MALAESKA MALAESKA THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER By MRS. ANN Sj STEPHENS NEW YORK THE JOHN DAY COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1929, BY THE JOHN DAY COMPANY, INC. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. FOR THE JOHN DAY COMPANY, INC. BY J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK PUBLISHERS' NOTICE FROM THE FIRST EDITION We take pleasure in introducing the reader to the following romance by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens. It is one of the most interesting and fascinating works of this eminent author. It is chosen as the initial volume of the Dime Novel series, from the chaste character of its delineations, from the interest which attaches to its fine pictures of bor- der life and Indian adventure, and from the real romance of its incidents. It is American in all its features, pure in its tone, elevating in its senti- ments; and may be referred to as a work repre- i sentative of the series that is to follow—every ^ volume of which will be of the highest order of M merit, from the pens of authors whose intellectual and moral excellencies have already given the ^ writers an enviable name, in this country and in *| Europe. By the publication of the series con- v> templated, it is hoped to reach all classes, old and © young, male and female, in a manner at once to captivate and to enliven—to answer to the popular demand for works of romance, but also to instil a pure and elevating sentiment in the hearts and minds of the people. Beadle & Co. New York, June, 1860. INTRODUCTION Malaeska was the first dime novel, the first complete book of fiction ever sold for ten cents, number one of the Beadle series which ran into the hundreds and circulated by the millions. It was published in June, i860. The fine old house of Beadle, taking this pioneer step, proposed as stated in the original "blurb", not only "to answer the popular demand for works of romance, but also to instill a pure and elevating sentiment in the hearts and minds of the people." Such was the spirit in which was born the mighty line of little volumes which later became, quite unjustly, anathema to preachers, teachers and stern parents. And the first of those hated books was written, if you please, by a woman of considerable literary fame, the editor of eminently respectable house- hold magazines and the author of The Old Home- stead. Now, after nearly seventy years, Malaeska is restored to the public in more pretentious dress. Few reprints of old forgotten works have been so important. For the dime novel was not only vii viii INTRODUCTION uniquely American; it was a distinct phase in the development of our literature and it may have been the principal origin of our present keen in- terest in the American pioneers and the winning of the West. Certainly it was held deeply in the affection of the American people, and when the time came for its passing more than one con- stant reader dedicated a little memory to it. The New York Sun voiced its regretful farewell in the editorial columns for June 8, 1900: In The Sun the other day a Utica correspondent eulogized with affectionate regret "the good, old- fashioned, salmon-colored novels" of Mr. Beadle of this town. Many old or oldish codgers will share in the sympathetic expressions of the Utican for "Beadle's Dime Novel Series." It was a part of the youth of many of us. The dimpled chins that bent over it have felt the barber's shears for a generation; and the books that composed it have become almost as rare as the most treasured incunabula. There may be some of them hidden away in country attics, but in the book shops they seem to be seen no more. Their bright faces would be soiled and dusty enough now. It is better to remember them in their prime. We can see 'em now, with their fresh-painted look, staring from their shelves at the boy who gazes at them hopelessly. In his pockets is an old curiosity INTRODUCTION ix shop of unconsidered trifles, but in coppers only six cents. The youthful world is full of cork cakes and fig paste and brilliant, mysterious marbles. Even if you had a dime, too much of your income must not be devoted to literature. There are practical interests to be considered. At least you look, gaze your fill at Mr. Beadle's masterpieces in their rich robes. Not ex- actly salmon-colored, were they? A mellow Beadle color, we should say. They had to be covered for school use. Otherwise their splendor would have betrayed them. What a sense of superiority and innocent crime you got by having a batch of them in your desk and sticking one into the arithmetic or the Latin grammar. Why, even that fellow of unapproachable genius and vast age who was just beginning the first book of the Iliad, and who spent, in examining his chin with the aid of a hand-glass and prospecting for down, much of the time he should have passed with the well-greaved Achaians—even he read Mr. Beadle's works, and was good enough to speak of them with condescending praise. As for the small boys, they would be so deep in the Slave Sculftor or some other of Mr. Beadle's productions, that they would forget to keep