Marvin embarked and departed. He did not understand such references as
“chigomee,” which was Ojeeg’s abbreviation of Gitchie Goomee, Lake
Superior. Long before Ojeeg’s ancestors came to Keego they had dwelt
along that sweet ocean, content with maple sugar instead of alcohol, and
feeling out copper to make themselves pans. They found sprays of it in
rocky banks where water had made it visible. They felt it out on
On-du-nog-o-ning, the place where one feels for the dishpan.
But Ontonagon was two hundred miles away, and Bruce Mines only ten. It
occurred to the chemist to run down there and see if the rock was still
yielding either 27, 28, 29, or 52.
In half an hour he emerged from the north channel into Lake Huron, and
cruised along the eastern shore of Bay-quah-de-nah-shing. It was all
very beautiful, and he made up his mind to return that way by moonlight.
He would run southward the eastern length of the island, pick his way
westward among the smaller islands, and come back to his tent with the
procession of upbound steamers.
Then he turned his prow northward and made for certain smoking chimneys
on the Canadian mainland. Bruce Mines received him kindly and gave him
some dinner, but was sorry to report that the copper vein had given out,
and that the smoking chimneys merely meant trap-rock being quarried.
The steps produced by lava-flows easily held his attention all the
afternoon. It was between them that copper had been deposited,
apparently by rains.
Yet here and there on the trap were masses of limestone. Once seaweed
had floated here, rich in iodine, that precious non-metal which is twice
as heavy as copper and a thousand times more valuable, because it will
keep a man alive when any of a dozen diseases attacks his cells.
After supper he once more embarked on Lake Huron. It seemed as wide as
the ocean, but failed to smell like the ocean. He reflected that the
ocean contains some sixty billion tons of the salts of iodine, and that
even the odor of kelp brings food into the human body. The Bright
River’s thyroids were starving for a smell of oceanic violets.
The sunset was still glowing when he reached Ojeeg’s landing, but it set
up no such glow in his heart as did the unexpected voice that greeted
him.
“Good evening, Mr. Mahan. I’m rather disappointed to see you, but I ran
up to tell the Little Pine that I dote on canned milk.”
Marvin landed.
“Darling Miss Rich, why should your taste amuse a Little Pine?”
“Because he killed our cow. He wanted to bring us a deer, and Sempronia
got in his way. A new cow will cost about two hundred, and I’m going to
let you pay for it. You may have my island if you won’t ask Ojeeg for
his.”
“How did you know I was after Keego?”
“Ojeeg told me.”
“I’m sorry not to be able to oblige you. I am going up to the house this
minute to close the deal.”
“Then I’m going with you and try to ruin it.”
They walked up to the house and were admitted by the sad little wife,
who had been named Little Red Leaf by the Red Leaf herself, because she
had started life as a very rosy baby. The roses were all gone now.
They were conducted into the front room, where Penaycee had coughed her
life away. There sat the Bright River, Wassa-je-wunequay, and beside her
the Little Pine. The old woman’s face was weathered like the granite she
dwelt among, but a pencil of sunlight swept across it as she saw the
Humming-Bird approach with the Bear.
Marvin and Jean seated themselves upon an ugly red plush sofa, and sat
there in silence as if waiting for a funeral to begin. Presently in
walked the man that was.
The Bright River beckoned to the Humming-Bird, and Jean went over and
let her whisper something. It was to the effect that the English letters
l and r were too hard to pronounce, and that the Humming-Bird must
translate.
Then the Bright River began to speak in Ojibway, very slowly, as the ice
begins to move in the spring. Jean translated paragraph by paragraph,
keeping the dignity of the original as well as she could.
“This man has appeared to my grandson at the moment of his fast.
Therefore I will listen to what he has to say.”
“Then,” said Marvin, “I will say this much. I will pay into the hands of
Miss Rich the sum of four thousand dollars to be held in trust for the
use and benefit of the grandson.”
Jean opened her blue eyes wide with astonishment, but translated. The
old woman inclined her head and asked a question.
“She wants to know what you expect in return.”
“Nothing. It is a gift.”
Again the old woman inclined her head.
“Ask my son if he will give the Bear a Fish.”
Jean turned to Ojeeg, who smiled at her but shook his head. His mother
showed no surprise.
“I have been thinking,” she went on, “of another island, the one
called Mackinac. There were slain the first men ever slain. They did
not perish through the hate of brothers. A boy shot his aunt, but he
did not mean to do it. With that first woman fell all her family, for
what slays one slays many. Manabozho raised them from the dead, but
dwarfs they remained, misi-nim-auk-no-go. When a storm is coming, they
dance upon the cliff to warn the sailor. Therefore is the island
Mishi-nim-auk-i-nong. But me they did not warn.”
When this was translated, the old woman sat in reverie, as if she had
forgotten her intent. So by and by Marvin took something from his pocket
and advanced toward her.
“Here is a bit of cloth. Mainutung sent it to the Woman of the Bright
River.”
