A CAPTIVE’S LIFE AMONG INDIANS, ILLUSTRATED BY THE LIFE OF “THE WHITE
WOMAN.”
To be taken captive by the Indians, was among the early colonists
considered the most terrible of all calamities; and it was indeed a
fearful thing to become the victim of their revenge. But those who were
enduring the actual sufferings of captives, or suffering still more
from terror of uncertain evils, thought little of the provocation given
by our own people. The innocent often suffered for the guilty, and
however persevering the efforts of the government to be just, in its
infancy, in a wild unknown country, it was impossible to control
unprincipled marauders. Some atrocious act was first committed by white
men, which drove the Indian to retaliation, and thinking pale faces
were all alike, he did not wait till the real offender fell into his
hands.
When the white men first came, the Indians looked upon them as superior
beings. They were ready to worship Columbus and his little party, and
all along on the coast, until their simple trust was outraged beyond
endurance they welcomed the strangers—gave them food when they were
hungry, and sheltered them when they were cold. It was not till their
encroachments became alarming, that the Indian asserted his rights, and
if in all cases he had been as justly and kindly dealt with as by the
Quakers of Pennsylvania, there would not have been so dark a record of
sin and wrong, and torture. If none but men of principle had made
treaties with them, and all whose duty it was to observe them, had kept
their faith, revenge would not have come out so prominently in Indian
character.
But it was not in obedience to national policy that those who were
taken in battle were put to the torture, and burned and flayed. The Six
Nations had never found it necessary to build prisons and dig dungeons
for their own people. If a man committed murder, they sometimes decided
that he should die, and sometimes bade him flee far away where none who
knew him could ever look upon his face. But crimes were so rare that
they had no criminal code, and when they overcame their enemies, they
either adopted them and treated them as friends, or put them
immediately to death.
White people have sometimes put Indians to death, and oftener put them
in dungeons to waste and starve, but it was no part of their practice
to adopt them and call them brethren! Had they sometimes done this, or
sent them freely back to their friends unharmed, they might have
conciliated where they only made more desperate.
When families were bereaved, they sought to be revenged on those who
had bereaved them; and when warriors returned from battle, the
prisoners were given up to the friends who were afflicted. With them
alone it remained to decide the fate of those who fell into their
hands. If they chose, they adopted them in place of the husbands and
brothers who were slain; and if they so decided, they were put to
death, and in any way they decreed.
If the manner in which their friends had been killed was aggravating
and greatly enraged them, they were very likely to decide upon torture,
and inflicted it in a manner to produce the greatest suffering. But
even in such cases they sometimes showed great magnanimity, and
“returned good for evil.”
Children were very often adopted, and by a solemn ceremony received
into a particular tribe, and evermore treated as one of their own
people. We have been in the habit of listening to heart-rending stories
of cruelties to captives, but captives who were adopted were never
cruelly treated. Those who were immediately put to death experienced
great suffering for a few hours, and those who were preserved were
subject to hardships which seemed to them unspeakable, but they were
such as are necessarily incident to Indian life. They had no written
chronicles to tell to all future generations the wrongs and tortures to
which they were subjected, but one who sits with them by their
firesides, may have his blood frozen with horror at recitals of
civilized barbarity.
And there is one species of wrong, of which no captive woman of any
nation had to complain when she was thrown upon the tender mercies of
Indian warriors. Not among all the dark and terrible records which
their enemies have delighted to emblazon, is there a single instance of
the outrage of that delicacy which a pure-minded woman cherishes at the
expense of life, and sacrifices not to any species of mere animal
suffering. Of what other nation can it be written, that their soldiers
were not more terrible at the firesides of their enemies than on the
battle field, with all the fierce engines of war at their command? To
whatever motive it is to be ascribed, let this at least stand out on
the pages of Indian history as an ever enduring monument to their
honor. A little book, which professes to have been written for the sole
purpose of recording and perpetuating Indian atrocities, and dwells
upon them with infinite delight, alludes to this redeeming trait in
Indian character, but attempts to ascribe it to the influence of
superstition, as if it were necessary to find some evil or
deteriorating motive for every thing noble or pleasing in Indian
character. I have no doubt that it was quite revolting to the general
sentiment in an Indian community, to mingle their blood with that of a
nation whom they looked up on as a race of evil spirits let loose, and
I wonder that they should ever have received them, as they often did,
into their families, and to their bosom friendships and confidences.
