Crossing the Niagara river in a direct line, the Canadian shore lies
not more than eight miles from Buffalo, New York, and in the early 50’s
small bands of Indians were still familiar figures on both the American
and Canadian borders. Many strange tales of romantic happenings in this
mixed community of Anglo-Saxons, Indians and Negroes might be told
similar to the one I am about to relate, and the world stand aghast and
try in vain to find the dividing line supposed to be a natural barrier
between the whites and the dark-skinned race. No; social intercourse
may be long in coming, but its advent is sure; the mischief is already
done.
From 1842, the aborigines began to scatter. They gave up the last of
their great reservations then before the on-sweeping Anglo-Saxon,
moving toward the setting sun in the pasture lands surrounding the
Black Hills.
Of those who remained many embraced Christianity; their children were
sent to the pale-face schools; they themselves became tillers of
the soil, adopting with their agricultural pursuits all the arts of
civilized life, and cultivating the friendship of the white population
about them. They, however, still clung to their tribal dress of
buckskin, beads, feathers, blankets and moccasins, thereby adding
picturesqueness of detail to the moving crowds that thronged the busy
streets of the lively American city. Nor were all who wore the tribal
dress Indians. Here and there a blue eye gleamed or a glint of gold in
the long hair falling about the shoulders told of other nationalities
who had linked their fortunes with the aborigines. Many white men
had been adopted into the various tribes because of their superior
knowledge, and who, for reasons best known to themselves, sought to
conceal their identity in the safe shelter of the wigwam. Thus it was
with White Eagle, who had linked his fortunes with the Seneca Indians.
He had come among them when cholera was decimating their numbers at a
fearful rate. He knew much of medicine. Finally, he saved the life of
the powerful chief Red Eagle, was adopted by the tribe, and ever after
reverenced as a mighty medicine man.
Yet, though Erie County urged the Indians farther West, and took up
their reservations for white settlers, their thirst for power stopped
short of the curtailment of human liberty. The free air of the land
of the prairies was not polluted by the foul breath of slavery. We
find but one account of slaves being brought into the country, and
they were soon freed. But the free Negro was seen mingling with other
settlers upon the streets, by their presence adding still more to the
cosmopolitan character of the shifting panorama, for Buffalo was an
anti-slavery stronghold,--the last and most convenient station of the
underground railroad.
It was late in the afternoon of a June day. It was uncommonly hot, the
heat spoke of mid-summer, and was unusual in this country bordering
upon the lakes.
On the sandy beach Indian squaws sat in the sun with their gaudy
blankets wrapped about them in spite of the heat, watching the steamers
upon the lakes, the constant traffic of the canal boats, their beaded
wares spread temptingly upon the firm white sand to catch the fancy
of the free-handed sailor or visitor. Upon the bosom of Lake Erie
floated a canoe. It had been stationary at different points along the
shore for more than an hour. The occupants were fishing; presently the
canoe headed for an island lying close in the shadow of Grand Island,
about a mile from it. The lad who handled the paddle so skilfully
might have been mistaken for an Indian at first glance, for his lithe
brown body lacked nothing of the suppleness and grace which constant
exercise in the open air alone imparts. He wore moccasins and his dress
otherwise was that of a young brave, save for feathers and paint. His
flashing black eyes were fixed upon the island toward which the canoe
was headed; as the sunlight gleamed upon his bare head it revealed the
curly, crispy hair of a Negro.
The sunlight played, too, upon the other occupant of the canoe, as she
leaned idly over the side trailing a slim brown hand through the blue
water. Over her dress of gaily-embroidered dark blue broadcloth hung
two long plaits of sunny hair.
Presently the canoe tossed like a chip at the base of wooded heights
as it grated on the pebbly beach. The two children leaped ashore,
and Judah pulled the canoe in and piled it and the paddles in the
usual place, high in a thicket of balsam fir. Winona had removed her
moccasins and carried them in her hand while they made the landing;
Judah balanced his gun, the fishing-rods and the morning’s catch of
fish on a rod.
They took their way along the beach, wading pools and walking around
rocks, gradually ascending the wooded heights above them round and
round, until they stood upon the crest that overlooked the bay and
mainland.
The island was the home of White Eagle. When the Indians gave up
Buffalo Creek reservation to Ogeten in 1842, and departed from Buffalo,
he had taken up his abode on this small island in the lake, with an old
woman, a half-breed, for his housekeeper. Hunting, fishing, trapping
and trading with the Indians at Green Bay gave him ample means of
support. But it was lonely with only a half-deaf woman for a companion,
and one day White Eagle brought to the four-room cottage he had erected
a handsome well-educated mulattress who had escaped from slavery via
the underground railroad. With her was a mite of humanity whose mother
had died during the hard struggle to reach the land of Freedom. In the
end White Eagle crossed to the Canadian shore and married the handsome
mulattress according to English law and with the sanction of the
Church; the mite of black humanity he adopted and called “Judah.”