She took the scrap in her fingers and looked at it long. Then she looked
at the Humming-Bird and seemed to understand. Mainutung wished to give
his daughter in marriage, but had no present for the bridegroom. The
best he could do was to demand Keego for the Bear, and she recognized
Mainutung’s right to demand it.
“My son will pay his debts. Once I told him how he came upon the earth,
but he has forgotten. It was in the early spring, forty-nine years ago.
We had been to Mackinac and were returning on the ice. I was in a sled
with Wayish-kee, my first-born, and my husband Ussaba was drawing the
sled. My son Ojeeg was not yet born, but I was nearing my time. At Point
au Frenes it began to snow. I laughed and told the baby that
Pup-puk-e-wiss was gathering hay to keep his children warm. But the snow
turned to sleet and blinded us.”
Jean translated this long speech in a low voice, while the old mother
clutched the piece of cloth to her breast.
“I sang no more, for I was in pain. I shut my teeth. Ussaba staggered
on, unable to see a rod before him. The wind howled like ghosts. Then
the ice broke beneath his feet, and he went in. He clung to the ice and
cried, ‘Au secours!’ I was frightened, and my child was born.
“I thought my man would die and my child would die. All was dark before
my eyes. Then I felt the sled move back. I could hear some one helping
Ussaba out of the water. I felt warm young hands, strong like a man’s,
gentle like a woman’s. Then I went to sleep.
“When I woke up, I was lying on a nice smooth bed. It was made of a
horse’s hair, and it sprung like a bed of boughs. My new baby was on my
arm, safe and warm. Ussaba lay on the floor near the fire, his feet
bound up with linen. At the foot of my bed sat Mainutung. His face was
smooth as any Indian’s, and his eyes were laughing at me.
“How far can a man hear from the north when such a storm is blowing from
the west? He cannot hear a moose bellow ten rods off. Yet my son’s baby
voice was heard for half a mile. Now he hears the voice of Mainutung
asking payment—an island for a life.”
Ojeeg rose to his feet and spoke with equal dignity in the same
language.
“Ningah, I am not deaf. When the Keen Ear needs Keego for himself, he
shall have it. When he needs these hands, he shall have them. But this
thief is not Mainutung.”
And having delivered his ultimatum, Ojeeg sat down.
“Right you are,” said Jean. “The Fisher has told the truth.”
“The Fisher!”
Marvin’s startled voice rang out as if he were once more in France.
“Certainly. Ojeeg means the Fisher. One of his sons is the Little Pine,
the other died in the war. That was Ozahwunoo, the Bluebird.”
Marvin sat speechless.
But on hearing Jean’s reference to the Bluebird, his grandmother took up
her parable in the difficult tongue.
“One good doctor worth all dead bones. Ozahwunoo not there. Ozahwunoo
here!”
The Little Red Leaf gave a frightened glance toward the window, as if
she expected to see her tall son standing there in a spectral blue
light. But “here” did not mean the window. The old woman’s fingers were
suddenly busy at her own bosom. She drew forth a little pouch, opened
it, and beckoned her grandson to her side.
“Read, Shinguakonse. I have kept them eleven moons. I not speak of these
to a drunkard.” And Shinguakonse read aloud from a bloodstained scrap of
paper which Marvin recognized as a leaf from Gregg’s notebook:
Noko:
Ah-pe-go, ne nun-duh-way-ne-mah Shmgua-konae ge
mush-ke-kee-ww-ee-ne-wid, o-be-mah-je-uan be-mah-de-ze-win,
kamah pun-ge-aha ahoon-e-yah, kamah gaween.
Neengah, ne-bo-win way-ne-puh-wud.
Ozahwunoo.
Grandmother:
The Little Pine must be a doctor, and must save life for little
silver or none.
Mother, to die is easy.
The Bluebird.
Then the Little Pine unfolded a larger letter and began to read in
English. But Marvin, with a tremor in his voice, interrupted.
“Wait, boy. I can tell you how that letter is signed. The name is C. C.
Gregg, First Lieutenant.”
All eyes turned on the speaker. He arose to his feet and held out his
left arm.
“The shell that killed the Bluebird hit me first. I am his captain. When
I get this lump out of my throat. I’ll tell you all about it. But this
I’ll tell you now. The Bluebird was a man. I don’t ask to be any more of
a man than he was. I won’t say another word about the island. I’ll tell
my principal that he must take something not so good or none at all. And
I bind myself here and now to put the Little Pine through medical
school.”
With that he was about to sit down, but he was not quick enough. Ojeeg
had him by the hand, and he felt the grip of the muscles that had
knocked him down that morning.
“Keego yours. You my brother.”
Then Shinguakonse came and looked up into his eyes. And the Little Red
Leaf came and took Pat in her hand and pressed the poor thing against
her heart. But Jean had her arms around the old woman, and was crying
against the goitre and the swarthy face that beamed, for summer had
dawned on the Bright River.