But this hatred in other nations prompts to the very manifestation of
which an Indian was never guilty. Their treatment of captives from
among Indian nations was the same, and I know not that there has been
any satisfactory solution of a characteristic which has been found
among only one other civilized, Christian or barbarous nation. A
wanderer among the western tribes once asked an Indian why they thus
honored their women, and he said, “The Great Spirit taught them, and
would punish them if they did not.” Among the Germans there existed the
same respect for woman, till they became civilized. There may have been
some superstitious fear, mingled with a strong governing and
controlling principle, but it is not on this account the less
marvellous that whole nations, consisting of millions, should have been
so trained religiously or domestically, that no degree of beauty or
fascination placed under their care, though hundreds of miles in the
solitudes of the wilderness, should have tempted them from the
strictest honor and the most delicate kindness.
Mary Jewison was eighty years a resident among the Senecas, and in the
early part of the time the forests had few clearings, and the comforts
and the vices of white men prevailed but little among them. She was
born on the ocean, with the billowy sea for her cradle and the tempest
for her lullaby. Her parents emigrated from England to this country in
1742, and settled in the unfortunate vale of Wyoming, where date her
first remembrances, which were of the woes that fell upon her
family—the wail of the sorrow-stricken and the breaking of
heart-strings.
The last meal they took together was a breakfast, after which the
father and three eldest brothers went into the field, and Mary, with
the other little children, were playing not far from the house. They
were suddenly startled by a shriek, and knew it must be from their
mother. On running in, they found her in the hands of two Indians, who
were holding her fast. A little boy ran to call his father, and found
him also bound by another of the party, and his eldest brother lying
dead upon the earth. The two others fled to Virginia, where they had an
uncle, as Mary afterwards learned, and those who remained were made
captive and hurried into the woods.
All day they were obliged to march in single file over the rough, cold
soil, with no time or permission for conversation, and the lash often
applied to quicken their steps. Night found them in the heart of the
wilderness, surrounded by their strange captors, and all the horrors of
Indian life or Indian death staring them in the face. They had no hope
of mercy, whether permitted to live or condemned to die.
The mother thought they would perhaps spare the children, but did not
on this account take courage, for it seemed to her better that they
should die, than live to become the companions of such a people, and
grow up very probably to be like them. Mary was the only one old enough
to understand her injunctions, and to her she was allowed to speak
before they were separated for the night, and, as she feared, for ever.
She said, “My daughter, you, I think, will be permitted to live; but
they will deprive you of your father and mother, and perhaps of your
brothers and sisters, so that you will be alone. But endeavor in all
things to please the Indians, and they will be more kind to you. Do not
forget your own language, and never fail to repeat your catechism and
the Lord’s prayer every morning and evening while you live.” This she
promised to do, and having kissed her child, the mother was removed
from her sight, and never more saw one of all the little party who were
happy in the little cottage together only a few hours before.
Mary was not permitted to ask concerning her friends, and only knew
their fate by recognizing their scalps as they were prepared to dry.
Her mother’s she knew by the long sandy hair, which was neatly combed
and braided. Her little brother had soft flaxen curls, which still
retained their sunny hue, and hung in glossy waves over the edges of
the hoop on which the skin was stretched. She could not restrain the
tears, but dared utter no moan that she had been thus cruelly severed
from all she loved.
She must at this time have been ten years of age; but it was less sad
for her than if she had been older, for now she could easily assimilate
her tastes to those of her new friends, and would naturally soon forget
her home and the customs of her people.
She was afterwards told, when she could understand the Indian language,
that they should not have killed her parents if the captors had not
been pursued, and that a little boy, who was the son of a neighbor, and
was also taken, was given to the French, two of whom were of the party.
In the marches of the Indians it was the custom for one to linger
behind and poke up the grass with a stick, after a party had passed
along, to conceal all traces of their foot-steps, so that a pursuit was
seldom successful. In deviating from a direct course, in order not to
get lost, they noticed the moss upon the trees, which always grew
thickest upon the north side, as the south side, being most exposed to
the sun, became soonest dry. They also had some knowledge of the stars,
and knew from the positions of certain clusters, that were to be seen
at certain seasons, which was east and which west.
Mary was carried far down the Ohio, and found her captors to be a party
of Shawanese, and by them she was adopted in place of two brothers, who
had fallen in battle, and for whom the lamentations had not yet died
away.
