Huzza for the forests and hills!
Huzza, for the berries so blue!
Our baskets we'll cheerily fill,
While the thickets are sparkling with dew.
Years before the scene of our story returns to Catskill, Arthur Jones
and the pretty Martha fellows had married and settled down in life.
The kind-hearted old man died soon after the union, and left the pair
inheritors of his little shop and of a respectable landed property.
Arthur made an indulgent, good husband, and Martha soon became too
much confined by the cares of a rising family, for any practice of the
teasing coquetry which had characterized her girlhood. She seconded her
husband in all his money-making projects; was an economical and thrifty
housekeeper; never allowed her children to go barefooted, except in
the very warmest weather; and, to use her own words, made a point of
holding her head as high as any woman in the settlement.
If an uninterrupted course of prosperity could entitle a person to this
privilege, Mrs. Jones certainly made no false claim to it. Every year
added something to her husband's possessions. Several hundred acres of
cleared land were purchased beside that which he inherited from his
father-in-law; the humble shop gradually increased to a respectable
variety-store, and a handsome frame-house occupied the site of the old
log-cabin.
Besides all this, Mr. Jones was a justice of the peace and a dignitary
in the village; and his wife, though a great deal stouter than when a
girl, and the mother of six children, had lost none of her healthy good
looks, and at the age of thirty-eight continued to be a very handsome
woman indeed.
Thus was the family situated at the period when our story returns
to them. One warm afternoon, in the depth of summer, Mrs. Jones was
sitting in the porch of her dwelling occupied in mending a garment of
home-made linen, which, from its size, evidently belonged to some one
of her younger children. A cheese-press, with a rich heavy mass of curd
compressed between the screws, occupied one side of the porch; and
against it stood a small double flax-wheel, unbanded, and with a day's
work yet unreeled from the spools. A hatchet and a pair of hand-cards,
with a bunch of spools tied together by a tow string, lay in a corner,
and high above, on rude wooden pegs, hung several enormous bunches of
tow and linen yarn, the products of many weeks' hard labor.
Her children had gone into the woods after whortleberries, and the
mother now and then laid down her work and stepped out to the
green-sward beyond the porch to watch their coming, not anxiously, but
as one who feels restless and lost without her usual companions. After
standing on the grass for awhile, shading her eyes with her hand and
looking toward the woods, she at last returned to the porch, laid down
her work, and entering the kitchen, filled the tea-kettle and began to
make preparations for supper. She had drawn a long pine-table to the
middle of the floor, and was proceeding to spread it, when her eldest
daughter came through the porch, with a basket of whortleberries on her
arm. Her pretty face was flushed with walking, and a profusion of fair
tresses flowed in some disorder from her pink sun-bonnet, which was
falling partly back from her head.
"Oh, mother, I have something so strange to tell you," she said,
setting down the basket with its load of ripe, blue fruit, and fanning
herself with a bunch of chestnut-leaves gathered from the woods.
"You know the old wigwam by 'the Straka?' Well, when we went by it,
the brush, which used to choke up the door, was all cleared off; the
crevices were filled with green moss and leaves, and a cloud of smoke
was curling beautifully up from the roof among the trees. We could
not tell what to make of it, and were afraid to look in at first; but
finally I peeped through an opening in the logs, and as true as you are
here, mother, there sat an Indian woman reading--reading, mother! did
you know that Indians could read? The inside of the wigwam was hung
with straw matting, and there was a chest in it, and some stools, and a
little shelf of books, and another with some earthen dishes and a china
cup and saucer, sprinkled with gold, standing upon it. I did not see
any bed, but there was a pile of fresh, sweet fern in one corner, with
a pair of clean sheets spread on it, which I suppose she sleeps on, and
there certainly was a feather pillow lying at the top.
"Well, the Indian woman looked kind and harmless; so I made an excuse
to go in, and ask for a cup to drink out of.
"As I went round to the other side of the wigwam, I saw that the smoke
came up from a fire on the outside; a kettle was hanging in the flame,
and several other pots and kettles stood on a little bench by the trunk
of an oak-tree, close by. I must have made some noise, for the Indian
woman was looking toward the door when I opened it, as if she were a
little afraid, but when she saw who it was, I never saw any one smile
so pleasantly; she gave me the china cup, and went with me out to the
spring where the boys were playing.
"As I was drinking, my sleeve fell back, and she saw the little wampum
bracelet which you gave me, you know, mother. She started and took
hold of my arm, and stared in my face, as if she would have looked me
through; at last she sat down on the grass by the spring, and asked me
to sit down by her and tell her my name. When I told her, she seemed
ready to cry with joy; tears came into her eyes, and she kissed my hand
two or three times, as if I had been the best friend she ever had on
earth.
