and his own.
+
+But even with this threatened calamity looming before her, the old
+Indian mother's hurt heart swelled with a certain pride in his
+wilful actions.
+
+"What bravery!" she exclaimed. "What courage to hold to his
+own choice! What a _man_!"
+
+"Yes," half bemoaned his father, "he is a red man through and
+through. He defies his whole nation in his fearlessness, his
+lawlessness. Even I bow to his bravery, his self-will, but that
+bravery is hurting me here, here!" and the ancient chief laid his
+hand above his heart.
+
+There was no reply to be made by the proud though pained mother.
+She folded her "broadcloth" about her, filled her small carved pipe
+and sat for many hours smoking silently, silently, silently. Now
+and again she shook her head mournfully, but her dark eyes would
+flash at times with an emotion that contradicted her dejected
+attitude. It was an emotion born of self-exaltation, for had she
+not mothered a _man_?--albeit that manhood was revealing itself in
+scorning the traditions and customs of her ancient race.
+
+And young George was returning from his father's house to the
+Mission with equally mixed emotions. He knew he had dealt an almost
+unforgivable blow to those beloved parents whom he had honored and
+obeyed from his babyhood. Once he almost turned back. Then a vision
+arose of a fair young English girl whose unhappy childhood he had
+learned of years ago, a sweet, homeless face of great beauty, lips
+that were made for love they had never had, eyes that had already
+known more of tears than they should have shed in a lifetime.
+Suppose some other youth should win this girl away from him?
+Already several of the young men from the town drove over more
+frequently than they had cause to. Only the week before he had
+found her seated at the little old melodeon playing and singing a
+duet with one of these gallants. He locked his teeth together and
+strode rapidly through the forest path, with the first full
+realization that she was the only woman in all the world for him.
+
+Some inevitable force seemed to be driving him
+towards--circumstances seemed to pave the way to--their ultimate
+union; even now chance placed her in the path, literally, for as he
+threaded his way uphill, across the open, and on to the little log
+bridge which crossed the ravine immediately behind the Mission, he
+saw her standing at the further side, leaning upon the unpeeled
+sapling which formed the bridge guard. She was looking into the
+tiny stream beneath. He made no sound as he approached. Generations
+of moccasin-shod ancestors had made his own movements swift and
+silent. Notwithstanding this, she turned, and, with a bright
+girlish smile, she said:
+
+"I knew you were coming, Chief."
+
+"Why? How?" he asked, accepting his new title from her with a
+graceful indifference almost beyond his four and twenty years.
+
+"I can hardly say just how--but--" she ended with only a smile. For
+a full minute he caught and held her glance. She seemed unable to
+look away, but her grave, blue English eyes were neither shy nor
+confident. They just seemed to answer his--then,
+
+"Miss Bestman, will you be my wife?" he asked gently. She was
+neither surprised nor dismayed, only stood silent, as if she had
+forgotten the art of speech. "You knew I should ask this some day,"
+he continued, rather rapidly. "This is the day."
+
+"I did not really know--I don't know how I feel--" she began,
+faltering.
+
+"I did not know how I felt, either, until an hour ago," he
+explained. "When my father and my mother told me they had arranged
+my marriage with--"
+
+"With whom?" she almost demanded.
+
+"A girl of my own people," he said, grudgingly. "A girl I honor and
+respect, but--"
+
+"But what?" she said weakly, for the mention of his possible
+marriage with another had flung her own feelings into her very
+face.
+
+"But unless you will be my wife, I shall never marry." He folded
+his arms across his chest as he said it--the very action expressed
+finality. For a second he stood erect, dark, slender, lithe,
+immovable, then with sudden impulse he held out one hand to her and
+spoke very quietly. "I love you, Lydia. Will you come to me?"
+
+"Yes," she answered clearly. "I will come."
+
+He caught her hands very tightly, bending his head until his fine
+face rested against her hair. She knew then that she had loved him
+through all these years, and that come what might, she would love
+him through all the years to be.
+
+That night she told her frail and fading sister, whom she found
+alone resting among her pillows.
+
+"'Liza dear, you are crying," she half sobbed in alarm, as the great
+tears rolled slowly down the wan cheeks. "I have made you unhappy,
+and you are ill, too. Oh, how selfish I am! I did not think that
+perhaps it might distress you."
+
+"Liddy, Liddy darling, these are the only tears of joy that I have
+ever shed!" cried Elizabeth. "Joy, joy, girlie! I have wished this
+to come before I left you, wished it for years. I love George
+Mansion better than I ever loved brother of mine. Of all the world
+I should have chosen him for your husband. Oh! I am happy, happy,
+child, and you will be happy with him, too."
+
+And that night Lydia Bestman laid her down to rest, with her heart
+knowing the greatest human love that had ever entered into her
+life.
+
+Mr. Evans was almost beside himself with joyousness when the young
+people rather shyly confessed their engagement to him. He was
+deeply attached to his wife's young sister, and George Mansion had
+been more to him than many a man's son ever is. Seemingly cold and
+undemonstrative, this reserved Scotch missionary had given all his
+heart and life to the Indians, and this one boy was the apple of
+his eye. Far-sighted and cautious, he saw endless trouble shadowing
+the young lovers--opposition to the marriage from both sides of the
+house. He could already see Lydia's family smarting under the
+seeming disgrace of her marriage to an Indian; he could see George's
+family indignant and hurt to the core at his marriage with a white
+girl; he could see how impossible it would be for Lydia's people to
+ever understand the fierce resentment of the Indian parents that
+the family title could never continue under the family name. He
+could see how little George's people would ever understand the
+"white" prejudice against them. But the good man kept his own
+counsel, determining only that when the war did break out, he would
+stand shoulder to shoulder with these young lovers and be their
+friend and helper when even their own blood and kin should cut them
+off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was two years before this shy and taciturn man fully realized
+what the young chief and the English girl really were to him, for
+affliction had laid a heavy hand on his heart. First, his gentle
+and angel-natured wife said her long, last good-night to him. Then
+an unrelenting scourge of scarlet fever swept three of his children
+into graves. Then the eldest, just on the threshold of sweet young
+maidenhood, faded like a flower, until she, too, said good-night
+and slept beside her mother. Wifeless, childless, the stricken
+missionary hugged to his heart these two--George and Lydia--and
+they, who had labored weeks and months, night and day, nursing and
+tending these loved ones, who had helped fight and grapple with
+death five times within two years, only to be driven back heartsore
+and conquered by the enemy--these two put away the thought of
+marriage for the time. Joy would have been ill-fitting in that
+household. Youth was theirs, health was theirs, and duty also was
+theirs--duty to this man of God, whose house was their home, whose
+hand had brought them together. So the marriage did not take place
+at once, but the young chief began making preparations on the estate
+he had purchased to build a fitting home for this homeless girl who
+was giving her life into his hands. After so many dark days, it was
+a relief to get Mr. Evans interested in the plans of the house
+George was to build, to select the proper situation, to arrange for
+a barn, a carriage house, a stable, for young Mansion had saved
+money and acquired property of sufficient value to give his wife a
+home that would vie with anything in the large border towns. Like
+most Indians, he was recklessly extravagant, and many a time the
+thrifty Scotch blood of the missionary would urge more economy,
+less expenditure. But the building went on; George determined it
+was to be a "Grand Mansion." His very title demanded that he give
+his wife an abode worthy of the ancestors who appropriated the name
+as their own.
+
+"When you both go from me, even if it is only across the fields to
+the new home, I shall be very much alone," Mr. Evans had once said.
+Then in an agony of fear that his solitary life would shadow their
+happiness, he added quickly, "But I have a very sweet and lovely
+niece who writes me she will come to look after this desolated home
+if I wish it, and perhaps her brother will come, too, if I want
+him. I am afraid I _shall_ want him sorely, George. For though you
+will be but five minutes walk from me, your face will not be at my
+breakfast table to help me begin each day with a courage it has
+always inspired. So I beg that you two will not delay your
+marriage; give no thought to me. You are young but once, and youth
+has wings of wonderful swiftness. Margaret and Christopher shall
+come to me; but although they are my own flesh and blood, they will
+never become to me what you two have been, and always will be."
+
+Within their recollection, the lovers had never heard the
+missionary make so long a speech. They felt the earnestness of it,
+the truth of it, and arranged to be married when the golden days of
+August came. Lydia was to go to her married sister, in the eastern
+part of Canada, whose husband was a clergyman, and at whose home
+she had spent many of her girlhood years. George was to follow. They
+were to be quietly married and return by sailing vessel up the
+lakes, then take the stage from what is now the city of Toronto,
+arrive at the Indian Reserve, and go direct to the handsome home
+the young chief had erected for his English bride. So Lydia Bestman
+set forth on her long journey from which she was to return as the
+wife of the head chief of a powerful tribe of Indians--a man
+revered, respected, looked up to by a vast nation, a man of
+sterling worth, of considerable wealth as riches were counted in
+those days, a man polished in the usages and etiquette of her own
+people, who conducted himself with faultless grace, who would have
+shone brilliantly in any drawing-room (and who in after years was
+the guest of honor at many a great reception by the governors of
+the land), a man young, stalwart, handsome, with an aristocratic
+lineage that bred him a native gentleman, with a grand old title
+that had come down to him through six hundred years of honor in
+warfare and high places of his people. That this man should be
+despised by her relatives and family connections because of his
+warm, red skin and Indian blood, never occurred to Lydia. Her angel
+sister had loved the youth, the old Scotch missionary little short
+of adored him. Why, then, this shocked amazement of her relatives,
+that she should wish to wed the finest gentleman she had ever met,
+the man whose love and kindness had made her erstwhile blackened
+and cruel world a paradise of sunshine and contentment? She was
+but little prepared for the storm of indignation that met her
+announcement that she was engaged to marry a Mohawk Indian chief.
+
+Her sister, with whom she never had anything in common, who was
+years older, and had been married in England when Lydia was but
+three years of age, implored, entreated, sneered, ridiculed and
+stormed. Lydia sat motionless through it all, and then the outraged
+sister struck a vital spot with: "I don't know what Elizabeth has
+been thinking of all these years, to let you associate with Indians
+on an equality. _She_ is to blame for this."
+
+Then and only then, did Lydia blaze forth. "Don't you _dare_ speak
+of 'Liza like that!" flung the girl. "She was the only human being
+in our whole family, the only one who ever took me in her arms, who
+ever called me 'dear,' who ever kissed me as if she meant it. I
+tell you, she loved George Mansion better than she loved her cold,
+chilly English brothers. She loved _me_, and her house was my home,
+which yours never was. Yes, she loved me, angel girl that she was,
+and she died in a halo of happiness because I was happy and
+because I was to marry the noblest, kingliest gentleman I ever
+met." The girl ceased, breathless.
+
+"Yes," sneered her sister, "yes, marry an _Indian_!"
+
+"Yes," defied Lydia, "an _Indian_, who can give me not only a
+better home than this threadbare parsonage of yours"--here she
+swept scornful eyes about the meagre little, shabby room--"yes, a
+home that any Bestman would be proud to own; but better than that,"
+she continued ragingly, "he has given me love--_love_, that you in
+your chilly, inhuman home sneer at, but that I have cried out for;
+love that my dead mother prayed should come to me, from the moment
+she left me a baby, alone, in England, until the hour when this one
+splendid man took me into his heart."
+
+"Poor mother!" sighed the sister. "I am grateful she is spared
+_this_."
+
+"Don't think that she doesn't know it!" cried Lydia. "If 'Liza
+approved, mother does, and she is glad of her child's happiness."
+
+"Her child--yes, her child," taunted the sister. "Child! child!
+Yes, and what of the _child_ you will probably mother?"
+
+The crimson swept painfully down the young girl's face, but she
+braved it out.
+
+"Yes," she stammered, "a child, perhaps a _son_, a son of mine,
+who, poor boy, can never inherit his father's title."
+
+"And why not, pray?" remarked her sister.
+
+"Because the female line of lineage will be broken," explained the
+girl. "He _should_ marry someone else, so that the family title
+could follow the family name. His father and mother have
+practically cast him off because of me. _Don't_ you see? Can't you
+understand that I am only an untitled commoner to his people? I am
+only a white girl."
+
+"_Only_ a white girl!" repeated the sister, sarcastically. "Do you
+mean to tell me that you believe these wretched Indians don't want
+him to marry you? _You_, a _Bestman_, and an English girl?
+Nonsense, Lydia! You are talking utter nonsense." But the sister's
+voice weakened, nevertheless.
+
+"But it's true," asserted the girl. "You don't understand the
+Indian nation as 'Liza did; it's perfectly true--a son of mine can
+claim no family title; the honor of it must leave the name of
+Mansion forever. Oh, his parents have completely shut him out of
+their lives because I am only a white girl!" and the sweet young
+voice trembled woefully.
+
+"I decline to discuss this disgraceful matter with you any
+further," said the sister coldly. "Perhaps my good husband can
+bring you to your senses," and the lady left the room in a fever of
+indignation.
+
+But her "good husband," the city clergyman, declined the task of
+"bringing Lydia to her senses." He merely sent for her to go to his
+study, and, as she stood timidly in the doorway, he set his small
+steely eyes on her and said:
+
+"You will leave this house at once, to-night. _To-night_, do you
+hear? I'll have no Indian come _here_ after my wife's sister. I
+hope you quite understand me?"
+
+"Quite, sir," replied the girl, and with a stiff bow she turned and
+went back to her room.
+
+In the haste of packing up her poor and scanty wardrobe, she heard
+her sister's voice saying to the clergyman: "Oh! how _could_ you
+send her away? You know she has no home, she has nowhere to go. How
+_could_ you do it?" All Lydia caught of his reply was: "Not another
+night, not another meal, in this house while _I_ am its master."
+
+Presently her sister came upstairs carrying a plate of pudding.
+Her eyes were red with tears, and her hands trembled. "Do eat
+this, my dear; some tea is coming presently," she said.
+
+But Lydia only shook her head, strapped her little box, and,
+putting on her bonnet, she commanded her voice sufficiently to say:
+"I am going now. I'll send for this box later."
+
+"Where are you going to?" her sister's voice trembled.
+
+"I--don't know," said the girl. "But wherever I do go, it will be
+a kindlier place than this. Good-bye, sister." She kissed the
+distressed wife softly on each cheek, then paused at the bedroom
+door to say, "The man I am to marry loves me, honors me too much to
+treat me as a mere possession. I know that _he_ will never tell me
+he is 'master.' George Mansion may have savage blood in his veins,
+but he has grasped the meaning of the word 'Christianity' far more
+fully than your husband has."
+
+Her sister could not reply, but stood with streaming eyes and
+watched the girl slip down the back stairs and out of a side door.
+
+For a moment Lydia Bestman stood on the pavement and glanced up and
+down the street. The city was what was known as a garrison town in
+the days when the British regular troops were quartered in Canada.
+Far down the street two gay young officers were walking, their
+brilliant uniforms making a pleasant splash of color in the
+sunlight. They seemed to suggest to the girl's mind a more than
+welcome thought. She knew the major's wife well, a gracious,
+whole-souled English lady whose kindness had oftentimes brightened
+her otherwise colorless life. Instinctively the girl turned to the
+quarters of the married officers. She found the major's wife at
+home, and, burying her drawn little face in the good lady's lap,
+she poured forth her entire story.
+
+"My dear," blazed out the usually placid lady, "if I were only the
+major for a few moments, instead of his wife, I should--I
+should--well, I should just _swear_! There, now I've said it, and
+I'd _do_ it, too. Why, I never heard of such an outrage! My dear,
+kiss me, and tell me--when, how, do you expect your young chief to
+come for you?"
+
+"Next week," said the girl, from the depths of those sheltering
+arms.
+
+"Then here you stay, right here with me. The major and I shall go
+to the church with you, see you safely married, bring you and your
+Hiawatha home for a cosy little breakfast, put you aboard the boat
+for Toronto, and give you both our blessing and our love." And
+the major's wife nodded her head with such emphasis that her
+quaint English curls bobbed about, setting Lydia off into a fit of
+laughter. "That's right, my dear. You just begin to laugh now, and
+keep it up for all the days to come. I'll warrant you've had little
+of laughter in your young life," she said knowingly. "From what
+I've known of your father, he never ordered laughter as a daily
+ingredient in his children's food. Then that sweet Elizabeth
+leaving you alone, so terribly alone, must have chased the sunshine
+far from your little world. But after this," she added brightly,
+"it's just going to be love and laughter. And now, my dear, we must
+get back the rosy English color in your cheeks, or your young
+Hiawatha won't know his little white sweetheart. Run away to my
+spare room, girlie. The orderly will get a man to fetch your box.
+Then you can change your frock. Leave yesterday behind you forever.
+Have a little rest; you look as if you had not slept for a week.
+Then join the major and me at dinner, and we'll toast you and your
+redskin lover in true garrison style."
+
+And Lydia, with the glorious recuperation of youth, ran joyously
+upstairs, smiling and singing like a lark, transformed with the
+first unadulterated happiness she had ever felt or known.
+
+
+PART III.
+
+Upon George Mansion's arrival at the garrison town he had been met
+on the wharf by the major, who took him to the hotel, while
+hurriedly explaining just why he must not go near Lydia's sister and
+the clergyman whom George had expected would perform the marriage
+ceremony. "So," continued the major, "you and Lydia are not to be
+married at the cathedral after all, but Mrs. Harold and I have
+arranged that the ceremony shall take place at little St. Swithin's
+Church in the West End. So you'll be there at eleven o'clock, eh,
+boy?"
+
+"Yes, major, I'll be there, and before eleven, I'm afraid, I'm so
+anxious to take her home. I shall not endeavour to thank you and
+Mrs. Harold for what you have done for my homeless girl. I can't
+even--"
+
+"Tut, tut, tut!" growled the major. "Haven't done anything. Bless
+my soul, Chief, take my word for it, haven't done a thing to be
+thanked for. Here's your hotel. Get some coffee to brace your
+nerves up with, for I can assure you, boy, a wedding is a trying
+ordeal, even if there is but a handful of folks to see it through.
+Be a good boy, now--good-bye until eleven--St. Swithin's, remember,
+and God bless you!" and the big-hearted, blustering major was
+whisked away in his carriage, leaving the young Indian half
+overwhelmed with his kindness, but as happy as the golden day.
+
+An hour or so later he stood at the hotel door a moment awaiting
+the cab that was to take him to the church. He was dressed in
+the height of the fashion of the early fifties--very dark wine
+broadcloth, the coat shaped tightly to the waist and adorned with
+a silk velvet collar, a pale lavender, flowered satin waistcoat,
+a dull white silk stock collar, a bell-shaped black silk hat. He
+carried his gloves, for throughout his entire life he declared he
+breathed through his hands, and the wearing of gloves was abhorrent
+to him. Suddenly a gentleman accosted him with:
+
+"I hear an Indian chief is in town. Going to be married here this
+morning. Where is the ceremony to take place? Do you know anything
+of it?"
+
+Like all his race, George Mansion had a subtle sense of humor. It
+seized upon him now.
+
+"Certainly I know," he replied. "I happened to come down on the
+boat with the chief. I intend to go to the wedding myself. I
+understand the ceremony was arranged to be at the cathedral."
+
+"Splendid!" said the gentleman. "And thank you, sir."
+
+Just then the cab arrived. Young Mansion stepped hastily in, nodded
+good-bye to his acquaintance, and smilingly said in an undertone to
+the driver, "St. Swithin's Church--and quickly."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"With this ring I thee wed," he found himself saying to a little
+figure in a soft grey gown at his side, while a gentle-faced
+old clergyman in a snowy surplice stood before him, and a
+square-shouldered, soldierly person in a brilliant uniform almost
+hugged his elbow.
+
+"I pronounce you man and wife." At the words she turned towards her
+husband like a carrier pigeon winging for home. Then somehow the
+solemnity all disappeared. The major, the major's wife, two handsome
+young officers, one girl friend, the clergyman, the clergyman's
+wife, were all embracing her, and she was dimpling with laughter
+and happiness; and George Mansion stood proudly by, his fine dark
+face eager, tender and very noble.
+
+"My dear," whispered the major's wife, "he's a perfect prince--he's
+just as royal as he can be! I never saw such manners, such ease.
+Why, girlie, he's a courtier!"
+
+"Confound the young rogue!" growled the major, in her ear. "I
+haven't an officer on my staff that can equal him. You're a lucky
+girl. Yes, confound him, I say!"
+
+"Bless you, child," said the clergyman's wife. "I think he'll make
+you happy. Be very sure that you make _him_ happy."
+
+And to all these whole-hearted wishes and comments, Lydia replied
+with smiles and care-free words. Then came the major, watch in
+hand, military precision and promptitude in his very tone.
+
+"Time's up, everybody! There's a bite to eat at the barracks,
+then these youngsters must be gone. The boat is due at one
+o'clock--time's up."
+
+As the little party drove past the cathedral they observed a huge
+crowd outside, waiting for the doors to be opened. Lydia laughed
+like a child as George told her of his duplicity of the morning,
+when he had misled the inquiring stranger into thinking the Indian
+chief was to be married there. The little tale furnished fun for
+all at the pretty breakfast in the major's quarters.
+
+"Nice way to begin your wedding morning, young man!" scowled the
+major, fiercely. "Starting this great day with a network of
+falsehoods."
+
+"Not at all," smiled the Indian. "It was arranged for the
+cathedral, and I did attend the ceremony."
+
+"No excuses, you bare-faced scoundrel! I won't listen to them. Here
+you are happily married and all those poor would-be sight-seers
+sizzling out there in this glaring August sun. I'm ashamed of you!"
+But his arm was about George's shoulders, and he was wringing the
+dark, slender hand with a genuine good fellowship that was pleasant
+to see. "Bless my soul, I love you, boy!" he added, sincerely.
+"Love you through and through; and remember, I'm your white father
+from this day forth."
+
+"And I am your white mother," said the major's wife, placing her
+hands on his shoulders.
+
+For a second the bridegroom's face sobered. Before him flashed a
+picture of a little old Indian woman with a broadcloth folded about
+her shoulders, a small carven pipe between her lips, a world of
+sorrow in her deep eyes--sorrow that he had brought there. He bent
+suddenly and kissed Mrs. Harold's fingers with a grave and courtly
+deference. "Thank you," he said simply.
+
+But motherlike, she knew that his heart was bleeding. Lydia had
+told of his parents' antagonism, of the lost Mansion title. So the
+good lady just gave his hand a little extra, understanding squeeze,
+and the good-byes began.
+
+"Be off with you, youngsters!" growled the major. "The boat is
+in--post haste now, or you'll miss it. Begone, both of you!"
+
+And presently they found themselves once more in the carriage, the
+horses galloping down to the wharf. And almost before they realized
+it they were aboard, with the hearty "God bless you's" of the
+splendid old major and his lovable wife still echoing in their
+happy young hearts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was evening, five days later, when they arrived at their new
+home. All about the hills, and the woods, above the winding river,
+and along the edge of the distant forest, brooded that purple
+smokiness that haunts the late days of August--the smokiness that
+was born of distant fires, where the Indians and pioneers were
+"clearing" their lands. The air was like amethyst, the setting sun
+a fire opal. As on the day when she first had come into his life,
+George helped her to alight from the carriage, and they stood a
+moment, hand in hand, and looked over the ample acres that composed
+their estate. The young Indian had worked hard to have most of the
+land cleared, leaving here and there vast stretches of walnut
+groves, and long lines of majestic elms, groups of sturdy oaks, and
+occasionally a single regal pine tree. Many a time in later years
+his utilitarian friends would say, "Chief, these trees you are
+preserving so jealously are eating up a great deal of your land.
+Why not cut away and grow wheat?" But he would always resent the
+suggestion, saying that his wheat lands lay back from the river.
+They were for his body, doubtless, but here, by the river, the
+trees must be--they were for his soul. And Lydia would champion him
+immediately with, "Yes, they were there to welcome me as a bride,
+those grand old trees, and they will remain there, I think, as long
+as we both shall live." So, that first evening at home they stood
+and watched the imperial trees, the long, open flats bordering the
+river, the nearby lawns which he had taken such pains to woo from
+the wilderness; stood palm to palm, and that moment seemed to
+govern all their after life.
+
+Someone has said that never in the history of the world have two
+people been perfectly mated. However true this may be, it is an
+undeniable fact that between the most devoted of life-mates there
+will come inharmonious moments. Individuality would cease to exist
+were it not so.
+
+These two lived together for upwards of thirty years, and never had
+one single quarrel, but oddly enough, when the rare inharmonious
+moments came, these groups of trees bridged the fleeting difference
+of opinion or any slight antagonism of will and purpose; when these
+unresponsive moments came, one or the other would begin to admire
+those forest giants, to suggest improvements, to repeat the
+admiration of others for their graceful outlines--to, in fact,
+direct thought and conversation into the common channel of love
+for those trees. This peculiarity was noticeable to outsiders, to
+their own circle, to their children. At mere mention of the trees
+the shadow of coming cloud would lessen, then waste, then grow
+invisible. Their mutual love for these voiceless yet voiceful and
+kingly creations was as the love of children for a flower--simple,
+nameless, beautiful and powerful beyond words.
+
+That first home night, as she stepped within doors, there awaited
+two inexpressible surprises for her. First, on the dining-room
+table a silver tea service of seven pieces, imported from
+England--his wedding gift to her. Second, in the quaint little
+drawing-room stood a piano. In the "early fifties" this latter
+was indeed a luxury, even in city homes. She uttered a little cry
+of delight, and flinging herself before the instrument, ran her
+fingers over the keys, and broke into his favorite song, "Oft in
+the Stilly Night." She had a beautiful voice, the possession of
+which would have made her renowned had opportunity afforded its
+cultivation. She had "picked up" music and read it remarkably well,
+and he, Indian wise, was passionately fond of melody. So they
+laughed and loved together over this new luxurious toy, until
+Milly, the ancient Mohawk maid, tapped softly at the drawing-room
+and bade them come to tea. With that first meal in her new home,
+the darkened hours and days and years smothered their haunting
+voices. She had "left yesterday behind her," as the major's royal
+wife had wished her to, and for the first time in all her checkered
+and neglected life she laughed with the gladness of a bird at song,
+flung her past behind her, and the grim unhappiness of her former
+life left her forever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a golden morning in July when the doctor stood grasping
+George Mansion's slender hands, searching into his dusky, anxious
+eyes, and saying with ringing cheeriness, "Chief, I congratulate
+you. You've got the most beautiful son upstairs--the finest boy I
+ever saw. Hail to the young chief, I say!"
+
+The doctor was white. He did not know of the broken line of
+lineage--that "the boy upstairs" could never wear his father's
+title. A swift shadow fought for a second with glorious happiness.
+The battlefield was George Mansion's face, his heart. His unfilled
+duty to his parents assailed him like a monstrous enemy, then
+happiness conquered, came forth a triumphant victor, and the young
+father dashed noiselessly, fleetly up the staircase, and, despite
+the protesting physician, in another moment his wife and son were
+in his arms. Title did not count in that moment; only Love in its
+tyrannical majesty reigned in that sacred room.
+
+The boy was a being of a new world, a new nation. Before he was two
+weeks old he began to show the undeniable physique of the two great
+races from whence he came; all the better qualities of both bloods
+seemed to blend within his small body. He was his father's son,
+he was his mother's baby. His grey-blue eyes held a hint of the
+dreaming forest, but also a touch of old England's skies. His hair,
+thick and black, was straight as his father's, except just above
+the temples, where a suggestion of his mother's pretty English curls
+waved like strands of fine silk. His small mouth was thin-lipped;
+his nose, which even in babyhood never had the infantile "snub,"
+but grew straight, thin as his Indian ancestors', yet displayed
+a half-haughty English nostril; his straight little back--all
+combined likenesses to his parents. But who could say which blood
+dominated his tiny person? Only the exquisite soft, pale brown of
+his satiny skin called loudly and insistently that he was of a
+race older than the composite English could ever boast; it was the
+hallmark of his ancient heritage--the birthright of his father's
+son.
+
+But the odd little half-blood was extraordinarily handsome even as
+an infant. In after years when he grew into glorious manhood he
+was generally acknowledged to be the handsomest man in the Province
+of Ontario, but to-day--his first day in these strange, new
+surroundings--he was but a wee, brown, lovable bundle, whose tiny
+gossamer hands cuddled into his father's palm, while his little
+velvet cheek lay rich and russet against the pearly whiteness of
+his mother's arm.
+
+"I believe he is like you, George," she murmured, with a wealth of
+love in her voice and eyes.
+
+"Yes," smiled the young chief, "he certainly has Mansion blood; but
+your eyes, Lydia, your dear eyes."
+
+"Which eyes must go to sleep and rest," interrupted the physician,
+severely. "Come, Chief, you've seen your son, you've satisfied
+yourself that Mrs. Mansion is doing splendidly, so away you go,
+or I shall scold."
+
+And George slipped down the staircase, and out into the radiant
+July sunshine, where his beloved trees arose about him, grand and
+majestic, seeming to understand how full of joy, of exultation,
+had been this great new day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The whims of women are proverbial, but the whims of men are things
+never to be accounted for. This beautiful child was but a few weeks
+old when Mr. Bestman wrote, announcing to his daughter his
+intention of visiting her for a few days.
