THE FEAST OF MONDAMIN
"Minnehaha, Laughing Water, otherwise known as Madge Morton, you are the
loveliest person I ever saw," announced Phyllis Alden, while Eleanor and
Lillian gazed at Madge in her Indian costume with equally admiring eyes.
"See, here is the description of Minnehaha. Doesn't it sound like
Madge?" Phil went on, reading from a volume of Longfellow:
"'Wayward as the Minnehaha,
With her moods of shade and sunshine,
Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate,
Feet as rapid as the river,
Tresses flowing like the water,
And as musical a laughter.'"
Phyllis paused and Madge swept her a low curtsey. "Thank you, Phil," she
said, her blue eyes suddenly misty at her chum's compliment.
It was the day of the great corn feast on the Preston estate, and Madge
had been selected to appear in the costume of Minnehaha and to read to
the guests certain parts of Hiawatha that referred to the Indian legend
of the corn.
All the young people were to appear in the guise of Indians. Phyllis,
with her olive skin, black eyes and hair, made a striking Pocahontas.
Phil looked more like an Indian maiden than Madge, but Madge had more
dramatic skill. Lillian, with her hair as yellow as the corn, was the
paleface princess stolen by the Indians in her babyhood. Eleanor wore an
Indian costume, also, but she represented no especial character.
Much against his will David Brewster impersonated Hiawatha. He hated it.
He did not wish to come to the entertainment at all, much less in the
conspicuous position of the hero of the evening. But Mr. Preston had
taken a deep fancy to David. He seemed not to mind the boy's queer,
moody ways, and he had a great respect for his practical judgment. Mr.
Preston had asked David to remain in his service when the houseboat
party disbanded, but David, for reasons that he would not tell, had
refused. The boy did not think he could decline to impersonate Hiawatha
when Mr. Preston considered that he had paid him a compliment in asking
him. In spite of his embarrassment David Brewster was a good
representation of a young Indian brave, with his swarthy skin, his dark
eyes that flashed fire when his anger was aroused, and his vigorous,
muscular body, made lean and hard by his work in the open fields.
In the middle of the Preston estate, between the orchards and the
cornfields, a huge platform had been erected with a small stage at one
end. The place was decorated with sheaves of wheat, oats and barley,
with great stacks of green and yellowing corn standing in the four
corners. The platform was filled with chairs and hung with lanterns,
some of them made from hollowed-out gourds and pumpkins, to carry out
the harvest idea. After the reading of Hiawatha the platform was to be
cleared and the young people were to have a dance.
The invitations to the feast read for six o'clock. At seven a dozen open
wood fires were roasting the green ears of corn for more than a hundred
guests. The long tables under the trees in the yard were laden with
every kind of delicious food.
But Madge wished the feast was over and her poem read. Her knees were
knocking together when she rose to read before so many people.
The August moon was in the full. It was a golden night. In a semi-circle
behind her crowded her friends from the houseboat party. They formed an
Indian tableau in the background, and David stood near her at the front
of the stage.
"And in rapture Hiawatha
Cried aloud, 'It is Mondamin!'"
read Madge, with a shy glance at the young Hiawatha standing beside her.
At this moment there crept up on the platform an old woman, so old that
the audience stared at one another in amazement. They believed that the
strange visitor was a part of the performance. David and Madge knew
better. David's face turned white as chalk, but Madge's voice never
faltered as she went on with the reading:
"'Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin!
Then he called to old Nokomis'."
The old woman's presence was explained to at least those of the audience
who were familiar with the story of Hiawatha. The ancient gypsy woman
who had appeared on the stage among the young people so unexpectedly was
"old Nokomis," Hiawatha's grandmother, one of the principal characters
in Longfellow's poem.
The moment that Madge finished her recitation David Brewster
disappeared. But the old gypsy went about among the Prestons' guests,
keeping their attention engaged by telling their fortunes.
