The sunset fell to the deep, deep stream,
Ruddy as gold could be,
While russet brown and a crimson gleam
Slept in each forest-tree;
But the heart of the Indian wife was sad
As she urged her light canoe,
While her boy's young laugh rose high and glad
When the wild birds o'er them flew.
Martha Fellows and her lover were alone in her father's cabin on the
night after the Indian engagement. They were both paler than usual, and
too anxious about the safety of their little village for any thing like
happiness, or tranquil conversation. The old man had been stationed as
sentinel on the verge of the clearing; and as the two sat together in
silence, with hands interlocked, and gazing wistfully in each other's
face, a rifle-shot cut sharply from the old man's station. They both
started to their feet, and Martha clung shrieking to her lover. Jones
forced her back to the settle--and, snatching his rifle, sprang to
the door. There was a sound of approaching footsteps, and with it was
mingled the voice of old Fellows, and the sweeter and more imperfect
tones of a female, with the sobbing breath of a child. As Jones stood
wondering at the strange sound, a remarkable group darkened the light
which streamed from the cabin-door. It was Fellows partly supporting
and partly dragging forward a pale and terrified Indian girl. The light
glittered upon her picturesque raiment, and revealed the dark, bright
eyes of a child which was fastened to her back, and which clung to her
neck silent with terror and exhaustion.
"Come along, you young porcupine! You skulking copper-colored little
squaw, you! We shan't kill you, nor the little pappoose, neither; so
you needn't shake so. Come along! There's Martha Fellows, if you can
find enough of your darnationed queer English to tell her what you
want."
As he spoke, the rough, but kind-hearted old man entered the hut,
pushing the wretched Malaeska and her child before him.
"Martha! why what in the name of nature makes you look so white about
the mouth? You needn't be afraid of this little varmint, no how. She's
as harmless as a garter-snake. Come, see if you can find out what she
wants of you. She can talk the drollest you ever heard. But I've scared
away her senses, and she only stares at me like a shot deer."
When the Indian heard the name of the astonished girl, into whose
presence she had been dragged she withdrew from the old man's grasp and
stole timidly toward the settle.
"The white man left papers with the maiden--Malaeska only wants the
papers," she pleaded, placing her small palms beseechingly together.
Martha turned still more pale, and started to her feet. "It is true
then," she said, almost wildly. "Poor Danforth is dead, and these
forlorn creatures his widow and child, have come to me at last. Oh!
Jones, he was telling me of this the night you got so angry. I could
not tell you why we were talking so much together; but I knew all the
time that he had an Indian wife--it seemed as if he had a forewarning
of his death, and must tell some one. The last time I saw him, he
gave me a letter, sealed with black, and bade me seek his wife, and
persuade her to carry it to his father, if he was killed in the fight.
It is that letter she has come after; but how will she find her way to
Manhattan?"
"Malaeska knows which way the waters run: She can find a path down the
big river. Give her the papers that she may go!" pleaded the sad voice
of the Indian.
"Tell us first," said Jones, addressing her kindly, "have the Indians
left our neighborhood? Is there no danger of an attack?"
"The white man need not fear. When the great chief died, the smoke of
his wigwam went out; and his people have gone beyond the mountains.
Malaeska is alone."
There was wretchedness and touching pathos in the poor girl's speech,
that affected the little group even to tears.
"No you ain't, by gracious!" exclaimed Fellows, dashing his hand
across his eyes. "You shall stay and live with me, and help Matt,
you shall--and that's the end on't. I'll make a farmer of the little
pappoose. I'll bet a beaver-skin that he'll larn to gee and haw the
oxen and hold plow afore half the Dutch boys that are springing up here
as thick as clover-tops in a third year's clearing."
Malaeska did not perfectly understand the kind settler's proposition;
the tone and manner were kindly, and she knew that he wished to help
her.