+
+So he came to the Indian Reserve, to the handsome country home his
+Indian son-in-law had built. He was amazed, surprised, delighted.
+His English heart revelled in the trees. "Like an Old Country
+gentleman's estate in the Counties," he declared. He kissed his
+daughter with affection, wrung his son-in-law's hand with a warmth
+and cordiality unmistakable in its sincerity, took the baby in his
+arms and said over and over, "Oh, you sweet little child! You sweet
+little child!" Then the darkness of all those harsh years fell away
+from Lydia. She could afford to be magnanimous, so with a sweet
+silence, a loving forgetfulness of all the dead miseries and bygone
+whip-lashes, she accepted her strange parent just as he presented
+himself, in the guise of a man whom the years had changed from
+harshness to tenderness, and let herself thoroughly enjoy his
+visit.
+
+But when he drove away she had but one thing to say; it was,
+"George, I wonder when _your_ father will come to us, when your
+_mother_ will come. Oh, I want her to see the baby, for I think my
+own mother sees him."
+
+"Some day, dear," he answered hopefully. "They will come some day;
+and when they do, be sure it will be to take you to their hearts."
+
+She sighed and shook her head unbelievingly. But the "some day"
+that he prophesied, but which she doubted, came in a manner all too
+soon--all too unwelcome. The little son had just begun to walk
+about nicely, when George Mansion was laid low with a lingering
+fever that he had contracted among the marshes where much of his
+business as an employee of the Government took him. Evils had begun
+to creep into his forest world. The black and subtle evil of the
+white man's firewater had commenced to touch with its poisonous
+finger the lives and lodges of his beloved people. The curse began
+to spread, until it grew into a menace to the community. It was the
+same old story: the white man had come with the Bible in one hand,
+the bottle in the other. George Mansion had striven side by side
+with Mr. Evans to overcome the dread scourge. Together they fought
+the enemy hand to hand, but it gained ground in spite of all their
+efforts. The entire plan of the white liquor dealer's campaign was
+simply an effort to exchange a quart of bad whiskey for a cord of
+first-class firewood, or timber, which could be hauled off the
+Indian Reserve and sold in the nearby town markets for five or
+six dollars; thus a hundred dollars worth of bad whiskey, if
+judiciously traded, would net the white dealer a thousand dollars
+cash. And the traffic went on, to the depletion of the Indian
+forests and the degradation of the Indian souls.
+
+Then the Canadian Government appointed young Mansion special forest
+warden, gave him a "V. R." hammer, with which he was to stamp
+each and every stick of timber he could catch being hauled off
+the Reserve by white men; licensed him to carry firearms for
+self-protection, and told him to "go ahead." He "went ahead." Night
+after night he lay, concealing himself in the marshes, the forests,
+the trails, the concession lines, the river road, the Queen's
+highway, seizing all the timber he could, destroying all the
+whisky, turning the white liquor traders off Indian lands, and
+fighting as only a young, earnest and inspired man can fight. These
+hours and conditions began to tell on his physique. The marshes
+breathed their miasma into his blood--the dreaded fever had him in
+its claws. Lydia was a born nurse. She knew little of thermometers,
+of charts, of technical terms, but her ability and instincts in the
+sick-room were unerring; and, when her husband succumbed to a
+raging fever, love lent her hands an inspiration and her brain a
+clarity that would have shamed many a professional nurse.
+
+For hours, days, weeks, she waited, tended, watched, administered,
+labored and loved beside the sick man's bed. She neither slept nor
+ate enough to carry her through the ordeal, but love lent her
+strength, and she battled and fought for his life as only an
+adoring woman can. Her wonderful devotion was the common talk of
+the country. She saw no one save Mr. Evans and the doctors. She
+never left the sick-room save when her baby needed her. But it all
+seemed so useless, so in vain, when one dark morning the doctor
+said, "We had better send for his father and mother."
+
+Poor Lydia! Her heart was nearly breaking. She hurriedly told the
+doctor the cause that had kept them away so long, adding, "Is it so
+bad as that? Oh, doctor, _must I send for them_? They don't want to
+come." Before the good man could reply, there was a muffled knock
+at the door. Then Milly's old wrinkled face peered in, and Milly's
+voice said whisperingly, "His people--they here."
+
+"Whose people? Who are here?" almost gasped Lydia.
+
+"His father and his mother," answered the old woman. "They
+downstairs."
+
+For a brief moment there was silence. Lydia could not trust herself
+to speak, but ill as he was, George's quick Indian ear had caught
+Milly's words. He murmured, "Mother! mother! Oh, my mother!"
+
+"Bring her, quickly, _quickly_!" said Lydia to the doctor.
+
+It seemed to the careworn girl that a lifetime followed before the
+door opened noiselessly, and there entered a slender little old
+Indian woman, in beaded leggings, moccasins, "short skirt," and a
+blue "broadcloth" folded about her shoulders. She glanced swiftly
+at the bed, but with the heroism of her race went first towards
+Lydia, laid her cheek silently beside the white girl's, then looked
+directly into her eyes.
+
+"Lydia!" whispered George, "Lydia!" At the word both women moved
+swiftly to his side. "Lydia," he repeated, "my mother cannot speak
+the English, but her cheek to yours means that you are her blood
+relation."
+
+The effort of speech almost cost him a swoon, but his mother's
+cheek was now against his own, and the sweet, dulcet Mohawk
+language of his boyhood returned to his tongue; he was speaking it
+to his mother, speaking it lovingly, rapidly. Yet, although Lydia
+never understood a word, she did not feel an outsider, for the old
+mother's hand held her own, and she knew that at last the gulf was
+bridged.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was two days later, when the doctor pronounced George Mansion
+out of danger, that the sick man said to his wife: "Lydia, it is
+all over--the pain, the estrangement. My mother says that you are
+her daughter. My father says that you are his child. They heard of
+your love, your nursing, your sweetness. They want to know if you
+will call them 'father, mother.' They love you, for you are one of
+their own."
+
+"At last, at last!" half sobbed the weary girl. "Oh, George, I am
+so happy! _You_ are going to get well, and _they_ have come to us
+at last."
+
+"Yes, dear," he replied. Then with a half humorous yet wholly
+pathetic smile flitting across his wan face, he added, "And my
+mother has a little gift for you." He nodded then towards the
+quaint old figure at the further side of the bed. His mother arose,
+and, drawing from her bosom a tiny, russet-colored object, laid it
+in Lydia's hand. It was a little moccasin, just three and a quarter
+inches in length. "Its mate is lost," added the sick man, "but I
+wore it as a baby. My mother says it is yours, and should have been
+yours all these years."
+
+For a second the two women faced each other, then Lydia sat down
+abruptly on the bedside, her arms slipped about the older woman's
+shoulders, and her face dropped quickly, heavily--at last on a
+mother's breast.
+
+George Mansion sighed in absolute happiness, then closed his eyes
+and slept the great, strong, vitalizing sleep of reviving forces.
+
+
+PART IV.
+
+How closely the years chased one another after this! But many a
+happy day within each year found Lydia and her husband's mother
+sitting together, hour upon hour, needle in hand, sewing and
+harmonizing--the best friends in all the world. It mattered not
+that "mother" could not speak one word of English, or that Lydia
+never mastered but a half dozen words of Mohawk. These two were
+friends in the sweetest sense of the word, and their lives swept
+forward in a unison of sympathy that was dear to the heart of the
+man who held them as the two most precious beings in all the world.
+
+And with the years came new duties, new responsibilities, new
+little babies to love and care for until a family, usually called
+"A King's Desire," gathered at their hearthside--four children, the
+eldest a boy, the second a girl, then another boy, then another
+girl. These children were reared on the strictest lines of both
+Indian and English principles. They were taught the legends, the
+traditions, the culture and the etiquette of both races to which
+they belonged; but above all, their mother instilled into them from
+the very cradle that they were of their father's people, not of
+hers. Her marriage had made her an Indian by the laws which govern
+Canada, as well as by the sympathies and yearnings and affections
+of her own heart. When she married George Mansion she had repeated
+to him the centuries-old vow of allegiance, "Thy people shall be my
+people, and thy God my God." She determined that should she ever be
+mother to his children, those children should be reared as Indians
+in spirit and patriotism, and in loyalty to their father's race as
+well as by heritage of blood. The laws of Canada held these children
+as Indians. They were wards of the Government; they were born on
+Indian lands, on Indian Reservations. They could own and hold
+Indian lands, and their mother, English though she was, made it her
+life service to inspire, foster and elaborate within these children
+the pride of the race, the value of that copper-tinted skin which
+they all displayed. When people spoke of blood and lineage and
+nationality, these children would say, "We are Indians," with the
+air with which a young Spanish don might say, "I am a Castilian."
+She wanted them to grow up nationalists, and they did, every
+mother's son and daughter of them. Things could never have been
+otherwise, for George Mansion and his wife had so much in common
+that their offspring could scarcely evince other than inherited
+parental traits. Their tastes and distastes were so synonymous; they
+hated hypocrisy, vulgarity, slovenliness, imitations.
+
+After forty years spent on a Canadian Indian Reserve, Lydia
+Mansion still wore real lace, real tortoise shell combs, real furs.
+If she could not have procured these she would have worn plain
+linen collars, no combs, and a woven woolen scarf about her throat;
+but the imitation fabrics, as well as the "imitation people," had
+no more part in her life than they had in her husband's, who
+abhorred all such pinchbeck. Their loves were identical. They loved
+nature--the trees, best of all, and the river, and the birds. They
+loved the Anglican Church, they loved the British flag, they loved
+Queen Victoria, they loved beautiful, dead Elizabeth Evans, they
+loved strange, reticent Mr. Evans. They loved music, pictures and
+dainty china, with which George Mansion filled his beautiful home.
+They loved books and animals, but, most of all, these two loved
+the Indian people, loved their legends, their habits, their
+customs--loved the people themselves. Small wonder, then, that
+their children should be born with pride of race and heritage, and
+should face the world with that peculiar, unconquerable courage
+that only a fighting ancestry can give.
+
+As the years drifted on, many distinctions came to the little family
+of the "Grand Mansions." The chief's ability as an orator, his
+fluency of speech, his ceaseless war against the inroads of the
+border white men and their lawlessness among his own people--all
+gradually but surely brought him, inch by inch, before the notice
+of those who sat in the "seats of the mighty" of both church and
+state. His presence was frequently demanded at Ottawa, fighting for
+the cause of his people before the House of Commons, the Senate,
+and the Governor-General himself. At such times he would always
+wear his native buckskin costume, and his amazing rhetoric,
+augmented by the gorgeous trappings of his office and his
+inimitable courtesy of manner, won him friends and followers among
+the lawmakers of the land. He never fought for a cause and lost
+it, never returned to Lydia and his people except in a triumph
+of victory. Social honors came to him as well as political
+distinctions. Once, soon after his marriage, a special review of
+the British troops quartered at Toronto was called in his honor
+and he rode beside the general, making a brilliant picture, clad as
+he was in buckskins and scarlet blanket and astride his pet black
+pony, as he received the salutes of company after company of
+England's picked soldiers as they wheeled past. And when King
+Edward of England visited Canada as Prince of Wales, he fastened
+with his own royal hands a heavy silver medal to the buckskin
+covering George Mansion's breast, and the royal words were very
+sincere as they fell from the prince's lips: "This medal is for
+recognition of your loyalty in battling for your own people, even
+as your ancestors battled for the British Crown." Then in later
+years, when Prince Arthur of Connaught accepted the title of
+"Chief," conferred upon him with elaborate ceremony by the
+chiefs, braves and warriors of the great Iroquois Council, it
+was George Mansion who was chosen as special escort to the royal
+visitor--George Mansion and his ancient and honored father, who,
+hand-in-hand with the young prince, walked to and fro, chanting the
+impressive ritual of bestowing the title. Even Bismarck, the "Iron
+Chancellor" of Germany, heard of this young Indian warring for the
+welfare of his race, and sent a few kindly words, with his own
+photograph, from across seas to encourage the one who was fighting,
+single-handed, the menace of white man's greed and white man's
+firewater.
+
+And Lydia, with her glad and still girlish heart, gloried in her
+husband's achievements and in the recognition accorded him by the
+great world beyond the Indian Reserve, beyond the wilderness,
+beyond the threshold of their own home. In only one thing were
+their lives at all separated. She took no part in his public life.
+She hated the glare of the fierce light that beat upon prominent
+lives, the unrest of fame, the disquiet of public careers.
+
+"No," she would answer, when oftentimes he begged her to accompany
+him and share his success and honors, "no, I was homeless so long
+that 'home' is now my ambition. My babies need me here, and you
+need me here when you return, far more than you need me on platform
+or parade. Go forth and fight the enemy, storm the battlements and
+win the laurels, but let me keep the garrison--here at home, with
+our babies all about me and a welcome to our warrior husband and
+father when he returns from war."
+
+Then he would laugh and coax again, but always with the same
+result. Every day, whether he went forth to the Indian Council
+across the river, or when more urgent duties called him to the
+Capital, she always stood at the highest window waving her
+handkerchief until he was out of sight, and that dainty flag lent
+strength to his purpose and courage to his heart, for he knew the
+home citadel was there awaiting his return--knew that she would be
+at that selfsame window, their children clustered about her skirts,
+her welcoming hands waving a greeting instead of a good-bye, as
+soon as he faced the home portals once more, and in his heart of
+hearts George Mansion felt that his wife had chosen the wiser,
+greater part; that their children would some day arise and call her
+blessed because she refused to wing away from the home nest, even
+if by so doing she left him to take his flights alone.
+
+But in all their world there was no one prouder of his laurels
+and successes than his home-loving, little English wife, and the
+mother-heart of her must be forgiven for welcoming each new honor
+as a so much greater heritage for their children. Each distinction
+won by her husband only established a higher standard for their
+children to live up to. She prayed and hoped and prayed again that
+they would all be worthy such a father, that they would never fall
+short of his excellence. To this end she taught, labored for,
+and loved them, and they, in turn, child-wise, responded to her
+teaching, imitating her allegiance to their father, reflecting her
+fealty, and duplicating her actions. So she molded these little
+ones with the mother-hand that they felt through all their after
+lives, which were but images of her own in all that concerned their
+father.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first great shadow that fell on this united little circle was
+when George Mansion's mother quietly folded her "broadcloth" about
+her shoulders for the last time, when the little old tobacco pipe
+lay unfilled and unlighted, when the finely-beaded moccasins were
+empty of the dear feet that had wandered so gently, so silently
+into the Happy Hunting Grounds. George Mansion was bowed with woe.
+His mother had been to him the queen of all women, and her death
+left a desolation in his heart that even his wife could not assuage.
+It was a grief he really never overcame. Fortunately his mother had
+grown so attached to Lydia that his one disobedience--that of his
+marriage--never reproached him. Had the gentle little old Indian
+woman died before the episode of the moccasin which brought complete
+reconciliation, it is doubtful if her son would ever have been quite
+the same again. As it was, with the silence and stoicism of his race
+he buried his grief in his own heart, without allowing it to cast a
+gloom over his immediate household.
+
+But after that the ancient chief, his father, came more frequently
+to George's home, and was always an honored guest. The children
+loved him, Lydia had the greatest respect and affection for him,
+the greatest sympathy for his loneliness, and she ever made him
+welcome and her constant companion when he visited them. He used
+to talk to her much of George, and once or twice gave her grave
+warnings as to his recklessness and lack of caution in dealing with
+the ever-growing menace of the whisky traffic among the Indians.
+The white men who supplied and traded this liquor were desperadoes,
+a lawless set of ruffians who for some time had determined to rid
+their stamping-ground of George Mansion, as he was the chief
+opponent to their business, and with the way well cleared of him
+and his unceasing resistance, their scoundrelly trade would be an
+easy matter.
+
+"Use all your influence, Lydia," the old father would say, "to urge
+him never to seize the ill-gotten timber or destroy their whisky,
+unless he has other Indian wardens with him. They'll kill him if
+they can, those white men. They have been heard to threaten."
+
+For some time this very thing had been crowding its truth about his
+wife's daily life. Threatening and anonymous letters had more than
+once been received by her husband--letters that said he would be
+"put out of the way" unless he stopped interfering in the liquor
+trade. There was no ignoring the fact that danger was growing
+daily, that the fervent young chief was allowing his zeal to
+overcome his caution, was hazarding his life for the protection of
+his people against a crying evil. Once a writer of these unsigned
+letters threatened to burn his house down in the dead of night,
+another to maim his horses and cattle, others to "do away" with
+him. His crusade was being waged under the weight of a cross that
+was beginning to fall on his loyal wife, and to overshadow his
+children. Then one night the blow fell. Blind with blood, crushed
+and broken, he staggered and reeled home, unaided, unassisted,
+and in excruciating torture. Nine white men had attacked him from
+behind in a border village a mile from his home, where he had gone
+to intercept a load of whisky that was being hauled into the Indian
+Reserve. Eight of those lawbreakers circled about him, while the
+ninth struck him from behind with a leaden plumb attached to an
+elastic throw-string. The deadly thing crushed in his skull; he
+dropped where he stood, as if shot. Then brutal boots kicked his
+face, his head, his back, and, with curses, his assailants left
+him--for dead.
+
+With a vitality born of generations of warriors, he regained
+consciousness, staggered the mile to his own gate, where he met a
+friend, who, with extreme concern, began to assist him into his
+home. But he refused the helping arm with, "No, I go alone; it
+would alarm Lydia if I could not walk alone." These, with the
+few words he spoke as he entered the kitchen, where his wife
+was overseeing old Milly get the evening meal, were the last
+intelligent words he spoke for many a day.
+
+"Lydia, they've hurt me at last," he said, gently.
+
+She turned at the sound of his strained voice. A thousand emotions
+overwhelmed her at the terrifying sight before her. Love, fear,
+horror, all broke forth from her lips in a sharp, hysterical cry,
+but above this cry sounded the gay laughter of the children who
+were playing in the next room, their shrill young voices raised in
+merriment over some new sport. In a second the mother-heart asserted
+itself. Their young eyes must not see this ghastly thing.
+
+"Milly!" she cried to the devoted Indian servant, "help Chief
+George." Then dashing into the next room, she half sobbed,
+"Children, children! hush, oh, hush! Poor father--"
+
+She never finished the sentence. With a turn of her arm she swept
+them all into the drawing-room, closed the door, and flew back to
+her patriot husband.
+
+For weeks and weeks he lay fighting death as only a determined
+man can--his upper jaw broken on both sides, his lower jaw
+splintered on one side, his skull so crushed that to the end
+of his days a silver dollar could quite easily be laid flat in
+the cavity, a jagged and deep hole in his back, and injuries
+about the knees and leg bones. And all these weeks Lydia hovered
+above his pillow, night and day, nursing, tending, helping,
+cheering. What effort it cost her to be bright and smiling no
+tongue can tell, for her woman's heart saw that this was but the
+beginning of the end. She saw it when in his delirium he raved to
+get better, to be allowed to get up and go on with the fight; saw
+that his spirit never rested, for fear that, now he was temporarily
+inactive, the whisky dealers would have their way. She knew then
+that she must school herself to endure this thing again; that she
+must never ask him to give up his life work, never be less
+courageous than he, tough that courage would mean never a peaceful
+moment to her when he was outside their own home.
+
+Mr. Evans was a great comfort to her during those terrible weeks.
+Hour after hour he would sit beside the injured man, never speaking
+or moving, only watching quietly, while Lydia barely snatched the
+necessary sleep a nurse must have, or attended to the essential
+needs of the children, who, however, were jealously cared for by
+faithful Milly. During those times the children never spoke except
+in whispers, their rigid Indian-English training in self-effacement
+and obedience being now of untold value.
+
+But love and nursing and bravery all counted in the end, and one
+day George Mansion walked downstairs, the doctor's arm on one side,
+Lydia's on the other. He immediately asked for his pistol and his
+dagger, cleaned the one, oiled and sharpened the other, and said,
+"I'll be ready for them again in a month's time."
+
+But while he lay injured his influential white friends and the
+Government at Ottawa had not been idle. The lawless creature who
+dealt those unmerited blows was tried, convicted and sent to
+Kingston Penitentiary for seven years. So one enemy was out of the
+way for the time being. It was at this time that advancing success
+lost him another antagonist, who was placed almost in the rank of
+an ally.
+
+George Mansion was a guest of the bishop of his diocese, as he was
+a lay delegate accompanying Mr. Evans to the Anglican Synod. The
+chief's work had reached other ears than those of the Government at
+Ottawa, and the bishop was making much of the patriot, when in the
+See House itself an old clergyman approached him with outstretched
+hand and the words, "I would like you to call bygones just
+bygones."
+
+"I don't believe I have the honor of knowing you, sir," replied the
+Indian, with a puzzled but gracious look.
+
+"I am your wife's brother-in-law," said the old clergyman, "the man
+who would not allow her to be married from my house--that is,
+married to _you_."
+
+The Indian bit his lip and instinctively stepped backward. Added
+to his ancestral creed of never forgiving such injury, came a rush
+of memory--the backward-surging picture of his homeless little
+sweetheart and all that she had endured. Then came the memory of
+his dead mother's teaching--teaching she had learned from her own
+mother, and she in turn from her mother: "Always forget yourself
+for _old_ people, always honor the _old_."
+
+Instantly George Mansion arose--arose above the prejudices of his
+blood, above the traditions of his race, arose to the highest
+plane a man can reach--the memory of his mother's teaching.
+
+"I would hardly be here as a lay delegate of my church were I not
+willing to let bygones be bygones," he said, simply, and laid his
+hand in that of the old clergyman, about whose eyes there was
+moisture, perhaps because this opportunity for peacemaking had
+come so tardily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The little family of "Grand Mansions" were now growing to very "big
+childhood," and the inevitable day came when Lydia's heart must bear
+the wrench of having her firstborn say good-bye to take his college
+course. She was not the type of mother who would keep the boy at
+home because of the heartache the good-byes must bring, but the
+parting was certainly a hard one, and she watched his going with a
+sense of loss that was almost greater than her pride in him. He had
+given evidence of the most remarkable musical talent. He played
+classical airs even before he knew a note, and both his parents
+were in determined unison about this talent being cultivated. The
+following year the oldest daughter also entered college, having
+had a governess at home for a year, as some preparation. But these
+changes brought no difference into the home, save that George
+Mansion's arm grew stronger daily in combat against the old foe.
+Then came the second attack of the enemy, when six white men beset
+him from behind, again knocking him insensible, with a heavy blue
+beech hand-spike. They broke his hand and three ribs, knocked out
+his teeth, injured his side and head; then seizing his pistol, shot
+at him, the ball fortunately not reaching a vital spot. As his
+senses swam he felt them drag his poor maimed body into the middle
+of the road, so it would appear as if horses had trampled him, then
+he heard them say, "_This_ time the devil is dead." But hours
+afterwards he again arose, again walked home, five interminable
+miles, again greeted his ever watchful and anxious wife with,
+"Lydia, they've hurt me once more." Then came weeks of renewed
+suffering, of renewed care and nursing, of renewed vitality, and
+at last of conquered health.
+
+These two terrible illnesses seemed to raise Lydia into a peculiar,
+half-protecting attitude towards him. In many ways she "mothered"
+him almost as though he were her son--he who had always been the
+leader, and so strong and self-reliant. After this, when he went
+forth on his crusades, she watched his going with the haunting fear
+with which one would watch a child wandering on the edge of a
+chasm. She waited on him when he returned, served him with the
+tenderness with which one serves a cripple or a baby. Once he caught
+her arm, as she carried to him a cup of broth, after he had spent
+wearisome hours at the same old battle, and turning towards her,
+said softly: "You are like my mother used to be to me." She did not
+ask him in what way--she knew--and carried broth to him when next
+he came home half exhausted. Gradually he now gathered about him
+a little force of zealous Indians who became enthusiastic to take
+up arms with him against the whisky dealers. He took greater
+precautions in his work, for the growing mist of haunting anxiety
+in Lydia's eyes began to call to him that there were other claims
+than those of the nation. His splendid zeal had brought her many
+a sleepless night, when she knew he was scouring the forests for
+hidden supplies of the forbidden merchandise, and that a whole army
+of desperadoes would not deter him from fulfilling his duty of
+destroying it. He felt, rather than saw, that she never bade him
+good-bye but that she was prepared not to see him again alive.
+Added to this he began to suffer as she did--to find that in his
+good-byes was the fear of never seeing her again. He, who had
+always been so fearless, was now afraid of the day when he should
+not return and she would be once more alone.
+
+So he let his younger and eager followers do some of the battling,
+though he never relaxed his vigilance, never took off his armor, so
+to speak. But now he spent long days and quiet nights with Lydia
+and his children. They entertained many guests, for the young people
+were vigorous and laughter-loving, and George and Lydia never grew
+old, never grew weary, never grew commonplace. All the year round
+guests came to the hospitable country house--men and women of
+culture, of learning, of artistic tastes, of congenial habits.
+Scientists, authors, artists, all made their pilgrimages to this
+unique household, where refinement and much luxury, and always a
+glad welcome from the chief and his English wife, made their visits
+long remembered. And in some way or other, as their children grew
+up, those two seemed to come closer together once more. They walked
+among the trees they had once loved in those first bridal days,
+they rested by the river shore, they wandered over the broad meadows
+and bypaths of the old estate, they laughed together frequently like
+children, and always and ever talked of and acted for the good of
+the Indian people who were so unquestionably the greatest interest
+in their lives, outside their own children. But one day, when the
+beautiful estate he was always so proud of was getting ready to
+smile under the suns of spring, he left her just when she needed
+him most, for their boys had plunged forward into the world of
+business in the large cities, and she wanted a strong arm to lean
+on. It was the only time he failed to respond to her devoted
+nursing, but now she could not bring him back from the river's
+brink, as she had so often done before. Cold had settled in all the
+broken places of his poor body, and he slipped away from her, a
+sacrifice to his fight against evil on the altar of his nation's
+good. In his feverish wanderings he returned to the tongue of his
+childhood, the beautiful, dulcet Mohawk. Then recollecting and
+commanding himself, he would weakly apologize to Lydia with: "I
+forgot; I thought it was my mother," and almost his last words were,
+"It must be by my mother's side," meaning his resting-place. So his
+valiant spirit went fearlessly forth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Do you ever think, dear," said Lydia to her youngest child, some
+years later, "that you are writing the poetry that always lived in
+an unexpressed state here in my breast?"
+
+"No, Marmee," answered the girl, who was beginning to mount the
+ladder of literature, "I never knew you wanted to _write_ poetry,
+although I knew you loved it."
+
+"Indeed, I did," answered the mother, "but I never could find
+expression for it. I was made just to sing, I often think, but I
+never had the courage to sing in public. But I did want to write
+poetry, and now you, dear, are doing it for me. How proud your
+father would have been of you!"
+
+"Oh, he knows! I'm sure he knows all that I have written," answered
+the girl, with the sublime faith that youth has in its own
+convictions. "And if you like my verses, Marmee, I am sure he does,
+for he knows."
+
+"Perhaps," murmured the older woman. "I often feel that he is very
+near to us. I never have felt that he is really gone very far away
+from me."
+
+"Poor little Marmee!" the girl would say to herself. "She misses him
+yet. I believe she will always miss him."
+
+Which was the truth. She saw constantly his likeness in all her
+children, bits of his character, shades of his disposition,
+reflections of his gifts and talents, hints of his bravery, and she
+always spoke of these with a commending air, as though they were
+characteristics to be cultivated, to be valued and fostered.
+
+At first her fear of leaving her children, even to join him, was
+evident, she so believed in a mother's care and love being a
+necessity to a child. She had sadly missed it all out of her own
+strange life, and she felt she _must_ live until this youngest
+daughter grew to be a woman. Perhaps this desire, this mother-love,
+kept her longer beside her children than she would have stayed
+without it, for the years rolled on, and her hair whitened, her
+once springing step halted a little, the glorious blue of her
+English eyes grew very dreamy, and tender, and wistful. Was she
+seeing the great Hereafter unfold itself before her as her steps
+drew nearer and nearer?
+
+And one night the Great Messenger knocked softly at her door,
+and with a sweet, gentle sigh she turned and followed where he
+led--joining gladly the father of her children in the land that
+holds both whites and Indians as one.
+
+And the daughter who writes the verses her mother always felt, but
+found no words to express, never puts a last line to a story, or a
+sweet cadence into a poem, but she says to herself as she holds her
+mother's memory within her heart:
+
+"She knows--she knows."
+
+
+
+Catharine of the "Crow's Nest"
+
+
+The great transcontinental railway had been in running order for
+years before the managers thereof decided to build a second line
+across the Rocky Mountains. But "passes" are few and far between
+in those gigantic fastnesses, and the fearless explorers, followed
+by the equally fearless surveyors, were many a toilsome month
+conquering the heights, depths and dangers of the "Crow's Nest
+Pass."
