The Pilgrims of New England, Mrs. J. B. Webb [best books to read in your 20s TXT] 📗

the females; although their lives were not exempt from much of hardship and servitude, and they were regarded as altogether the inferiors of their lords and masters.

To Oriana the arrival of the young mother and her playful child was a source of much pleasure and comfort; for she had begun to feel the want of female society, and the women who accompanied Tisquantum's party, and assisted her in the domestic duties of the family, were no companions to her. In Mailah she saw that she could find a friend; and her kindness and sympathy soon attached the lonely young squaw to her, and even restored her to cheerfulness and activity. It was only when she visited the grave in which Henrich and Jyanough had laid the murdered Lincoya, and decked it with flowers and green boughs, that the widow seemed to feel the greatness of her affliction. Then she would weep bitterly, and, with passionate gestures, lament her brave warrior. But, at other times, she was fully occupied with the care of her little Lincoya, or in assisting Oriana in the light household duties that devolved upon her. And her sweet voice was often heard singing to the child, which generally hung at her back, nestled in its soft bed of moss.


CHAPTER X.

'The noble courser broke away. And bounded o'er the plain? The desert echoed to his tread, As high he toss'd his graceful head, And shook his flowing name.

King of the Western deserts! Thou Art still untam'd and free! Ne'er shall that crest he forced to bow Beneath the yoke of drudgery low: But still in freedom shalt thou roam The boundless fields that form thy home Thy native Prairie!' ANON.

The camp of the Indian hunters looked cheerful and picturesque, as Oriana and Mailah approached it one evening on their return from a ramble in the forest, where they had been to seek the wild fruits that now abounded there, and paused at the skirt of the wood, to admire the scene before them. The proposed hunting-ground had been reached the preceding day, and already the temporary huts were completed, and the tents of the Sachem pitched beneath a grove of lofty oaks and walnuts, free from underwood, and on the border of a clear and rippling stream. The Nausett and Pequodee hunters had purchased a considerable number of horses from their Cree friends; and, therefore, the journey from Chingook's village to the prairie, in which the encampment now stood, had been performed with much ease and expedition; and the hardy animals were so little fatigued by their march through the forest, that several of the younger Indians had mounted again the morning after their arrival, and gone off on a reconnoitering expedition, to discover what prospect there was of finding much game in that neighborhood.

Henrich--proud and happy in the possession of a spirited horse, with which Tisquantum had presented him--insisted on being one of the party; end he was accompanied, also, by Jyanough, who had left his native village, now rendered sad and gloomy in his eyes, to follow his white friend, and share his society at least for a time. This arrangement gave Henrich the greatest satisfaction for the young Cree was the only Indian of his own sex in whom he had been able to find a companion, or who had peculiarly attached himself to the stranger: and the more he saw of Jyanough the more he found in him to win his esteem and friendship.

Oriana and Mailah seated themselves on the luxuriant grass to rest; and the young Indian mother removed her child from the strange cradle in which she always carried it, and laid it on her knees; and then, after gazing at it for a few moments, she began to sing a wild, sweet song, to hush it to sleep. In a soft, monotonous cadence, she sang the sad story of its little life--its birth--its captivity--and the death of its murdered father, whom she exhorted it to imitate, and live to equal in courage and in skill. And thus she sang:

'Child of the slain Lincoya, sleep In peace! Thy mother wakes to guard thee. But where is he whose smile once fell on thee as sunshine--thy father, Lincoya? He is gone to the far distant hunting-grounds and there, again, he casts the spear; and there he draws the unerring bow; and there he quaffs the cup of immortality, with the spirits of the good and brave. O Lincoya! thy voice was to me as a sweet song, or as the summer breeze among the tall cypress trees--why didst thou leave me? Thy step was swift and graceful as the roe upon the mountains--why didst thou leave me? But I will follow thee, my warrior, The death-bird has called me, and I come to thee! Thy child shall live; for Mahneto has given him friends and a home. He shall grow up like thee, and Oriana shill be o mother to him when I am gone: and the blue-eyed stranger, whom she loves as I loved thee, shall guide his hand in war, and in the chase. Lincoya! I come to thee!'

Oriana listened to the mournful chant of the young widow with much interest and sympathy; but when she spoke of her love for her white brother, in terms so new and strange, she almost felt offended. She did not, however, remark on her friend's allusion to herself, but turned the discourse to Mailah's sad prophecy of her own early death, which she knew could only be grounded on one of the wild superstitions of her race.