The ceremony of adoption is very solemn, requiring the deliberations of
a council and the formal bestowing of a name, as a sort of baptism,
from which time the captive is not allowed to speak any language but
the Indian, and must in all things conform to Indian habits and tastes.
It is the custom among them to give children a name which corresponds
with the sports and dependence of childhood, and when they arrive at
maturity, to change it for one that corresponds with the duties and
employments of manhood and womanhood. The first name is given by the
relatives, and afterwards publicly announced in council. The second is
bestowed in the same way, and by this they are ever afterwards called,
except on becoming a Sachem, and sometimes on becoming a chief or
warrior, another is taken, and each denotes definitely the new
position. Each clan, too, had its peculiar names, so that when a
person’s name was mentioned it was immediately known to what clan he
belonged.
A curious feature in the Indian code of etiquette is, that it is
exceedingly impolite to ask a person his name, or to speak it in his
presence. In the social circle and all private conversation, the person
spoken of is described, if it is necessary to allude to him, as the
person who sits there, or who lives in that house, or wears such a
dress. If I ask a woman, whose husband is present, if that is Mr. P——,
she blushes, and stammers, and replies, “It is my child’s father,” in
order to avoid speaking his name in his presence, which would offend
him. On asking a man his name he remained silent; not understanding the
reason, the question was repeated, when he indignantly replied, “Do you
think that I am an owl, to go about hooting my name every where?” the
name of the owl in Seneca, corresponding exactly to the note he
continually utters.
When Mary Jewison had been formally named De-he-wa-mis, they called her
daughter and sister, and treated her in all respects as if she had been
born among them and the same blood flowed in her veins; or rather they
were accustomed to be more kind to captives than to their own children,
because they had not been inured to the same hardships. There was no
difference in the caresses bestowed, no allusion was made to the child
as if it belonged to a hated race, and it never felt the want of
affection.
Mary said her tasks were always light, and every thing was done to win
her love and make her happy. She now and then longed for the comforts
of her cottage home, and wept at the thought of her mother’s cruel
death, but gradually learned to love the freedom of the forest, and to
gambol freely and gayly with her Indian playmates. When she was named
they threw her dress away, and clothed her in deer-skins and moccasins,
and painted her face in true Indian style. She never spoke English in
their presence, as they did not allow it; but, when alone, did not
forget her mother’s injunction, and repeated her prayer and all the
words she could remember, thus retaining enough of the language to
enable her easily to recall it when she should again return to
civilized society, as she constantly indulged the hope of doing by an
exchange of captives.
But when she was fourteen years of age her mother selected for her a
husband, to whom she was married according to Indian custom. His name
was She-nin-jee, and though she was not acquainted with him previously,
and of course had no affection for him, he proved not only an amiable
and excellent man, but a congenial companion, whom she loved devotedly.
He had all the noble qualities of the Indian, being handsome, and
brave, and generous, and kind, and to her ever gentle and affectionate.
Now she became thoroughly reconciled to Indian life, her greatest
sorrow being the necessary absences of her husband on the war-path and
hunting excursions. She followed the occupations of the women, and
tilled the fields, dressed the skins, and gathered the fuel for the
winter fires; and though this seems to us unfeminine labor, it was
performed at their leisure, and occupied very little of their time.
When the hunters returned they were weary and passive, and seldom were
guilty of fault-finding, and so well did an Indian woman know her duty,
that her husband was not obliged to make known his wants. Obedience was
required in all respects, and where there was harmony and affection,
cheerfully yielded; and knowing as they did that separation would be
the consequence of neglect of duty, and unkindness, there was really
more self-control, and care about little things, than among those who
are bound for life, weal and woe, love and hatred, kindness and
cruelty. They did not agree to live together through good and through
evil report, but only while they loved and confided in one another; and
they were therefore careful not to throw lightly away this confidence
and affection.
The labor of the field was performed in so systematic a manner, and by
so thorough and wise a division of labor, that there were none of the
jealousies and envyings which exist among those who wish to hoard, and
are ambitious to excel in style and equipage; and before the fire-water
came among them dissensions of any kind were almost unknown. This has
been the fruitful source of all their woes.