+
+Eastward stretched the gloriously fertile plains of southern
+"Sunny Alberta," westward lay the limpid blue of the vast and
+indescribably beautiful Kootenay Lakes, but between these two
+arose a barrier of miles and miles of granite and stone and rock,
+over and through which a railway must be constructed. Tunnels,
+bridges, grades must be bored, built and blasted out. It was the
+work of science, endurance and indomitable courage. The summers
+in the canyons were seething hot, the winters in the mountains
+perishingly cold, with apparently inexhaustible snow clouds
+circling forever about the rugged peaks--snows in which many a
+good, honest laborer was lost until the eagles and vultures came
+with the April thaws, and wheeled slowly above the pulseless
+sleeper, if indeed the wolves and mountain lions had permitted him
+to lie thus long unmolested. Those were rough and rugged days,
+through which equally rough and rugged men served and suffered to
+find foundations whereon to lay those two threads of steel that now
+cling like a cobweb to the walls of the wonderful "gap" known as
+Crow's Nest Pass.
+
+Work progressed steadily, and before winter set in construction
+camps were built far into "the gap," the furthermost one being close
+to the base of a majestic mountain, which was also named "The
+Crow's Nest." It arose beyond the camp with almost overwhelming
+immensity. Dense forests of Douglas fir and bull pines shouldered
+their way up one-third of its height, but above the timber line
+the shaggy, bald rock reared itself thousands of feet skyward,
+desolate, austere and deserted by all living things; not even the
+sure-footed mountain goat travelled up those frowning, precipitous
+heights; no bird rested its wing in that frozen altitude. The
+mountain arose, distinct, alone, isolated, the most imperial
+monarch of all that regal Pass.
+
+The construction gang called it "Old Baldy," for after working some
+months around its base, it began to grow into their lives. Not so,
+however, with the head engineer from Montreal, who regarded it
+always with baleful eye, and half laughingly, half seriously,
+called it his "Jonah."
+
+"Not a thing has gone right since we worked in sight of that old
+monster," he was heard to say frequently; and it did seem as if
+there were some truth in it. There had been deaths, accidents and
+illness among the men. Once, owing to transportation difficulties,
+the rations were short for days, and the men were in rebellious
+spirit in consequence. Twice whiskey had been smuggled in, to the
+utter demoralization of the camp; and one morning, as a last straw,
+"Cookee" had nearly severed his left hand from his arm with a meat
+axe. Young Wingate, the head engineer, and Mr. Brown, the foreman,
+took counsel together. For the three meals of that day they tried
+three different men out of the gang as "cookees." No one could eat
+the atrocious food they manufactured. Then Brown bethought himself.
+"There's an Indian woman living up the canyon that can cook like
+a French chef," he announced, after a day of unspeakable gnawing
+beneath his belt. "How about getting her? I've tasted pork and
+beans at her shack, and flapjacks, and--"
+
+"Get her! get her!" clamored Wingate. "Even if she poisons us, it's
+better than starving. I'll ride over to-night and offer her big
+wages."
+
+"How about her staying here?" asked Brown. "The boys are pretty
+rough and lawless at times, you know."
+
+"Get the axe men to build her a good, roomy shack--the best logs in
+the place. We'll give her a lock and key for it, and you, Brown,
+report the very first incivility to her that you hear of," said
+Wingate crisply.
+
+That evening Mr. Wingate himself rode over to the canyon; it was a
+good mile, and the trail was rough in the extreme. He did not
+dismount when he reached the lonely log lodge, but rapping on the
+door with the butt of his quirt, he awaited its opening. There was
+some slight stirring about inside before this occurred; then the
+door slowly opened, and she stood before him--a rather tall woman,
+clad in buckskin garments, with a rug made of coyote skins about
+her shoulders; she wore the beaded leggings and moccasins of her
+race, and her hair, jet black, hung in ragged plaits about her dark
+face, from which mournful eyes looked out at the young Montrealer.
+
+Yes, she would go for the wages he offered, she said in halting
+English; she would come to-morrow at daybreak; she would cook their
+breakfast.
+
+"Better come to-night," he urged. "The men get down the grade to
+work very early; breakfast must be on time."
+
+"I be on time," she replied. "I sleep here this night, every night.
+I not sleep in camp."
+
+Then he told her of the shack he had ordered and that was even now
+being built.
+
+She shook her head. "I sleep here every night," she reiterated.
+
+Wingate had met many Indians in his time, so dropped the subject,
+knowing full well that persuasion or argument would be utterly
+useless.
+
+"All right," he said; "you must do as you like; only remember, an
+early breakfast to-morrow."
+
+"I 'member," she replied.
+
+He had ridden some twenty yards, when he turned to call back: "Oh,
+what's your name, please?"
+
+"Catherine," she answered, simply.
+
+"Thank you," he said, and, touching his hat lightly, rode down
+towards the canyon. Just as he was dipping over its rim he looked
+back. She was still standing in the doorway, and above and about her
+were the purple shadows, the awful solitude, of Crow's Nest
+Mountain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Catherine had been cooking at the camp for weeks. The meals were
+good, the men respected her, and she went her way to and from her
+shack at the canyon as regularly as the world went around. The
+autumn slipped by, and the nipping frosts of early winter and the
+depths of early snows were already daily occurrences. The big group
+of solid log shacks that formed the construction camp were all made
+weather-tight against the long mountain winter. Trails were
+beginning to be blocked, streams to freeze, and "Old Baldy,"
+already wore a canopy of snow that reached down to the timber line.
+
+"Catherine," spoke young Wingate, one morning, when the clouds hung
+low and a soft snow fell, packing heavily on the selfsame snows of
+the previous night, "you had better make up your mind to occupy the
+shack here. You won't be able to go to your home much longer now
+at night; it gets dark so early, and the snows are too heavy."
+
+"I go home at night," she repeated.
+
+"But you can't all winter," he exclaimed. "If there was one single
+horse we could spare from the grade work, I'd see you got it for
+your journeys, but there isn't. We're terribly short now; every
+animal in the Pass is overworked as it is. You'd better not try
+going home any more."
+
+"I go home at night," she repeated.
+
+Wingate frowned impatiently; then in afterthought he smiled. "All
+right, Catherine," he said, "but I warn you. You'll have a
+search-party out after you some dark morning, and you know it won't
+be pleasant to be lost in the snows up that canyon."
+
+"But I go home, night-time," she persisted, and that ended the
+controversy.
+
+But the catastrophe he predicted was inevitable. Morning after
+morning he would open the door of the shack he occupied with the
+other officials, and, looking up the white wastes through the
+gray-blue dawn, he would watch the distances with an anxiety that
+meant more than a consideration for his breakfast. The woman
+interested him. She was so silent, so capable, so stubborn. What
+was behind all this strength of character? What had given that
+depth of mournfulness to her eyes? Often he had surprised her
+watching him, with an odd longing in her face; it was something of
+the expression he could remember his mother wore when she looked
+at him long, long ago. It was a vague, haunting look that always
+brought back the one great tragedy of his life--a tragedy he was
+even now working night and day at his chosen profession to obliterate
+from his memory, lest he should be forever unmanned--forever a prey
+to melancholy.
+
+He was still a young man, but when little more than a boy he had
+married, and for two years was transcendently happy. Then came the
+cry of "Kootenay Gold" ringing throughout Canada--of the untold
+wealth of Kootenay mines. Like thousands of others he followed the
+beckoning of that yellow finger, taking his young wife and baby
+daughter West with him. The little town of Nelson, crouching on its
+beautiful hills, its feet laved by the waters of Kootenay Lake, was
+then in its first robust, active infancy. Here he settled, going
+out alone on long prospecting expeditions; sometimes he was away a
+week, sometimes a month, with the lure of the gold forever in his
+veins, but the laughter of his child, the love of his wife, forever
+in his heart. Then--the day of that awful home-coming! For three
+weeks the fascination of searching for the golden pay-streak had
+held him in the mountains. No one could find him when it happened,
+and now all they could tell him was the story of an upturned canoe
+found drifting on the lake, of a woman's light summer shawl caught
+in the thwarts, of a child's little silken bonnet washed ashore.
+[Fact.] The great-hearted men of the West had done their utmost
+in the search that followed. Miners, missionaries, prospectors,
+Indians, settlers, gamblers, outlaws, had one and all turned out,
+for they liked young Wingate, and they adored his loving wife and
+dainty child. But the search was useless. The wild shores of
+Kootenay Lake alone held the secret of their resting-place.
+
+Young Wingate faced the East once more. There was but one thing
+to do with his life--work, _work_, WORK; and the harder, the more
+difficult, that work, the better. It was this very difficulty that
+made the engineering on the Crow's Nest Pass so attractive to him.
+So here he was building grades, blasting tunnels, with Catherine's
+mournful eyes following him daily, as if she divined something of
+that long-ago sorrow that had shadowed his almost boyish life.
+
+He liked the woman, and his liking quickened his eye to her
+hardships, his ear to the hint of lagging weariness in her footsteps;
+so he was the first to notice it the morning she stumped into the
+cook-house, her feet bound up in furs, her face drawn in agony.
+
+"Catherine," he exclaimed, "your feet have been frozen!"
+
+She looked like a culprit, but answered: "Not much; I get lose in
+storm las' night."
+
+"I thought this would happen," he said, indignantly. "After this
+you sleep here."
+
+"I sleep home." she said, doggedly.
+
+"I won't have it," he declared. "I'll cook for the men myself
+first."
+
+"Allight," she replied. "You cookee; I go home--me."
+
+That night there was a terrible storm. The wind howled down the
+throat of the Pass, and the snow fell like bales of sheep's wool,
+blanketing the trails and drifting into the railroad cuts until
+they attained their original level. But after she had cooked supper
+Catherine started for home as usual. The only unusual thing about
+it was that the next morning she did not return. It was Sunday, the
+men's day "off." Wingate ate no breakfast, but after swallowing
+some strong tea he turned to the foreman. "Mr. Brown, will you come
+with me to try and hunt up Catherine?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, if we can get beyond the door," assented Brown. "But I doubt
+if we can make the canyon, sir."
+
+"We'll have a try at it, anyway," said the young engineer. "I
+almost doubt myself if she made it last night."
+
+"She's a stubborn woman," commented Brown.
+
+"And has her own reasons for it, I suppose," replied Wingate. "But
+that has nothing to do with her being lost or frozen. If something
+had not happened I'm sure she would have come to-day, notwithstanding
+I scolded her yesterday, and told her I'd rather cook myself than let
+her run such risks. How will we go, Mr. Brown; horses or snowshoes?"
+
+"Shoes," said the foreman decidedly. "That snow'll be above the
+middle of the biggest horse in the outfit."
+
+So they set forth on their tramp up the slopes, peering right and
+left as they went for any indication of the absent woman. Wingate's
+old grief was knocking at his heart once more. A woman lost in the
+appalling vastness of this great Western land was entering into
+his life again. It took them a full hour to go that mile, although
+both were experts on the shoes, but as they reached the rim of the
+canyon they were rewarded by seeing a thin blue streak of smoke
+curling up from her lodge "chimney." Wingate sat down in the snows
+weakly. The relief had unmanned him.
+
+"I didn't know how much I cared," he said, "until I knew she was
+safe. She looks at me as my mother used to; her eyes are like
+mother's, and I loved my mother."
+
+It was a simple, direct speech, but Brown caught its pathos.
+
+"She's a good woman," he blurted out, as they trudged along towards
+the shack. They knocked on the door. There was no reply. Then just
+as Wingate suggested forcing it in case she were ill and lying
+helpless within, a long, low call from the edge of the canyon
+startled them. They turned and had not followed the direction from
+which the sound came more than a few yards when they met her coming
+towards them on snowshoes; in her arms she bore a few faggots, and
+her face, though smileless, was very welcoming.
+
+She opened the door, bidding them enter. It was quite warm inside,
+and the air of simple comfort derived from crude benches, tables
+and shelves, assured them that she had not suffered. Near the fire
+was drawn a rough home-built couch, and on it lay in heaped
+disorder a pile of gray blankets. As the two men warmed their hands
+at the grateful blaze, the blankets stirred. Then a small hand
+crept out and a small arm tossed the covers a little aside.
+
+"_Catherine_," exclaimed Wingate, "have you a child here?"
+
+"Yes," she said simply.
+
+"How long is it that you have had it here?" he demanded.
+
+"Since before I work at your camp," she replied.
+
+"Whew!" said the foreman, "I now understand why she came home
+nights."
+
+"To think I never guessed it!" murmured Wingate. Then to Catherine:
+"Why didn't you bring it into camp and keep it there day and night
+with you, instead of taking these dangerous tramps night and
+morning?"
+
+"It is a girl child," she answered.
+
+"Well what of it?" he asked impatiently.
+
+"Your camp no place for girl child," she replied, looking directly
+at him. "Your men they rough, they get whisky sometimes. They
+fight. They speak bad words, what you call _swear_. I not want her
+hear that. I not want her see whisky man."
+
+"Oh, Brown!" said Wingate, turning to his companion. "What a
+reproach! What a reproach! Here our gang is--the vanguard of the
+highest civilization, but unfit for association with a little
+Indian child!"
+
+Brown stood speechless, although in his rough, honest mind he was
+going over a list of those very "swears" she objected to, but
+they were mentally directed at the whole outfit of his ruffianly
+construction gang. He was silently swearing at them for their own
+shortcomings in that very thing.
+
+The child on the couch stirred again. This time the firelight fell
+full across the little arm. Wingate stared at it, then his eyes
+widened. He looked at the woman, then back at the bare arm. It was
+the arm of a _white_ child.
+
+"Catherine, was your husband _white_?" he asked, in a voice that
+betrayed anxiety.
+
+"I got no husban'," she replied, somewhat defiantly.
+
+"Then--" he began, but his voice faltered.
+
+She came and stood between him and the couch.
+
+Something of the look of a she-panther came into her face, her
+figure, her attitude. Her eyes lost their mournfulness and blazed a
+black-red at him. Her whole body seemed ready to spring.
+
+"You not touch the girl child!" she half snarled. "I not let you
+touch her; she _mine_, though I have no husban'!"
+
+"I don't want to touch her, Catherine," he said gently, trying to
+pacify her. "Believe me, I don't want to touch her."
+
+The woman's whole being changed. A thousand mother-lights gleamed
+from her eyes, a thousand measures of mother-love stormed at her
+heart. She stepped close, very close to him and laid her small
+brown hand on his, then drawing him nearer to her said: "Yes you
+_do_ want to touch her; you not speak truth when you say 'no.' You
+_do_ want to touch her!" With a rapid movement she flung back the
+blankets, then slipping her bare arm about him she bent his form
+until he was looking straight into the child's face--a face the
+living miniature of his own! His eyes, his hair, his small kindly
+mouth, his fair, perfect skin. He staggered erect.
+
+"Catherine! what does it mean? What does it mean?" he cried
+hoarsely.
+
+"_Your child_--" she half questioned, half affirmed.
+
+"Mine? Mine?" he called, without human understanding in his voice.
+"Oh, Catherine! Where did you get her?"
+
+"The shores of Kootenay Lake," she answered.
+
+"Was--was--she _alone_?" he cried.
+
+The woman looked away, slowly shaking her head, and her voice was
+very gentle as she replied: "No, she alive a little, but _the
+other_, whose arms 'round her, she not alive; my people, the
+Kootenay Indians, and I--we--we bury that other."
+
+For a moment there was a speaking silence, the young Wingate, with
+the blessed realization that half his world had been saved for him,
+flung himself on his knees, and, with his arms locked about the
+little girl, was calling:
+
+"Margie! Margie! Papa's little Margie girl! Do you remember papa?
+Oh, Margie! Do you? Do you?"
+
+Something dawned in the child's eyes--something akin to a far-off
+memory. For a moment she looked wonderingly at him, then put her
+hand up to his forehead and gently pulled a lock of his fair hair
+that always curled there--an old trick of hers. Then she looked
+down at his vest pocket, slowly pulled out his watch and held it to
+her ear. The next minute her arms slipped round his neck.
+
+"Papa," she said, "papa been away from Margie a long time."
+
+Young Wingate was sobbing. He had not noticed that the big, rough
+foreman had gone out of the shack with tear-dimmed eyes, and had
+quietly closed the door behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was evening before Wingate got all the story from Catherine, for
+she was slow of speech, and found it hard to explain her feelings.
+But Brown, who had returned alone to the camp in the morning, now
+came back, packing an immense bundle of all the tinned delicacies
+he could find, which, truth to tell, were few. He knew some words
+in Kootenay, and led Catherine on to reveal the strange history
+that sounded like some tale from fairyland. It appeared that the
+reason Catherine did not attempt to go to the camp that morning was
+that Margie was not well, so she would not leave her, but in her
+heart of hearts she knew young Wingate would come searching to her
+lodge. She loved the child as only an Indian woman can love an
+adopted child. She longed for him to come when she found Margie
+was ill, yet dreaded that coming from the depths of her soul. She
+dreaded the hour he would see the child and take it away. For the
+moment she looked upon his face, the night he rode over to engage
+her to cook, months ago, she had known he was Margie's father. The
+little thing was the perfect mirror of him, and Catherine's strange
+wild heart rejoiced to find him, yet hid the child from him for
+very fear of losing it out of her own life.
+
+After finding it almost dead in its dead mother's arms on the
+shore, the Indians had given it to Catherine for the reason that
+she could speak some English. They were only a passing band of
+Kootenays, and as they journeyed on and on, week in and week out,
+they finally came to Crow's Nest Mountain. Here the child fell ill,
+so they built Catherine a log shack, and left her with plenty of
+food, sufficient to last until the railway gang had worked that
+far up the Pass, when more food would be available. When she had
+finished the strange history, Wingate looked at her long and
+lovingly.
+
+"Catherine," he said, "you were almost going to fight me once
+to-day. You stood between the couch and me like a panther. What
+changed you so that you led me to my baby girl yourself?"
+
+"I make one last fight to keep her," she said, haltingly. "She mine
+so long, I want her; I want her till I die. Then I think many
+times I see your face at camp. It look like sky when sun does not
+shine--all cloud, no smile, no laugh. I know you think of your baby
+then. Then I watch you many times. Then after while my heart is
+sick for you, like you are my own boy, like I am your own mother. I
+hate see no sun in your face. I think I not good mother to you; if
+I was good mother I would give you your child; make the sun come in
+your face. To-day I make last fight to keep the child. She's mine so
+long, I want her till I die. Then somet'ing in my heart say, 'He's
+like son to you, as if he your own boy; make him glad--happy. Oh,
+ver' glad! Be like his own mother. Find him his baby.'"
+
+"Bless the mother heart of her!" growled the big foreman, frowning
+to keep his face from twitching.
+
+It was twilight when they mounted the horses one of the men had
+brought up for them to ride home on, Wingate with his treasure-child
+hugged tightly in his arms. Words were powerless to thank the woman
+who had saved half his world for him. His voice choked when he
+tried, but she understood, and her woman's heart was very, very
+full.
+
+Just as they reached the rim of the canyon Wingate turned and
+looked back. His arms tightened about little Margie as his eyes
+rested on Catherine--as once before she was standing in the
+doorway, alone; alone, and above and about her were the purple
+shadows, the awful solitude of Crow's Nest Mountain.
+
+"Brown!" he called. "Hold on, Brown! I can't do it! I can't leave
+her like that!"
+
+He wheeled his horse about and, plunging back through the snow,
+rode again to her door. Her eyes radiated as she looked at him.
+Years had been wiped from his face since the morning. He was a
+laughing boy once more.
+
+"You are right," he said, "I cannot keep my little girl in that
+rough camp. You said it was no place for a girl child. You are
+right. I will send her into Calgary until my survey is over.
+Catherine, will you go with her, take care of her, nurse her,
+guard her for me? You said I was as your own son; will you be that
+good mother to me that you want to be? Will you do this for your
+white boy?"
+
+He had never seen her smile before. A moment ago her heart had been
+breaking, but now she knew with a great gladness that she was not
+only going to keep and care for Margie, but that this laughing boy
+would be as a son to her for all time. No wonder Catherine of the
+Crow's Nest smiled!
+
+
+
+A Red Girl's Reasoning
+
+
+"Be pretty good to her, Charlie, my boy, or she'll balk sure as
+shooting."
+
+That was what old Jimmy Robinson said to his brand new son-in-law,
+while they waited for the bride to reappear.
+
+"Oh! you bet, there's no danger of much else. I'll be good to her,
+help me Heaven," replied Charlie McDonald, brightly.
+
+"Yes, of course you will," answered the old man, "but don't you
+forget, there's a good big bit of her mother in her, and," closing
+his left eye significantly, "you don't understand these Indians as
+I do."
+
+"But I'm just as fond of them, Mr. Robinson," Charlie said
+assertively, "and I get on with them too, now, don't I?"
+
+"Yes, pretty well for a town boy; but when you have lived forty
+years among these people, as I have done; when you have had your
+wife as long as I have had mine--for there's no getting over it,
+Christine's disposition is as native as her mother's, every bit--and
+perhaps when you've owned for eighteen years a daughter as dutiful,
+as loving, as fearless, and, alas! as obstinate as that little piece
+you are stealing away from me to-day--I tell you, youngster, you'll
+know more than you know now. It is kindness for kindness, bullet for
+bullet, blood for blood. Remember, what you are, she will be," and
+the old Hudson Bay trader scrutinized Charlie McDonald's face like
+a detective.
+
+It was a happy, fair face, good to look at, with a certain ripple of
+dimples somewhere about the mouth, and eyes that laughed out the
+very sunniness of their owner's soul. There was not a severe nor yet
+a weak line anywhere. He was a well-meaning young fellow, happily
+dispositioned, and a great favorite with the tribe at Robinson's
+Post, whither he had gone in the service of the Department of
+Agriculture, to assist the local agent through the tedium of a long
+census-taking.
+
+As a boy he had had the Indian relic-hunting craze, as a youth
+he had studied Indian archaeology and folk-lore, as a man he
+consummated his predilections for Indianology, by loving, winning
+and marrying the quiet little daughter of the English trader, who
+himself had married a native woman twenty years ago. The country was
+all backwoods, and the Post miles and miles from even the semblance
+of civilization, and the lonely young Englishman's heart had gone
+out to the girl who, apart from speaking a very few words of
+English, was utterly uncivilized and uncultured, but had withal
+that marvellously innate refinement so universally possessed by the
+higher tribes of North American Indians.
+
+Like all her race, observant, intuitive, having a horror of
+ridicule, consequently quick at acquirement and teachable in
+mental and social habits, she had developed from absolute pagan
+indifference into a sweet, elderly Christian woman, whose broken
+English, quiet manner, and still handsome copper-colored face, were
+the joy of old Robinson's declining years.
+
+He had given their daughter Christine all the advantages of his own
+learning--which, if truthfully told, was not universal; but the girl
+had a fair common education, and the native adaptability to
+progress.
+
+She belonged to neither and still to both types of the cultured
+Indian. The solemn, silent, almost heavy manner of the one so
+commingled with the gesticulating Frenchiness and vivacity of the
+other, that one unfamiliar with native Canadian life would find it
+difficult to determine her nationality.
+
+She looked very pretty to Charles McDonald's loving eyes, as she
+reappeared in the doorway, holding her mother's hand and saying some
+happy words of farewell. Personally she looked much the same as her
+sisters, all Canada through, who are the offspring of red and white
+parentage--olive-complexioned, gray-eyed, black-haired, with figure
+slight and delicate, and the wistful, unfathomable expression in her
+whole face that turns one so heart-sick as they glance at the young
+Indians of to-day--it is the forerunner too frequently of "the white
+man's disease," consumption--but McDonald was pathetically in love,
+and thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his
+life.
+
+There had not been much of a wedding ceremony. The priest had
+cantered through the service in Latin, pronounced the benediction
+in English, and congratulated the "happy couple" in Indian, as a
+compliment to the assembled tribe in the little amateur structure
+that did service at the post as a sanctuary.
+
+But the knot was tied as firmly and indissolubly as if all Charlie
+McDonald's swell city friends had crushed themselves up against the
+chancel to congratulate him, and in his heart he was deeply thankful
+to escape the flower-pelting, white gloves, rice-throwing, and
+ponderous stupidity of a breakfast, and indeed all the regulation
+gimcracks of the usual marriage celebrations, and it was with a
+hand trembling with absolute happiness that he assisted his little
+Indian wife into the old muddy buckboard that, hitched to an
+underbred-looking pony, was to convey them over the first stages of
+their journey. Then came more adieus, some hand-clasping, old Jimmy
+Robinson looking very serious just at the last, Mrs. Jimmy, stout,
+stolid, betraying nothing of visible emotion, and then the pony,
+rough-shod and shaggy, trudged on, while mutual hand-waves were
+kept up until the old Hudson Bay Post dropped out of sight, and
+the buckboard with its lightsome load of hearts deliriously happy,
+jogged on over the uneven trail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was "all the rage" that winter at the provincial capital. The
+men called her a "deuced fine little woman." The ladies said she
+was "just the sweetest wildflower." Whereas she was really but an
+ordinary, pale, dark girl who spoke slowly and with a strong accent,
+who danced fairly well, sang acceptably, and never stirred outside
+the door without her husband.
+
+Charlie was proud of her; he was proud that she had "taken" so well
+among his friend, proud that she bore herself so complacently in
+the drawing-rooms of the wives of pompous Government officials, but
+doubly proud of her almost abject devotion to him. If ever human
+being was worshipped that being was Charlie McDonald; it could
+scarcely have been otherwise, for the almost godlike strength of his
+passion for that little wife of his would have mastered and melted
+a far more invincible citadel than an already affectionate woman's
+heart.
+
+Favorites socially, McDonald and his wife went everywhere. In
+fashionable circles she was "new"--a potent charm to acquire
+popularity, and the little velvet-clad figure was always the centre
+of interest among all the women in the room. She always dressed in
+velvet. No woman in Canada, has she but the faintest dash of native
+blood in her veins, but loves velvets and silks. As beef to the
+Englishman, wine to the Frenchman, fads to the Yankee, so are velvet
+and silk to the Indian girl, be she wild as prairie grass, be she on
+the borders of civilization, or, having stepped within its boundary,
+mounted the steps of culture even under its superficial heights.
+
+"Such a dolling little appil blossom," said the wife of a local
+M.P., who brushed up her etiquette and English once a year at
+Ottawa. "Does she always laugh so sweetly, and gobble you up with
+those great big gray eyes of her, when you are togetheah at home,
+Mr. McDonald? If so, I should think youah pooah brothah would feel
+himself terrible _de trop_."
+
+He laughed lightly. "Yes, Mrs. Stuart, there are not two of
+Christie; she is the same at home and abroad, and as for Joe, he
+doesn't mind us a bit; he's no end fond of her."
+
+"I'm very glad he is. I always fancied he did not care for her,
+d'you know."
+
+If ever a blunt woman existed it was Mrs. Stuart. She really meant
+nothing, but her remark bothered Charlie. He was fond of his
+brother, and jealous for Christie's popularity. So that night when
+he and Joe were having a pipe, he said:
+
+"I've never asked you yet what you thought of her, Joe." A brief
+pause, then Joe spoke. "I'm glad she loves you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because that girl has but two possibilities regarding
+humanity--love or hate."
+
+"Humph! Does she love or hate _you_?"
+
+"Ask her."
+
+"You talk bosh. If she hated you, you'd get out. If she loved you
+I'd _make_ you get out."
+
+Joe McDonald whistled a little, then laughed.
+
+"Now that we are on the subject, I might as well ask--honestly, old
+man, wouldn't you and Christie prefer keeping house alone to having
+me always around?"
+
+"Nonsense, sheer nonsense. Why, thunder, man, Christie's no end fond
+of you, and as for me--you surely don't want assurances from me?"
+
+"No, but I often think a young couple--"
+
+"Young couple be blowed! After a while when they want you and your
+old surveying chains, and spindle-legged tripod telescope kickshaws,
+farther west, I venture to say the little woman will cry her eyes
+out--won't you, Christie?" This last in a higher tone, as through
+clouds of tobacco smoke he caught sight of his wife passing the
+doorway.
+
+She entered. "Oh, no, I would not cry; I never do cry, but I would
+be heart-sore to lose you Joe, and apart from that"--a little
+wickedly--"you may come in handy for an exchange some day, as
+Charlie does always say when he hoards up duplicate relics."
+
+"Are Charlie and I duplicates?"
+
+"Well--not exactly"--her head a little to one side, and eyeing
+them both merrily, while she slipped softly on to the arm of
+her husband's chair--"but, in the event of Charlie's failing
+me"--everyone laughed then. The "some day" that she spoke of was
+nearer than they thought. It came about in this wise.
+
+There was a dance at the Lieutenant-Governor's, and the world and
+his wife were there. The nobs were in great feather that night,
+particularly the women, who flaunted about in new gowns and much
+splendor. Christie McDonald had a new gown also, but wore it with
+the utmost unconcern, and if she heard any of the flattering remarks
+made about her she at least appeared to disregard them.
+
+"I never dreamed you could wear blue so splendidly," said Captain
+Logan, as they sat out a dance together.