"When the boy's father was dying, he told Malaeska to go to his people,
and they would tell her how to find the white man's God. Give her the
papers, and she will go. Her heart will be full when she thinks of the
kind words and the soft looks which the white chief and the bright
haired maiden have given her."
"She goes to fulfill a promise to the dead--we ought not to prevent
her," said Jones.
Malaeska turned her eyes eagerly and gratefully upon him as he spoke,
and Martha went to her bed and drew the letter, which had been
intrusted to her care, from beneath the pillow. The Indian took it
between her trembling hands, and pressing it with a gesture almost of
idolatry to her lips, thrust it into her bosom.
"The white maiden is good! Farewell!" she turned toward the door as she
spoke.
"Stay! It will take many days to reach Manhattan--take something to
eat, or you will starve on the way," said Martha, compassionately.
"Malaeska has her bow and arrow, and she can use them; but she thanks
the white maiden. A piece of bread for the boy--he has cried to his
mother many times for food; but her bosom was full of tears, and she
had none to give him."
Martha ran to the cupboard and brought forth a large fragment of bread
and a cup milk. When the child saw the food, he uttered a soft, hungry
murmur, and his little fingers began to work eagerly on his mother's
neck. Martha held the cup to his lips, and smiled through her tears to
see how hungrily he swallowed, and with what a satisfied and pleased
look his large, black eyes were turned up to hers as he drank. When
the cup was withdrawn, the boy breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction,
and let his head fall sleepily on his mother's shoulder; her large
eyes seemed full of moonlight, and a gleam of pleasure shot athwart
her sad features; she unbound a bracelet of wampum from her arm and
placed it in Martha's hand. The next instant she was lost in the
darkness without. The kind settler rushed out, and hallooed for her
to come back; but her step was like that of a fawn, and while he was
wandering fruitlessly around the settlement, she reached the margin of
the creek; and, unmooring a canoe, which lay concealed in the sedge,
placed herself in it, and shot round the point to the broad bosom of
the Hudson.
Night and morning, for many successive days, that frail canoe
glided down the current, amid the wild and beautiful scenery of the
Highlands, and along the park-like shades of a more level country.
There was something in the sublime and lofty handiwork of God which
fell soothingly on the sad heart of the Indian. Her thoughts were
continually dwelling on the words of her dead husband, ever picturing
to themselves the land of spirits where he had promised that she should
join him. The perpetual change of scenery, the sunshine playing with
the foliage, and the dark, heavy masses of shadow, flung from the
forests and rocks on either hand, were continually exciting her untamed
imagination to comparison with the heaven of her wild fancy. It seemed,
at times, as if she had but to close her eyes and open them again to be
in the presence of her lost one. There was something heavenly in the
solemn, perpetual flow of the river, and in the music of the leaves as
they rippled to the wind, that went to the poor widow's heart like the
soft voice of a friend. After a day or two, the gloom which hung about
her young brow, partially departed. Her cheek again dimpled to the
happy laugh of her child, and when he nestled down to sleep in the furs
at the bottom of the canoe, her soft, plaintive lullaby would steal
over the waters like the song of a wild bird seeking in vain for its
mate.
Malaeska never went on shore, except to gather wild fruit, and
occasionally to kill a bird, which her true arrow seldom failed to
bring down. She would strike a fire and prepare her game in some
shady nook by the river side, while the canoe swung at its mooring,
and her child played on the fresh grass, shouting at the cloud of
summer insects that flashed by, and clapping his tiny hands at the
humming-birds that came to rifle honey from the flowers that surrounded
him.
The voyage was one of strange happiness to the widowed Indian. Never
did Christian believe in the pages of Divine Writ with more of trust,
than she placed in the dying promise of her husband, that she should
meet him again in another world. His spirit seemed forever about her,
and to her wild, free imagination, the passage down the magnificent
stream seemed a material and glorious path to the white man's heaven.