It was not till Mary became a mother that she gave up all longing for
civilized society, and relinquished all hope of again returning to the
abodes of white men. Now she had a tie to bind her which could not be
broken. If she should find her friends they would not recognize her
Indian husband, or consider her lawfully married; they would not care
to be connected by ties of blood to a people whom they despised. Her
child would not be happy among those who looked upon her as inferior,
and she herself had no education to fit her for the companionship of
white people. She looked upon her little daughter and said, “It is
Sheninjee’s, it is dearer to me than all things else. I could not
endure to see her treated with aversion or neglect.”
But only a little while was she permitted this happiness—her daughter
died, while yet an infant, and when Sheninjee was away. Again the
feeling of desolation came over her young spirit, but all around her
ministered in every way to her comfort, and became more than ever
endeared to her heart. After a long absence Sheninjee returned, and she
was again happy for many months. She had a son and named him from her
father, to which no objection was made by her Indian friends, and her
love for her husband became idolatry. In her eyes he seemed every thing
noble and good,—she mourned his departure and longed for his return,
for his affection prompted him to treat her with the gentle and winning
kindness which is the spirit of true love alone.
But again came the separation, and she must pass another long winter
alone. Hunting was the Indian’s toil, and though they delighted in it,
the pang of parting from his wife and little ones, made it a sacrifice,
and spread a dark cloud over a long period of his life. And now it
became dark indeed to Mary, for she waited long and Sheninjee came not.
She put every thing in order in his little dwelling—she dressed new
skins for his couch, and smoked venison to please his taste; she made
the fire bright to welcome him, hoping every evening when she lay down
with her baby upon her bosom, that ere the morning sun the husband and
father would gladden them by his smile, but in vain; winter passed
away, and the spring, and then came the sad tidings that he was dead.
She was a widow and her child was fatherless. Very long and deeply did
she mourn Sheninjee, for it seemed to her there was none like him; but
again the sympathies of his people created new links to bind her to
them, and she said she could not have loved a mother or sister more
dearly than she did those who stood in this relationship to her, and
soothed her by their loving words.
Not for four years was she again urged to marry, and during this time
there was an exchange of prisoners, and she had an opportunity to
return to her kindred. She was left to do as she pleased. They told her
she might go; but if she preferred to remain, she should still be their
daughter and sister, and they would give her land for her own, where
she might always dwell. Again she thought of the prejudice she should
every where meet, and that she could never patiently listen to
reproaches concerning her husband’s people. It would not be believed
that he was noble, because he was an Indian,—she should have no near
relatives, and those she had might reject her if she should seek them.
So she came to the final conclusion, and never more sighed for the
advantages or pleasures of civilized life. She came with the brothers
of Sheninjee to the banks of the Genesee, where she resided the
remaining seventy-two years of her life.
Her second husband, Hiokatoo, she never learned to love. He was a chief
and a warrior, brave and fearless, but though he was always kind to
her, he was a man of blood. He delighted in deeds of cruelty and
delighted to relate them, and now the fire-water had become common, and
the good were made bad and the bad worse, so that dissensions arose in
families and in neighborhoods, and the happiness which had been almost
without alloy, was no longer known among these simple people.
She adds her testimony to that of all travellers and historians
concerning the purity of their lives, having never herself received the
slightest insult from an Indian, and scarcely knowing an instance of
infidelity or immorality. But when they had once tasted of the
maddening draught, the thirst was insatiable, and all they had would be
given for a glass of something to destroy their reason. Now they were
indeed converted into fiends and furies, and sold themselves to swift
destruction. Hiokatoo hesitated at no crime, and took pleasure in every
thing that was dark and terrible, but this was a small trial compared
to those which Mrs. Jewison was called upon to endure from the
intoxication and recklessness of her sons.
Her oldest, the son of Sheninjee, was murdered by John, the son of
Hiokatoo, who afterwards murdered his own brother Jessee, and came to
the same violent death himself by the hands of others. When they came
to be in the midst of temptation there was no restraining principle,
and even after they grew up, her house was the scene of quarrels and
confusion in consequence of their intemperance, and she knew no rest,
from fear of some calamity from the indulgence of their unbridled
passions.
The chiefs of the Seneca nation, to which her second husband belonged,
gave her a large tract of land, and when it became necessary that it
should be secured to her by treaty, she attended the council and plead
her own case. The commissioners, without inquiring particularly
concerning the dimensions of her lots, allowed her to make the
boundaries, and when the document was signed, and she was in firm
possession, it was found that she was the owner of nearly four thousand
acres, of which only a deed in her own handwriting could deprive her.