The gypsy woman was not the only mysterious visitor at the famous corn
feast. Madge and Lillian were dancing with two young country boys when
two Indian braves unexpectedly appeared in the midst of the guests. They
had on extremely handsome Indian costumes and their faces were
completely covered with Indian masks. They spoke in strange, guttural
voices, so that no one could guess who they were.
Madge and Lillian tried in vain to escape them. Wherever the girls went
the Indian chiefs followed them.
As the evening progressed Madge grew very tired. The apparition of the
old woman, whom she had seen before on the day when she was held a
prisoner in the woods, had made her nervous. She longed to ask Phil if
she also recalled the face of the old woman.
"Miss Jenny Ann," Madge kept a tight hold on Phil's hand, "Phyllis and I
are a little tired. We are going away by ourselves to rest. You and Miss
Betsey won't be frightened about us?" Madge gave her chaperon a
repentant hug and Miss Jenny Ann smiled at her. The little captain had
promised never to wander off again without saying where she was going.
The fires where the corn had been roasted were still burning dimly. The
girls made a circuit of the fires and went over into another nearby
field, where a haystack formed a good hiding place. There they dropped
down on the ground and Madge, who was more easily tired than Phil, laid
her head in her chum's lap.
No matter how much Phyllis and Madge enjoyed parties and people, they
were never happier than when they could stroll off to have a quiet talk
with each other. The two girls were splendid associates. Phil had the
calm sweetness, poise and good sense that impetuous Madge often lacked,
while Madge had the fire and ardor that Phyllis needed to give her
enthusiasm.
"I wish Tom and George Robinson were here at the farm to-night, Phil!"
exclaimed Madge, after a short pause, giving a little sigh.
Phyllis looked at her chum closely. The moonlight shone full in Madge's
wistful blue eyes. Phil patted her hand by way of sympathy.
"You see, Phil, it is like this," went on Madge. "I feel sorry about
Tom, because I was really responsible for making him break his engine
and spoiling a part of his holiday. If I had not run away by myself in
the moonlight, Tom might have been here with us. It seems to me that I
am having a perfectly lovely time, while poor Tom is being punished for
my fault. It isn't fair."
"Sh-sh!" Phyllis put her fingers gently over her friend's lips. Some one
was stealing quietly past them on the other side of the haystack. He
disappeared in the darkness, a little way off, and the girls supposed
that he was one of the Prestons' guests escaping from the crowd.
A few minutes later Phil exclaimed: "Madge, is that one of the fires
from the corn roast over there? I did not think that there was any corn
roasted so near to Mr. Preston's barn."
Madge glanced idly across the field. The girls were at one side of the
group of buildings where Mr. Preston kept his live stock. She saw a tiny
jet of flame, apparently running along near the ground. Both watchers
stared at it silently. A larger flame crawled up the outside wall of the
barn, then smoke began to pour out through the cracks.
The two girls sprang to their feet. "One of the barns has caught fire!"
cried Phil. "I'll find Mr. Preston. You give the alarm to the men about
the place." Phil ran toward the festival grounds.
As Madge turned she heard a slight sound behind her. Some one was coming
toward her, moving cautiously over the grass. She slipped to one side
of the haystack so that she could see who it was. "Why, David Brewster!"
she cried, "what are you doing way off here? Quick! hurry! Phil and I
think Mr. Preston's barn is afire!"
David set his teeth in rage as he sped across the field with Madge close
at his heels. He had taken off his Indian costume, but his face was
still stained and painted in Indian fashion, so that it gave him a wild,
unnatural appearance. Instead of stopping at the barn David, without a
word of explanation, ran on to the Preston house.
Madge found a crowd of men already gathered about the burning barn. Mr.
Preston had formed a bucket brigade and a dozen men were passing buckets
from the well to the fire. Half a dozen of the more valorous men, three
of them farm-hands, were fighting their way into the barn, leading,
driving, or coaxing out the terrified horses and cattle.
