FAREWELL.
When Lois and Hal went home from their visits to Wenonah they would
repeat her stories as well as they could to their father and mother, who
liked them very much.
Mr. and Mrs. Robbins gave the Indian maiden many pleasant times in
return for her kindness to their children. One day it would be a picnic,
another day a sail, and the more they saw of Wenonah the better they
liked her.
Mrs. Robbins asked her one day about her Winter home and how she lived;
and she could see that the Indian girl, on account of her education, had
many trials in the manner of living of her own people. Mrs. Robbins
asked her how she would like to go home to Boston with them.
"I am sure," she said, "that those clever fingers of yours must be able
to sew as well as weave, and I think you could be very useful in our
home. My children are so fond of you they would be delighted I know, if
you would come." Wenonah's eyes shone and looked far away, and she
smiled.
"That would be happiness," she said, "but I can help my own people and
they need me."
There came a day when the Indians took down their tents because the
Summer folk were leaving and they could not sell anything more. They
went away and took Wenonah with them and Lois and Hal had lumps in their
throats when they bade the Indian girl good-bye.
"Another Summer, perhaps," she said to comfort them, and her own eyes
grew wet, for the children had been a great joy to her in her
loneliness.
She gave them each a sweet-grass basket with a cover as a parting
present, and they put them inside the rougher ones they had made
themselves. That charming perfume would always make them think of the
bright plumage, the shining braids and the flashing eyes of their new
friend.
"Please be thinking up stories all Winter, will you, Wenonah?" asked
Hal.
She promised; and at Christmas-time the children sent her a book of
interesting tales to entertain her through the long, cold Winter
evenings as she had entertained them through many a sunny afternoon.
They wrote her, also, of a wonderful Christmas gift they had received,
themselves. A baby sister had come to their house and they were trying
to decide on a name for her. They wanted to call her Wenonah, they
wrote, but their mother said her nose wasn't straight enough!
"But we will tell her all about you," wrote Lois, "and we'll bring her
with us next Summer. She's such a little, tiny thing! Hal and I told her
about Lily-bud and Rose-Petal and she smiled. We think perhaps she knows
them. We can hardly wait until she grows big enough to tell us.
Good-bye, Wenonah, Good-bye."