“She had eyes of sunniest English blue;
She had tresses of golden hair;
Her cheeks were tipped with the hawthorn’s hue;
Her name, Virginia Dare.”
Manteo, true to the faith he professed, forgave and forgot, or rather
he never spoke of his warning, or Ranteo’s strange visit to Roanoke;
when he understood that the white tribe were in trouble, and had fled
to him for protection, he solemnly held out his hand to Mrs. Dare, then
handed her a long pipe, seeming to take it for granted that she filled
her father’s place. She went bravely at it for a few minutes in sight
of all Manteo’s warriors, who watched her with a strange awe; then he
took the pipe from her and led her to a wigwam, where she was to stay
while the refugees were provided for by the Indians.
The autumn days slipped by, and the winter came. It was a mild winter,
even for that part of the country; and as it broke, and the first mild,
balmy spring days came, the settlers began to watch for the governor’s
return. Day after day they looked, but the mild spring melted into the
heat of summer, and yet he did not come.
Hopeful Kent and his boat-load that left Roanoke in such a hurry that
night had never been seen or even heard of; they had either been
drowned, or captured by Wanchese’s men. Autumn again began to paint
the trees yellow and red, yet no sign of a sail; the men were growing
discontented, and gave up watching for the ships they would never see,
and went more ardently at their grumbling.
One night, nearly fifteen months after Governor White and his fleet
had left the shore of Virginia, the men’s discontent, which had
been smouldering like a choked fire, burst into a blaze of defiant
rebellion, and on that same night they slipped away in the darkness.
Sixty of the men whom Manteo had sheltered and cared for more than a
year went to Wanchese. Barnes was the leader in this, as in the former
troubles; but he did not tell the men all he meant to do; he knew them
too well to expect them to agree to anything so base as this plan. In
truth, he meant to betray Manteo. Wanchese listened to his proposal
with disdain and distrust, then he cried, “Such a dog shall not live!”
and with a blow of his tomahawk Barnes fell dead. Many of the men were
killed, others were branded and kept as slaves.
Life was more quiet and peaceful after the discontented were gone. Of
course there were sad hearts among the women and children for a while,
for some had lost husbands and fathers. The weaker ones broke down
utterly with the life of exposure and hardship. More than one grave had
been made; the Indians looking on in awe and wonder at the Christian
burial. Mrs. Dare had learned many Indian words, and in a quiet way
she had done much for the neglected women and children, for there were
such among those poor savages, as there are to-day in our own civilized
towns and villages; and in that way she won not only their hearts, but
the hearts of the men also. There is no surer way in the world to a
man’s heart than through his children.
All this time the baby Virginia grew. The soft down on her round head
had changed to a halo of golden curls. Her eyes had grown large and
deep like the sea; sometimes a sparkling, laughing blue, and sometimes
almost a gray when a cloud of sorrow crept across her little horizon.
She was not afraid of anything, and nothing seemed to harm her. The
cold rain or the hot sun never made her ill; she seemed to open like a
flower, gaining strength and beauty from all that nature gave. One day
when swinging in her willow cradle under the blue sky, laughing and
playing with her toes, as children do, the old woman or mother of the
tribe, bent and wrinkled, browned and weather-beaten, came slowly up
the hill with several of the squaws. Patience sat on the ground holding
the baby Elizabeth, who, as soon as she saw the old squaw, gave a wild
cry of fear, and buried her face on Patience’s shoulder, moaning and
sobbing. The old woman shook her head, and passed on to the willow
cradle. Little Virginia looked up at the ugly old face for some time,
as if she were studying it. Then she stretched out her tiny white hands
with a pretty baby laugh. The squaw bent over the cradle; Virginia
cooed and smoothed the brown, wrinkled cheek; a murmur of delight
passed through the group of Indian women. Mrs. Dare, who had come to
the door of the wigwam, lifted the baby from its cradle, and tried to
put her in the old Indian’s arms; but she drew back, clasping her hands
and muttering as she looked up towards the sky. The other squaws acted
in the same way. Ranteo, who had just come up, explained to Mrs. Dare
that his people had never seen a papoose with blue eyes before, and
they would not touch it, for they thought it must be a spirit. From
that day Virginia received presents of all kinds, from the skin of a
bison to the wing of an eagle. Her baby clothes were worn out long ago,
and she lay wrapped in skins, like any papoose.