Filled with strange, sweet thoughts, she looked abroad on the mountains
looming up from the banks of the river--on the forest-trees so various
in their tints and so richly clothed, till she was inspired almost
to forgetfulness of her affliction. She was young and healthy, and
everything about her was so lovely, so grand and changing, that her
heart expanded to the sunshine like a flower which has been bowed down,
but not crushed beneath the force of a storm. Part of each day she
spent in a wild, dreamy state of imagination. Her mind was lulled to
sweet musings by the gentle sounds that hovered in the air from morning
till evening; and through the long night, when all was hushed save the
deep flow of the river. Birds came out with their cheerful voices at
dawn, and at midday she floated in the cool shadow of the hills, or
shot into some cove for a few hours' rest. When the sunset shed its
gorgeous dyes over the river--and the mountain ramparts, on either
side, were crimson as with the track of contending armies--when the
boy was asleep, and the silent stars came out to kindle up her night
path, then a clear, bold melody gushed from the mother's lips like a
song from the heart of a nightingale. Her eye kindled, her cheek grew
warm, the dip of her paddle kept a liquid accompaniment to her rich,
wild voice, as the canoe floated downward on waves that seemed rippling
over a world of crushed blossoms, and were misty with the approach of
evening.
Malaeska had been out many days, when the sharp gables and the tall
chimneys of Manhattan broke upon her view, surrounded by the sheen of
its broad bay, and by the forest which covered the uninhabited part
of the island. The poor Indian gazed upon it with an unstable but
troublesome fear. She urged her canoe into a little cove on the Hoboken
shore, and her heart grew heavy as the grave, as she pondered on the
means of fulfilling her charge. She took the letter from her bosom;
the tears started to her eyes, and she kissed it with a regretful
sorrow, as if a friend were about to be rendered up from her affections
forever. She took the child to her heart, and held him there till its
throbbings grew audible, and the strength of her misgivings could not
be restrained. After a time she became more calm. She lifted the child
from her bosom, laved his hands and face in the stream, and brushed his
black hair with her palm till it glowed like the neck of a raven. Then
she girded his little crimson robe with a string of wampum, and after
arranging her own attire, shot the canoe out of the cove and urged it
slowly across the mouth of the river. Her eyes were full of tears all
the way, and when the child murmured, and strove to comfort her with
his infant caress, she sobbed aloud, and rowed steadily forward.
It was a strange sight to the phlegmatic inhabitants of Manhattan, when
Malaeska passed through their streets in full costume, and with the
proud, free tread of her race. Her hair hung in long braids down her
back, each braid fastened at the end with a tuft of scarlet feathers.
A coronet of the same bright plumage circled her small head, and her
robe was gorgeous with beads, and fringed with porcupine quills. A bow
of exquisite workmanship was in her hand, and a scarf of scarlet cloth
bound the boy to her back. Nothing could be more strikingly beautiful
than the child. His spirited head was continually turning from one
strange object to another, and his bright, black eyes were brim-full
of childish wonder. One little arm was flung around his young mother's
neck, and its fellow rested on the feathered arrow-shafts which crowded
the quiver slung against her left shoulder. The timid, anxious look of
the mother, was in strong contrast with the eager gaze of the boy. She
had caught much of the delicacy and refinement of civilized life from
her husband, and her manner became startled and fawn-like beneath the
rude gaze of the passers-by. The modest blood burned in her cheek, and
the sweet, broken English trembled on her lips, when several persons,
to whom she showed the letter passed by without answering her. She
did not know that they were of another nation than her husband, and
spoke another language than that which love had taught her. At length
she accosted an aged man who could comprehend her imperfect language.
He read the name on the letter, and saw that it was addressed to his
master, John Danforth, the richest fur-trader in Manhattan. The old
serving-man led the way to a large, irregular building, in the vicinity
of what is now Hanover Square. Malaeska followed with a lighter tread,
and a heart relieved of its fear. She felt that she had found a friend
in the kind old man who was conducting her to the home of her husband's
father.