'Why do you talk of dying, Mailah?' she asked. 'You are young and strong; and you may again be happy. Why do you say you will leave your child, and go to the land of spirits?'

'The death-bird[*] called to me last night, as I sat at the open door of the hut, and looked at the moon, and thought how its soft light was guiding my Lincoya on long, long, journey, to the everlasting hunting fields of his fathers. Cheepai-Peethees called me twice from the tree that hung over the lodge; but when I called to it again, and whistled clearly, it made no answer. I heard it the day before the Crees destroyed our village. It called my husband then, and would not answer him; and in two days he was slain. The death-bird is never mistaken.'

[Footnote: A small owl called _Cheepai-Peethees,_ or the _death-bird,_ which the Indians attach the superstition here alluded to, and believe, if it does not answer to their whistle, it denotes their speedy death.]

'O, Mailah!' replied the young Christian squaw, 'say not so. Surely it is not thus that the great Mahneto calls His children to come to Him. Once I believed all these Indian stories; but now I know that they are false and vain. I know that our lives, and all things that befall us, are in the hands of the wise and good God--the Mahneto of the Christians and of the red men too. And now I have no fear of any of those strange sounds that used to make me sad, and terrify me with thoughts of coming evil. I most teach you to believe as I do now: or, rather, my _white brother_ shall teach you; for he knows the words of Mahneto himself. See, Mailah! There my brother comes--let us go to meet him.'

A flush of joy mounted to the clear olive cheek of Oriana as she said these words, and she sprang to her feet with the lightness of a fawn. Mailah rose more gently, and replacing her infant in the pouch, slung it over her shoulder, and followed her friend, softly whispering in her ear, 'The white stranger is your Lincoya.'

The Indian beauty smiled, and blushed more deeply: but she did not bound across the glade to meet Henrich as she had purposed doing. She drew her slender figure to its full height, and stood still; and as Henrich galloped across the green meadow, and alighted, full of animation, to tell her of his success in his first essay at hunting the elk, he wondered why she greeted him so coldly.

The fact was that Oriana was beginning to find that the blue-eyed stranger possessed even more interest in her eyes than she had ever felt for her own dark brother, Tekon; and when Mailah had openly alluded to this sentiment--which she thought unknown to all but herself--her natural and instinctive delicacy was wounded. But the feeling quickly wore away; and as Henrich and Jyanough detailed the exciting sports of the day, she forgot all but the pleasure of listening to his voice, and gazing at his fine countenance and bright sweet smile. She was happy; and she though not of the future.

And Henrich was happy, too. He had now found companions whom he could love; and the life of the Indian hunters was all that he had ever pictured to himself of freedom and adventure. The beauty of the scenery--the clearness of the sky--and the glow of health and excitement that animated his whole frame when he joined in the chase with his savage friends, were all so entirely different to the life he had led in damp and foggy Holland, that it was no wonder he enjoyed it, and that his youthful spirits enabled him to subdue the oft-recurring grief that he felt at each remembrance of his family and his home. Hope was strong in his breast; and he trusted once again to meet all whom he loved so dearly: and the present was so bright and inspiring that he could not desire to change it yet.

For many weeks the camp remained pitched in the same lovely situation; and the time of the hunters was fully occupied in the discovery and pursuit of the various wild animals that abounded in the uncultivated, but richly verdant, prairie. Of these, the elk and the buffalo were the most common victims to the spears and arrows of the Indians; and every evening large quantities of meat were brought into the camp, and given to the care of the squaws to dry and cure for winter consumption. These larger animals were too heavy to be transported whole to the huts; end therefore the hunters always skinned them and cut off the flesh where they fell, and left the carcasses to the wolves and the birds of prey that were ever ready at hand. But the smaller animals, and the wild turkeys and other birds, that were killed in great numbers, were brought in and thrown down by the blazing camp fires, that lighted up the glade every night, and were speedily prepared and cooked for the supper of the hungry hunters.

As the leader of the expedition, Tisquantum was always presented with the choicest of the game; and it was Oriana's task to superintend the curing of the elk and buffalo meat, and the cooking that was required for her father's lodge. In all these household cares she was greatly assisted by Mailah, who was both active and skilful in all the duties of an Indian squaw: and eager also to evince her gratitude for the kindness and protection that were afforded to herself and her child by the Nausett Chief, by doing all that she could to lighten Oriana's labors. Time and occupation did not fail to have their usual effect on one so young, and naturally so light-hearted as Mailah; and animated cheerfulness took the place of the mournful expression that had hitherto so frequently sat on her countenance. She did not forget Lincoya; but