Copyright, 1912, by the author.
The Chevalier: I will take care of the children. They are both young.
They can learn.
Glory of the Morning: They can learn?
The Chevalier: Oak Leaf is already more than half a white girl; and
Red Wing is half white in blood, if not in manners--_ca ira_.
Glory of the Morning (Beginning to realize): No, no. They are mine!
The Chevalier (Reaching out his arms to take them): No.
Glory of the Morning: They are mine! They are mine!
The Chevalier: The Great King will give them presents.
Glory of the Morning: No, no!
The Chevalier: He will lay his hands on their heads.
Glory of the Morning: He shall not, he shall not!
The Chevalier: I have said that I will tell him you were their mother.
Glory of the Morning: I am their mother--I am their mother.
The Chevalier: And he will praise Glory of the Morning.
Glory of the Morning: They are mine, they are mine!
The Chevalier: I have come to take them back with me over the Big Sea
Water.
Glory of the Morning (The buckskin shirt falls from her hands as she
spreads her arms and steps between him and her children): No, no, no!
They are not yours! They are mine! The long pains were mine! Their
food at the breast was mine! Year after year while you were away so
long, long, long, I clothed them, I watched them, I taught them to
speak the tongue of my people. All that they are is mine, mine, mine!
The Chevalier (Drawing Oak Leaf to him and holding up her bare arm):
Is that an Indian's skin? Where did that color come from? I'm giving
you the white man's law.
Glory of the Morning (Struggling with the Chevalier): I do not know
the white man's law. And I do not know how their skin borrowed the
white man's color. But I know that their little bodies came out of my
own body--my own body. They must be mine, they shall be mine, they are
mine! (The Chevalier throws her aside so that she falls.)
The Chevalier: Glory of the Morning, the Great Spirit said long before
you were born that a man has a right to his own children. The Great
Spirit made woman so that she should bring him children. Black Wolf,
is it not so?
Black Wolf: It is so.
The Chevalier (To Glory of the Morning, standing apart): Black Wolf is
the wise man of your people.
Black Wolf: And knows the Great Spirit better than the white men.
The Chevalier: Indeed, I think so.
Black Wolf: And the Great Spirit made the man so that he should stay
with the squaw who brought him the children,--except when off hunting
meat for the wigwam or on the warpath for the tribe.
Glory of the Morning (With some spirit and dignity): The white man
Half Moon has said that he believes Black Wolf.
The Chevalier: The white man has not come to argue with the Red Skin,
but to take the white man's children.
Black Wolf (In his role of practical wisdom): The Half Moon will
listen to Black Wolf.
The Chevalier (With conciliation): If the Black Wolf speaks wisely....
Black Wolf: Neither Oak Leaf nor Red Wing is a mere papoose to be
snatched from the mother's back.
The Chevalier: The Half Moon shares Black Wolf's pride in the Half
Moon's children.
Black Wolf (Pointing to the discarded cradle-board): The mother long
since loosened the thongs that bound them to the cradle-board, propped
against the wigwam.
The Chevalier: And when she unbound the thongs of the cradle-board
they learned to run toward their father.
Black Wolf: But invisible thongs may now bind them round, which even
the Half Moon might not break, without rending the flesh from their
bones and preparing sorrows and cares for his head.
The Chevalier: Let us have done, Black Wolf.
Black Wolf: Thongs which none could break, unless Oak Leaf and Red
Wing themselves should first unbind them. (To the children.) Will Oak
Leaf, will Red Wing unbind the mystic thongs of clan and home? Let the
children decide.
The Chevalier: Black Wolf is wise. My children are babes no longer.
They can think and speak.
Black Wolf: Let them speak....
Glory of the Morning: Yes. Let the children decide.
Black Wolf: Oak Leaf, do you want to leave Black Wolf and Glory of the
Morning to go with Half Moon over the Big Sea Water?
Oak Leaf (Looking up at her mother): O _do_ I, mother?
Glory of the Morning: I cannot tell. I love you, Oak Leaf.
Oak Leaf (Withdrawing toward her father): Mother, make father Half
Moon take you with us too.
Glory of the Morning: The Half Moon has told you that he no longer
needs Glory of the Morning.
The Chevalier (Taking Oak Leaf's hand caressingly): Oak Leaf, you are
too beautiful to wither and wrinkle here digging and grinding and
stitching, though the handsomest brave of the Winnebago bought you for
his squaw. Beyond the Big Sea Water you won't have to dig and grind
and stitch. And sometime a noble brave of my nation will come in a
blue suit with gold braid to the chateau and say: "I love Oak Leaf;
will you give Oak Leaf to me?"
Oak Leaf (Gladly): And you'll give me to him, father! ... (Oak Leaf
leans against her father, with a half frightened glance at Glory of
the Morning.)
The Chevalier: You see, Glory of the Morning.
Glory of the Morning (With restraint): I will say good-bye to Oak
Leaf.
Black Wolf: Red Wing, are you going with your sister and with Half
Moon over the Big Sea Water?
Red Wing: Sister, _are_ you really going?--You are always making
believe.
Oak Leaf: O, father,--tell him.
The Chevalier: She is going, Red Wing.
Red Wing: There is nothing for me beyond the Big Sea Water.
The Chevalier: Over there your father is a famous chief, and you might
wear a sword and fight beside the Great King.
Red Wing: I shall not fight beside the Great King; and I shall not
wear the white man's sword.
The Chevalier (Takes his arm, coaxingly): Little chief, why not? Why
not, my son?
Glory of the Morning (Coldly and firmly): Because he is _my_ son.
Red Wing (Standing off; to the Chevalier with boyish pride): Because I
am a Winnebago.