But though she was rich, she toiled not the less diligently, and
forsook not the sphere of woman in attending to the ways of her
household; and also true to her Indian education, she planted, and
hoed, and harvested, retaining her Indian dress and habits, till the
day of her death.
During the revolutionary war, her house was made the rendezvous and
head-quarters of British officers and Indian chiefs, as her sympathies
were entirely with her red brethren, and the cause they espoused was
the one she preferred to aid. It was in her power to sympathize with
many a lone captive; she always remembered her own anguish at the
prospect of spending her life in the wilderness, the companion of
Indians, and though she had learned to love instead of fearing them,
and knew they were, as a people, deserving of respect and the highest
honor, she understood the feelings of those who knew them not.
Her supplications procured the release of many from torture, and her
generous kindness clothed the naked and fed the starving.
Lot by lot, and acre by acre, the Indians sold their lands, and at
length the beautiful valley of the Genesee fell into the hands of the
white man, except the domain of “The White Woman,” as she was always
called, which could not be given up without her consent. She refused at
the time of the sale to part with her portion, but after the Indians
removed to the Buffalo Reservation, and she was left alone, though lady
of the manor, and surrounded by white people, she preferred to take up
her abode with those whom she now called her people. Most emphatically
did she adopt the language of Ruth in the days of old—“Entreat me not
to leave thee, or return from following after thee, for whither thou
goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall
be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, I will die, and
there will I be buried.”
She was as thoroughly Pagan as the veriest Indian who had never heard
of God, and exclaimed with him, that their religion was good enough for
her, and she desired no change.
She was ninety years old—eighty years she had been an exile from the
land of her birth—she had forgotten the prayers her mother taught her,
and knew nothing of the worship of her fathers, when one morning she
sent a messenger to tell the missionaries she wished to see them. She
had ever before refused to listen to them if they came to her dwelling,
but they hastened to obey the summons, glad to feel that they should be
welcome, though quite uncertain concerning the nature of the interview
she proposed. She was literally withered away. Her face was scarcely
larger than an infant’s, and completely checkered with fine wrinkles;
her teeth were entirely gone, and her mouth so sunken that her nose and
chin almost met; her hair not silvery, but snowy white, except a little
lock by each ear, which still retained the sandy hue of childhood; her
form, which was always slight, was bent, and her limbs could no longer
support her. She had revived the knowledge of her language since she
had dwelt among white people, but “Oh,” said she, as the ladies
entered, “I have forgotten how to pray; my mother taught me, and told
me never to forget this, though I remembered nothing else.” And then
she exclaimed, “Oh God, have mercy upon me!” This expression she had
heard in her old age, and now uttered it in the fulness of her heart.
There had come a gleam of light through all the dark clouds of
superstition and Pagan blindness, and this spark was kindled at the
fireside of that little cottage home, and fell upon her heart from a
mother’s lips, and now revived at the remembrance of a mother’s love
and her dying blessing. It was eighty years since she had seen that
mother’s face, as she breathed out her soul in anguish, bending over
her in the silent depths of the wilderness—eighty years since she
listened to “Our Father who art in Heaven,” from Christian lips, and
now the still small voice which had so long been hushed, spoke aloud,
and startled her as if an angel called. She tried to stifle it, and for
many days after it awoke in her bosom heeded it not, but it gave her no
rest. No earthly voice had since reminded her that her heart was
sinful, and needed to be washed in order to be clean. The seed which
had been sown in it when she was a little child had just sprung up—the
snows of eighty winters had not chilled it—the mildews of nearly a
century had not blighted it, and the heavy hand of a hundred calamities
had left it unharmed. She had not been in the midst of corruptions,
therefore it had not been destroyed. The little germ was still alive,
and proving that it had not been planted in vain.
The aged woman sat pillowed up in bed with her children and children’s
children of three generations around her, and lifting her withered
hands and sunken eyes to heaven, once more repeated, “Our Father, who
art in heaven,” while a new light, like a halo, overspread her face,
tears flowed in floods down her cheeks, and in the dark eye of every
listener there glistened the tear of sympathy in her new-found
happiness.
For many years she remembered her mother’s injunction, and repeated the
words of the prayer and the catechism; but as she became more
thoroughly familiar with the language, and could join in the
thanksgivings of her new people, she ceased to care for the faith of
her fathers. Yet it was the connecting link between her and those who
were called Christians, and the sole means of enabling her to revive
and easily acquire the knowledge of her native tongue. Without this the
missionaries could not have communicated with her, as they had not then
learned the Seneca, and those around her who understood both, cared
very little, and knew scarcely more than she, of the Redeemer of whom
she wished to hear.