Mr. Preston stood at the barn door, giving commands to the workers.
By this time the hay in the loft had caught and the whole barn was a
seething mass of fire. Mrs. Preston stood near the scene, with Madge and
Phil on either side of her. David Brewster suddenly joined them. No one
noticed his peculiar expression.
"Let the barn go, men!" shouted Mr. Preston. "Quick, out of it! It will
fall in a minute. We have saved the other buildings, and we must let
this go."
"Oh, my poor Fanny!" wailed Mrs. Preston, as though she were talking of
a human being. Fanny was a beloved old horse that had belonged to Mrs.
Preston for twelve years. She had driven her in her phaeton nearly every
day in all this time and loved the old horse almost as a member of the
family.
Madge felt sure that Mr. Preston could not know that Fanny was still in
the burning barn. The little captain broke away from her friends and
made a rush toward the smoke and flames. Mr. Preston was within a few
feet of the partially consumed building. From the inside of the barn
came a groan of anguish and terror that was human in its appeal. Mr.
Preston covered his face with his hands. "Don't try it, men," he
commanded authoritatively; "the old mare can't be saved. It is useless
to try to go into the barn now."
Madge could no longer endure the piteous sounds. She made a headlong
plunge toward the barn door. She could not see her way inside, but the
noise that the horse was making would guide her, she thought.
Just at the threshold of the barn she felt herself shoved aside and
hurled several feet out of harm's way. She fell backward on the ground
and lay still. It was David who had flung her from the reach of the
fire's scorching heat and plunged into the barn in her stead.
The crowd watched the brave young man in horrified silence. Seconds that
seemed ages passed. The front of the barn collapsed. Madge felt Mr.
Preston seize her and drag her away with him, but not before she and all
the watchers had caught sight of David. He stood in the far corner of
the barn with his coat thrown over the terrified horse's head. His face
was almost unrecognizable through the smoke, but the ringing tones of
his voice urging the old horse forward could be heard above the
crackling wood.
"Hurrah!" shouted Mr. Preston hoarsely. He almost trampled over Madge,
who was sitting on the ground staring wildly at David. Then she saw Mr.
Preston and a half dozen other men pick David up on their shoulders and
bear him away from the crowd, while two of the farm-hands took charge of
old Fanny.
David's burns, though not serious, were painful. His hands and arms were
severely blistered. But the excitement occasioned by the fire had hardly
passed when it was discovered that during the fire some one had entered
the Preston house and had stolen a quantity of old family silver. Miss
Betsey Taylor's money bag, which she had carefully concealed under the
day pillow on her four-post mahogany bed, had also disappeared.
There would probably never be any way to discover how or when the thief
entered the house. There had been more than a hundred visitors about the
place, and the house had been open for hours. During the fire every one
of the servants had rushed into the yard.
There was also another disturbing fact to be considered. Either before
or after the fire the old gypsy woman, who had unexpectedly appeared to
take the character part of old Nokomis in the Hiawatha recitation, had
completely vanished; also, the two men disguised as Indian braves had
gone.
The Prestons and their guests discussed all these pertinent features of
the affair until long after midnight. Miss Betsey wept and mourned over
the loss of her money bag, and dolefully repeated that she wished she
had never, never heard of a houseboat. The four girls and Miss Jenny Ann
became thoroughly disgusted with the disgruntled spinster's selfish
bewailing of her own loss, when the Prestons, who had met with a much
heavier loss, were heroically making light of their misfortune.
Madge also had a private grievance, one that was quite her own. David
had behaved roughly, almost brutally, toward her when she had tried to
dash into the burning barn. She decided that she did not in the least
like David, and that she was not at all grateful to him for literally
hurling her out of harm's way.
As for David himself, he had slipped away from the men who had borne him
in triumph on their shoulders and, in spite of the pain of his burns,
was striding across the fields in the direction of the woods with angry
eyes and sternly set mouth.