The servant entered this dwelling and led the way to a low parlor,
paneled with oak and lighted with small panes of thick, greenish glass.
A series of Dutch tiles--some of them most exquisite in finish and
design, surrounded the fire-place, and a coat-of-arms, elaborately
carved in oak, stood out in strong relief from the paneling above. A
carpet, at that time an uncommon luxury, covered a greater portion of
the floor, and the furniture was rich in its material and ponderous
with heavy carved work. A tall, and rather hard-featured man sat in
an arm-chair by one of the narrow windows, reading a file of papers
which had just arrived in the last merchant-ship from London. A little
distance from him, a slight and very thin lady of about fifty was
occupied with household sewing; her work-box stood on a small table
before her, and a book of common-prayer lay beside it. The servant had
intended to announce his strange guest, but, fearful of losing sight
of him, Malaeska followed close upon his footsteps, and before he was
aware of it, stood within the room, holding her child by the hand.
"A woman, sir,--an Indian woman, with a letter," said the embarrassed
servant, motioning his charge to draw back. But Malaeska had stepped
close to the merchant, and was looking earnestly in his face when he
raised his eyes from the papers. There was something cold in his severe
gaze as he fixed it on her through his spectacles. The Indian felt
chilled and repulsed; her heart was full, and she turned with a look
of touching appeal to the lady. That face was one to which a child
would have fled for comfort; it was tranquil and full of kindness.
Malaeska's face brightened as she went up to her, and placed the letter
in her hands without speaking a word; but the palpitation of her heart
was visible through her heavy garments, and her hands shook as she
relinquished the precious paper.
"The seal is black," said the lady, turning very pale as she gave the
letter to her husband, "but it is _his_ writing," she added, with a
forced smile. "He could not have sent word himself, were he--ill." She
hesitated at the last word, for, spite of herself, the thoughts of
death lay heavily at her heart.
The merchant composed himself in his chair, settled his spectacles, and
after another severe glance at the bearer, opened the letter. His wife
kept her eyes fixed anxiously on his face as he read. She saw that his
face grew pale, that his high, narrow forehead contracted, and that the
stern mouth became still more rigid in its expression. She knew that
some evil had befallen her son--her only son, and she grasped a chair
for support; her lips were bloodless, and her eyes became keen with
agonizing suspense. When her husband had read the letter through, she
went close to him, but looked another way as she spoke.
"Tell me! has any harm befallen my son?" Her voice was low and gentle,
but with husky suspense.
Her husband did not answer, but his hand fell heavily upon his knee,
and the letter rattled in his unsteady grasp, his eyes were fixed on
his trembling wife with a look that chilled her to the heart. She
attempted to withdraw the letter from his hand, but he clenched it the
firmer.
"Let it alone--he is dead--murdered by the savages--why should you know
more?"
The poor woman staggered back, and the fire of anxiety went out from
her eyes.
"Can there be any thing worse than death--the death of the first-born
of our youth--cut off in his proud manhood?" she murmured, in a low,
broken voice.
"Yes, woman!" said the husband, almost fiercely; "there is a thing
worse than death--disgrace!"
"Disgrace coupled with my son? You are his father, John. Do not slander
him now that he is dead--before his mother, too." There was a faint,
red spot then upon that mild woman's face, and her mouth curved proudly
as she spoke. All that was stern in her nature had been aroused by the
implied charge against the departed.
"Read, woman, read! Look on that accursed wretch and her child! They
have enticed him into their savage haunts, and murdered him. Now they
come to claim protection and reward for the foul deed."
Malaeska drew her child closer to her as she listened to this vehement
language, and shrank slowly back to a corner of the room, where she
crouched, like a frightened hare, looking wildly about, as if seeking
some means to evade the vengeance which seemed to threaten her.
After the first storm of feeling, the old man buried his face in his
hands and remained motionless, while the sobs of his wife, as she read
her son's letter, alone broke the stillness of the room.