When asked if she regretted that she had not consented to be exchanged,
and returned to her mother’s friends, she still said, no. She loved the
Indians—she loved them better than white people. They had been kind to
her, and provided generously for her youth and her old age, and her
children would inherit an abundance from the avails of the lands and
herds and flocks which were her sole possessions. Alas! she did not
know that the money she had deposited in the hands of the agent to be
invested for the benefit of her family, was wickedly squandered by him,
so that not a single cent ever reached their hands. [8] She was rich,
but they were miserably poor, and he who thus defrauded her was of the
same blood, and hesitated not to take advantage of her because she had
grown up among an unsuspicious people, who knew not how to redress
their wrongs. Her adopted brethren had honored her above the women of
their own nations—she had received good, and not evil, all the days of
her life; she belonged to a race they had every reason to hate—a race
who had trampled them as their legend said the mammoth buffaloes
trampled the forests in their march, and yet they had respected her,
and loved her, and honored her. And hers was not the only instance of
such kindness; it is not she alone who bears testimony to their
virtues, to their magnanimity, their truly Christian spirit of
forgiveness, their purity, their meekness, their long-suffering, and
their brotherly love, ere they were wronged and contaminated by the
vices of their enemies.
A few days after the new light dawned upon her spirit, in the year
1833, Mrs. Jewison was numbered with the dead. She had embraced the
faith which makes no difference between those who come at the first and
the eleventh hour; and those who were present at the dissolution of
soul and body, doubted not Jesus had whispered to her the same
consolation that fell upon the heart of the thief upon the cross, “This
day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.”
She was buried in the mission burial-ground, near Buffalo, where the
dead are a strange concourse; for it seems once to have been the site
of an ancient fort, and afterwards to have become the repository of the
dust of people of many nations, and is to the historian, the Christian,
and the traveller, an interesting spot.
Not many years ago, the family of the mission were awakened from their
midnight slumbers by the piteous cry of an infant. It was November, and
the plaintive moan of the little one, mingled with the wailing of the
night wind when all else was still, came with startling sadness to
their ears. At first, they thought some lone mother, in her desolation,
had come to them for relief, and hastened to open the door to the
houseless wanderer. But when they looked out into the darkness, they
could see nothing; still the little voice came up, though it grew
fainter, as if its strength was failing. Again they searched, and found
upon the door-step a tiny band-box, in which was snugly curled a baby—a
little baby! All around was dark; there was no mother, no friend; the
little thing was there alone—alone, unconscious of its loneliness.
A little opening had been made in the top of the box, through which
they peeped, and saw a tiny hand move, and then the blue eyes opened to
the light; but when they brought it to the fire it was stupefied by the
effects of cold and some drug it had taken to keep it quiet, and
scarcely showed signs of life for a day. Then it awoke, and on its face
there rested a smile that seemed a beam from heaven. Never more was it
alone. Hearts had become linked to its little heart, and all the
household looked upon it as a treasure and not a burden. Its coarse
blanket and faded frock, proved that it had not been cast out from the
dwellings of the rich, and the few words which were written on a torn
and soiled bit of paper, in a fair hand, proved that its mother was not
ignorant, though poverty-stricken.
“Farewell my little baby! Thy mother must desert thee, but may God take
care of thee and find thee friends!” Then it was blistered with tears,
and placed among the folds of the blanket.
Why did the mother thus desert her child? Must its innocent name be
stained by some dark sin; or was it wretched poverty alone that drove
her to such a sacrifice? There had evidently been sundered a
heart-string, and the bosom on which it was born to rest was neither
cold nor hard. Yet it was a cast-away.
That night a wagon was seen slowly winding its way toward the
mission-house, and from a neighboring window observed to stop in front
of the path that led to the door. At the same time a child, evidently
very young, was heard distinctly to cry for a few moments, and then
ceased, and the wagon moved on toward the great city. This is all its
new-found friends ever learned concerning it. But it became a very
sunbeam in their dwelling, and was beautiful as a cherub. Its ruby lips
never failed to curl with that same sunny smile, whenever the tones of
a pleasant voice fell on its ear, and its gleeful playfulness awoke in
every heart an echo. But it was one of those bright leaves which decay
and dazzle and then depart.