She was a little more than a year and a half old when Howe went with
Gage to see if there was any sign of Governor White’s fleet. They never
came back. Life went on quietly at Croatoan. The men went to their
hunt, or, in their gaudy paint and war toggery, went to fight. The
women beat out their vessels, or wove baskets, and dried skins. The
children played at their sham wars, or went on their imaginary hunts,
or sang their songs full of myths and mysteries.
The summer that Virginia was three years old, she was playing under
the willow-trees outside the wigwam with little Elizabeth, whom she
had nicknamed Beth, and whom she was truly fond of; the only one in
the world who loved the fretful, delicate child with a love that was
not mingled with pity. They were playing quietly together, when a
squaw, holding a little boy by the hand, came near and stood watching
them. Beth at once stopped playing and began to cry, while Virginia
smiled at the little boy, who was several years her senior, and held
out her hand, saying, “Will you come play?” He came to her, but stood
more like a soldier on duty than a child ready for play. The two
looked curiously at each other for several moments. The boy, pointing
to Virginia’s great blue eyes and then to the blue bird he held in
his hand, exclaimed, “Owaissa! Owaissa!” then he laid the bird on her
golden curls; and when, after a long play, he went away, the squaw who
had charge of him urged him to take the bird back, for it was the most
loved of all his toys. He shook his head and angrily refused. He was
Iosco, Manteo’s son; and after that he came often to the willow-tree
and played with Owaissa, as he called her. As she grew older and was
able to play with Iosco and the other Indian children, she was known
among them only as Owaissa.
Virginia was nearly six when Mrs. Dare began to give up all hopes of
seeing the English ships that were to bring her husband and father.
The hard, rough life of exposure had made great changes in the young
and beautiful woman who had sailed from England a happy bride only a
little more than seven years before. She looked twenty years older;
her wavy brown hair was gray; her complexion was burnt and sallow. She
lived only for her little daughter, and what good she could do among
the poor heathen, who fairly worshipped her. She had taught Virginia
to read. When six years old, the child knew all the old familiar Bible
stories, and she could sing many of the old hymns and and psalms. Thus
the education of the first American-born child slowly progressed.
The squaw who waited on Iosco, whose name was Adwa, was very fond of
both children: her own, she said, had all gone to the Happy Hunting
Ground. She would tell them stories by the hour, while the three
children sat listening breathlessly, for Virginia always insisted
upon bringing Beth in for whatever was going on. As the squaw sat and
parched the corn, she would tell them of Mondamin, and how the young
Indian fasted and prayed for no selfish purpose, but for the profit of
his people; and how he wrestled with and conquered Mondamin, because of
his prayer to the Great Spirit. Or as they sat by the water she would
tell them how the Puk-Wudjie fed the great fish, or how they killed
Kwasind. Or they would watch the clouds clear away after a storm, and
Adwa would tell them how the little flowers that died on earth bloomed
again in the rainbow. As they sat in the growing darkness, watching the
little fire-flies, she taught them the Indian children’s good-night
song:--
“Fire-fly, fire-fly, bright little thing,
Light me to bed, and my song I will sing!
Give me your light as you fly o’er my head,
That I may merrily go to my bed.
Give me your light, o’er the grass as you creep,
That I may joyfully go to my sleep.
Come, little fire-fly, come, little beast,
Come, and I’ll make you to-morrow a feast.
Come, little candle, that flies as I sing,
Bright little fairy-bug, night’s little king.
Come, and I’ll dance as you guide me along,
Come, and I’ll pay you, my bug, with a song!”
Beth could not learn the song; in fact, she had learned very little of
the Indian language, while Virginia spoke it quite as well as English.
In return for Adwa’s tales of Indian lore, Virginia would often tell
the Bible stories she loved so well, old fables, or wonderful fairy
tales; she even taught Iosco her favorite hymn. In this way the first
six years of her life were passed, and her intellect and imagination
were developed. In the same proportion she gained strength and vigor
from the active games of the Indian children. She could climb a tree
as nimbly as a squirrel, keep up with any child of her own size in the
race, scramble down a steep cliff, or run over a narrow bridge formed
only of a branch, as if she were in truth an Owaissa. Her life was
light-hearted and sunny: no cloud of sorrow had yet obscured its baby
brightness. But a dark cloud was fast gathering. Even when the cloud
had broken away, the sun would never again be as bright as it had been
before.