+
+"Indeed she can, though," interposed Mrs. Stuart, halting in one of
+her gracious sweeps down the room with her husband's private
+secretary.
+
+"Don't shout so, captain. I can hear every sentence you uttah--of
+course Mrs. McDonald can wear blue--she has a morning gown of cadet
+blue that she is a picture in."
+
+"You are both very kind," said Christie. "I like blue; it is the
+color of all the Hudson's Bay posts, and the factor's residence is
+always decorated in blue."
+
+"Is it really? How interesting--do tell us some more of your old
+home, Mrs. McDonald; you so seldom speak of your life at the post,
+and we fellows so often wish to hear of it all," said Logan eagerly.
+
+"Why do you not ask me of it, then?"
+
+"Well--er, I'm sure I don't know; I'm fully interested in the
+Ind--in your people--your mother's people, I mean, but it always
+seems so personal, I suppose; and--a--a--"
+
+"Perhaps you are, like all other white people, afraid to mention my
+nationality to me."
+
+The captain winced and Mrs. Stuart laughed uneasily. Joe McDonald
+was not far off, and he was listening, and chuckling, and saying to
+himself, "That's you, Christie, lay 'em out; it won't hurt 'em to
+know how they appear once in a while."
+
+"Well, Captain Logan," she was saying, "what is it you would like to
+hear--of my people, or my parents, or myself?"
+
+"All, all, my dear," cried Mrs. Stuart clamorously. "I'll speak for
+him--tell us of yourself and your mother--your father is delightful,
+I am sure--but then he is only an ordinary Englishman, not half as
+interesting as a foreigner, or--or, perhaps I should say, a native."
+
+Christie laughed. "Yes," she said, "my father often teases my mother
+now about how _very_ native she was when he married her; then, how
+could she have been otherwise? She did not know a word of English,
+and there was not another English-speaking person besides my father
+and his two companions within sixty miles."
+
+"Two companions, eh? one a Catholic priest and the other a wine
+merchant, I suppose, and with your father in the Hudson Bay, they
+were good representatives of the pioneers in the New World,"
+remarked Logan, waggishly.
+
+"Oh, no, they were all Hudson Bay men. There were no rumsellers and
+no missionaries in that part of the country then."
+
+Mrs. Stuart looked puzzled. "No _missionaries_?" she repeated with
+an odd intonation.
+
+Christie's insight was quick. There was a peculiar expression of
+interrogation in the eyes of her listeners, and the girl's blood
+leapt angrily up into her temples as she said hurriedly, "I know
+what you mean; I know what you are thinking. You were wondering how
+my parents were married--"
+
+"Well--er, my dear, it seems peculiar--if there was no priest, and
+no magistrate, why--a--" Mrs. Stuart paused awkwardly.
+
+"The marriage was performed by Indian rites," said Christie.
+
+"Oh, do tell me about it; is the ceremony very interesting and
+quaint--are your chieftains anything like Buddhist priests?" It was
+Logan who spoke.
+
+"Why, no," said the girl in amazement at that gentleman's ignorance.
+"There is no ceremony at all, save a feast. The two people just
+agree to live only with and for each other, and the man takes his
+wife to his home, just as you do. There is no ritual to bind them;
+they need none; an Indian's word was his law in those days, you
+know."
+
+Mrs. Stuart stepped backwards. "Ah!" was all she said. Logan removed
+his eye-glass and stared blankly at Christie. "And did McDonald
+marry you in this singular fashion?" He questioned.
+
+"Oh, no, we were married by Father O'Leary. Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because if he had, I'd have blown his brain out to-morrow."
+
+Mrs. Stuart's partner, who had hitherto been silent, coughed and
+began to twirl his cuff stud nervously, but nobody took any notice
+of him. Christie had risen, slowly, ominously--risen, with the
+dignity and pride of an empress.
+
+"Captain Logan," she said, "what do you dare to say to me? What do
+you dare to mean? Do you presume to think it would not have been
+lawful for Charlie to marry me according to my people's rites? Do
+you for one instant dare to question that my parents were not as
+legally--"
+
+"Don't, dear, don't," interrupted Mrs. Stuart hurriedly; "it is bad
+enough now, goodness knows; don't make--" Then she broke off blindly.
+Christie's eyes glared at the mumbling woman, at her uneasy partner,
+at the horrified captain. Then they rested on the McDonald brothers,
+who stood within earshot, Joe's face scarlet, her husband's white as
+ashes, with something in his eyes she had never seen before. It was
+Joe who saved the situation. Stepping quickly across towards his
+sister-in-law, he offered her his arm, saying, "The next dance is
+ours, I think, Christie."
+
+Then Logan pulled himself together, and attempted to carry Mrs.
+Stuart off for the waltz, but for once in her life that lady had
+lost her head. "It is shocking!" she said, "outrageously shocking!
+I wonder if they told Mr. McDonald before he married her!" Then
+looking hurriedly round, she too saw the young husband's face--and
+knew that they had not.
+
+"Humph! deuced nice kettle of fish--and poor old Charlie has always
+thought so much of honorable birth."
+
+Logan thought he spoke in an undertone, but "poor old Charlie" heard
+him. He followed his wife and brother across the room. "Joe," he
+said, "will you see that a trap is called?" Then to Christie, "Joe
+will see that you get home all right." He wheeled on his heel then
+and left the ball-room.
+
+Joe _did_ see.
+
+He tucked a poor, shivering, pallid little woman into a cab, and
+wound her bare throat up in the scarlet velvet cloak that was
+hanging uselessly over her arm. She crouched down beside him,
+saying, "I am so cold, Joe; I am so cold," but she did not seem to
+know enough to wrap herself up. Joe felt all through this long drive
+that nothing this side of Heaven would be so good as to die, and he
+was glad when the little voice at his elbow said, "What is he so
+angry at, Joe?"
+
+"I don't know exactly, dear," he said gently, "but I think it was
+what you said about this Indian marriage."
+
+"But why should I not have said it? Is there anything wrong about
+it?" she asked pitifully.
+
+"Nothing, that I can see--there was no other way; but Charlie is
+very angry, and you must be brave and forgiving with him, Christie,
+dear."
+
+"But I did never see him like that before, did you?"
+
+"Once."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Oh, at college, one day, a boy tore his prayer book in half, and
+threw it into the grate, just to be mean, you know. Our mother had
+given it to him at his confirmation."
+
+"And did he look so?"
+
+"About, but it all blew over in a day--Charlie's tempers are short
+and brisk. Just don't take any notice of him; run off to bed, and
+he'll have forgotten it by the morning."
+
+They reached home at last. Christie said goodnight quietly, going
+directly to her room. Joe went to his room also, filled a pipe and
+smoked for an hour. Across the passage he could hear her slippered
+feet pacing up and down, up and down the length of her apartment.
+There was something panther-like in those restless footfalls, a
+meaning velvetyness that made him shiver, and again he wished he
+were dead--or elsewhere.
+
+After a time the hall door opened, and someone came upstairs, along
+the passage, and to the little woman's room. As he entered, she
+turned and faced him.
+
+"Christie," he said harshly, "do you know what you have done?"
+
+"Yes," taking a step nearer him, her whole soul springing up into
+her eyes, "I have angered you, Charlie, and--"
+
+"Angered me? You have disgraced me; and, moreover, you have
+disgraced yourself and both your parents."
+
+"_Disgraced_?"
+
+"Yes, _disgraced_; you have literally declared to the whole city
+that your father and mother were never married, and that you are the
+child of--what shall we call it--love? certainly not legality."
+
+Across the hallway sat Joe McDonald, his blood freezing; but it
+leapt into every vein like fire at the awful anguish in the little
+voice that cried simply, "Oh! Charlie!"
+
+"How could you do it, how could you do it, Christie, without shame
+either for yourself or for me, let alone your parents?"
+
+The voice was like an angry demon's--not a trace was there in it of
+the yellow-haired, blue-eyed, laughing-lipped boy who had driven
+away so gaily to the dance five hours before.
+
+"Shame? Why should I be ashamed of the rites of my people any more
+than you should be ashamed of the customs of yours--of a marriage
+more sacred and holy than half of your white man's mockeries."
+
+It was the voice of another nature in the girl--the love and the
+pleading were dead in it.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, Charlie--you who have studied my race and
+their laws for years--do you mean to tell me that, because there was
+no priest and no magistrate, my mother was not married? Do you mean
+to say that all my forefathers, for hundreds of years back, have
+been illegally born? If so, you blacken my ancestry beyond--beyond--
+beyond all reason."
+
+"No, Christie, I would not be so brutal as that; but your father
+and mother live in more civilized times. Father O'Leary has been at
+the post for nearly twenty years. Why was not your father straight
+enough to have the ceremony performed when he _did_ get the chance?"
+
+The girl turned upon him with the face of a fury. "Do you suppose,"
+she almost hissed, "that my mother would be married according to
+your _white_ rites after she had been five years a wife, and I had
+been born in the meantime? No, a thousand times I say, _no_. When
+the priest came with his notions of Christianizing, and talked
+to them of re-marriage by the Church, my mother arose and said,
+'Never--never--I have never had but this one husband; he has had
+none but me for wife, and to have you re-marry us would be to say as
+much to the whole world as that we had never been married before.
+[Fact.] You go away; _I_ do not ask that _your_ people be re-married;
+talk not so to me. I _am_ married, and you or the Church cannot do
+or undo it.'"
+
+"Your father was a fool not to insist upon the law, and so was the
+priest."
+
+"Law? _My_ people have _no_ priest, and my nation cringes not to
+law. Our priest is purity, and our law is honor. Priest? Was there a
+_priest_ at the most holy marriage know to humanity--that stainless
+marriage whose offspring is the God you white men told my pagan
+mother of?"
+
+"Christie--you are _worse_ than blasphemous; such a profane remark
+shows how little you understand the sanctity of the Christian
+faith--"
+
+"I know what I _do_ understand; it is that you are hating me because
+I told some of the beautiful customs of my people to Mrs. Stuart and
+those men."
+
+"Pooh! who cares for them? It is not them; the trouble is they won't
+keep their mouths shut. Logan's a cad and will toss the whole tale
+about at the club to-morrow night; and as for the Stuart woman, I'd
+like to know how I'm going to take you to Ottawa for presentation
+and the opening, while she is blabbing the whole miserable scandal
+in every drawing-room, and I'll be pointed out as a romantic fool,
+and you--as worse; I _can't_ understand why your father didn't tell
+me before we were married; I at least might have warned you never to
+mention it." Something of recklessness rang up through his voice,
+just as the panther-likeness crept up from her footsteps and couched
+herself in hers. She spoke in tones quiet, soft, deadly.
+
+"Before we were married! Oh! Charlie, would it have--made--any--
+difference?"
+
+"God knows," he said, throwing himself into a chair, his blonde hair
+rumpled and wet. It was the only boyish thing about him now.
+
+She walked towards him, then halted in the centre of the room.
+"Charlie McDonald," she said, and it was as if a stone had spoken,
+"look up." He raised his head, startled by her tone. There was a
+threat in her eyes that, had his rage been less courageous, his
+pride less bitterly wounded, would have cowed him.
+
+"There was no such time as that before our marriage, for we _are not
+married now_. Stop," she said, outstretching her palms against him
+as he sprang to his feet, "I tell you we are not married. Why should
+I recognize the rites of your nation when you do not acknowledge the
+rites of mine? According to your own words, my parents should have
+gone through your church ceremony as well as through an Indian
+contract; according to _my_ words, _we_ should go through an Indian
+contract as well as through a church marriage. If their union is
+illegal, so is ours. If you think my father is living in dishonor
+with my mother, my people will think I am living in dishonor with
+you. How do I know when another nation will come and conquer you as
+you white men conquered us? And they will have another marriage rite
+to perform, and they will tell us another truth, that you are not my
+husband, that you are but disgracing and dishonoring me, that you
+are keeping me here, not as your wife, but as your--your--_squaw_."
+
+The terrible word had never passed her lips before, and the blood
+stained her face to her very temples. She snatched off her wedding
+ring and tossed it across the room, saying scornfully, "That thing
+is as empty to me as the Indian rites to you."
+
+He caught her by the wrists; his small white teeth were locked
+tightly, his blue eyes blazed into hers.
+
+"Christine, do you dare doubt my honor towards you? _you_, whom I
+should have died for; do you _dare_ to think I have kept you here,
+not as my wife, but--"
+
+"Oh, God! You are hurting me; you are breaking my arm," she gasped.
+
+The door was flung open, and Joe McDonald's sinewy hands clinched
+like vices on his brother's shoulders.
+
+"Charlie, you're mad, mad as the devil. Let go of her this minute."
+
+The girl staggered backwards as the iron fingers loosed her wrists.
+"Oh! Joe," she cried, "I am not his wife, and he says I am
+born--nameless."
+
+"Here," said Joe, shoving his brother towards the door. "Go
+downstairs till you can collect your senses. If ever a being acted
+like an infernal fool, you're the man."
+
+The young husband looked from one to the other, dazed by his wife's
+insult, abandoned to a fit of ridiculously childish temper. Blind
+as he was with passion, he remembered long afterwards seeing
+them standing there, his brother's face darkened with a scowl
+of anger--his wife, clad in the mockery of her ball dress, her
+scarlet velvet cloak half covering her bare brown neck and arms,
+her eyes like flames of fire, her face like a piece of sculptured
+graystone.
+
+Without a word he flung himself furiously from the room, and
+immediately afterwards they heard the heavy hall door bang behind
+him.
+
+"Can I do anything for you, Christie?" asked her brother-in-law
+calmly.
+
+"No, thank you--unless--I think I would like a drink of water,
+please."
+
+He brought her up a goblet filled with wine; her hand did not even
+tremble as she took it. As for Joe, a demon arose in his soul as he
+noticed she kept her wrists covered.
+
+"Do you think he will come back?" she said.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course; he'll be all right in the morning. Now go to
+bed like a good little girl, and--and, I say, Christie, you can call
+me if you want anything; I'll be right here, you know."
+
+"Thank you, Joe; you are kind--and good."
+
+He returned then to his apartment. His pipe was out, but he picked
+up a newspaper instead, threw himself into an armchair, and in a
+half-hour was in the land of dreams.
+
+When Charlie came home in the morning, after a six-mile walk into
+the country and back again, his foolish anger was dead and buried.
+Logan's "Poor old Charlie" did not ring so distinctly in his ears.
+Mrs. Stuart's horrified expression had faded considerably from his
+recollection. He thought only of that surprisingly tall, dark girl,
+whose eyes looked like coals, whose voice pierced him like a
+flint-tipped arrow. Ah, well, they would never quarrel again like
+that, he told himself. She loved him so, and would forgive him after
+he had talked quietly to her, and told her what an ass he was. She
+was simple-minded and awfully ignorant to pitch those old Indian
+laws at him in her fury, but he could not blame her; oh, no, he
+could not for one moment blame her. He had been terribly severe and
+unreasonable, and the horrid McDonald temper had got the better of
+him; and he loved her so. Oh! He loved her so! She would surely feel
+that, and forgive him, and-- He went straight to his wife's room.
+The blue velvet evening dress lay on the chair into which he had
+thrown himself when he doomed his life's happiness by those two
+words, "God knows." A bunch of dead daffodils and her slippers were
+on the floor, everything--but Christie.
+
+He went to his brother's bedroom door.
+
+"Joe," he called, rapping nervously thereon; "Joe, wake up; where's
+Christie, d'you know?"
+
+"Good Lord, no," gasped that youth, springing out of his armchair
+and opening the door. As he did so a note fell from off the handle.
+Charlie's face blanched to his very hair while Joe read aloud, his
+voice weakening at every word:--
+
+"DEAR OLD JOE,--I went into your room at daylight to get that
+picture of the Post on your bookshelves. I hope you do not mind, but
+I kissed your hair while your slept; it was so curly, and yellow,
+and soft, just like his. Good-bye, Joe.
+
+"CHRISTIE."
+
+And when Joe looked into his brother's face and saw the anguish
+settle in those laughing blue eyes, the despair that drove the
+dimples away from that almost girlish mouth; when he realized that
+this boy was but four-and-twenty years old, and that all his future
+was perhaps darkened and shadowed for ever, a great, deep sorrow
+arose in his heart, and he forgot all things, all but the agony that
+rang up through the voice of the fair, handsome lad as he staggered
+forward, crying, "Oh! Joe--what shall I do--what shall I do!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was months and months before he found her, but during all that
+time he had never known a hopeless moment; discouraged he often
+was, but despondent, never. The sunniness of his ever-boyish heart
+radiated with warmth that would have flooded a much deeper gloom
+than that which settled within his eager young life. Suffer? ah! yes,
+he suffered, not with locked teeth and stony stoicism, not with the
+masterful self-command, the reserve, the conquered bitterness of the
+still-water sort of nature, that is supposed to run to such depths.
+He tried to be bright, and his sweet old boyish self. He would laugh
+sometimes in a pitiful, pathetic fashion. He took to petting dogs,
+looking into their large, solemn eyes with his wistful, questioning
+blue ones; he would kiss them, as women sometimes do, and call them
+"dear old fellow," in tones that had tears; and once in the course
+of his travels while at a little way-station, he discovered a huge
+St. Bernard imprisoned by some mischance in an empty freight car;
+the animal was nearly dead from starvation, and it seemed to salve
+his own sick heart to rescue back the dog's life. Nobody claimed the
+big starving creature, the train hands knew nothing of its owner,
+and gladly handed it over to its deliverer. "Hudson," he called
+it, and afterwards when Joe McDonald would relate the story of his
+brother's life he invariably terminated it with, "And I really
+believe that big lumbering brute saved him." From what, he was never
+to say.
+
+But all things end, and he heard of her at last. She had never
+returned to the Post, as he at first thought she would, but had gone
+to the little town of B----, in Ontario, where she was making her
+living at embroidery and plain sewing.
+
+The September sun had set redly when at last he reached the
+outskirts of the town, opened up the wicket gate, and walked up the
+weedy, unkept path leading to the cottage where she lodged.
+
+Even through the twilight, he could see her there, leaning on the
+rail of the verandah--oddly enough she had about her shoulders the
+scarlet velvet cloak she wore when he had flung himself so madly
+from the room that night.
+
+The moment the lad saw her his heart swelled with a sudden heat,
+burning moisture leapt into his eyes, and clogged his long, boyish
+lashes. He bounded up the steps--"Christie," he said, and the word
+scorched his lips like audible flame.
+
+She turned to him, and for a second stood magnetized by his
+passionately wistful face; her peculiar grayish eyes seemed to
+drink the very life of his unquenchable love, though the tears that
+suddenly sprang into his seemed to absorb every pulse in his body
+through those hungry, pleading eyes of his that had, oh! so often
+been blinded by her kisses when once her whole world lay in their
+blue depths.
+
+"You will come back to me, Christie, my wife? My wife, you will let
+me love you again?"
+
+She gave a singular little gasp, and shook her head. "Don't, oh!
+don't," he cried piteously. "You will come to me, dear? it is all
+such a bitter mistake--I did not understand. Oh! Christie, I did not
+understand, and you'll forgive me, and love me again, won't
+you--won't you?"
+
+"No," said the girl with quick, indrawn breath.
+
+He dashed the back of his hand across his wet eyelids. His lips were
+growing numb, and he bungled over the monosyllable "Why?"
+
+"I do not like you," she answered quietly.
+
+"God! Oh! God, what is there left?"
+
+She did not appear to hear the heart-break in his voice; she stood
+like one wrapped in sombre thought; no blaze, no tear, nothing in
+her eyes; no hardness, no tenderness about her mouth. The wind was
+blowing her cloak aside, and the only visible human life in her
+whole body was once when he spoke the muscles of her brown arm
+seemed to contract.
+
+"But, darling, you are mine--_mine_--we are husband and wife! Oh,
+heaven, you _must_ love me, and you _must_ come to me again."
+
+"You cannot _make_ me come," said the icy voice, "neither church,
+nor law, nor even"--and the voice softened--"nor even love can make
+a slave of a red girl."
+
+"Heaven forbid it," he faltered. "No, Christie, I will never claim
+you without your love. What reunion would that be? But oh, Christie,
+you are lying to me, you are lying to yourself, you are lying to
+heaven."
+
+She did not move. If only he could touch her he felt as sure of her
+yielding as he felt sure there was a hereafter. The memory of the
+times when he had but to lay his hand on her hair to call a most
+passionate response from her filled his heart with a torture that
+choked all words before they reached his lips; at the thought of
+those days he forgot she was unapproachable, forgot how forbidding
+were her eyes, how stony her lips. Flinging himself forward, his
+knee on the chair at her side, his face pressed hardly in the folds
+of the cloak on her shoulder, he clasped his arms about her with a
+boyish petulance, saying, "Christie, Christie, my little girl wife,
+I love you, I love you, and you are killing me."
+
+She quivered from head to foot as his fair, wavy hair brushed her
+neck, his despairing face sank lower until his cheek, hot as fire,
+rested on the cool, olive flesh of her arm. A warm moisture oozed up
+through her skin, and as he felt its glow he looked up. Her teeth,
+white and cold, were locked over her under lip, and her eyes were
+as gray stones.
+
+Not murderers alone know the agony of a death sentence.
+
+"Is it all useless? all useless, dear?" he said, with lips starving
+for hers.
+
+"All useless," she repeated. "I have no love for you now. You
+forfeited me and my heart months ago, when you said _those two
+words_."
+
+His arms fell away from her wearily, he arose mechanically, he
+placed his little gray checked cap on the back of his yellow curls,
+the old-time laughter was dead in the blue eyes that now looked
+scared and haunted, the boyishness and the dimples crept away for
+ever from the lips that quivered like a child's; he turned from her,
+but she had looked once into his face as the Law Giver must have
+looked at the land of Canaan outspread at his feet. She watched
+him go down the long path and through the picket gate, she watched
+the big yellowish dog that had waited for him lumber up on to its
+feet--stretch--then follow him. She was conscious of but two things,
+the vengeful lie in her soul, and a little space on her arm that his
+wet lashes had brushed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was hours afterwards when he reached his room. He had said
+nothing, done nothing--what use were words or deeds? Old Jimmy
+Robinson was right; she had "balked" sure enough.
+
+What a bare, hotelish room it was! He tossed off his coat and sat
+for ten minutes looking blankly at the sputtering gas jet. Then
+his whole life, desolate as a desert, loomed up before him with
+appalling distinctness. Throwing himself on the floor beside
+his bed, with clasped hands and arms outstretched on the white
+counterpane, he sobbed. "Oh! God, dear God, I thought you loved me;
+I thought you'd let me have her again, but you must be tired of me,
+tired of loving me too. I've nothing left now, nothing! it doesn't
+seem that I even have you to-night."
+
+He lifted his face then, for his dog, big and clumsy and yellow,
+was licking at his sleeve.
+
+
+
+The Envoy Extraordinary
+
+
+There had been a great deal of trouble in the Norris family, and
+for weeks old Bill Norris had gone about scowling as blackly as a
+thunder-cloud, speaking to no one but his wife and daughter, and
+oftentimes muttering inaudible things that, however, had the tone
+of invective; and accompanied, as these mutterings were, with a
+menacing shake of his burley head, old Bill finally grew to be an
+acquaintance few desired.
+
+Mrs. Norris showed equal, though not similar, signs of mental
+disturbance; for, womanlike, she clothed her worry in placidity and
+silence. Her kindly face became drawn and lined; she laughed less
+frequently. She never went "neighboring" or "buggy-riding" with
+old Bill now. But the trim farmhouse was just as spotless, just as
+beautifully kept, the cooking just as wholesome and homelike, the
+linen as white, the garden as green, the chickens as fat, the geese
+as noisy, as in the days when her eyes were less grave and her lips
+unknown to sighs. And what was it all about but the simple matter
+of a marriage--Sam's marriage? Sam, the big, genial, curly-headed
+only son of the house of Norris, who saw fit to take unto himself as
+a life partner tiny, delicate, college-bred Della Kennedy, who
+taught school over on the Sixth Concession, and knew more about
+making muslin shirtwaists than cooking for the threshers, could
+quote from all the mental and moral philosophers, could wrestle with
+French and Latin verbs, and had memorized half the things Tennyson
+and Emerson had ever written, but could not milk a cow or churn up
+a week's supply of butter if the executioner stood ready with his
+axe to chop off her pretty yellow mop of a head in case she failed.
+How old Billy stormed when Sam started "keeping company" with her!
+
+"Nice young goslin' fer you to be a-goin' with!" he scowled when
+Sam would betake himself towards the red gate every evening after
+chores were done. "Nice gal fer you to bring home to help yer
+mother; all she'll do is to play May Queen and have the hull lot of
+us a-trottin' to wait on her. You'll marry a farmer's gal, _I_ say,
+one that's brung up like yerself and yer mother and me, or I tell
+yer yer shan't have one consarned acre of this place. I'll leave
+the hull farm to yer sister Jane's man. _She_ married somethin'
+like--decent, stiddy, hard-working man is Sid Simpson, and _he'll_
+git what land I have to leave."
+
+"I quite know that, dad," Sam blazed forth, irritably; "so does he.
+That's what he married  Janie for--the whole township knows that.
+He's never given her a kind word, or a holiday, or a new dress,
+since they were married--eight years. She slaves and toils, and he
+rich as any man need be; owns three farms already, money in the
+bank, cattle, horses--everything. But look at Janie; she looks as
+old as mother. I pity _his_ son, if he ever has one. Thank heaven,
+Janie has no children!"
+
+"Come, come, father--Sam!" a patient voice would interrupt, and
+Mrs. Norris would appear at the door, vainly endeavoring to make
+peace. "I'll own up to both of you I'd sooner have a farmer's
+daughter for mine-in-law than Della Kennedy. But, father, he ain't
+married yet, and--"
+
+"Ain't married, eh?" blurted in old Bill. "But he's a-goin' to
+marry her. But I'll tell you both right here, she'll never set foot
+in my house, ner I in her'n. Sam ken keep her, but what on, I don't
+know. He gits right out of this here farm the day he marries her,
+and he don't come back, not while I'm a-livin'."
+
+It was all this that made old Billy Norris morose, and Mrs. Norris
+silent and patient and laughless, for Sam married the despised
+"gosling" right at harvest time, when hands were so scarce that
+farmers wrangled and fought, day in and day out, to get one single
+man to go into the field.
+
+This was Sam's golden opportunity. His father's fields stood yellow
+with ripening grain to be cut on the morrow, but he deliberately
+hired himself out to a neighbor, where he would get good wages
+to start a little home with; for, farmer-like, old Billy Norris
+never paid his son wages. Sam was supposed to work for nothing but
+his clothes and board as reward, and a possible slice of the farm
+when the old man died, while a good harvest hand gets board and
+high wages, to boot. This then was the hour to strike, and the
+morning the grain stood ready for the reaper Sam paused at the
+outside kitchen door at sunrise.
+
+"Mother," he said, "I've got to have her. I'm going to marry her
+to-day, and to-morrow start working for Mr. Willson, who will pay me
+enough to keep a wife. I'm sorry, mother, but--well, I've got to
+have her. Some day you'll know her, and you'll love her, I know you
+will; and if there's ever any children--"
+
+But Mrs. Norris had clutched him by the arm. "Sammy," she
+whispered, "your father will be raging mad at your going, and
+harvest hands so scarce. I _know_ he'll never let me go near you,
+never. But if there's ever any children, Sammy, you just come for
+your mother, and I'll go to you and her _without_ his letting."
+
+Then with one of the all too few kisses that are ever given or
+received in a farmhouse life, she let him go. The storm burst at
+breakfast time when Sam did not appear, and the poor mother tried
+to explain his absence, as only a mother will. Old Billy waxed
+suspicious, then jumped at facts. The marriage was bad enough,
+but this being left in the lurch at the eleventh hour, his son's
+valuable help transferred from the home farm to Mr. Willson's, with
+whom he always quarreled in church, road, and political matters, was
+too much.
+
+"But, father, you never paid him wages," ventured the mother.
+
+"Wages? Wages to one's own son, that one has raised and fed and
+shod from the cradle? Wages, when he knowed he'd come in fer part
+of the farm when I'd done with it? Who in consarnation ever gives
+their son wages?"
+
+"But, father, you told him if he married her he was never to have
+the farm--that you'd leave it to Sid, that he was to get right off
+the day he married her."
+
+"An' Sid'll get it--bet yer life he will--fer I ain't got no son
+no more. A sneakin' hulk that leaves me with my wheat standin' an'
+goes over to help that Methodist of a Willson is no son of mine.
+I ain't never had a son, and you ain't, neither; remember that,
+Marthy--don't you ever let me ketch you goin' a-near them. We're
+done with Sam an' his missus. You jes' make a note of that." And
+old Billy flung out to his fields like a general whose forces had
+fled.
+
+It was but a tiny, two-room shack, away up in the back lots, that
+Sam was able to get for Della, but no wayfarer ever passed up the
+side road but they heard her clear, young voice singing like a
+thrush; no one ever met Sam but he ceased whistling only to greet
+them. He proved invaluable to Mr. Willson, for after the harvest
+was in and the threshing over, there was the root crop and the
+apple crop, and eventually Mr. Willson hired him for the entire
+year. Della, to the surprise of the neighborhood, kept on with her
+school until Christmas.