In a short time after the birth of Winona, the wife sickened and
died, and once more the recluse was alone. Yet not alone, for he had
something to love and cling to. Winona was queen of the little island,
and her faithful subjects were her father, Judah and old Nokomis.
So transparent was the air on this day in June, that one could
distinguish strips of meadow and the roofs of the white Canadian houses
and the sand on the edges of the water of the mainland. The white
clouds chased each other over the deep blue sky. The dazzling sunshine
wearied the eye with its gorgeousness, while under its languorous kiss
the lake became a sapphire sea breaking into iridescent spray along the
shore.
The children were on a high ridge where lay the sun-flecked woods.
They were bound for the other side, where lurked the wild turkeys; and
partridges and pigeons abounded, and gulls built their nests upon rocky
crests.
Singing and whistling, Judah climbed the slopes, closely followed
by Winona, who had resumed her moccasins. The squirrel’s shrill,
clear chirp was heard, the blackbirds winged the air in flight, and
from the boughs above their heads the “robin’s mellow music gushed.”
Great blossoms of pink and yellow fungus spotted the ground. Winona
stopped to select from among them the luscious mushroom dear to her
father’s palate. Daisies and bell-shaped flowers of blue lay thick in
the grasses, the maples were still unfolding their leaves; the oak
was there and the hemlock with its dark-green, cone-like foliage; the
graceful birch brushed the rough walnut and the stately towering pine.
The transparent shadows, the sifted light that glimmered through the
trees, the deer-paths winding through the woods, the green world still
in its primal existence in this forgotten spot brought back the golden
period unknown to the world living now in anxiety and toil.
A distant gleam among the grasses caught the girl’s quick eye. She ran
swiftly over the open and threaded her sinuous way among the bushes to
drop upon her knees in silent ecstacy. In an instant Judah was beside
her. They pushed the leaves aside together, revealing the faint pink
stems of the delicate, gauzy Indian-pipes.
“Look at them,” cried Winona. “Oh, Judah, are they not beautiful?”
The Negro had felt a strange sense of pleasure stir his young heart
as he involuntarily glanced from the flowers to the childish face
before him, aglow with enthusiasm; her wide brow, about which the hair
clustered in rich dark rings, the beautifully chiselled features, the
olive complexion with a hint of pink like that which suffused the
fragile flowers before them, all gave his physical senses pleasure
to contemplate. From afar came ever the regular booming of Niagara’s
stupendous flood.
“But they turn black as soon as you touch them.”
“Yes, I know; but we will leave them here where they may go away like
spirits; Old Nokomis told me.”
“Old Nokomis! She’s only a silly old Indian squaw. You mustn’t mind her
stories.”
“But old Nokomis knows; she speaks truly,” persisted the girl, while a
stubborn look of determination grew about her rounded chin.
“When you go to school at the convent next winter the nuns will teach
you better. Then you will learn what you don’t know now. You’re only a
little girl.”
There was silence for a time; Judah sank in the tall grass and aimed
for a tempting pigeon roosting low in the branches of a tree. Nearer
he stole--his aim was perfect--he was sure of his prey, when a girlish
voice piped,--
“Did they tell you that at school?”
“There now! You’ve spoilt it! why did you speak?”
“Well, I wanted to know,” this in a grieved tone.
“Wanted to know what?”
“Did they tell you that at school?”
“Tell me what?”
“That old Nokomis is silly?”
“Of course not! They didn’t know old Nokomis. But in school you learn
not to believe all the silly stories that we are told by the Indians.”
The boy spoke with the careless freedom of pompous youth.
They moved on through the woods over the delicate tracery of shadowy
foliage, and climbed down the steep sides of the hilly ridge that rose
above a quiet cove on the other side where they had made what they
called a kitchen. Winona led the way in her eagerness to reach the
shore. She had been silent for some time, absorbed in thought.
“I tell you, Judah, I will not go to the convent school. I hate nuns.”
“Ho, ho!” laughed Judah. “But you must; the father has said it.”
“Papa cannot make me. I will not.”
“Ah, but you will when the time comes, and you will like it. I doubt
not you will want to leave us altogether when you meet girls your own
age, and learn their tricks.”