Those upon whose hands it was thrown, helpless and dependent, thought,
how could they keep and nourish it? They too, were poor, and it would
be a burden.
In less than a year, the bright flower faded and died. Twined around it
was every heart-string, and it had found a nestling place in every
bosom, when it grew cold, and shut its eyes on them for ever. They must
wrap it in a shroud, and give it back to earth.
To show their love, they made its grave beneath a spreading walnut,
where the green mound would be sheltered from the burning sun, and the
footsteps of love might linger, and the heart-broken water it with
their tears.
The sod was removed and the dark earth thrown up, and soon they came to
the crumbling bones of a man. It was probably a warrior’s grave. But
they laid the little strange baby upon his breast, and covered them, to
be again disturbed perhaps in some far-off century, by another people
and ruder hands.
Near by is another little one, whose grandfather was taken captive
nearly a century before on the banks of the Juniata; whose mother and
grandmother were Indian women, and who was given when an infant to the
mission family to be their own. It was a little girl, whom they named
Louisa Maria, and who, though she died in early childhood, lived long
enough to become a bud of promise, yes, a blossom of Christian love,
and hope, and faith, a lamb of Christ’s flock. She belonged to the
class of those who always die in infancy, “whose names are all on
gravestones.” They are perfected without the discipline of earth’s
trials, and transplanted to bloom as spring flowers in the gardens
above. Life would be a dreary pathway without the little ones, and
there would be discord in the heavenly choir without the soft melody of
infant voices. A little while before she died, lying still upon the
bed, there came a sweet smile upon her face, and she said, “I see them,
ma, angels, angels all round me, come to carry me away!” and then she
kissed each friend as if she were bidding them good-bye, to return
again, and immediately soared away where angel-children dwell.
In the same inclosure, under the same spreading tree, was buried a
little Indian boy, whose mother had been long a member of the mission
church.
It was a cold day in January when he came in a little sad from his
play, and said, “Mother, I do not feel well; will you take care of me?”
His mother was busy and did not answer, and soon he said again, “Will
you put your hand upon my head, mother; it aches? I think I shall be
sick and die; but I shall go to heaven, where God lives, and be happy.”
He had never before talked of death, and it was not known that he had
ever particularly thought of it. But now he often said, “I am going to
Jesus, you must give up me, mother. I am not afraid, I am happy.” A
quick consumption soon wasted his form and destroyed the bloom upon his
rosy cheek, but he thought only of the bright world to which he was
going.
Their home was a rude Indian cabin, but the mother was a refined
Christian woman. She knew not how to read, but she had learned the
language of prayer. Her heart, too, was swelling with a mother’s love.
She knew not how to give him up. A few moments before he died, in great
distress he said, “Now mother, pray.” She knelt alone beside him, and
in her own rich language poured out her heart to God. When she had
finished he said, “Some one has come in—how pleasant he looks.” No one
had entered, but still he gazed as if looking upon some beautiful
object, then slowly drooped the lid over the brightly-kindled eye, and
he was gone.
In the gateway of this entrance to the city of the dead was buried a
distinguished pagan chief, and all around sleeps the dust of Indian
warriors and chiefs, sad relics of those who fell in bloody battles
long before the red man has any tradition concerning the spot. Here,
too, are many captives, borne from Christian firesides in childhood, to
become the brethren of the children of the wilderness, and be laid to
rest away from their kindred in a strange land, and here are old men
and aged women who, at the eleventh hour, came up to labor in the
vineyard of the Lord.
An old lady used to come tottering to meeting when it seemed impossible
her feeble limbs could support her. When surprise was expressed that
she should come when the weather was cold, and she had so far to walk,
she said with great earnestness, “Oh! I shall always come as long as I
can get here, and when my poor body is too feeble to attempt it longer,
I shall bow my head this way as often as the season of prayer returns.”
Her dust is now mingling with the strange group in this strange place,
and yet it is still but a few years since the messengers of a better
faith came among them. The fruits have been rich and abundant, among
those who belonged to the generation already passed away, and among
those who are still living useful and honored in the Church and the
community, rejoicing the hearts of those who have diligently and
faithfully labored, as stewards of Him who is Lord of the vineyard, and
who sent them forth.
May they live to see the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the
desert a garden under their fostering care, and richly will they be
rewarded when they too shall cross over Jordan.