+
+"She's teachin' instid of keepin' Sam's house, jes' to git money
+fer finery, you bet!" sneered old Billy. But he never knew that
+every copper for the extra term was put carefully away, and was
+paid out for a whole year's rent in advance on a gray little
+two-room house, and paid by a very proud little yellow-haired bride.
+She had insisted upon this before her marriage, for she laughingly
+said, "No wife ever gets her way afterwards."
+
+"I'm not good at butter-making, Sam," she said, "but I _can_ make
+money teaching, and for this first year _I_ pay the rent." And she
+did.
+
+And the sweet, brief year swung on through its seasons, until
+one brown September morning the faint cry of a little human lamb
+floated through the open window of the small gray house on the
+back lots. Sam did not go to Willson's to work that day, but
+stayed home, playing the part of a big, joyful, clumsy nurse, his
+roughened hands gentle and loving, his big rugged heart bursting
+with happiness. It was twilight, and the gray shadows were creeping
+into the bare little room, touching with feathery fingers a tangled
+mop of yellow curls that aureoled a pillowed head that was not now
+filled with thoughts of Tennyson and Emerson and frilly muslin
+shirtwaists. That pretty head held but two realities--Sammy,
+whistling robin-like as he made tea in the kitchen, and the little
+human lamb hugged up on her arm.
+
+But suddenly the whistling ceased, and Sammy's voice, thrilling
+with joy, exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, mother!"
+
+"Mrs. Willson sent word to me. Your father's gone to the
+village, and I ran away, Sammy boy," whispered Mrs. Norris,
+eagerly. "I just ran away. Where's Della and--the baby?"
+
+"In here, mother, and--bless you for coming!" said the big fellow,
+stepping softly towards the bedroom. But his mother was there
+before him, her arms slipping tenderly about the two small beings
+on the bed.
+
+"It wasn't my fault, daughter," she said, tremulously.
+
+"I know it," faintly smiled Della. "Just these last few hours I
+know I'd stand by this baby boy of mine here until the Judgement
+Day, and so I now know it must have nearly broken your heart not
+to stand by Sammy."
+
+"Well, grandmother!" laughed Sam, "what do you think of the new
+Norris?"
+
+"Grandmother?" gasped Mrs. Norris. "Why, Sammy, _am I a
+grandmother_? Grandmother to this little sweetheart?" And the proud
+old arms lifted the wee "new Norris" right up from its mother's
+arms, and every tiny toe and finger was kissed and crooned over,
+while Sam shyly winked at Della and managed to whisper, "You'll
+see, girl, that dad will come around now; but he can just keep out
+of _our house_. There are two of us that can be harsh. I'm not
+going to come at _his_ first whistle."
+
+Della smiled to herself, but said nothing. Much wisdom had come to
+her within the last year, with the last day--wisdom not acquired
+within the covers of books, nor yet beneath college roofs, and one
+truth she had mastered long ago--that
+
+  "To help and to heal a sorrow
+   Love and silence are always best."
+
+But late that night, when Martha Norris returned home, another
+storm broke above her hapless head. Old Billy sat on the kitchen
+steps waiting for her, frowning, scowling, muttering. "Where have
+you been?" he demanded, glaring at her, although some inner
+instinct told him what her answer would be.
+
+"I've been to Sammy's," she said, in a peculiarly still voice, "and
+I'm going again to-morrow." Then with shoulders more erect and eyes
+calmer than they had been for many months, she continued: "And I'm
+going again the next day, and the next. Billy, you and I've got a
+grandson--a splendid, fair, strong boy, and--"
+
+"What!" snapped old Billy. "A grandson! I got a grandson, an' no
+person told me afore? Not even that there sneak Sam, cuss him! He
+always was too consarned mean to live. A grandson? I'm a-goin' over
+termorrer, sure's I'm alive."
+
+"No use for you to go, Billy," said Mrs. Norris, with marvellous
+diplomacy for such a simple, unworldly farmer's wife to suddenly
+acquire. "Sammy wouldn't let you set foot on his place. He wouldn't
+let you put an eye or a finger on that precious baby--not for the
+whole earth."
+
+"What! Not _me_, the little chap's _grandfather_?" blurted old
+Billy in a rage. "I'm a-goin' to see that baby, that's all there
+is to it. I tell yer, I'm a-goin'."
+
+"No use, father; you'll only make things worse," sighed Sam's
+mother, plaintively; but in her heart laughter gurgled like a
+spring. To the gift of diplomacy Mrs. Norris was fast adding the
+art of being an actress. "If you go there Sam'll set the dog on
+you. I _know_ he will, from the way he was talking," she concluded.
+
+"Oh! got a _dog_, have they? Well, I bet they've got no _cow_,"
+sneered Billy. Then after a meaning pause: "I say Marthy, _have_
+they got a cow?"
+
+"No," replied Mrs. Norris, shortly.
+
+"_No cow_, an' a sick woman and a baby--_my_ grandchild--in the
+house? Now ain't that jes' like that sneak Sam? They'll jes' kill
+that baby atween them, they're that igner'nt. Hev they got enny
+milk fer them two babbling kids, Della an' the baby--my
+grandchild?"
+
+"No!" snapped Mrs. Norris, while through her mind echoed some
+terrifying lines she had heard as a child:
+
+  "All liars dwell with him in hell,
+   And many more who cursed and swore."
+
+"An' there's that young Shorthorn of ours, Marthy. Couldn't we
+spare her?" he asked with a pathetic eagerness. "We've got eight
+other cows to milk. Can't we spare her? If you think Sam'll set the
+dog on _me_, I'll have her driv over in the mornin'. Jim'll take
+her."
+
+"I don't think it's any use, Bill; but you can try it," remarked
+Mrs. Norris, her soul singing within her like a celestial choir.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Where are you driving that cow to?" yelled Sam from the kitchen
+door, at sunrise the following morning. "Take her out of there!
+You're driving her into my yard, right over my cabbages."
+
+But Jim, the Norris' hired man, only grinned, and proceeding with
+his driving, yelled back:
+
+"Cow's yourn, Sam. Yer old man sent it--a present to yer missus and
+the babby."
+
+"You take and drive that cow back again!" roared Sam. "And tell my
+dad I won't have hide nor hair of her on my place."
+
+Back went the cow.
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" mourned Mrs. Norris. "Sam's that stubborn and
+contrary. It's no use, Billy; he just doesn't care for his poor old
+father nor mother any more."
+
+"By the jumping Jiminy Christmas! I'll _make_ him care!" thundered
+old Billy. "I'm a-goin' ter see that grandchild of mine." Then
+followed a long silence.
+
+"I say, Marthy, how are they fixed in the house?" he questioned,
+after many moments of apparently brown study.
+
+"Pretty poor," answered Sam's mother, truthfully this time.
+
+"Got a decent stove, an' bed, an' the like?" he finally asked.
+
+"Stove seems to cook all right, but the bed looks just like straw
+tick--not much good, I'd say," responded Mrs. Norris, drearily.
+
+"A straw tick!" fairly yelled old Billy. "A straw tick fer my
+grandson ter sleep on? Jim, you fetch that there cow here, right
+ter the side door."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Martha, anxiously.
+
+"I'll show yer!" blurted old Billy. And going to his own room, he
+dragged off all the pretty patchwork quilts above his neatly-made
+bed, grabbed up the voluminous feather-bed, staggered with it in
+his arms down the hall, through the side door, and flung it on to
+the back of the astonished cow.
+
+"Now you, Jim, drive that there cow over to Sam's, and if you dare
+bring her back agin, I'll hide yer with the flail till yer can't
+stand up."
+
+"Me drive that lookin' circus over to Sam's?" sneered Jim. "I'll
+quit yer place first. Yer kin do it yerself;" and the hired man
+turned on his lordly heel and slouched over to the barn.
+
+"That'll be the best way, Billy," urged Sam's mother. "Do it
+yourself."
+
+"I'll do it too," old Billy growled. "I ain't afraid of no dog on
+four legs. Git on there, bossy! Git on, I say!" and the ridiculous
+cavalcade started forth.
+
+For a moment Martha Norris watched the receding figure through
+blinding tears. "Oh, Sammy, I'm going to have you back again! I'm
+going to have my boy once more!" she half sobbed. Then sitting down
+on the doorsill, she laughed like a schoolgirl until the cow with
+her extraordinary burden, and old Billy in her wake, disappeared up
+the road. [This incident actually occurred on an Ontario farm
+within the circle of the author's acquaintance.]
+
+From the pillow, pretty Della could just see out of the low window,
+and her wide young eyes grew wider with amazement as the gate swung
+open and the "circus," as Jim called it, entered.
+
+"Sammy!" she called, "Sammy! For goodness sake, what's that coming
+into our yard?"
+
+Instantly Sam was at the door.
+
+"Well, if that don't beat anything I ever saw!" he exclaimed. Then
+"like mother, like son," he, too, sat down on the doorsill and
+laughed as only youth and health and joy can laugh, for, heading
+straight for the door was the fat young Shorthorn, saddled with an
+enormous feather-bed, and plodding at her heels was old Billy Norris,
+grinning sheepishly.
+
+It took just three seconds for the hands of father and son to meet.
+"How's my gal an' my grandson?" asked the old farmer, excitedly.
+
+"Bully, just bully, both of them!" smiled Sam, proudly. Then more
+seriously, "Ah, dad, you old tornado, you! Here you fired thunder
+at us for a whole year, pretty near broke my mother's heart, and
+made my boy's little mother old before she ought to be. But you've
+quit storming now, dad. I know it from the look of you."
+
+"Quit forever, Sam," replied old Billy, "fer these mother-wimmen
+don't never thrive where there's rough weather, somehow. They're
+all fer peace. They're worse than King Edward an' Teddy Roosevelt
+fer patchin' up rows, an' if they can't do it no other way, they
+jes' hike along with a baby, sort o' treaty of peace like. Yes, I
+guess I thundered some; but, Sam, boy, there ain't a deal of harm
+in thunder--but _lightnin'_, now that's the worst, but I once heard
+a feller say that feathers was non-conductive." Then with a sly
+smile, "An' Sam, you'd better hustle an' git the gal an' the baby
+on ter this here feather-bad, or they may be in danger of gittin'
+struck, fer there's no tellin' but I may jes' start an' storm
+thunder an' _lightnin'_ this time."
+
+
+
+A Pagan in St. Paul's Cathedral
+
+Iroquois Poetess' Impressions in London's Cathedral
+
+
+It is a far cry from a wigwam to Westminster, from a prairie trail
+to the Tower Bridge, and London looks a strange place to the Red
+Indian whose eyes still see the myriad forest trees, even as they
+gaze across the Strand, and whose feet still feel the clinging
+moccasin even among the scores of clicking heels that hurry along
+the thoroughfares of this camping-ground of the paleface.
+
+So this is the place where dwells the Great White Father, ruler of
+many lands, lodges, and tribes, in the hollow of whose hands is the
+peace that rests between the once hostile red man and white. They
+call him the King of England, but to us, the powerful Iroquois
+nation of the north, he is always the "Great White Father." For
+once he came to us in our far-off Canadian reserves, and with his
+own hand fastened decorations and medals on the buckskin coats of
+our oldest chiefs, just because they and their fathers used their
+tomahawks in battle in the cause of England.
+
+So I, one of his loyal allies, have come to see his camp, known to
+the white man as London, his council which the whites call his
+Parliament, where his sachems and chiefs make the laws of his
+tribes, and to see his wigwam, known to the palefaces as Buckingham
+Palace, but to the red man as the "Tepee of the Great White
+Father." And this is what I see:--
+
+  What the Indian Sees.
+
+Lifting toward the sky are vast buildings of stone, not the same
+kind of stone from which my forefathers fashioned their carven
+pipes and corn-pounders, but a grayer, grimier rock that would not
+take the polish we give by fingers dipped in sturgeon oil, and long
+days of friction with fine sand and deer-hide.
+
+I stand outside the great palace wigwam, the huge council-house by
+the river. My seeing eyes may mark them, but my heart's eyes are
+looking beyond all this wonderment, back to the land I have left
+behind me. I picture the tepees by the far Saskatchewan; there
+the tent poles, too, are lifting skyward, and the smoke ascending
+through them from the smouldering fires within curls softly on the
+summer air. Against the blurred sweep of horizon other camps etch
+their outlines, other bands of red men with their herds of wild
+cattle have sought the river lands. I hear the untamed hoofs
+thundering up the prairie trail.
+
+But the prairie sounds are slipping away, and my ears catch other
+voices that rise above the ceaseless throb about me--voices that
+are clear, high, and calling; they float across the city like the
+music of a thousand birds of passage beating their wings through
+the night, crying and murmuring plaintively as they journey
+northward. They are the voices of St. Paul's calling, calling
+me--St. Paul's where the paleface worships the Great Spirit, and
+through whose portals he hopes to reach the happy hunting grounds.
+
+  The Great Spirit.
+
+As I entered its doorways it seemed to me to be the everlasting
+abiding-place of the white man's Great Spirit.
+
+The music brooded everywhere. It beat in my ears like the far-off
+cadences of the Sault Ste. Marie rapids, that rise and leap and
+throb--like a storm hurling through the fir forest--like the
+distant rising of an Indian war-song; it swept up those mighty
+archways until the gray dome above me faded, and in its place
+the stars came out to look down, not on these paleface kneeling
+worshippers, but on a band of stalwart, sinewy, copper-coloured
+devotees, my own people in my own land, who also assembled to do
+honour to the Manitou of all nations.
+
+The deep-throated organ and the boy's voices were gone; I heard
+instead the melancholy incantations of our own pagan religionists.
+The beautiful dignity of our great sacrificial rites seemed to
+settle about me, to enwrap me in its garment of solemnity and
+primitive stateliness.
+
+  Beat of the Drum.
+
+The atmosphere pulsed with the beat of the Indian drum, the
+eerie penetrations of the turtle rattle that set the time of the
+dancers' feet. Dance? It is not a dance, that marvellously slow,
+serpentine-like figure with the soft swish, swish of moccasined
+feet, and the faint jingling of elks'-teeth bracelets, keeping
+rhythm with every footfall. It is not a dance, but an invocation
+of motion. Why may we not worship with the graceful movement of
+our feet? The paleface worships by moving his lips and tongue;
+the difference is but slight.
+
+The altar-lights of St. Paul's glowed for me no more. In their
+place flared the camp fires of the Onondaga "long-house," and the
+resinous scent of the burning pine drifted across the fetid London
+air. I saw the tall, copper-skinned fire-keeper of the Iroquois
+council enter, the circle of light flung fitfully against the black
+surrounding woods. I have seen their white bishops, but none so
+regal, so august as he. His garb of fringed buckskin and ermine was
+no more grotesque than the vestments worn by the white preachers in
+high places; he did not carry a book or a shining golden symbol,
+but from his splendid shoulders was suspended a pure white lifeless
+dog.
+
+Into the red flame the strong hands gently lowered it, scores of
+reverent, blanketed figures stood silent, awed, for it is the
+highest, holiest festival of the year. Then the wild, strange chant
+arose--the great pagan ritual was being intoned by the fire-keeper,
+his weird, monotonous tones voicing this formula:
+
+"The Great Spirit desires no human sacrifice, but we, His children,
+must give to Him that which is nearest our hearts and nearest our
+lives. Only the spotless and stainless can enter into His presence,
+only that which is purified by fire. So--this white dog--a
+member of our household, a co-habitant of our wigwam, and on the
+smoke that arises from the purging fires will arise also the
+thanksgivings of all those who desire that the Great Spirit in His
+happy hunting grounds will forever smoke His pipe of peace, for
+peace is between Him and His children for all time."
+
+The mournful voice ceases. Again the hollow pulsing of the Indian
+drum, the purring, flexible step of cushioned feet. I lift my head,
+which has been bowed on the chair before me. It is St. Paul's after
+all--and the clear boy-voices rise above the rich echoes of the
+organ.
+
+
+
+As It Was in the Beginning
+
+
+They account for it by the fact that I am a Redskin, but I am
+something else, too--I am a woman.
+
+I remember the first time I saw him. He came up the trail with some
+Hudson's Bay trappers, and they stopped at the door of my father's
+tepee. He seemed even then, fourteen years ago, an old man; his hair
+seemed just as thin and white, his hands just as trembling and
+fleshless as they were a month since, when I saw him for what I pray
+his God is the last time.
+
+My father sat in the tepee, polishing buffalo horns and smoking; my
+mother, wrapped in her blanket, crouched over her quill-work, on the
+buffalo-skin at his side; I was lounging at the doorway, idling,
+watching, as I always watched, the thin, distant line of sky and
+prairie; wondering, as I always wondered, what lay beyond it. Then
+he came, this gentle old man with his white hair and thin, pale
+face. He wore a long black coat, which I now know was the sign of
+his office, and he carried a black leather-covered book, which, in
+all the years I have known him, I have never seen him without.
+
+The trappers explained to my father who he was, the Great Teacher,
+the heart's Medicine Man, the "Blackcoat" we had heard of, who
+brought peace where there was war, and the magic of whose black book
+brought greater things than all the Happy Hunting Grounds of our
+ancestors.
+
+He told us many things that day, for he could speak the Cree tongue,
+and my father listened, and listened, and when at last they left us,
+my father said for him to come and sit within the tepee again.
+
+He came, all the time he came, and my father welcomed him, but my
+mother always sat in silence at work with the quills; my mother
+never liked the Great "Blackcoat."
+
+His stories fascinated me. I used to listen intently to the tale of
+the strange new place he called "heaven," of the gold crown, of the
+white dress, of the great music; and then he would tell of that
+other strange place--hell. My father and I hated it; we feared it,
+we dreamt of it, we trembled at it. Oh, if the "Blackcoat" would
+only cease to talk of it! Now I know he saw its effect upon us, and
+he used it as a whip to lash us into his new religion, but even then
+my mother must have known, for each time he left the tepee she would
+watch him going slowly away across the prairie; then when he was
+disappearing into the far horizon she would laugh scornfully, and
+say:
+
+"If the white man made this Blackcoat's hell, let him go to it. It
+is for the man who found it first. No hell for Indians, just Happy
+Hunting Grounds. Blackcoat can't scare me."
+
+And then, after weeks had passed, one day as he stood at the tepee
+door he laid his white, old hand on my head and said to my father:
+"Give me this little girl, chief. Let me take her to the mission
+school; let me keep her, and teach her of the great God and His
+eternal heaven. She will grow to be a noble woman, and return
+perhaps to bring her people to the Christ."
+
+My mother's eyes snapped. "No," she said. It was the first word she
+ever spoke to the "Blackcoat." My father sat and smoked. At the end
+of a half-hour he said:
+
+"I am an old man, Blackcoat. I shall not leave the God of my fathers.
+I like not your strange God's ways--all of them. I like not His two
+new places for me when I am dead. Take the child, Blackcoat, and
+save her from hell."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first grief of my life was when we reached the mission. They
+took my buckskin dress off, saying I was now a little Christian girl
+and must dress like all the white people at the mission. Oh, how I
+hated that stiff new calico dress and those leather shoes. But,
+little as I was, I said nothing, only thought of the time when I
+should be grown, and do as my mother did, and wear the buckskins
+and the blanket.
+
+My next serious grief was when I began to speak the English, that
+they forbade me to use any Cree words whatever. The rule of the
+school was that any child heard using its native tongue must get
+a slight punishment. I never understood it, I cannot understand
+it now, why the use of my dear Cree tongue could be a matter for
+correction or an action deserving punishment.
+
+She was strict, the matron of the school, but only justly so, for
+she had a heart and a face like her brother's, the "Blackcoat."
+I had long since ceased to call him that. The trappers at the
+post called him "St. Paul," because, they told me, of his
+self-sacrificing life, his kindly deeds, his rarely beautiful old
+face; so I, too, called him "St. Paul," thought oftener "Father
+Paul," though he never liked the latter title, for he was a
+Protestant. But as I was his pet, his darling of the whole school,
+he let me speak of him as I would, knowing it was but my heart
+speaking in love. His sister was a widow, and mother to a laughing
+yellow-haired boy of about my own age, who was my constant playmate
+and who taught me much of English in his own childish way. I used
+to be fond of this child, just as I was fond of his mother and of
+his uncle, my "Father Paul," but as my girlhood passed away, as
+womanhood came upon me, I got strangely wearied of them all; I
+longed, oh, God, how I longed for the old wild life! It came with
+my womanhood, with my years.
+
+What mattered it to me now that they had taught me all their
+ways?--their tricks of dress, their reading, their writing, their
+books. What mattered it that "Father Paul" loved me, that the
+traders at the post called me pretty, that I was a pet of all, from
+the factor to the poorest trapper in the service? I wanted my own
+people, my own old life, my blood called out for it, but they always
+said I must not return to my father's tepee. I heard them talk
+amongst themselves of keeping me away from pagan influences; they
+told each other that if I returned to the prairies, the tepees, I
+would degenerate, slip back to paganism, as other girls had done;
+marry, perhaps, with a pagan--and all their years of labor and
+teaching would be lost.
+
+I said nothing, but I waited. And then one night the feeling
+overcame me. I was in the Hudson's Bay store when an Indian came
+in from the north with a large pack of buckskin. As they unrolled
+it a dash of its insinuating odor filled the store. I went over
+and leaned above the skins a second, then buried my face in them,
+swallowing, drinking the fragrance of them, that went to my head
+like wine. Oh, the wild wonder of that wood-smoked tan, the
+subtilty of it, the untamed smell of it! I drank it into my lungs,
+my innermost being was saturated with it, till my mind reeled
+and my heart seemed twisted with a physical agony. My childhood
+recollections rushed upon me, devoured me. I left the store in a
+strange, calm frenzy, and going rapidly to the mission house I
+confronted my Father Paul and demanded to be allowed to go "home,"
+if only for a day. He received the request with the same refusal and
+the same gentle sigh that I had so often been greeted with, but this
+time the desire, the smoke-tan, the heart-ache, never lessened.
+
+Night after night I would steal away by myself and go to the border
+of the village to watch the sun set in the foothills, to gaze at the
+far line of sky and prairie, to long and long for my father's lodge.
+And Laurence--always Laurence--my fair-haired, laughing, child
+playmate, would come calling and calling for me: "Esther, where are
+you? We miss you; come in, Esther, come in with me." And if I did
+not turn at once to him and follow, he would come and place his
+strong hands on my shoulders and laugh into my eyes and say,
+"Truant, truant, Esther; can't _we_ make you happy?"
+
+My old childhood playmate had vanished years ago. He was a tall,
+slender young man now, handsome as a young chief, but with laughing
+blue eyes, and always those yellow curls about his temples. He was
+my solace in my half-exile, my comrade, my brother, until one night
+it was, "Esther, Esther, can't _I_ make you happy?"
+
+I did not answer him; only looked out across the plains and thought
+of the tepees. He came close, close. He locked his arms about me,
+and with my face pressed up to his throat he stood silent. I felt
+the blood from my heart sweep to my very finger-tips. I loved him.
+O God, how I loved him! In a wild, blind instant it all came, just
+because he held me so and was whispering brokenly, "Don't leave me,
+don't leave me, Esther; _my_ Esther, my child-love, my playmate, my
+girl-comrade, my little Cree sweetheart, will you go away to your
+people, or stay, stay for me, for my arms, as I have you now?"
+
+No more, no more the tepees; no more the wild stretch of prairie,
+the intoxicating fragrance of the smoke-tanned buckskin; no more the
+bed of buffalo hide, the soft, silent moccasin; no more the dark
+faces of my people, the dulcet cadence of the sweet Cree tongue--only
+this man, this fair, proud, tender man who held me in his arms, in
+his heart. My soul prayed his great white God, in that moment, that
+He would let me have only this. It was twilight when we re-entered
+the mission gate. We were both excited, feverish. Father Paul was
+reading evening prayers in the large room beyond the hallway; his
+soft, saint-like voice stole beyond the doors, like a benediction
+upon us. I went noiselessly upstairs to my own room and sat there
+undisturbed for hours.
+
+The clock downstairs struck one, startling me from my dreams of
+happiness, and at the same moment a flash of light attracted me. My
+room was in an angle of the building, and my window looked almost
+directly down into those of Father Paul's study, into which at that
+instant he was entering, carrying a lamp. "Why, Laurence," I heard
+him exclaim, "what are you doing here? I thought, my boy, you were
+in bed hours ago."
+
+"No, uncle, not in bed, but in dreamland," replied Laurence, arising
+from the window, where evidently he, too, had spent the night hours
+as I had done.
+
+Father Paul fumbled about a moment, found his large black book,
+which for once he seemed to have got separated from, and was turning
+to leave, when the curious circumstance of Laurence being there at
+so unusual an hour seemed to strike him anew. "Better go to sleep,
+my son," he said simply, then added curiously, "Has anything
+occurred to keep you up?"
+
+Then Laurence spoke: "No, uncle, only--only, I'm happy, that's all."
+
+Father Paul stood irresolute. Then: "It is--?"
+
+"Esther," said Laurence quietly, but he was at the old man's side,
+his hand was on the bent old shoulder, his eyes proud and appealing.
+
+Father Paul set the lamp on the table, but, as usual, one hand held
+that black book, the great text of his life. His face was paler than
+I had ever seen it--graver.
+
+"Tell me of it," he requested.
+
+I leaned far out of my window and watched them both. I listened with
+my very heart, for Laurence was telling him of me, of his love, of
+the new-found joy of that night.
+
+"You have said nothing of marriage to her?" asked Father Paul.
+
+"Well--no; but she surely understands that--"
+
+"Did you speak of _marriage_?" repeated Father Paul, with a harsh
+ring in his voice that was new to me.
+
+"No, uncle, but--"
+
+"Very well, then, very well."
+
+There was a brief silence. Laurence stood staring at the old man as
+though he were a stranger; he watched him push a large chair up to
+the table, slowly seat himself; then mechanically following his
+movements, he dropped on to a lounge. The old man's head bent low,
+but his eyes were bright and strangely fascinating. He began:
+
+"Laurence, my boy, your future is the dearest thing to me of all
+earthly interests. Why you _can't_ marry this girl--no, no, sit, sit
+until I have finished," he added, with raised voice, as Laurence
+sprang up, remonstrating. "I have long since decided that you marry
+well; for instance, the Hudson's Bay factor's daughter."
+
+Laurence broke into a fresh, rollicking laugh. "What, uncle," he
+said, "little Ida McIntosh? Marry that little yellow-haired fluff
+ball, that kitten, that pretty little dolly?"
+
+"Stop," said Father Paul. Then with a low, soft persuasiveness, "She
+is _white_, Laurence."
+
+My lover started. "Why, uncle, what do you mean?" he faltered.
+
+"Only this, my son: poor Esther comes of uncertain blood; would it
+do for you--the missionary's nephew, and adopted son, you might
+say--to marry the daughter of a pagan Indian? Her mother is
+hopelessly uncivilized; her father has a dash of French
+somewhere--half-breed, you know, my boy, half-breed." Then, with
+still lower tone and half-shut, crafty eyes, he added: "The blood is
+a bad, bad mixture, _you_ know that; you know, too, that I am very
+fond of the girl, poor dear Esther. I have tried to separate her
+from evil pagan influences; she is the daughter of the Church; I
+want her to have no other parent; but you never can tell what lurks
+in a caged animal that has once been wild. My whole heart is with
+the Indian people, my son; my whole heart, my whole life, has been
+devoted to bringing them to Christ, _but it is a different thing to
+marry with one of them_."
+
+His small old eyes were riveted on Laurence like a hawk's on a rat.
+My heart lay like ice in my bosom.
+
+Laurence, speechless and white, stared at him breathlessly.
+
+"Go away somewhere," the old man was urging; "to Winnipeg, Toronto,
+Montreal; forget her, then come back to Ida McIntosh. A union of the
+Church and Hudson's Bay will mean great things, and may ultimately
+result in my life's ambition, the civilization of this entire tribe,
+that we have worked so long to bring to God."
+
+I listened, sitting like one frozen. Could those words have been
+uttered by my venerable teacher, by him whom I revered as I would
+one of the saints in his own black book? Ah, there was no mistaking
+it. My white father, my life-long friend who pretended to love me,
+to care for my happiness, was urging the man I worshipped to forget
+me, to marry with the factor's daughter--because of what? Of my red
+skin; my good, old, honest pagan mother; my confiding French-Indian
+father. In a second all the care, the hollow love he had given me
+since my childhood, were as things that never existed. I hated that
+old mission priest as I hated his white man's hell. I hated his
+long, white hair; I hated his thin, white hands; I hated his body,
+his soul, his voice, his black book--oh, how I hated the very
+atmosphere of him.
