A feller that chatters all the time is bound to talk a
certain amount of drivel.--The Sayings of Si Sylvanne
This was the Crow Moon, the white man's March. The Grass Moon was at
hand, and already the arrow bands of black-necked honkers were passing
northward from the coast, sending down as they flew the glad tidings
that the Hunger Moon was gone, that spring was come, yea, even now was
in the land. And the flicker clucked from a high, dry bough, the spotted
woodwale drummed on his chosen branch, the partridge drummed in the pine
woods, and in the sky the wild ducks, winging, drummed their way. What
wonder that the soul of the Indian should seek expression in the drum
and the drum song of his race?
Presently, as though remembering something, he went quietly to the
southward under the ridge, just where it breaks to let the brook go by,
along the edge of Strickland's Plain, and on that hill of sliding stone
he found, as he always had, the blue-eyed liver-leaf smiling, the first
sweet flower of spring! He did not gather it, he only sat down and
looked at it. He did not smile, or sing, or utter words, or give it
a name, but he sat beside it and looked hard at it, and, in the first
place, he went there knowingly to find it. Who shall say that its beauty
did not reach his soul?
He took out his pipe and tobacco bag, but was reminded of something
lacking--the bag was empty. He returned to his wigwam, and from their
safe hanger or swinging shelf overhead, he took the row of stretched
skins, ten muskrats and one mink, and set out along a path which led
southward through the woods to the broad, open place called Strickland's
Plain, across that, and over the next rock ridge to the little town and
port of Myanos.
SILAS PECK
Trading Store
was the sign over the door he entered. Men and women were buying and
selling, but the Indian stood aside shyly until all were served, and
Master Peck cried out:
“Ho, Quonab! what have ye got for trade to-day?”
Quonab produced his furs. The dealer looked at them narrowly and said:
“They are too late in the season for primes; I cannot allow you more
than seven cents each for the rats and seventy-five cents for the mink,
all trade.”
The Indian gathered up the bundle with an air of “that settles it,” when
Silas called out:
“Come now, I'll make it ten cents for the rats.”
“Ten cents for rats, one dollar for mink, all cash, then I buy what I
like,” was the reply.
It was very necessary to Silas's peace that no customer of his should
cross the street to the sign,
SILAS MEAD
Trading Store
So the bargain, a fair one now, was made, and the Indian went off with a
stock of tobacco, tea, and sugar.
His way lay up the Myanos River, as he had one or two traps set along
the banks for muskrats, although in constant danger of having them
robbed or stolen by boys, who considered this an encroachment on their
trapping grounds.
After an hour he came to Dumpling Pond, then set out for his home,
straight through the woods, till he reached the Catrock line, and
following that came to the farm and ramshackle house of Micky Kittering.
He had been told that the man at this farm had a fresh deer hide for
sale, and hoping to secure it, Quonab walked up toward the house. Micky
was coming from the barn when he saw the Indian. They recognized each
other at a glance. That was enough for Quonab; he turned away. The
farmer remembered that he had been “insulted.” He vomited a few oaths,
and strode after the Indian, “To take it out of his hide”; his purpose
was very clear. The Indian turned quickly, stood, and looked calmly at
Michael.
Some men do not know the difference between shyness and cowardice, but
they are apt to find it out unexpectedly Something told the white man,
“Beware! this red man is dangerous.” He muttered something about, “Get
out of that, or I'll send for a constable.” The Indian stood gazing
coldly, till the farmer backed off out of sight, then he himself turned
away to the woods.
Kittering was not a lovely character. He claimed to have been a soldier.
He certainly looked the part, for his fierce white moustache was curled
up like horns on his purple face, at each side of his red nose, in
a most milita style. His shoulders were square and his gait was
swaggering, beside which, he had an array of swear words that was new
and tremendously impressive in Connecticut. He had married late in life
a woman who would have made him a good wife, had he allowed her. But, a
drunkard himself he set deliberately about bringing his wife to his own
ways and with most lamentable success. They had had no children, but
some months before a brother's child, fifteen-year-old lad, had become
a charge on their hands and, with any measure of good management, would
have been a blessing to all. But Micky had gone too far. His original
weak good-nature was foundered in rum. Always blustery and frothy, he
divided the world in two--superior officers, before whom he grovelled,
and inferiors to whom he was a mouthy, foul-tongued, contemptible bully,
in spite of a certain lingering kindness of heart that showed itself at
such rare times when he was neither roaring drunk nor crucified by black
reaction. His brother's child, fortunately, had inherited little of the
paternal family traits, but in both body and brain favoured his mother,
the daughter of a learned divine who had spent unusual pains on her book
education, but had left her penniless and incapable of changing that
condition.
Her purely mental powers and peculiarities were such that, a hundred
years before, she might have been burned for a witch, and fifty years
later might have been honoured as a prophetess. But she missed the crest
of the wave both ways and fell in the trough; her views on religious
matters procured neither a witch's grave nor a prophet's crown, but a
sort of village contempt.
The Bible was her standard--so far so good--but she emphasized the wrong
parts of it. Instead of magnifying the damnation of those who follow not
the truth (as the village understood it), she was content to semi-quote:
“Those that are not against me are with me,” and “A kind heart is the
mark of His chosen.” And then she made a final utterance, an echo really
of her father: “If any man do anything sincerely, believing that thereby
he is worshipping God, he is worshipping God.”
Then her fate was sealed, and all who marked the blazing eyes, the
hollow cheeks, the yet more hollow chest and cough, saw in it all the
hand of an offended God destroying a blasphemer, and shook their heads
knowingly when the end came.
So Rolf was left alone in life, with a common school education, a
thorough knowledge of the Bible and of “Robinson Crusoe,” a vague
tradition of God everywhere, and a deep distrust of those who should
have been his own people.
The day of the little funeral he left the village of Redding to tramp
over the unknown road to the unknown south where his almost unknown
Uncle Michael had a farm and, possibly, a home for him.
Fifteen miles that day, a night's rest in a barn, twenty-five miles the
next day, and Rolf had found his future home.
“Come in, lad,” was the not unfriendly reception, for his arrival
was happily fallen on a brief spell of good humour, and a strong,
fifteen-year-old boy is a distinct asset on a farm.