"I told her that a poor Indian girl had given the bracelet to you,
before you were married to my father. She asked a great many questions
about it, and you.
"When I began to describe the Indian fight, and the chief's grave down
by the lake, she sat perfectly still till I had done; then I looked
in her face; great tears were rolling one by one down her cheeks, her
hands were locked in her lap, and her eyes were fixed upon my face with
a strange stare, as if she did not know what she was gazing so hard at.
She looked in my face, in this way, more than a minute after I had done
speaking.
"The boys stopped their play, for they had begun to dam up the spring,
and stood with their hands full of turf, huddled together, and staring
at the poor woman as if they had never seen a person cry before. She
did not seem to mind them, but went into the wigwam again without
speaking a word."
"And was that the last you saw of her?" inquired Mrs. Jones who had
become interested in her daughter's narration.
"Oh, no; she came out again just as we were going away from the spring.
Her voice was more sweet and mournful than it had been, and her eyes
looked heavy and troubled. She thanked me for the story I had told her,
and gave me this pair of beautiful moccasins."
"Mrs. Jones took the moccasins from her daughter's hand. They were of
neatly dressed deer-skin, covered with beads and delicate needlework in
silk.
"It is strange!" muttered Mrs. Jones; "one might almost think it
possible. But nonsense; did not the old merchant send us word that the
poor creature and her child were lost in the Highlands--that they died
of hunger? Well, Sarah," she added, turning to her daughter, "is this
all? What did the woman say when she gave you the moccasins? I don't
wonder that you are pleased with them."
"She only told me to come again, and--"
Here Sarah was interrupted by a troop of noisy boys, who came in a body
through the porch, flourishing their straw hats and swinging their
whortleberry baskets, heavy with fruit, back and forth at each step.
"Hurra! hurra! Sarah's fallen in love with an old squaw. How do you do,
Miss Jones? Oh, mother, I wish you could a seen her hugging and kissing
the copper-skin--it was beautiful!"
Here the boisterous rogues set up a laugh that rang through the house,
like the breaking up of a military muster.
"Mother, do make them be still; they have done nothing but tease and
make fun of me all the way home," said the annoyed girl, half crying.
"How did the old squaw's lips taste, hey?" persisted the eldest boy,
pulling his sister's sleeve, and looking with eyes full of saucy
mischief up into her face. "Sweet as maple sugar wasn't it? Come,
tell."
"Arthur--Arthur! you had better be quiet, if you know when you're well
off!" exclaimed the mother, with a slight motion of the hand, which had
a great deal of significant meaning to the mischievous group.
"Oh, don't--please, don't!" exclaimed the spoiled urchin, clapping his
hands to his ears and running off to a corner, where he stood laughing
in his mother's face. "I say Sarah, was it sweet?"
"Arthur, don't let me speak to you again, I say," cried Mrs. Jones,
making a step forward and doing her utmost to get up a frown, while her
hand gave additional demonstration of its hostile intent.
"Well, then, make her tell me; you ought to cuff her ears for not
answering a civil question--hadn't she, boys!"
There was something altogether too ludicrous in this impudent appeal,
and in the look of demure mischief put on by the culprit. Mrs. Jones
bit her lips and turned away, leaving the boy as usual, victor of the
field. "He isn't worth minding, Sarah," she said, evidently ashamed of
her want of resolution; "come into the 'out-room,' I've something to
tell you."
When the mother and daughter were alone, Mrs. Jones sat down and drew
the young girl into her lap.
"Well, Sarah," she said, smoothing down the rich hair that lay against
her bosom, "Your father and I have been talking about you to-day. You
are almost sixteen, and can spin your day's work with any girl in the
settlement. Your father says that after you have learned to weave and
make cheese, he will send you down to Manhattan to school."
"Oh, mother, did he say so? in real, real, earnest?" cried the
delighted girl flinging her arms round her mother's neck and kissing
her yet handsome mouth with joy at the information it had just
conveyed. "When will you let me go? I can learn to weave and make
cheese in a week."
"If you learn all that he thinks best for you to know in two years, it
will be as much as we expect. Eighteen is quite young enough. If you
are very smart at home, you shall go when you are eighteen."
"Two years is a long, long time," said the girl, in a tone of
disappointment; "but then father is kind to let me go at all. I will
run down to the store and thank him. But, mother," she added, turning
back from the door, "was there really any harm in talking with the
Indian woman? There was nothing about her that did not seem like the
whites but her skin, and that was not so _very_ dark."