+
+Laurence sat motionless, his face buried in his hands, but the old
+man continued, "No, no; not the child of that pagan mother; you
+can't trust her, my son. What would you do with a wife who might any
+day break from you to return to her prairies and her buckskins? _You
+can't trust her_." His eyes grew smaller, more glittering, more
+fascinating then, and leaning with an odd, secret sort of movement
+towards Laurence, he almost whispered, "Think of her silent ways,
+her noiseless step; the girl glides about like an apparition; her
+quick fingers, her wild longings--I don't know why, but with all my
+fondness for her, she reminds me sometimes of a strange--_snake_."
+
+Laurence shuddered, lifted his face, and said hoarsely: "You're
+right, uncle; perhaps I'd better not; I'll go away, I'll forget her,
+and then--well, then--yes, you are right, it _is_ a different thing
+to marry one of them." The old man arose. His feeble fingers still
+clasped his black book; his soft white hair clung about his forehead
+like that of an Apostle; his eyes lost their peering, crafty
+expression; his bent shoulders resumed the dignity of a minister
+of the living God; he was the picture of what the trader called
+him--"St. Paul."
+
+"Good-night, son," he said.
+
+"Good-night, uncle, and thank you for bringing me to myself."
+
+They were the last words I ever heard uttered by either that old
+arch-fiend or his weak, miserable kinsman. Father Paul turned and
+left the room. I watched his withered hand--the hand I had so often
+felt resting on my head in holy benedictions--clasp the door-knob,
+turn it slowly, then, with bowed head and his pale face wrapped in
+thought, he left the room--left it with the mad venom of my hate
+pursuing him like the very Evil One he taught me of.
+
+What were his years of kindness and care now? What did I care for
+his God, his heaven, his hell? He had robbed me of my native faith,
+of my parents, of my people, of this last, this life of love that
+would have made a great, good woman of me. God! how I hated him!
+
+I crept to the closet in my dark little room. I felt for the bundle
+I had not looked at for years--yes, it was there, the buckskin dress
+I had worn as a little child when they brought me to the mission. I
+tucked it under my arm and descended the stairs noiselessly. I would
+look into the study and speak good-bye to Laurence; then I would--
+
+I pushed open the door. He was lying on the couch where a short time
+previously he had sat, white and speechless, listening to Father
+Paul. I moved towards him softly. God in heaven, he was already
+asleep. As I bent over him the fullness of his perfect beauty
+impressed me for the first time; his slender form, his curving mouth
+that almost laughed even in sleep, his fair, tossed hair, his
+smooth, strong-pulsing throat. God! how I loved him!
+
+Then there arose the picture of the factor's daughter. I hated her.
+I hated her baby face, her yellow hair, her whitish skin. "She shall
+not marry him," my soul said. "I will kill him first--kill his
+beautiful body, his lying, false heart." Something in my heart
+seemed to speak; it said over and over again, "Kill him, kill him;
+she will never have him then. Kill him. It will break Father Paul's
+heart and blight his life. He has killed the best of you, of your
+womanhood; kill _his_ best, his pride, his hope--his sister's son,
+his nephew Laurence." But how? how?
+
+What had that terrible old man said I was like? A _strange snake_.
+A snake? The idea wound itself about me like the very coils of a
+serpent. What was this in the beaded bag of my buckskin dress? This
+little thing rolled in tan that my mother had given me at parting
+with the words, "Don't touch much, but some time maybe you want it!"
+Oh! I knew well enough what it was--a small flint arrow-head dipped
+in the venom of some _strange snake_.
+
+I knelt beside him and laid my hot lips on his hand. I worshipped
+him, oh, how, how I worshipped him! Then again the vision of _her_
+baby face, _her_ yellow-hair--I scratched his wrist twice with the
+arrow-tip. A single drop of red blood oozed up; he stirred. I turned
+the lamp down and slipped out of the room--out of the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I dream nightly of the horrors of the white man's hell. Why did they
+teach me of it, only to fling me into it?
+
+Last night as I crouched beside my mother on the buffalo-hide, Dan
+Henderson, the trapper, came in to smoke with my father. He said old
+Father Paul was bowed with grief, that with my disappearance I was
+suspected, but that there was no proof. Was it not merely a snake
+bite?
+
+They account for it by the fact that I am a Redskin.
+
+They seem to have forgotten I am a woman.
+
+
+
+The Legend of Lillooet Falls
+
+
+No one could possibly mistake the quiet little tap at the door. It
+could be given by no other hand west of the Rockies save that of my
+old friend The Klootchman. I dropped a lap full of work and sprang
+to open the door; for the slanting rains were chill outside, albeit
+the December grass was green and the great masses of English ivy
+clung wet and fresh as in summer about the low stone wall that ran
+between my verandah and the street.
+
+"Kla-how-ya, Tillicum," I greeted, dragging her into the warmth and
+comfort of my "den," and relieving her of her inseparable basket,
+and removing her rain-soaked shawl. Before she spoke she gave that
+peculiar gesture common to the Indian woman from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific. She lifted both hands and with each forefinger
+smoothed gently along her forehead from the parting of her hair to
+the temples. It is the universal habit of the red woman, and simply
+means a desire for neatness in her front locks.
+
+I busied myself immediately with the teakettle, for, like all her
+kind, The Klootchman dearly loves her tea.
+
+The old woman's eyes sparkled as she watched the welcome brewing,
+while she chatted away in half English, half Chinook, telling me
+of her doings in all these weeks that I had not seen her. But it
+was when I handed her a huge old-fashioned breakfast cup fairly
+brimming with tea as strong as lye that she really described her
+journeyings.
+
+She had been north to the Skeena River, south to the great "Fair"
+at Seattle, but, best of all seemingly to her, was her trip into
+the interior. She had been up the trail to Lillooet in the great
+"Cariboo" country. It was my turn then to have sparkling eyes, for
+I traversed that inexpressibly beautiful trail five years ago, and
+the delight of that journey will remain with me for all time.
+
+"And, oh! Tillicum," I cried, "have your good brown ears actually
+listened to the call of the falls across the canyon--the Falls of
+Lillooet?"
+
+"My ears have heard them whisper, laugh, weep," she replied in
+Chinook.
+
+"Yes," I answered, "they do all those things. They have magic
+voices--those dear, far-off falls!"
+
+At the word "magic" her keen eyes snapped, she set her empty cup
+aside and looked at me solemnly.
+
+"Then you know the story--the strange tale?" she asked almost
+whisperingly.
+
+I shook my head. This was always the crucial moment with my
+Klootchman, when her voice lowers, and she asks if you know things.
+You must be diplomatic, and never question her in turn. If you do
+her lips will close in unbreakable silence.
+
+"I have heard no story, but I have heard the Falls 'whisper, laugh
+and weep.' That is enough for me," I said, with seeming
+indifference.
+
+"What do you see when you look at them from across the canyon?" she
+asked. "Do they look to you like anything else but falling water?"
+
+I thought for a moment before replying. Memory seemed to hold up
+against an indistinct photograph of towering fir-crested heights,
+where through a broken ridge of rock a shower of silvery threads
+cascaded musically down, down, down, until they lost themselves in
+the mighty Fraser, that hurled itself through the yawning canyon
+stretched at my feet. I have never seen such slender threads of
+glowing tissue save on early morning cobwebs at sun-up.
+
+"The Falls look like cobwebs," I said, as the memory touched me.
+"Millions of fine misty cobwebs woven together."
+
+"Then the legend must be true," she uttered, half to herself. I
+slipped down on my treasured wolf-skin rug near her chair, and with
+hands locked about my knees, sat in silence, knowing it was the one
+and only way to lure her to speech. She arose, helped herself to
+more tea, and with the toe of her beaded moccasin idly stroked one
+of the wolf-skin paws. "Yes," she said, with some decision, "the
+Indian men of magic say that the falls are cobwebs twisted and
+braided together."
+
+I nodded, but made no comment; then her voice droned into the
+broken English, that, much as I love it, I must leave to the
+reader's imagination. "Indian mothers are strange," she began.
+I nodded again.
+
+"Yes, they are strange, and there is a strange tie between them
+and their children. The men of magic say they can _see_ that tie,
+though you and I cannot. It is thin, fine silvery as a cobweb, but
+strong as the ropes of wild vine that swing down the great canyons.
+No storm ever breaks those vines; the tempests that drag the giant
+firs and cedars up by their roots, snap their branches and break
+their boles, never break the creeping vines. They may be torn from
+their strongholds, but in the young months of the summer the vine
+will climb up, and cling again. _Nothing_ breaks it. So is the
+cobweb tie the Men of Magic see between the Indian mother and her
+child.
+
+"There was a time when no falls leapt and sang down the heights at
+Lillooet, and in those days our men were very wild and warlike; but
+the women were gentle and very beautiful, and they loved and lived
+and bore children as women have done before, and since.
+
+"But there was one, more gentle, more beautiful than all others of
+the tribe. 'Be-be,' our people call her; it is the Chinook word for
+'a kiss.' None of our people knew her real name; but it was a kiss
+of hers that made this legend, so as 'Be-be' we speak of her.
+
+"She was a mother-woman, but save for one beautiful girl-child, her
+family of six were all boys, splendid, brave boys, too, but this
+one treasured girl-child they called 'Morning-mist.' She was little
+and frail and beautiful, like the clouds one sees at daybreak
+circling about the mountain peaks. Her father and her brothers
+loved her, but the heart of Be-be, her mother, seemed wrapped round
+and about that misty-eyed child.
+
+"'I love you,' the mother would say many times a day, as she caught
+the girl-child in her arms. 'And I love you,' the girl-child would
+answer, resting for a moment against the warm shoulder. 'Little
+Flower,' the woman would murmur, 'thou art morning to me, thou art
+golden mid-day, thou art slumbrous nightfall to my heart.'
+
+"So these two loved and lived, mother and daughter, made for each
+other, shaped into each other's lives as the moccasin is shaped to
+the foot.
+
+"Then came that long, shadowed, sunless day, when Be-be, returning
+from many hours of ollallie picking, her basket filled to the brim
+with rich fruit, her heart reaching forth to her home even before
+her swift feet could traverse the trail, found her husband and
+her boys stunned with a dreadful fear, searching with wild eyes,
+hurrying feet, and grief-wrung hearts for her little 'Morning-child,'
+who had wandered into the forest while her brothers played--the
+forest which was deep and dark and dangerous,--and had not returned."
+
+The Klootchman's voice ceased. For a long moment she gazed straight
+before her, then looking at me said:
+
+"You have heard the Falls of Lillooet weep?" I nodded.
+
+"It is the weeping of that Indian mother, sobbing through the
+centuries, that you hear." She uttered the words with a cadence
+of grief in her voice.
+
+"Hours, nights, days, they searched for the morning-child," she
+continued. "And each moment of that unending agony to the
+mother-woman is repeated to-day in the call, the wail, the
+everlasting sobbing of the falls. At night the wolves howled up
+the canyon. 'God of my fathers, keep safe my Morning-child' the
+mother would implore. In the glare of day eagles poised, and
+vultures wheeled above the forest, their hungry claws, their
+unblinking eyes, their beaks of greed shining in the sunlight.
+'God of my fathers, keep safe my Morning-child' was again wrung
+from the mother's lips. For one long moon, that dawned, and
+shone and darkened, that mother's heart lived out its torture.
+Then one pale daybreak a great fleet of canoes came down the
+Frazer River. Those that paddled were of a strange tribe, they
+spoke in a strange tongue, but their hearts were human, and their
+skins were of the rich copper-color of the Upper Lillooet country.
+As they steered downstream, running the rapids, braving the
+whirlpools, they chanted, in monotone:
+
+  "'We have a lost child
+    A beautiful lost child.
+    We love this lost child,
+    But the heart of the child
+    Calls the mother of the child.
+    Come and claim this lost child.'
+
+"The music of the chant was most beautiful, but no music in the
+world of the white man's Tyee could equal that which rang through
+the heart of Be-be, the Indian mother-woman.
+
+"Heart upon heart, lips upon lips, the Morning-child and the
+mother caught each other in embrace. The strange tribe told of how
+they had found the girl-child wandering fearfully in the forest,
+crouching from the claws of eagles, shrinking from the horror of
+wolves, but the mother with her regained treasure in her arms
+begged them to cease their tales. 'I have gone through agonies
+enough, oh, my friends,' she cried aloud. 'Let me rest from torture
+now.' Then her people came and made a great feast and potlatch for
+this strange Upper Lillooet tribe, and at the feast Be-be arose,
+and, lifting the girl-child to her shoulder, she commanded silence
+and spoke:
+
+"'O Sagalie Tyee (God of all the earth), You have given back to me
+my treasure; take my tears, my sobs, my happy laughter, my joy--take
+the cobweb chains that bind my Morning-child and me--make them
+sing to others, that they may know my gratitude. O Sagalie Tyee,
+make them sing.' As she spoke, she kissed the child. At that moment
+the Falls of Lillooet came like a million strands, dashing and
+gleaming down the canyon, sobbing, laughing, weeping, calling,
+singing. You have listened to them."
+
+The Klootchman's voice was still. Outside, the rains still slanted
+gently, like a whispering echo of the far-away falls. "Thank you,
+Tillicum of mine; it is a beautiful legend," I said. She did not
+reply until, wrapped about in her shawl, she had clasped my hand
+in good-bye. At the door she paused. "Yes," she said--"and it is
+true." I smiled to myself. I love my Klootchman. She is so _very_
+Indian.
+
+
+
+Her Majesty's Guest
+
+[Author's Note.--The "Onondaga Jam" occurred late in the seventies,
+and this tale is founded upon actual incidents in the life of the
+author's father, who was Forest Warden on the Indian Reserve.]
+
+
+I have never been a good man, but then I have never pretended to be
+one, and perhaps that at least will count in my favor in the day
+when the great dividends are declared.
+
+I have been what is called "well brought up" and I would give some
+years of my life to possess now the money spent on my education;
+how I came to drop from what I should have been to what I am would
+scarcely interest anyone--if indeed I were capable of detailing the
+process, which I am not. I suppose I just rolled leisurely down
+hill like many another fellow.
+
+My friends, however, still credit me with one virtue; that is an
+absolute respect for my neighbor's wife, a feeling which, however,
+does not extend to his dollars. His money is mine if I can get it,
+and to do myself justice I prefer getting it from him honestly, at
+least without sufficient dishonesty to place me behind prison bars.
+
+Some experience has taught me that when a man is reduced to getting
+his living, as I do, by side issues and small deals, there is no
+better locality for him to operate than around the borders of some
+Indian Reserve.
+
+The pagan Indian is an unsuspicious fool. You can do him up right
+and left. The Christian Indian is as sharp as a fox, and with a
+little gloved handling he will always go in with you on a few lumber
+and illicit whiskey deals, which means that you have the confidence
+of his brethren and their dollars at the same time.
+
+I had outwitted the law for six years. I had smuggled more liquor
+into the Indian Bush on the Grand River Reserve and drawn more
+timber out of it to the Hamilton and Brantford markets than any
+forty dealers put together. Gradually, the law thinned the whole
+lot out--all but me; but I was slippery as an eel and my bottles of
+whiskey went on, and my loads of ties and timber came off, until
+every officer and preacher in the place got up and demanded an
+inspection.
+
+The Government at Ottawa awoke, stretched, yawned, then printed
+some flaring posters and stuck them around the border villages. The
+posters were headed by a big print of the British Coat of Arms,
+and some large type beneath announced terrible fines and heavy
+imprisonments for anyone caught hauling Indian timber off the
+Reserve, or hauling whiskey on to it. Then the Government rubbed
+its fat palms together, settled itself in its easy chair, and
+snored again.
+
+I? Oh, I went on with my operations.
+
+And at Christmas time Tom Barrett arrived on the scene. Not much of
+an event, you'd say if you saw him, still less if you heard him.
+According to himself, he knew everything and could do everything in
+the known world; he was just twenty-two and as obnoxiously fresh a
+thing as ever boasted itself before older men.
+
+He was the old missionary's son and had come up from college at
+Montreal to help his father preach salvation to the Indians on
+Sundays, and to swagger around week-days in his brand new
+clerical-cut coat and white tie.
+
+He enjoyed what is called, I believe, "deacon's orders." They tell
+me he was recently "priested," to use their straight English Church
+term, and is now parson of a swell city church. Well! they can have
+him. I'll never split on him, but I could tell them some things
+about Tom Barrett that would soil his surplice--at least in my
+opinion, but you never can be sure when even religious people will
+make a hero out of a rogue.
+
+The first time I ever saw him he came into "Jake's" one night,
+quite late. We were knocked clean dumb. "Jake's" isn't the place
+you would count on seeing a clerical-cut coat in.
+
+It's not a thoroughly disreputable place, for Jake has a decent
+enough Indian wife; but he happens also to have a cellar which has
+a hard name for illicit-whiskey supplies, though never once has the
+law, in its numerous and unannounced visits to the shanty, ever
+succeeded in discovering barrel or bottle. I consider myself a
+pretty smart man, but Jake is cleverer than I am.
+
+When young Barrett came in that night, there was a clatter of hiding
+cups. "Hello, boys," he said, and sat down wearily opposite me,
+leaning his arms on the table between us like one utterly done out.
+
+Jake, it seemed, had the distinction of knowing him; so he said
+kind of friendly-like,
+
+"Hello, parson--sick?"
+
+"Sick? Sick nothing," said Barrett, "except sick to death of this
+place. And don't 'parson' me! I'm 'parson' on Sundays; the rest of
+the six days I'm Tom Barrett--Tom, if you like."
+
+We were dead silent. For myself, I thought the fellow clean
+crazy; but the next moment he had turned half around, and with a
+quick, soft, coaxing movement, for all the world like a woman, he
+slipped his arm around Jake's shoulders, and said, "Say, Jake,
+don't let the fellows mind me," Then in a lower tone--"What have
+you got to drink?"
+
+Jake went white-looking and began to talk of some cider he'd got in
+the cellar; but Barrett interrupted with, "Look here, Jake, just
+drop that rot; I know all about _you_." He tipped a half wink at
+the rest of us, but laid his fingers across his lips. "Come, old
+man," he wheedled like a girl, "you don't know what it is to be
+dragged away from college and buried alive in this Indian bush. The
+governor's good enough, you know--treats me white and all that--but
+you know what he is on whiskey. I tell you I've got a throat as
+long and dry as a fence rail--"
+
+No one spoke.
+
+"You'll save my life if you do," he added, crushing a bank note
+into Jake's hand.
+
+Jake looked at me. The same thought flashed on us both; if we could
+get this church student on our side--Well! Things would be easy
+enough and public suspicion never touch us. Jake turned,
+resurrected the hidden cups, and went down cellar.
+
+"You're Dan McLeod, aren't you?" suggested Barrett, leaning across
+the table and looking sharply at me.
+
+"That's me," I said in turn, and sized him up. I didn't like his
+face; it was the undeniable face of a liar--small, uncertain eyes,
+set together close like those of a fox, a thin nose, a narrow,
+womanish chin that accorded with his girlish actions of coaxing,
+and a mouth I didn't quite understand.
+
+Jake had come up with the bottle, but before he could put it on the
+table Barrett snatched it like a starving dog would a hunk of meat.
+
+He peered at the label, squinting his foxy eyes, then laughed up at
+Jake.
+
+"I hope you don't sell the Indians _this_," he said, tapping the
+capsule.
+
+No, Jake never sold a drop of whiskey to Indians,--the law, you
+know, was very strict and--
+
+"Oh, I don't care whatever else you sell them," said Barrett, "but
+their red throats would never appreciate fine twelve-year-old like
+this. Come, boys."
+
+We came.
+
+"So you're Dan McLeod," he continued after the first long pull,
+"I've heard about you, too. You've got a deck of cards in your
+pocket--haven't you? Let's have a game."
+
+I looked at him, and though, as I said in the beginning, I'm not a
+good man, I felt honestly sorry for the old missionary and his wife
+at that moment.
+
+"It's no use," said the boy, reading my hesitation. "I've broken
+loose. I must have a slice of the old college life, just for
+to-night."
+
+I decided the half-cut of Indian blood on his mother's side was
+showing itself; it was just enough to give Tom a good red flavoring
+and a rare taste for gaming and liquor.
+
+We played until daylight, when Barrett said he must make his sneak
+home, and reaching for his wide-brimmed, soft felt preacher's hat,
+left--having pocketed twenty-six of our good dollars, swallowed
+unnumbered cups of twelve-year-old and won the combined respect of
+everyone at Jake's.
+
+The next Sunday Jake went to church out of curiosity. He said Tom
+Barrett "officiated" in a surplice as white as snow and with a face
+as sinless as your mother's. He preached most eloquently against
+the terrible evil of the illicit liquor trade, and implored his
+Indian flock to resist this greatest of all pitfalls. Jake even
+seemed impressed as he told us.
+
+But Tom Barrett's "breaking loose for once" was like any other
+man's. Night after night saw him at Jake's, though he never
+played to win after that first game. As the weeks went on, he got
+anxious-looking; his clerical coat began to grow seedy, his white
+ties uncared for; he lost his fresh, cheeky talk, and the climax
+came late in March when one night I found him at Jake's sitting
+alone, his face bowed down on the table above his folded arms, and
+something so disheartened in his attitude that I felt sorry for
+the boy. Perhaps it was that I was in trouble myself that day; my
+biggest "deal" of the season had been scented by the officers and
+the chances were they would come on and seize the five barrels
+of whiskey I had been as many weeks smuggling into the Reserve.
+However it was, I put my hand on his shoulder, and told him to
+brace up, asking at the same time what was wrong.
+
+"Money," he answered, looking up with kind of haggard eyes. "Dan, I
+must have money. City bills, college debts--everything has rolled
+up against me. I daren't tell the governor, and he couldn't help me
+anyway, and I can't go back for another term owing every man in my
+class." He looked suicidal. And then I made the plunge I'd been
+thinking on all day.
+
+"Would a hundred dollars be any good to you?" I eyed him hard as I
+said it, and sat down in my usual place, opposite him.
+
+"Good?" he exclaimed, half rising. "It would be an eternal
+godsend." His foxy eyes glittered. I thought I detected greed in
+them; perhaps it was only relief.
+
+I told him it was his if he would only help me, and making sure we
+were quite alone, I ran off a hurried account of my "deal," then
+proposed that he should "accidentally" meet the officers near the
+border, ring in with them as a parson would be likely to do, tell
+them he suspicioned the whiskey was directly at the opposite side
+of the Reserve to where I really had stored it, get them wild-goose
+chasing miles away, and give me a chance to clear the stuff and
+myself as well; in addition to the hundred I would give him twenty
+per cent. on the entire deal. He changed color and the sweat stood
+out on his forehead.
+
+"One hundred dollars this time to-morrow night," I said. He didn't
+move. "And twenty per cent. One hundred dollars this time to-morrow
+night," I repeated.
+
+He began to weaken. I lit my pipe and looked indifferent, though
+I knew I was a lost man if he refused--and informed. Suddenly he
+stretched his hand across the table, impulsively, and closed it
+over mine. I knew I had him solid then.
+
+"Dan," he choked up, "it's a terrible thing for a divinity student
+to do; but--" his fingers tightened nervously. "I'm with you!" Then
+in a moment, "Find some whiskey, Dan. I'm done up."
+
+He soon got braced enough to ask me who was in the deal, and what
+timber we expected to trade for. When I told him Lige Smith and
+Jack Jackson were going to help me, he looked scared and asked me
+if I thought they would split on him. He was so excited I thought
+him cowardly, but the poor devil had reason enough, I supposed, to
+want to keep the transaction from the ears of his father, or worse
+still--the bishop. He seemed easier when I assured him the boys
+were square, and immensely gratified at the news that I had already
+traded six quarts of the stuff for over a hundred dollars' worth of
+cordwood.
+
+"We'll never get it across the river to the markets," he said
+dolefully. "I came over this morning in a canoe. Ice is all out."
+
+"What about the Onondaga Jam?" I said. He winked.
+
+"That'll do. I'd forgotten it," he answered, and chirped up right
+away like a kid.
+
+But I hadn't forgotten the Jam. It had been a regular gold-mine to
+me all that open winter, when the ice froze and thawed every week
+and finally jammed itself clean to the river bottom in the throat
+of the bend up at Onondaga, and the next day the thermometer fell
+to eleven degrees below zero, freezing it into a solid block that
+bridged the river for traffic, and saved my falling fortunes.
+
+"And where's the whiskey hidden?" he asked after awhile.
+
+"No you don't," I laughed. "Parson or pal, no man living knows or
+will know where it is till he helps me haul it away. I'll trust
+none of you."
+
+"I'm not a thief," he pouted.
+
+"No," I said, "but you're blasted hard up, and I don't intend to
+place temptation in your way."
+
+He laughed good-naturedly and turned the subject aside just as Lige
+Smith and Jack Jackson came in with an unusual companion that put
+a stop to all further talk. Women were never seen at night time
+around Jake's; even his wife was invisible, and I got a sort of
+shock when I saw old Cayuga Joe's girl, Elizabeth, following at the
+boys' heels. It had been raining and the girl, a full blood Cayuga,
+shivered in the damp and crouched beside the stove.
+
+Tom Barrett started when he saw her. His color rose and he began to
+mark up the table with his thumb nail. I could see he felt his fix.
+The girl--Indian right through--showed no surprise at seeing him
+there, but that did not mean she would keep her mouth shut about it
+next day, Tom was undoubtedly _discovered_.
+
+Notwithstanding her unwelcome presence, however, Jackson managed to
+whisper to me that the Forest Warden and his officers were alive
+and bound for the Reserve the following day. But it didn't worry me
+worth a cent; I knew we were safe as a church with Tom Barrett's
+clerical coat in our midst. He was coming over to our corner now.
+
+"That hundred's right on the dead square, Dan?" he asked anxiously,
+taking my arm and moving to the window.
+
+I took a roll of bank notes from my trousers' pocket and with my
+back to the gang counted out ten tens. I always carry a good wad
+with me with a view to convenience if I have to make a hurried exit
+from the scene of my operations.
+
+He shook his head and stood away. "Not till I've earned it, McLeod."
+
+What fools very young men make of themselves sometimes. The girl
+arose, folding her damp shawl over her head, and made towards the
+door; but he intercepted her, saying it was late and as their ways
+lay in the same direction, he would take her home. She shot a quick
+glance at him and went out. Some little uneasy action of his caught
+my notice. In a second my suspicions were aroused; the meeting had
+been arranged, and I knew from what I had seen him to be that the
+girl was doomed.
+
+It was all very well for me to do up Cayuga Joe--he was the Indian
+whose hundred dollars' worth of cordwood I owned in lieu of
+six quarts of bad whiskey--but his women-folks were entitled to be
+respected at least while I was around. I looked at my watch; it was
+past midnight. I suddenly got boiling hot clean through.
+
+"Look here, Tom Barrett," I said, "I ain't a saint, as everybody
+knows; but if you don't treat that girl right, you'll have to
+square it up with me, d'you understand?"
+
+He threw me a nasty look. "Keep your gallantry for some occasion
+when it's needed, Dan McLeod," he sneered, and with a laugh I
+didn't like, he followed the girl out into the rain.
+
+I walked some distance behind them for two miles. When they reached
+her father's house and went in, I watched her through the small
+uncurtained window put something on the fire to cook, then arouse
+her mother, who even at that late hour sat beside the stove smoking
+a clay pipe. The old woman had apparently met with some accident;
+her head and shoulders were bound up, and she seemed in pain.
+Barrett talked with her considerably and once when I caught sight
+of his face, it was devilish with some black passion I did not
+recognize. Although I felt sure the girl was now all right for the
+night, there was something about this meeting I didn't like; so I
+lay around until just daylight when Jackson and Lige Smith came
+through the bush as pre-arranged should I not return to Jake's.
+
+It was not long before Elizabeth and Tom came out again and entered
+a thick little bush behind the shanty. Lige lifted the axe off the
+woodpile with a knowing look, and we all three followed silently.
+I was surprised to find it a well beaten and equally well concealed
+trail. All my suspicions returned. I knew now that Barrett was a
+bad lot all round, and as soon as I had quit using him and his
+coat, I made up my mind to rid my quarters of him; fortunately I
+knew enough about him to use that knowledge as a whip-lash.
+
+We followed them for something over a mile, when--heaven and hell!
+The trail opened abruptly on the clearing where lay my recently
+acquired cordwood with my five barrels of whiskey concealed in its
+midst.
+
+The girl strode forward, and with the strength of a man, pitched
+down a dozen sticks with lightning speed.
+
+"There!" she cried, turning to Tom. "There you find him--you find
+him whiskey. You say you spill. No more my father he's drunk all
+day, he beat my mother."
+
+I stepped out.
+
+"So, Tom Barrett," I said, "you've played the d----d sneak and
+hunted it out!"
+
+He fairly jumped at the sound of my voice; then he got white as
+paper, and then--something came into his face that I never saw
+before. It was a look like his father's, the old missionary.
+
+"Yes, McLeod," he answered. "And I've hunted _you_ out. It's cost
+me the loss of a whole term at college and a considerable amount of
+self-respect, but I've got my finger on you now!"
+
+The whole infernal trick burst right in on my intelligence. If I
+had had a revolver, he would have been a dead man; but border
+traders nowadays are not desperadoes with bowie knives and hip
+pockets--
+
+"You surely don't mean to split on me?" I asked.