Malaeska felt those tears as an encouragement, and her own deep
feelings taught her how to reach those of another. She drew timidly to
the mourner and sank at her feet.
"Will the white woman look upon Malaeska?" she said, in a voice full of
humility and touching earnestness. "She loved the young white chief,
and when the shadows fell upon his soul, he said that his mother's
heart would grow soft to the poor Indian woman who had slept in his
bosom while she was very young. He said that her love would open to his
boy like a flower to the sunshine. Will the white woman look upon the
boy? He is like his father."
"He is, poor child, he is!" murmured the bereaved mother, looking on
the boy through her tears--"like him, as he was when we were both
young, and he the blessing of our hearts. Oh, John, do you remember his
smile?--how his cheek would dimple when we kissed it! Look upon this
poor, fatherless creature; they are all here again; the sunny eye and
the broad forehead. Look upon him, John, for my sake--for the sake of
our dead son, who prayed us with his last breath to love _his_ son.
Look upon him!"
The kind woman led the child to her husband as she spoke, and resting
her arm on his shoulder, pressed her lips upon his swollen temples. The
pride of his nature was touched. His bosom heaved, and tears gushed
through his rigid fingers. He felt a little form draw close to his
knee, and a tiny, soft hand strive with its feeble might to uncover his
face. The voice of nature was strong within him. His hands dropped, and
he pored with a troubled face over the uplifted features of the child.
Tears were in those young, bright eyes as they returned his
grandfather's gaze, but when a softer expression came into the old
man's face, a smile broke through them, and the little fellow lifted
both his arms and clasped them over the bowed neck of his grandfather.
There was a momentary struggle, and then the merchant folded the boy to
his heart with a burst of strong feeling such as his iron nature had
seldom known.
"He _is_ like his father. Let the woman go back to her tribe; we will
keep the boy."
Malaeska sprang forward, clasped her hands, and turned with an air of
wild, heart-thrilling appeal to the lady.
"You will not send Malaeska from her child. No--no, white woman. Your
boy has slept against your heart, and you have felt his voice in your
ear, like the song of a young mocking-bird. You would not send the poor
Indian back to the woods without her child. She has come to you from
the forest, that she may learn the path to the white man's heaven, and
see her husband again, and you will not show it her. Give the Indian
woman her boy; her heart is growing very strong; she will not go back
to the woods alone!"
As she spoke these words, with an air more energetic even than her
speech, she snatched the child from his grandfather's arms, and stood
like a lioness guarding her young, her lips writhing and her black eyes
flashing fire, for the savage blood kindled in her veins at the thought
of being separated from her son.
"Be quiet, girl, be quiet. If you go, the child shall go with you,"
said the gentle Mrs. Danforth. "Do not give way to this fiery spirit;
no one will wrong you."
Malaeska dropped her air of defiance, and placing the child humbly at
his grandfather's feet, drew back, and stood with her eyes cast down,
and her hands clasped deprecatingly together, a posture of supplication
in strong contrast with her late wild demeanor.
"Let them stay. Do not separate the mother and the child!" entreated
the kind lady, anxious to soothe away the effect of her husband's
violence. "The thoughts of a separation drives her wild, poor thing.
_He_ loved her;--why should we send her back to her savage haunts? Read
this letter once more, my husband. You can not refuse the dying request
of our first-born."
With gentle and persuasive words like these, the kind lady prevailed.
Malaeska was allowed to remain in the house of her husband's father,
but it was only as the nurse of her own son. She was not permitted to
acknowledge herself as his mother; and it was given out that young
Danforth had married in one of the new settlements--that the young
couple had fallen victims to the savages, and that their infant son had
been rescued by an Indian girl, who brought him to his grandfather.
The story easily gained credit, and it was no matter of wonder that
the old fur merchant soon became fondly attached to the little orphan,
or that the preserver of his grandchild was made an object of grateful
attention in his household.