"Harm? No, child; how silly you are to let the boys tease you so."
"I will go and see her again, then--may I?"
"Certainly--but see; your father is coming to supper; run out and cut
the bread. You must be very smart, now; remember the school."
During the time which intervened between Sarah Jones' sixteenth and
eighteenth year, she was almost a daily visitor at the wigwam. The
little footpath which led from the village to "the Straka," though
scarcely definable to others, became as familiar to her as the grounds
about her father's house. If a day or two passed in which illness or
some other cause prevented her usual visit, she was sure to receive
some token of remembrance from the lone Indian woman. Now, it reached
her in the form of a basket of ripe fruit, or a bunch of wild flowers,
tied together with the taste of an artist; again, it was a cluster
of grapes, with the purple bloom lying fresh upon them, or a young
mocking-bird, with notes as sweet as the voice of a fountain, would
reach her by the hands of some village boy.
These affectionate gifts could always be traced to the inhabitant of
the wigwam, even though she did not, as was sometimes the case, present
them in person.
There was something strange in the appearance of this Indian woman,
which at first excited the wonder, and at length secured the respect
of the settlers. Her language was pure and elegant, sometimes even
poetical beyond their comprehension, and her sentiments were correct
in principle, and full of simplicity. When she appeared in the village
with moccasins or pretty painted baskets for sale, her manner was
apprehensive and timid as that of a child. She never sat down, and
seldom entered any dwelling, preferring to sell her merchandise in the
open air, and using as few words as possible in the transaction. She
was never seen to be angry, and a sweet patient smile always hovered
about her lips when she spoke. In her face there was more than the
remains of beauty; the poetry of intellect and of warm, deep feeling,
shed a loveliness over it seldom witnessed on the brow of a savage.
In truth, Malaeska was a strange and incomprehensible being to the
settlers. But she was so quiet, so timid and gentle, that they all
loved her, bought her little wares, and supplied her wants as if she
had been one of themselves.
There was something beautiful in the companionship which sprang up
between the strange woman and Sarah Jones. The young girl was benefited
by it in a manner which was little to be expected from an intercourse
so singular and, seemingly, so unnatural. The mother was a kind-hearted
worldly woman, strongly attached to her family, but utterly devoid
of those fine susceptibilities which make at once the happiness
and the misery of so many human beings. But all the elements of an
intellectual, delicate, and high-souled woman slumbered in the bosom of
her child. They beamed in the depths of her large blue eyes, broke over
her pure white forehead, like perfume from the leaves of a lily, and
made her small mouth eloquent with smiles and the beauty of unpolished
thoughts.
At sixteen the character of the young girl had scarcely begun to
develop itself; but when the time arrived when she was to be sent away
to school, there remained little except mere accomplishments for her
to learn. Her mind had become vigorous by a constant intercourse with
the beautiful things of nature. All the latent properties of a warm,
youthful heart, and of a superior intellect, had been gently called
into action by the strange being who had gained such an ascendency over
her feelings.
The Indian woman, who in herself combined all that was strong,
picturesque, and imaginative in savage life, with the delicacy,
sweetness, and refinement which follows in the train of civilization,
had trod with her the wild-beautiful scenery of the neighborhood. They
had breathed the pure air of the mountain together, and watched the
crimson and amber clouds of sunset melt into evening, when pure sweet
thoughts came to their hearts naturally, as light shines from the bosom
of the star.
It is strange that the pure and simple religion which lifts the soul up
to God, should have been first taught to the beautiful young white from
the lips of a savage, when inspired by the dying glory of a sunset sky.
Yet so it was; she had sat under preaching all her life, had imbibed
creeds and shackled her spirit down with the opinions and traditions of
other minds, nor dreamed that the love of God may sometimes kindle in
the human heart, like fire flashing up from an altar-stone; and again,
may expand gradually to the influence of the Divine Spirit, unfolding
so gently that the soul itself scarcely knows at what time it burst
into flower--that every effort we make, for the culture of the heart
and the expanding of the intellect, is a step toward the attainment of
religion if nothing more.
When the pure, simple faith of the Indian was revealed--when she saw
how beautifully high energies and lofty feelings were mingled with
the Christian meekness and enduring faith of her character, she began
to love goodness for its own exceeding beauty, and to cultivate those
qualities that struck her as so worthy in her wild-wood friend. Thus
Sarah attained a refinement of the soul which no school could have
given her, and no superficial gloss could ever conceal or dim. This
refinement of principle and feeling lifted the young girl far out of
her former commonplace associations; and the gentle influence of her
character was felt not only in her father's household, but through all
the neighborhood.