+
+"I surely don't mean to do anything else," he cheeked back.
+
+"Then, Tom Barrett," I sputtered, raging, "you're the dirtiest cad
+and the foulest liar that ever drew the breath of life."
+
+"I dare say I am," he said smoothly. Then with rising anger he
+advanced, peering into my face with his foxy eyes. "And I'll tell
+you right here, Dan McLeod, I'd be a hundred times a cad, and a
+thousand times a liar to save the souls and bodies of our Indians
+from going to hell, through your cursed whiskey."
+
+I have always been a brave man, but I confess I felt childishly
+scared before the wild, mesmeric power of his eyes. I was unable to
+move a finger, but I blurted out boastfully: "If it wasn't for your
+preacher's hat and coat I'd send your sneaking soul to Kingdom
+Come, right here!"
+
+Instantly he hauled off his coat and tie and stood with clenched
+fists while his strange eyes fairly spat green fire.
+
+"Now," he fumed, "I've discarded my cloth, Dan McLeod. You've got
+to deal with a man now, not with a minister."
+
+To save my immortal soul I can't tell why I couldn't stir. I only
+know that everything seemed to drop out of sight except his two
+little blazing eyes. I stood like a fool, queered, dead queered
+right through.
+
+He turned politely to the girl. "You may go, Elizabeth," he said,
+"and thank you for your assistance." The girl turned and went up
+the trail without a word.
+
+With the agility of a cat he sprang on to the wood-pile, pitched
+off enough cordwood to expose my entire "cellar;" then going across
+to Lige, he coolly took the axe out of his hand. His face was
+white and set, but his voice was natural enough as he said:
+
+"Now, gentlemen, whoever cares to interrupt me will get the blade
+of this axe buried in his brain, as heaven is my witness."
+
+I didn't even curse as he split the five barrels into slivers and
+my well-fought-for whiskey soaked into the slush. Once he lifted
+his head and looked at me, and the mouth I didn't understand
+revealed itself; there was something about it like a young
+Napoleon's.
+
+I never hated a man in my life as I hated Tom Barrett then. That
+I daren't resist him made it worse. I watched him finish his caddish
+job, throw down the axe, take his coat over his arm, and leave the
+clearing without a word.
+
+But no sooner was he out of sight than my devilish temper broke
+out, and I cursed and blasphemed for half an hour. I'd have his
+blood if it cost my neck a rope, and that too before he could inform
+on us. The boys were with me, of course, poor sort of dogs with no
+grit of their own, and with the axe as my only weapon we left the
+bush and ran towards the river.
+
+I fairly yelled at my good luck as I reached the high bank. There,
+a few rods down shore, beside the open water sat Tom Barrett,
+calling something out to his folks across the river, and from
+upstream came the deafening thunder of the Onondaga Jam that,
+loosened by the rain, was shouldering its terrific force downwards
+with the strength of a million drunken demons.
+
+We had him like a rat in a trap, but his foxy eyes had seen us. He
+sprang to his feet, hesitated for a fraction of a moment, saw the
+murder in our faces, then did what any man but a fool would have
+done--ran.
+
+We were hot on his heels. Fifty yards distant an old dug-out lay
+hauled up. He ran it down into the water, stared wildly at the
+oncoming jam, then at us, sprang into the canoe and grabbed the
+paddle.
+
+I was murderously mad. I wheeled the axe above my shoulder and let
+fly at him. It missed his head by three inches.
+
+He was paddling for dear life now, and, our last chance gone, we
+stood riveted to the spot, watching him. On the bluff across the
+river stood his half-blood mother, the raw March wind whipping her
+skirts about her knees; but her strained, ashen face showed she
+never felt its chill. Below with his feet almost in the rapidly
+rising water, stood the old missionary, his scant grey hair blowing
+across his eyes that seemed to look out into eternity--amid stream
+Tom, paddling with the desperation of death, his head turning every
+second with the alertness of an animal to gauge the approaching
+ice-shove.
+
+Even I wished him life then. Twice I thought him caught in the
+crush, but he was out of it like an arrow, and in another moment he
+had leapt ashore while above the roar of the grinding jam I heard
+him cry out with a strange exultation:
+
+"Father, I've succeeded. I have had to be a scoundrel and a cad,
+but I've trapped them at last!"
+
+He staggered forward then, sobbing like a child, and the old man's
+arms closed round him, just as two heavy jaws of ice snatched the
+dug-out, hurled it off shore and splintered it to atoms.
+
+Well! I had made a bad blunder, which I attempted to rectify by
+reaching Buffalo that night; but Tom Barrett had won the game. I
+was arrested at Fort Erie, handcuffed, jailed, tried, convicted
+of attempted assault and illicit whiskey-trading on the Grand
+River Indian Reserve--and spent the next five years in Kingston
+Penitentiary, the guest of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen
+Victoria.
+
+
+
+Mother o' the Men
+
+A Story of the Canadian North-West Mounted Police
+
+
+The commander's wife stood on the deck of the "North Star" looking
+at the receding city of Vancouver as if to photograph within her
+eyes and heart every detail of its wonderful beauty--its
+clustering, sisterly houses, its holly hedges, its ivied walls, its
+emerald lawns, its teeming streets and towering spires. She seemed
+to realize that this was the end of the civilized trail; that
+henceforth, for many years, her sight would know only the unbroken
+line of icy ridge and sky of the northernmost outposts of the great
+Dominion. To her hand clung a little boy of ten, and about her
+hovered some twenty young fellows, gay in the scarlet tunics, the
+flashing buffalo-head buttons, that bespoke the soldierly uniform
+of the Canadian North-West Mounted Police. They were the first
+detachment bound for the Yukon, and were under her husband's
+command.
+
+She was the only woman in the "company." The major had purposely
+selected unmarried men for his staff, for in the early nineties the
+Arctic was no place for a woman. But when the Government at Ottawa
+saw fit to commission Major Lysle to face the frozen North, and
+with a handful of men build and garrison a fort at the rim of the
+Polar Seas, Mrs. Lysle quietly remarked, "I shall accompany you, so
+shall the boy," and the major blessed her in his heart, for had she
+not so decided, it would mean absolute separation from wife and
+child for from three to five years, as in those days no railways,
+no telegraph lines, stretched their pulsing fingers into the
+Klondyke. One mail went in, one mail came out, each year--that was
+all.
+
+"It's good-bye, Graham lad," said one of the scarlet-coated
+soldiers, tossing the little boy to his back. "Look your longest
+at those paved streets, and the green, green things. There'll be
+months of just snow away up there," and he nodded towards the
+north.
+
+"Oh, but father says it won't be lonely at all up there," asserted
+the child. "He says I'll grow _terribly_ big in a few years; that
+people always grow in the North, and maybe I'll soon be able to
+wear buffalo buttons and have stripes on my sleeve like you;" and
+the childish fingers traced the outline of the sergeant's chevrons.
+
+"I hope, dear, that you shall do all that, soon," said Mrs. Lysle;
+"but first you must _win_ those stripes, my boy, and if you win them
+as the sergeant did, mother shall be very proud of you."
+
+At which, the said sergeant hastily set the boy down, and, with
+confusion written all over his strong young face, made some excuse
+to disappear, for no man in the world is as shy or modest about his
+deeds of valor as is a North-West "Mounted."
+
+"Won't you tell me, mother, how Sergeant Black got those stripes on
+his sleeve?" begged the boy.
+
+"Perhaps to-night, son, when you are in bed--just before mother
+says good-night--we'll see. But look! there is the city, fading,
+fading." Then after a short silence: "There, Graham, it has gone."
+
+"But isn't that it 'way over there, mother?" persisted the boy. "I
+see the sun shining on the roofs."
+
+Mrs. Lysle shook her head. "No, dearie; that is the snow on the
+mountain peaks. The city has--gone."
+
+But far into the twilight she yet stood watching the purple sea,
+the dove-gray coast. Her world was with her--the man she had chosen
+for her life partner, and the little boy that belonged to them
+both--but there are times even in the life of a wife and mother
+when her soul rebels at cutting herself off from her womenkind, and
+all that environment of social life among women means, even if the
+act itself is voluntary on her part. It was a relief, then, from
+her rather sombre musing at the ship's rail, when the major lightly
+placed both hands on her shoulders and said, "Grahamie has toddled
+off to the stateroom. The sea air is weighting down his eyelids."
+
+"Sea air?" laughed Mrs. Lysle. "Don't you believe it, Horace. The
+young monkey had been just scampering about the deck with the men
+until his little legs are tired out. I'm half afraid our 'Mounted'
+boys bid fair to spoil him. I'll go to him, for I promised him a
+story to-night."
+
+"Which you would rather perish than not tell him, if you promised,"
+smiled the major. "You govern that boy the same way I do my men,
+eh, dear?"
+
+"It's the only way to govern boys or soldiers," she laughed back
+from the head of the companionway. "Then both boy and soldier will
+keep their promises to you."
+
+The Major watched her go below, then said to himself, "She's
+right--she's always right. She was right to come north, and bring
+him, too. But I am a coward, for I daren't tell her she'll have to
+part from him, or from me, some day. He will have to be sent to the
+front again; he can't grow up unlearned, untaught, and there are no
+schools in our Arctic world, and she must go with him, or stay with
+me; but I can't tell her. Yes, I'm a coward." But Major Lysle was
+the only person in all the world who would have thought or said so.
+
+"And will you tell me how Sergeant Black won his stripes, mother,
+before I go to sleep?" begged Graham.
+
+"Yes, little 'North-West,'" she replied, using the pet name the men
+in barracks frequently called the child. "It's just a wee story of
+one man fighting it out alone--just alone, single-handed--with no
+reinforcements but his own courage, his own self-reliance."
+
+"That's just what father says, isn't it, mother, to just do things
+yourself?" asked the boy.
+
+"That's it, dear, and that is what Sergeant Black did. He was only
+corporal then, and he was dispatched from headquarters to arrest
+some desperate horse thieves who were trying to drive a magnificent
+bunch of animals across the boundary line into the United States,
+and then sell them. These men were breaking two laws. They had not
+only stolen the horses, but were trying to evade the American
+Customs. Your father always called them 'The Rapparees,' for they
+were Irish, and fighters, and known from the Red River to the
+Rockies as plunderers and desperadoes. There was some trouble to
+the north at the same time; barracks was pretty well thinned; not
+a man could be spared to help him. But when Corporal Black got his
+instructions and listened to the commanding officer say, 'If that
+detachment returns from the Qu'Appelle Valley within twenty-four
+hours, I'll order them out to assist you, corporal,' the plucky
+little soldier just stood erect, clicked his heels together,
+saluted, and replied, 'I can do it alone, sir.'
+
+"'I notice you don't say you _think_ you can do it alone,' remarked
+the officer dryly. He was a lenient man and often conversed with
+his men.
+
+"'It is not my place to _think_, sir. I've just got to _do_,'
+replied the corporal, and saluting again he was gone.
+
+"All that night he galloped up the prairie trail on the track of
+the thieves, and just before daybreak he sighted them, entrenched
+in a coulee, where their campfires made no glow, and the neighing
+horses could not be heard. There were six men all told, busying
+themselves getting breakfast and staking the animals preparatory to
+hiding through the day hours, and getting across the boundary line
+the next night. Both men and beasts were wearied with the long
+journey, but Corporal Black is the sort of man that _never_ wearies
+in either brain or body. He never hesitated a second. Jerking his
+rat-skin cap down, covering his face as much as possible, he rode
+silently around to the south of the encampment, clutched a revolver
+in each hand, and rode within earshot, then said four words:
+
+"'Stand, or I fire!' If a cyclone had swooped down on them, the
+thieves could not have been more astounded. But they stood, and
+stood yards away from their own guns. Then they demanded to know
+who he was, for of course they thought him a thief like themselves,
+probably following them to capture their spoil. Then Corporal Black
+unbuttoned his great-coat and flung it wide open, displaying the
+brilliant scarlet tunic of our own dear Mounted Police. They needed
+no other reply. At the point of his revolver he ordered them to
+unstake the horses. Then not one man was allowed to mount, but,
+breakfastless and frenzied, they were compelled to walk before him,
+driving the stolen animals ahead, mile upon mile, league after
+league.
+
+"Father says it was a strange-looking procession that trudged into
+barracks. Twenty beautiful, spirited horses, six hangdog-looking
+thieves, with a single exhausted horse in the rear, on which was
+mounted an alert, keen-eyed and very hungry young soldier who wore
+a scarlet tunic and buffalo-head buttons. The next day Corporal
+Black had another stripe on his sleeve." [The foregoing story is an
+actual occurrence. The author had the honor of knowing personally
+the North-West Mounted Policeman who achieved his rank through this
+action.]
+
+Her voice ceased, and she looked down at her son. The child lay for
+a moment, wide-eyed and tense. Then some indescribable quality
+seemed to make him momentarily too large, too tall, for the narrow
+ship's berth. Then:
+
+"And he fought it out _alone_, mother, just alone--single-handed?"
+
+"Yes, Grahamie," she said, softly.
+
+"Fought alone!" he said almost to himself. Then aloud: "Thank you,
+mother, for telling me that story. Perhaps some day I'll have to
+fight it out alone, and when I do, I'll try to remember Sergeant
+Black. Good-night, mother."
+
+"Good-night, my boy."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The long, long winter was doing its worst, and that was unspeakable
+in its dreariness and its misery. The "Fort" was just about
+completed before things froze up--narrow, small quarters
+constructed of rough logs, surrounded by a stockade--but above its
+roof the Union Jack floated, and beneath it flashed the scarlet
+tunics, the buffalo-head buttons, the clanking spurs of as brave
+a band of men, "queened over" by as courageous a woman, as ever
+Gibraltar or the Throne Room knew.
+
+As time went on the major's wife began to find herself "Mother o'
+the Men" (as an old Klondyker named her), as well as of her own
+boy. Those blizzard-blown, snow-hardened, ice-toughened soldiers
+went to her for everything--sympathy, assistance, advice--for in
+that lonely outpost military lines were less strictly drawn, and
+she could oftentimes do for the men what would be considered
+amazingly unofficial, were those little humane kindnesses done in
+barracks at Regina or Macleod or Calgary. She nursed the men
+through every illness, preparing the food herself for the invalids.
+She attended to many a frozen face and foot and finger. She
+smoothed out their differences, inspirited them when they grew
+discouraged, talked to them of their own people, so that their
+home ties should not be entirely severed because they could write
+letters or receive them but once a year. But there were days when
+the sight of a woman's face would have been a glimpse of paradise
+to her, days when she almost wildly regretted her boy had not been
+a girl--just a little sweet-voiced girl, a thing of her own sex and
+kind. But it always seemed at these moments that Grahamie would
+providentially rush in to her with some glad story of sport or
+adventure, and she would snatch him tightly in her arms and say,
+"No, no, boy of mine, I don't want even a girlie, if I may only
+keep you." And once when her thoughts had been more than usually
+traitorous in wishing he had been a girl, the child seemed to
+divine some idea of her struggle; for a moment his firm little
+fingers caught her hand encouragingly, and he said in a whisper,
+"Are you fighting it out alone, mother--just single-handed?"
+
+"Just single-handed, dearest," she replied.
+
+Then he scampered away, but paused to call back gravely, "Remember
+Sergeant Black, mother."
+
+"Yes, Grahamie, I'll try to," she replied brightly. At that moment
+he was the lesser child of the two.
+
+And so the winter crept slowly on, and the brief, brilliant summer
+flitted in, then out, like a golden dream. The second snows were
+upon the little fort, the second Christmas, the second long, long
+weeks and months of the new year. An unspoken horror was staring
+them all in the face: navigation did not open when expected, and
+supplies were running low, pitifully low. The smoked and dried
+meats, the canned things, flour, sealed lard, oatmeal, hard-tack,
+dried fruits--_everything_ was slowly but inevitably giving out day
+upon day. Before and behind them stretched hummocks of trailless
+snow. Not an Indian, not a dog train, not even a wild animal, had
+set foot in that waste for weeks. In early March the major's wife
+had hidden a single package of gelatine, a single tin of dried
+beef, and a single half pound of cornstarch. "If sickness comes
+to my boys" (she did not say boy), "I shall at least have saved
+these," she told herself, in justification of her act. "A sick man
+cannot live on beans." But now they were down to beans--just beans
+and lard boiled together. Then a day dawned when there was not even
+a spoonful of lard left. "Beans straight!"--it was the death knell,
+for beans straight--beans without grease--kill the strongest man in
+a brief span of days. Oh, that the ice bridges would melt, the seas
+open, the ships come!
+
+But that night the men at mess had beans with unlimited grease, its
+peculiar flavor peppered and spiced out of it. Life, life was to be
+theirs even yet! What had renewed it?
+
+But one of the men had caught something on his fork and extracted
+it from the food on his plate. It was an overlooked _wick_. The
+major's wife had begun to boil up the tallow candles. [Fact.] But
+the cheer that shook that rough log roof came right from hearts
+that blessed her, and brought her to the door of the men's
+mess-room. The men were on their feet instantly. "A light has
+broken upon us, or rather _within_ us, Mrs. Lysle!" cried a
+self-selected spokesman.
+
+"Illuminating, isn't it, boys?" She laughed, then turned away, for
+the cheers and tears were very close together.
+
+Then one day when even starving stomachs almost revolted at the
+continued coarse mixture, a ribbon of blue proclaimed the open sea,
+and into those waters swept the longed-for ship. Yet, strangely
+enough, that night the "Mother o' the Men" wept a storm of tears,
+the only tears she had yielded to in those long five years. For
+with its blessing of food the ship had her hold bursting with
+liquors and wines, the hideous commerce that invades the pioneer
+places of the earth. Should the already weakened, ill-fed and
+scurvy-threatened garrison break into those supplies, all the labor
+and patience and mothering of this courageous woman would be
+useless, for after a bean diet in the Northern latitudes, whiskey
+is deadly to brain and body, and the victim maddens or dies.
+
+"You are crying, mother, and the ship here at last!" said Grahamie's
+voice at her shoulder. "Crying when we are all so happy."
+
+"Mother is a little upset, dear. You must try to forget you ever
+saw her eyes wet."
+
+"I'll forget," said the boy with a finality she could not question.
+"The ship is so full of good things, mother. We'll think of that,
+and--forget, won't we?" he added.
+
+"_All_ the things in the ship are not good, Grahamie, boy. If they
+were, mother would not cry," she said.
+
+"I see," he said, but stole from her side with a strained, puzzled
+look in his young eyes.
+
+Outside he was met by a laughing, joyous dozen of men. One swung
+the child to his shoulder, shouting, "Hurrah, little 'North-West'!
+Hurrah! we are all coming to pay tribute to your mother. Look at
+the dainties we have got for her from the ship!"
+
+"I'm afraid you can't see mother just now," said the boy. "Mother
+is a little upset. You see, the ship is so full of good things--but
+then, _all_ the things in the ship are not good. If they were,
+mother would not cry." In the last words he unconsciously imitated
+his mother's voice.
+
+A profound silence enveloped the men. Then one spoke. "She'll never
+have cause to cry about anything _I_ do, boys."
+
+"Nor I!" "Nor I!" "Nor I!" rang out voice after voice.
+
+"Run back, you blessed little 'North-West,' and tell mother not to
+be scared for the boys. We'll stand by her to a man. She'll never
+regret that ship's coming in," said the gallant soldier, slipping
+the boy to the ground. And to the credit of the men who wore
+buffalo-head buttons, she never did.
+
+And in all her Yukon years the major's wife had but one more
+heartache. That agonizing winter had taught her many things, but
+the bitterest knowledge to come to her was the fact that her boy
+must be sent "to the front." To be sure, he was growing up the pet
+of all the police; he was becoming manlier, sturdier, more
+self-reliant every day. But education he _must_ have, and another
+winter of such deprivation and horror he was too young, too tender,
+to endure. It was then that the battle arose in her heart. The boy
+was to be sent to college. Was it her place to accompany him to the
+distant South-east, to live by herself alone in the college town,
+just to be near him and watch over his young life, or was it here
+with her pioneer soldier husband, and his little isolated garrison
+of "boys" whom she had mothered for two years?
+
+The inevitable day came when she had to shut her teeth and watch
+Grahamie go aboard the southward-bound vessel alone, in the care of
+a policeman who was returning on sick leave--to watch him stand at
+the rail, his little face growing dimmer and more shadowy as the
+sea widened between them--watch him through tearless, courageous
+eyes, then turn away with the hopelessness of knowing that for one
+entire endless year she must wait for word of his arrival. [Fact.]
+But his last brave good-bye words rang through her ears every day
+of that eternal year: "We'll remember Sergeant Black, won't we,
+mother? And we'll each fight it out alone, single-handed, and maybe
+they'll give us a chevron for our sleeves when it's over."
+
+But that night when the barracks was wrapped in gloom over the
+loss of its boy chum, the surgeon appeared in the men's quarters.
+"Hello, boys!" he said, none too cheerfully. "Dull doings, I say.
+I'm busy enough, though, keeping an eye on Madam, the major's lady.
+She's so deadly quiet, so self-controlled, I'm just a little afraid.
+I wish something would happen to--well, make her less calm."
+
+"_I'll_ 'happen,' doctor," chirped up a genial-looking young chap
+named O'Keefe. "I'll get sick and threaten to die. You say it's
+serious; she'll be all interest and medicine spoons, and making me
+jelly inside an hour."
+
+The surgeon eyed him sternly, then: "O'Keefe," he said, "you're the
+cleverest man I ever came across in the force, and I've been in it
+eleven years. But, man alive! what have you been doing to yourself?
+Overwork, no food--why, man, you're sick; look as if you had fever
+and a touch of pneumonia. You're a very sick man. Go to bed at
+once--at once, I say!"
+
+O'Keefe looked the surgeon in the eye, winked meaningly, and
+O'Keefe turned in, although it was but early afternoon. At six
+o'clock an orderly stood at the door of the major's quarters. Mrs.
+Lysle was standing on the steps, her eyes fixed on the far horizon
+across which a ship had melted away.
+
+"Beg pardon, madam," said the orderly, saluting, "but young O'Keefe
+is very ill. We have had the surgeon, but the--the--pain's getting
+worse. He's just yelling with agony."
+
+"I'll go at once, orderly. I should have been told before," she
+replied; and burying her own heartache, she hurried to the men's
+quarters. Her anxious eyes sought the surgeon's. "Oh, doctor!" she
+said, "this poor fellow must be looked after. What can I do to
+help?"
+
+"Everything, Mrs. Lysle," gruffed the surgeon with a professional
+air. "He is very ill. He must be kept wrapped in hot linseed
+poultices and--"
+
+"Oh, I say, doctor," remonstrated poor O'Keefe, "I'm not that bad."
+
+"You're a very sick man," scowled the surgeon. "Now, Mrs. Lysle has
+graciously offered to help nurse you. She'll see that you have hot
+fomentations every half hour. I'll drop in twice a day to see how
+you are getting along." And with that miserable prospect before
+him, poor O'Keefe watched the surgeon disappear.
+
+"I simply _had_ to order those half-hour fomentations, old man,"
+apologized the surgeon that night. "You see, she must be kept
+busy--just kept at it every minute we can make her do so. Do you
+think you can stand it?"
+
+"Of course I can," fumed the victim. "But for goodness' sake, don't
+put me on sick rations! I'll die, sure, if you do."
+
+"I've ordered you the best the commissariat boasts--heaps of meat,
+butter, even eggs, my boy. Think of it--_eggs_--you lucky young
+Turk!" laughed the surgeon.
+
+Then followed nights and days of torture. The "boys" would line up
+to the "sick-room" four times daily, and blandly ask how he was.
+
+"How _am_ I?" young O'Keefe would bellow. "How _am_ I? I'm well and
+strong enough to brain every one of you fellows, surgeon included,
+when I get out of this!"
+
+"But when _are_ you going to get out? When will you be out danger?"
+they would chuckle.
+
+"Just when I see that haunted look go out of her eyes, and not till
+then!" he would roar.
+
+And he kept his word. He was really weak when he got up, and
+pretended to be weaker, but the lines of acute self-control had
+left Mrs. Lysle's face, the suffering had gone from her eyes, the
+day the noble O'Keefe took his first solid meal in her presence.
+
+Even the major never discovered that worthy bit of deception. But
+a year later, when the mail went out, the surgeon sent the entire
+story to Graham, who, in writing to his mother the following year,
+perplexed her by saying:
+
+"....But there are three men in the force I love better than
+anyone in the world except you, mother. The first, of course, is
+father, the others, Sergeant Black and Private O'Keefe."
+
+"Why O'Keefe?" she asked herself.
+
+But loyal little "North-West" never told her.
+
+
+
+The Nest Builder
+
+
+"Well! if some women aren't born just to laugh!" remarked the
+station agent's wife. "Have you seen that round-faced woman in the
+waiting-room?"
+
+"No," replied the agent. "I've been too busy; I've had to help
+unload freight. I heard some children in there, though; they were
+playing and laughing to beat the band."
+
+"_Nine_ of them, John! _Nine_ of them, and the oldest just twelve!"
+gasped his wife. "Why, I'd be crazy if I were in her place.
+She's come all the way from Grey or Bruce in Ontario--I forget
+which--with not a soul to help her with that flock. Three of them
+are almost babies. The smallest one is a darling--just sits on the
+bench in there and dimples and gurgles and grins all the time."
+
+"Hasn't she got a husband?" asked John.
+
+"Of course," asserted his wife. "But that's just the problem now,
+or rather he's the problem. He came to Manitoba a year ago, and
+was working right here in this town. He doesn't seem to have had
+much luck, and left last week for some ranch away back of Brandon,
+she now finds out; she must have crossed his letter as she came
+out. She expected to find him here, and now she is in that
+waiting-room with nine children, no money to go further, or to
+go to a hotel even, and she's--well, she's just good-natured and
+smiling, and not a bit worried. As I say, some women are born just
+to laugh."
+
+"Have they anything to eat?" asked the agent, anxiously.
+
+"Stacks of it--a huge hamper. But I took the children what milk we
+had, and made her take a cup of good hot tea. She _would_ pay me,
+however, I couldn't stop her. But I noticed she has mighty little
+change in her purse, and she said she had no money, and said it
+with a round, untroubled, smiling face." The agent's wife spoke
+the last words almost with envy.
+
+"I'll try and locate the husband," said the agent.
+
+"Yes, she'll get his address to-night, she says," explained the
+wife; "but no one knows when he will get here. Most likely he's
+twenty miles away from Brandon, and they will have to send out
+for him."
+
+Which eventually proved to be the case; and three days elapsed
+before the husband and father was able to reach the little border
+town where his wife and ample family had been installed as
+residents of the general waiting-room of a small, scantily-equipped
+station. No beds, no washing conveniences, no table, no chairs;
+just the wall seats, with a roof above them and the pump water
+at the end of the platform to drink from and dabble in. The
+distressed man arrived, harrassed and anxious, only to be met by a
+round-faced, laughing wife and nine round-faced, laughing children,
+who all made sport of their "camping" experience, and assured him
+they could have "stood it" a little longer, if need be.
+
+But they slept in beds that night--glorious, feathery beds,
+that were in reality but solid hemp mattresses--in the cheapest
+lodging-house in town.
+
+Then began the home-building. Henderson had secured a quarter
+section of land and made two payments on it when his wife and
+children arrived, with all their "settlers' effects" in a freight
+car, which, truth to tell, were meagre enough. They had never
+really owned a home in the East, and when, with saving and selling,
+she managed to follow her husband into the promising world of
+Manitoba, she determined to possess a home, no matter how crude,
+how small, how remote. So Henderson hired horses and "teamed" out
+sufficient lumber and tar-paper to erect a shack which measured
+exactly eighteen by twelve feet, then sodded the roof in true
+Manitoba style, and into this cramped abode Mrs. Henderson stowed
+her household goods and nine small children. With the stove, table,
+chairs, tubs and trunks, there was room for but one bed to be
+put up. Poor, unresourceful Henderson surveyed the crowded shack
+helplessly, but that round-faced, smiling wife of his was not a
+particle discouraged. "We'll just build in two sets of bunks, on
+each end of the house," she laughed. "The children won't mind
+sleeping on 'shelves,' for the bread-winners must have the bed."
+
+So they economized space with a dozen such little plans, and all
+through the unpacking and settling and arranging, she would say
+every hour or two, "Oh, it's a little crowded and stuffy, but it's
+_ours_--it's _home_," until Henderson and the children caught
+something of her inspiration, and the sod-roof shack became "home"
+in the sweetest sense of the word.
+
+There are some people who "make" time for everything, and this
+remarkable mother was one. That winter she baked bread for every
+English bachelor ranchman within ten miles. She did their washing
+and ironing, and never neglected her own, either. She knitted socks
+for them, and made and sold quantities of Saskatoon berry jam. When
+spring came she had over fifty dollars of her own, with which she
+promptly bought a cow. Then late in March they made a small first
+payment of a team of horses, and "broke land" for the first time,
+plowing and seeding a few acres of virgin prairie and getting a
+start.
