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.