“Stop it, Judah!” she cried, stamping her small foot like a little
whirlwind, “you shall not torment me. I do not want to leave papa and
you for a lot of nuns and strange girls who do not care for me.”
“What, again!” said Judah, solemnly. “That makes three times since
morning that you’ve been off like a little fury.”
“I know it, Judah,” replied the girl, with tears in her eyes, “but you
are so tantalizing; you’d make a saint lose her temper, you know you
would.”
“Oh, well; we shall see--Look, Winona!” he broke off abruptly,
pointing excitedly out over the bosom of the lake. Three birds floated
in the deep blue ether toward the island. “Gulls!”
“No! No! They’re eagles, Judah!” cried the girl, as excited as he.
“Sure enough!” exclaimed the boy.
The birds swerved, and two flew away toward the mainland. The third
dropped into the branches of a maple. “It’s a young eagle, Winona,
and I’m going to drop him!” catching up his weapon he leaned forward,
perparing to take careful aim. Suddenly there was a puff of smoke
that came from behind a bend in the shore just below where they were
standing. A dull report followed and the eagle leaped one stroke in the
air and dropped like a shot into the waters of the lake. A boat shot
out from the beach with two men in it. They picked up the dead bird and
then pulled towards the spot where the children stood intently watching
them. They came on rapidly, and in a moment the occupants stood on the
beach before the surprised children.
They were white men, garbed in hunter’s dress. They seemed surprised to
see the girl and boy on an apparently uninhabited island, and one said
something in a low tone to the other, and motioned toward the crisp
head of the boy. They spoke pleasantly, asking the name of the island.
Winona shrank behind Judah’s back, glancing shyly at them from beneath
the clustering curls that hung about her face.
“This island has no name,” said Judah.
“Oh, then it is not a part of the Canadian shore?”
The questioner eyes the boy curiously. Judah moved his feet uneasily in
the pebbles and sand.
“Not that I ever heard. It’s just an island.”
“Do you live here?”
“Yes, over there,” pointing toward the other side.
“We’re mighty hungry,” joined in the other man, who had pulled the boat
to a safe resting place out of the reach of the incoming tide.
“We’ll pay you well for your fish,” he added.
“You are welcome to as much as you wish,” replied Judah politely, at
once passing over a number of trout and a huge salmon.
“Show them our fireplace, Judah,” said Winona, at length finding her
tongue. Judah led the way silently toward the sheltered cove where
they had constructed a rude fireplace of rocks, and where the things
necessary for their comfort during long tramps over their wooded
domain, were securely hidden.
The children busied themselves with hospitable preparations for a meal,
and the men flung themselves down on a bed of dry leaves and moss,
lighted their pipes, and furtively watched them.
“Likely nigger,” commented one.
“Worth five hundred, sure. But the girl puzzles me. What is she?”
replied the one who seemed to be the leader.
“She’s no puzzle to me. I’ll tell you what she is--she’s a nigger, too,
or I’ll eat my hat!” this with a resounding slap upon the thigh to
emphasize his speech.
“Possible!” replied the leader, lazily watching Winona through rings of
smoke. “By George! Thomson, you don’t suppose we’ve struck it at last!”
“Mum’s the word,” said Thomson with an expressive wink. Judah brought
some wood and Winona piled it on until a good bed of coals lay within
the stone fireplace. Then she hung the fish on pieces of leather
string, turning them round and round. Soon they lay in platters of
birch, a savory incense filling the air, and in no time the hunters
were satisfying their hunger with the delicious salmon and trout,
washed down by copious draughts of pure spring water from a nearby rill
whose gentle gurgle one could distinguish as it mingled with the noise
of the dashing surf and the roar of the falls.
The children stood and watched them. Judah fingering lovingly the
feathers of the dead eagle which he had taken from the boat.
“You haven’t told us who you are,” suggested the leader with a smile.
“She’s White Eagle’s daughter; I’m adopted.”
“I see. Then you’re Indians?”
Judah nodded. Somehow he felt uneasy with these men. He did not trust
them.
“Not by a long sight,” muttered Thomson. “Nothin’ but nigger blood ever
planted the wool on top of that boy’s head.”
Suddenly, faint and clear came a blast on a horn, winding in and out
the secret recesses of the woods. Again and yet again, then all was
still.
The men were startled, but the children hastily gathered up their
belongings and without a word to the strangers bounded away, and were
soon lost in the dark shadows of the woods.
“Well, cap’t, this is a rum un. Now what do you reckon that means?”
“I have an idea that we’ve struck it rich, Thomson. Come, unless we
want to stay here all night, suppose we push out for civilization?”