+
+But her quaintest invention to utilize every resource possible was
+a novel scheme for chicken-raising. One morning the children came
+in greatly excited over finding a wild duck's nest in the nearby
+"slough." Mrs. Henderson told them to be very careful not to
+frighten the bird, but to go back and search every foot of the
+grassy edges and try to discover other nests. They succeeded in
+finding three. That day a neighboring English rancher, driving past
+on his way to Brandon, twenty miles distant, called out, "Want
+anything from town, Mrs. Henderson?"
+
+"Eggs, just eggs, if you will bring them, like a good boy," she
+answered, running out to the trail to meet him.
+
+"Why, you _are_ luxurious to-day, and eggs at fifty cents a dozen,"
+he exclaimed.
+
+"Never mind," she replied, "they're not nearly so luxurious as
+chickens. You just bring me a dozen and a half. Pay _any_ price,
+but be sure they are fresh, new laid, right off the nest. Now just
+insist on that, or we shall quarrel." And with a menacing shake of
+a forefinger and a customary laugh, she handed him a precious bank
+note to pay for the treasures.
+
+The next day Mrs. Henderson adroitly substituted hen's eggs for the
+wild ducks' own, and the shy, pretty water fowls, returning from
+their morning's swim, never discovered the fraud. [Fact.]
+
+"Six eggs under three sitters--eighteen chicks, if we're lucky
+enough to have secured fertile eggs," mused Mrs. Henderson. "Oh,
+well, we'll see." And they _did_ see. They saw exactly eighteen
+fluffy, peeping chicks, whose timid little mothers could not
+understand why their broods disappeared one by one from the long,
+wet grasses surrounding the nest. But in a warm canton flannel
+lined basket near the Henderson's stove the young arrivals chirped
+and picked at warm meal as sturdily as if hatched in a coop by a
+commonplace barnyard "Biddy." And every one of those chicks lived
+and grew and fattened into a splendid flock, and the following
+spring they began sitting on their own eggs. But the good-hearted
+woman, in relating the story, would always say that she felt like
+a thief and a robber whenever she thought of that shy, harmless
+little wild duck who never had the satisfaction of seeing her brood
+swim in the "slough."
+
+All this happened more than twenty years ago, yet when I met Mrs.
+Henderson last autumn, as she was journeying to Prince Albert to
+visit a married daughter, her wonderfully youthful face was as
+round and smiling as if she had never battled through the years
+in a hand-to-hand fight to secure a home in the pioneer days
+of Manitoba. She is well off now, and lives no more in the
+twelve-by-eighteen-foot bunk-house, but when I asked her how she
+accomplished so much, she replied, "I just jollied things along,
+and laughed over the hard places. It makes them easier then."
+
+So perhaps the station agent's wife was really right, after all,
+when she remarked that "some women were just born to laugh."
+
+
+
+The Tenas Klootchman
+
+[In Chinook language "Tenas Klootchman" means "girl baby."]
+
+
+This story came to me from the lips of Maarda herself. It was hard
+to realize, while looking at her placid and happy face, that Maarda
+had ever been a mother of sorrows, but the healing of a wounded
+heart oftentimes leaves a light like that of a benediction on a
+receptive face, and Maarda's countenance held something greater
+than beauty, something more like lovableness, than any other
+quality.
+
+We sat together on the deck of the little steamer throughout the
+long violet twilight, that seems loath to leave the channels and
+rocky of the Upper Pacific in June time. We had dropped easily
+into conversation, for nothing so readily helps one to an
+introduction as does the friendly atmosphere of the extreme West,
+and I had paved the way by greeting her in the Chinook, to which
+she responded with a sincere and friendly handclasp.
+
+Dinner on the small coast-wise steamers is almost a function. It is
+the turning-point of the day, and is served English fashion, in
+the evening. The passengers "dress" a little for it, eat the meal
+leisurely and with relish. People who perhaps have exchanged no
+conversation during the day, now relax, and fraternize with their
+fellow men and women.
+
+I purposely secured a seat at the dining-table beside Maarda.
+Even she had gone through a simple "dressing" for dinner, having
+smoothed her satiny black hair, knotted a brilliant silk
+handkerchief about her throat, and laid aside her large, heavy
+plaid shawl, revealing a fine delaine gown of green, bordered with
+two flat rows of black silk velvet ribbon. That silk velvet ribbon,
+and the fashion in which it was applied, would have bespoken her
+nationality, even had her dark copper-colored face failed to do so.
+
+The average Indian woman adores silk and velvet, and will have none
+of cotton, and these decorations must be in symmetrical rows, not
+designs. She holds that the fabric is in itself excellent enough.
+Why twist it and cut it into figures that would only make it less
+lovely?
+
+We chatted a little during dinner. Maarda told me that she and her
+husband lived at the Squamish River, some thirty-five miles north
+of Vancouver City, but when I asked if they had any children, she
+did not reply, but almost instantly called my attention to a
+passing vessel seen through the porthole. I took the hint, and
+said no more of family matters, but talked of the fishing and the
+prospects of a good sockeye run this season.
+
+Afterwards, however, while I stood alone on deck watching the sun
+set over the rim of the Pacific, I felt a feathery touch on my arm.
+I turned to see Maarda, once more enveloped in her shawl, and
+holding two deck stools. She beckoned with a quick uplift of her
+chin, and said, "We'll sit together here, with no one about us, and
+I'll tell you of the child." And this was her story:
+
+She was the most beautiful little Tenas Klootchman a mother could
+wish for, bright, laughing, pretty as a spring flower, but--just as
+frail. Such tiny hands, such buds of feet! One felt that they must
+never take her out of her cradle basket for fear that, like a
+flower stem, she would snap asunder and her little head droop like
+a blossom.
+
+But Maarda's skilful fingers had woven and plaited and colored the
+daintiest cradle basket in the entire river district for his little
+woodland daughter. She had fished long and late with her husband,
+so that the canner's money would purchase silk "blankets" to enwrap
+her treasure; she had beaded cradle bands to strap the wee body
+securely in its cosy resting-nest. Ah, it was such a basket, fit
+for an English princess to sleep in! Everything about it was fine,
+soft, delicate, and everything born of her mother-love.
+
+So, for weeks, for even months, the little Tenas Klootchman laughed
+and smiled, waked and slept, dreamed and dimpled in her pretty
+playhouse. Then one day, in the hot, dry summer, there was no
+smile. The dimples did not play. The little flower paled, the small
+face grew smaller, the tiny hands tinier; and one morning, when the
+birds awoke in the forests of the Squamish, the eyes of the little
+Tenas Klootchman remained closed.
+
+They put her to sleep under the giant cedars, the lulling, singing
+firs, the whispering pines that must now be her lullaby, instead of
+her mother's voice crooning the child-songs of the Pacific, that
+tell of baby foxes and gamboling baby wolves and bright-eyed baby
+birds. Nothing remained to Maarda but an empty little cradle
+basket, but smoothly-folded silken "blankets," but disused beaded
+bands. Often at nightfall she would stand alone, and watch the sun
+dip into the far waters, leaving the world as gray and colorless
+as her own life; she would outstretch her arms--pitifully empty
+arms--towards the west, and beneath her voice again croon the
+lullabies of the Pacific, telling of the baby foxes, the soft,
+furry baby wolves, and the little downy fledglings in the nests.
+Once in an agony of loneliness she sang these things aloud, but her
+husband heard her, and his face turned gray and drawn, and her soul
+told her she must not be heard again singing these things aloud.
+
+And one evening a little steamer came into harbor. Many Indians
+came ashore from it, as the fishing season had begun. Among others
+was a young woman over whose face the finger of illness had traced
+shadows and lines of suffering. In her arms she held a baby, a
+beautiful, chubby, round-faced, healthy child that seemed too heavy
+for her wasted form to support. She looked about her wistfully,
+evidently seeking a face that was not there, and as the steamer
+pulled out of the harbor, she sat down weakly on the wharf, laid
+the child across her lap, and buried her face in her hands. Maarda
+touched her shoulder.
+
+"Who do you look for?" she asked.
+
+"For my brother Luke 'Alaska,'" replied the woman. "I am ill, my
+husband is dead, my brother will take care of me; he's a good man."
+
+"Luke 'Alaska,'" said Maarda. What had she heard of Luke "Alaska?"
+Why, of course, he was one of the men her own husband had taken a
+hundred miles up the coast as axeman on a surveying party, but she
+dared not tell this sick woman. She only said: "You had better come
+with me. My husband is away, but in a day of two he will be able to
+get news to your brother. I'll take care of you till they come."
+
+The woman arose gratefully, then swayed unsteadily under the weight
+of the child. Maarda's arms were flung out, yearningly, longingly,
+towards the baby.
+
+"Where is your cradle basket to carry him in?" she asked, looking
+about among the boxes and bales of merchandise the steamer had left
+on the wharf.
+
+"I have no cradle basket. I was too weak to make one, too poor to
+buy one. I have _nothing_," said the woman.
+
+"Then let me carry him," said Maarda. "It's quite a walk to my
+place; he's too heavy for you."
+
+The woman yielded the child gratefully, saying, "It's not a boy,
+but a Tenas Klootchman."
+
+Maarda could hardly believe her senses. That splendid, sturdy,
+plump, big baby a Tenas Klootchman! For a moment her heart surged
+with bitterness. Why had her own little girl been so frail, so
+flower-like? But with the touch of that warm baby body, the
+bitterness faded. She walked slowly, fitting her steps to those of
+the sick woman, and jealously lengthening the time wherein she
+could hold and hug the baby in her yearning arms.
+
+The woman was almost exhausted when they reached Maarda's home, but
+strong tea and hot, wholesome food revived her; but fever burned
+brightly in her cheeks and eyes. The woman was very ill, extremely
+ill. Maarda said, "You must go to bed, and as soon as you are
+there, I will take the canoe and go for a doctor. It is two or
+three miles, but you stay resting, and I'll bring him. We will put
+the Tenas Klootchman beside you in--" she hesitated. Her glance
+travelled up to the wall above, where a beautiful empty cradle
+basket hung, with folded silken "blankets" and disused beaded
+bands.
+
+The woman's gaze followed hers, a light of beautiful understanding
+pierced the fever glare of her eyes, she stretched out her hot hand
+protestingly, and said, "Don't put her in--that. Keep that, it is
+yours. She is used to being rolled only in my shawl."
+
+But Maarda had already lifted the basket down, and was tenderly
+arranging the wrappings. Suddenly her hands halted, she seemed to
+see a wee flower face looking up to her like the blossom of a
+russet-brown pansy. She turned abruptly, and, going to the door,
+looked out speechlessly on the stretch of sea and sky glimmering
+through the tree trunks.
+
+For a time she stood. Then across the silence broke the little
+murmuring sound of the baby half crooning, half crying, indoors,
+the little cradleless baby that, homeless, had entered her home.
+Maarda returned, and, lifting the basket, again arranged the
+wrappings. "The Tenas Klootchman shall have this cradle," she said,
+gently. The sick woman turned her face to the wall and sobbed.
+
+It was growing dark when Maarda left her guests, and entered her
+canoe on the quest for a doctor. The clouds hung low, and a fine,
+slanting rain fell, from which she protected herself as best she
+could with a shawl about her shoulders, crossed in front, with each
+end tucked into her belt beneath her arms--Indian-fashion. Around
+rocks and boulders, headlands and crags, she paddled, her little
+craft riding the waves like a cork, but pitching and plunging with
+every stroke. By and by the wind veered, and blew head on, and now
+and again she shipped water; her skirts began dragging heavily
+about her wet ankles, and her moccasins were drenched. The wind
+increased, and she discarded her shawl to afford greater freedom to
+her arm-play. The rain drove and slanted across her shoulders and
+head, and her thick hair was dripping with sea moisture and the
+downpour.
+
+Sometimes she thought of beaching the canoe and seeking shelter
+until daylight. Then she again saw those fever-haunted eyes of the
+stranger who was within her gates, again heard the half wail of the
+Tenas Klootchman in her own baby's cradle basket, and at the sound
+she turned her back on the possible safety of shelter, and forged
+ahead.
+
+It was a wearied woman who finally knocked at the doctor's door and
+bade him hasten. But his strong man's arm found the return journey
+comparatively easy paddling. The wind helped him, and Maarda also
+plied her bow paddle, frequently urging him to hasten.
+
+It was dawn when they entered her home. The sick woman moaned, and
+the child fretted for food. The doctor bent above his patient,
+shaking his head ruefully as Maarda built the fire, and attended to
+the child's needs before she gave thought to changing her drenched
+garments. All day she attended her charges, cooked, toiled,
+watched, forgetting her night of storm and sleeplessness in the
+greater anxieties of ministering to others. The doctor came and
+went between her home and the village, but always with that solemn
+headshake, that spoke so much more forcibly than words.
+
+"She shall not die!" declared Maarda. "The Tenas Klootchman needs
+her, she shall not die!" But the woman grew feebler daily, her eyes
+grew brighter, her cheeks burned with deeper scarlet.
+
+"We must fight for it now," said the doctor. And Maarda and he
+fought the dread enemy hour after hour, day after day.
+
+Bereft of its mother's care, the Tenas Klootchman turned to Maarda,
+laughed to her, crowed to her, until her lonely heart embraced the
+child as a still evening embraces a tempestuous day. Once she had a
+long, terrible fight with herself. She had begun to feel her
+ownership in the little thing, had begun to regard it as her right
+to tend and pet it. Her heart called out for it; and she wanted it
+for her very own. She began to feel a savage, tigerish joy in
+thinking--aye, _knowing_ that it really would belong to her and to
+her alone soon--very soon.
+
+When this sensation first revealed itself to her, the doctor was
+there--had even told her the woman could not recover. Maarda's
+gloriously womanly soul was horrified at itself. She left the
+doctor in charge, and went to the shore, fighting out this
+outrageous gladness, strangling it--killing it.
+
+She returned, a sanctified being, with every faculty in her body,
+every sympathy of her heart, every energy of her mind devoted to
+bringing this woman back from the jaws of death. She greeted the
+end of it all with a sorrowing, half-breaking heart, for she had
+learned to love the woman she had envied, and to weep for the
+little child who lay so helplessly against her unselfish heart.
+
+A beautifully lucid half-hour came to the fever-stricken one just
+before the Call to the Great Beyond!
+
+"Maarda," she said, "you have been a good Tillicum to me, and I
+can give you nothing for all your care, your kindness--unless--"
+Her eyes wandered to her child peacefully sleeping in the
+delicately-woven basket. Maarda saw the look, her heart leaped with
+a great joy. Did the woman wish to give the child to her? She dared
+not ask for it. Suppose Luke "Alaska" wanted it. His wife loved
+children, though she had four of her own in their home far inland.
+Then the sick woman spoke:
+
+"Your cradle basket and your heart were empty before I came. Will
+you keep my Tenas Klootchman as your own?--to fill them both
+again?"
+
+Maarda promised. "Mine was a Tenas Klootchman, too," she said.
+
+"Then I will go to her, and be her mother, wherever she is, in the
+Spirit Islands they tell us of," said the woman. "We will be but
+exchanging our babies, after all."
+
+When morning dawned, the woman did not awake.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Maarda had finished her story, but the recollections had saddened
+her eyes, and for a time we both sat on the deck in the violet
+twilight without exchanging a word.
+
+"Then the little Tenas Klootchman is yours now?" I asked.
+
+A sudden radiance suffused her face, all trace of melancholy
+vanished. She fairly scintillated happiness.
+
+"Mine!" she said. "All mine! Luke 'Alaska' and his wife said she
+was more mine than theirs, that I must keep her as my own. My
+husband rejoiced to see the cradle basket filled, and to hear me
+laugh as I used to."
+
+"How I should like to see the baby!" I began.
+
+"You shall," she interrupted. Then with a proud, half-roguish
+expression, she added:
+
+"She is so strong, so well, so heavy; she sleeps a great deal, and
+wakes laughing and hungry."
+
+As night fell, an ancient Indian woman came up the companion-way.
+In her arms she carried a beautifully-woven basket cradle, within
+which nestled a round-cheeked, smiling-eyes baby. Across its little
+forehead hung locks of black, straight hair, and its sturdy limbs
+were vainly endeavoring to free themselves from the lacing of the
+"blankets." Maarda took the basket, with an expression on her face
+that was transfiguring.
+
+"Yes, this is my little Tenas Klootchman," she said, as she unlaced
+the bands, then lifted the plump little creature out on to her lap.
+
+Soon afterwards the steamer touched an obscure little harbor, and
+Maarda, who was to join her husband there, left me, with a happy
+good-night. As she was going below, she faltered, and turned back
+to me. "I think sometimes," she said, quietly, "the Great Spirit
+thought my baby would feel motherless in the far Spirit Islands, so
+He gave her the woman I nursed for a mother; and He knew I was
+childless, and He gave me this child for my daughter. Do you think
+I am right? Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I think you are right, and I understand."
+
+Once more she smiled radiantly, and turning, descended the
+companionway. I caught a last glimpse of her on the wharf. She was
+greeting her husband, her face a mirror of happiness. About the
+delicately-woven basket cradle she had half pulled her heavy plaid
+shawl, beneath which the two rows of black velvet ribbon bordering
+her skirt proclaimed once more her nationality.
+
+
+
+The Derelict
+
+
+Cragstone had committed what his world called a crime--an
+inexcusable offence that caused him to be shunned by society and
+estranged from his father's house. He had proved a failure.
+
+Not one of his whole family connections could say unto the others,
+"I told you so," when he turned out badly.
+
+They had all predicted that he was born for great things, then to
+discover that they had over-estimated him was irritating, it told
+against their discernment, it was unflattering, and they thought
+him inconsiderate.
+
+So, in addition to his failure, Cragstone had to face the fact that
+he had made himself unpopular among his kin.
+
+As a boy he had been the pride of his family, as a youth, its hope
+of fame and fortune; he was clever, handsome, inventive, original,
+everything that society and his kind admired, but he criminally
+fooled them and their expectation, and they never forgave him for
+it.
+
+He had dabbled in music, literature, law, everything--always with
+semi-success and brilliant promise; he had even tried the stage,
+playing the Provinces for an entire season; then, ultimately
+sinking into mediocrity in all these occupations, he returned to
+London, a hopelessly useless, a pitiably gifted man. His chilly
+little aristocratic mother always spoke of him as "poor, dear
+Charles." His brothers, clubmen all, graciously alluded to him
+with, "deuced hard luck, poor Charlie." His father never mentioned
+his name.
+
+Then he went into "The Church," sailed for Canada, idled about for
+a few weeks, when one of the great colonial bishops, not knowing
+what else to do with him, packed him off north as a missionary to
+the Indians.
+
+And, after four years of disheartening labor amongst a
+semi-civilized people, came this girl Lydia into his life. This
+girl of the mixed parentage, the English father, who had been swept
+northward with the rush of lumber trading, the Chippewa mother, who
+had been tossed to his arms by the tide of circumstances. The girl
+was a strange composition of both, a type of mixed blood, pale,
+dark, slender, with the slim hands, the marvellously beautiful
+teeth of her mother's people, the ambition, the small tender
+mouth, the utter fearlessness of the English race. But the
+strange, laughless eyes, the silent step, the hard sense of honor,
+proclaimed her far more the daughter of red blood than of white.
+
+And, with the perversity of his kind, Cragstone loved her; he
+meant to marry her because he knew that he should not. What a
+monstrous thing it would be if he did! He, the shepherd of this
+half-civilized flock, the modern John Baptist; he, the voice of the
+great Anglican Church crying in this wilderness, how could he wed
+with this Indian girl who had been a common serving-maid in a house
+in Penetanguishene, and been dismissed therefrom with an accusation
+of theft that she could never prove untrue? How could he bring
+this reproach upon the Church? Why, the marriage would have no
+precedent; and yet he loved her, loved her sweet, silent ways,
+her listening attitudes, her clear, brown, consumptive-suggesting
+skin. She was the only thing in all the irksome mission life that
+had responded to him, had encouraged him to struggle anew for
+the spiritual welfare of this poor red race. Of course, in
+Penetanguishene they had told him she was irreclaimable, a thief,
+with ready lies to cover her crimes; for that very reason he felt
+tender towards her, she was so sinful, so pathetically human.
+
+He could have mastered himself, perhaps, had she not responded, had
+he not seen the laughless eyes laugh alone for him, had she not once
+when a momentary insanity possessed them both confessed in words
+her love for him as he had done to her. But now? Well, now only
+this horrible tale of theft and untruth hung between them like a
+veil; now even with his arms locked about her, his eyes drowned in
+hers, his ears caught the whispers of calumny, his thoughts were
+perforated with the horror of his Bishop's censure, and these
+things rushed between his soul and hers, like some bridgeless deep
+he might not cross, and so his lonely life went on.
+
+And then one night his sweet humanity, his grand, strong love rose
+up, battled with him, and conquered. He cast his pharisaical ideas,
+and the Church's "I am better than thou," aside forever; he would
+go now, to-night, he would ask her to be his wife, to have and to
+hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for--
+
+A shadow fell across the doorway of his simple home; it was August
+Beaver, the trapper, with the urgent request that he would come
+across to French Island at once, for old "Medicine" Joe was there,
+dying, and wished to see the minister. At another time Cragstone
+would have felt sympathetic, now he was only irritated; he wanted
+to find Lydia, to look in her laughless eyes, to feel her fingers
+in his hair, to tell her he did not care if she were a hundred
+times a thief, that he loved her, loved her, loved her, and he
+would marry her despite the Church, despite--
+
+"Joe, he's near dead, you come now?" broke in August's voice.
+Cragstone turned impatiently, got his prayer-book, followed the
+trapper, took his place in the canoe, and paddled in silence up
+the bay.
+
+The moon arose, large, limpid, flooding the cabin with a wondrous
+light, and making more wan the features of a dying man, whose
+fever-wasted form lay on some lynx skins on the floor.
+
+Cragstone was reading from the Book of Common Prayer the exquisite
+service of the Visitation of the Sick. Outside, the loons clanged
+up the waterways, the herons called across the islands, but no
+human things ventured up the wilds. Inside, the sick man lay,
+beside him August Beaver holding a rude lantern, while Cragstone's
+matchless voice repeated the Anglican formula. A spasm, an uplifted
+hand, and Cragstone paused. Was the end coming even before a
+benediction? But the dying man was addressing Beaver in Chippewa,
+whispering and choking out the words in his death struggle.
+
+"He says he's bad man," spoke Beaver. A horrible, humorous
+sensation swept over Cragstone; he hated himself for it, but at
+college he had always ridiculed death-bed confessions; but in a
+second that feeling had vanished, he bent his handsome, fair face
+above the copper-colored countenance of the dying man. "Joe," he
+said, with that ineffable tenderness that had always drawn human
+hearts to him; "Joe, tell me before I pronounce the Absolution,
+how you have been 'bad'?"
+
+"I steal three times," came the answer. "Oncet horses, two of them
+from farmer near Barrie. Oncet twenty fox-skins at North Bay;
+station man he in jail for those fox-skins now. Oncet gold watch
+from doctor at Penetanguishene."
+
+The prayer-book rattled from Cragstone's hands and fell to the
+floor.
+
+"Tell me about this watch," he mumbled. "How did you come to
+do it?"
+
+"I liffe at the doctor's; I take care his horse, long time; old
+River's girl, Lydia, she work there too; they say she steal it;
+I sell to trader, the doctor he nefer know, he think Lydia."
+
+Cragstone was white to the lips. "Joe,"  he faltered, "you are
+dying; do you regret this sin, are you sorry?"
+
+An indistinct "yes" was all; death was claiming him rapidly.
+
+But a great, white, purified love had swept over the young
+clergyman. The girl he worshipped could never now be a reproach to
+his calling, she was proved blameless as a baby, and out of his
+great human love arose the divine calling, the Christ-like sense
+of forgiveness, the God-like forgetfulness of injury and suffering
+done to his and to him, and once more his soft, rich voice broke
+the stillness of the Northern night, as the Anglican absolution of
+the dying fell from his lips in merciful tenderness:
+
+"O Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve
+all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy
+forgive thee thine offences, and by His authority committed to me
+I absolve thee from all thy sins in the name of the Father, and of
+the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
+
+Beaver was holding the lantern close to the penitent's face;
+Cragstone, kneeling beside him, saw that the end had come already,
+and, after making the sign of the Cross on the dead Indian's
+forehead, the young priest arose and went silently out into the
+night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sun was slipping down into the far horizon, fretted by the
+inimitable wonder of islands that throng the Georgian Bay; the
+blood-colored skies, the purpling clouds, the extravagant beauty
+of a Northern sunset hung in the west like the trailing robes of
+royalty, soundless in their flaring, their fading; soundless as the
+unbroken wilds which lay bathed in the loneliness of a dying day.
+
+But on the color-flooded shore stood two, blind to the purple, the
+scarlet, the gold, blind to all else save the tense straining of
+the other's eyes; deaf to nature's unsung anthem, hearing only the
+other's voice. Cragstone stood transfixed with consternation. The
+memory of the past week of unutterable joy lay blasted with the
+awfulness of this moment, the memory of even that first day--when
+he had stood with his arms about her, had told her how he had
+declared her reclaimed name far and wide, how even Penetanguishene
+knew now that she had suffered blamelessly, how his own heart
+throbbed suffocatingly with the honor, the delight of being the
+poor means through which she had been righted in the accusing eyes
+of their little world, and that now she would be his wife, his
+sweet, helping wife, and she had been great enough not to remind
+him that he had not asked her to be his wife until her name was
+proved blameless, and he was great enough not to make excuse of the
+resolve he had set out upon just when August Beaver came to turn
+the current of his life.
+
+But he had other eyes to face to-night, eyes that blurred the past,
+that burned themselves into his being--the condemning, justly and
+righteously indignant eyes of his Bishop--while his numb heart,
+rather than his ears, listened to the words that fell from the
+prelate's lips like curses on his soul, like the door that would
+shut him forever outside the holy place.
+
+"What have you done, you pretended servant of the living God?
+What use is this you have made of your Holy Orders? You hear the
+confessions of a dying man, you absolve and you bless him, and come
+away from the poor dead thief to shout his crimes in the ears of
+the world, to dishonor him, to be a discredit to your calling. Who
+could trust again such a man as you have proved to be--faithless to
+himself, faithless to his Church, faithless to his God?"
+
+But Cragstone was on the sands at his accuser's feet. "Oh! my
+Lord," he cried, "I meant only to save the name of a poor,
+mistrusted girl, selfishly, perhaps, but I would have done the
+same thing just for humanity's sake had it been another to whom
+injustice was done."
+
+"Your plea of justice is worse than weak; to save the good name
+of the living is it just to rob the dead?"
+
+The Bishop's voice was like iron.
+
+"I did not realize I was a priest, I only knew I was a _man_," and
+with these words Cragstone arose and looked fearlessly, even
+proudly, at the one who stood his judge.
+
+"Is it not better, my Lord, to serve the living than the dead?"
+
+"And bring reproach upon your Church?" said the Bishop, sternly.
+
+It was the first thought Cragstone ever had of his official crime;
+he staggered under the horror of it, and the little, dark, silent
+figure, that had followed them unseen, realized in her hiding amid
+the shadows that the man who had lifted her into the light was
+himself being thrust down into irremediable darkness. But Cragstone
+only saw the Bishop looking at him as from a supreme height, he
+only felt the final stinging lash in the words: "When a man
+disregards the most sacred offices of his God, he will hardly
+reverence the claims of justice of a simple woman who knows not his
+world, and if he so easily flings his God away for a woman, just so
+easily will he fling her away for other gods."
+
+And Lydia, with eyes that blazed like flame, watched the Bishop
+turn and walk frigidly up the sands, his indignation against this
+outrager of the Church declaring itself in every footfall.
+
+Cragstone flung himself down, burying his face in his hands. What a
+wreck he had made of life! He saw his future, loveless, for no woman
+would trust him now; even the one whose name he had saved would
+probably be more unforgiving than the Church; it was the way
+with women when a man abandoned God and honor for them; and this
+nameless but blackest of sins, this falsity to one poor dying
+sinner, would stand between him and heaven forever, though through
+that very crime he had saved a fellow being. Where was the justice
+of it?
+
+The purple had died from out the western sky, the waters of the
+Georgian Bay lay colorless at his feet, night was covering the
+world and stealing with inky blackness into his soul.
+
+She crept out of her hiding-place, and, coming, gently touched his
+tumbled fair hair; but he shrank from her, crying: "Lydia, my girl,
+my girl, I am not for a good woman now! I, who thought you an
+outcast, a thief, not worthy to be my wife, to-night I am not an
+outcast of man alone, but of God."
+
+But what cared she for his official crimes? She was a woman. Her
+arms were about him, her lips on his; and he who had, until now,
+been a portless derelict, who had vainly sought a haven in art,
+an anchorage in the service of God, had drifted at last into the
+world's most sheltered harbor--a woman's love.
+
+But, of course, the Bishop took away his gown.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Moccasin Maker, by E. Pauline Johnson
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOCCASIN MAKER ***
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