an eye on the schoolmaster. That tyrant would descend like lightning, pull two or three of your ears off and con- fiscate your whole stock of dime novels. Then the old humbug would sit on his throne with one of your treasures in his Virgil, and placidly read it—probably for the purpose of making those spirited remarks about INTRODUCTION xi The Grolier Club, the Kelmscott Press, With all their stately sumptuousness, Full-crushed levant and Roger Paynes I leave to men of greater gains. But when I get my pipe alight My fancy sees the shelves grow bright; I see—and I will have it yet! — Of Beadle's Novels one full set. He will never get it For where is Beadle, and where are most of his novelists? Trampled out of memory by the fugacious years, alas! My own interest in the dime novel began thirty years ago and has led me across nearly as many States in building up my collection, which now numbers hundreds of volumes. It began with my reading of the works of the Reverend William H. H. Murray, "Adirondack" Murray. His In the Wilderness inspired me with a fondness for exciting literature of the outdoors. I turned to dime novels and I was insatiable. Finding that the original series had been out of print since before I was born, having ceased in 1876, I wrote to those authors who were still living, trying with some small success to obtain old copies. In 1907, through the kindness of a friend I was admitted to the cellar of M. J. Ivers and Company, who INTRODUCTION xiii The little books embraced a wide range of sub- jects, such as history, biography, tales of chivalry, early pioneers, pirates and the Indian and frontier tales which are now so eagerly sought. The historical note was struck in this first vol- ume. Malaeska is the sad tale of the wife of the white hunter. Depicting the life and customs of the early Dutch settlers of New York, it under- takes an analysis of Indian character and psychol- ogy in its contact with the white man and his inherited prejudices. Against that background, the story develops from the then not infrequent inter- marriage of white and red. The clash of the civi- lized, practical and proud Dutch burghers and an uncivilized, emotional, but equally proud sav- age princess, of dual natures and inherited in- hibitions, reaches a tragic climax in the last chapter of a life permeated by heroic self-sacrifice and unrequited mother love. The story is told gently with pathos and sym- pathy by the well beloved Ann Sophia Stephens. Of English parentage, she was born at Humph- reysville, in the town of Derby, New Haven County, Connecticut, in 1813. Her father, John Winterbotham, a manufacturer of woolens near Manchester, came to this country to take charge INTRODUCTION xv become associate editor of "Graham's Magazine" Two years later she increased her labors by ac- cepting a similar position on Peterson's Magazine and to this she contributed serial stories, each running through twelve months, for more than twenty years. In 1843 Mrs. Stephens founded the Ladies' World and in 1846 the Illustrated New Monthlyy and for a time she also edited Brother Jonathan, a weekly journal published by her husband. From 1850-52 she made the tour of Europe in company with friends, and received marked at- tentions from members of royal and noble fami- lies and from Thackeray, Dickens, Humboldt and others eminent in literature and science. Her first elaborate novel, Fashion and Famine (1854), had an enormous circulation and was translated into the French language. Among her other novels which obtained great popularity were: Sybil Chase, or the Valley Ranch, A Tale of Early California Life; Esther, A Story of the Oregon Trail; Myra, The Child of Adoption, a tale of early days in New Orleans; Mahaska, the Indian Princess; Ahmo's Plot, a tale of the time of Frontenac, the first French Governor of Canada; The Indian Queen, a ro- INTRODUCTION mance of Indian life among the Senecas of New York State—and many more. Her stories, whether of high or low life, were marked by great vigor and vividness and her style was pronounced more masculine and con- densed than was usual with female writers. She passed many winters in Washington where her circle of friends included the familes of pres- idents and nearly every person of note who visited the city. Her husband died in 1862; her own death occurred at Newport, R. I., Aug. 20, 1886. George L. Aiken, noted actor and playwright (1830-1876), dramatized in 1856 the novel, The Old Homestead, by Mrs. Stephens, and played the leading part at Barnum's Museum in 1859. The play then laid dormant until the early '8o's when it was revived and thereafter played suc- cessfully by Denman Thompson for more than forty years. Frank P. O'Brien MALAESKA CHAPTER I The brake hung low on the rifted rock With sweet and holy dread; The wild-flowers trembled to the shock Of the red man's stealthy tread; And all around fell a fitful gleam Through the light and quivering spray, While the noise of a restless mountain-stream Rush'd out on the stilly day. The traveler who has stopped at Catskill, on his way up the Hudson, will remember that a creek of no insignificant breadth washes one side of the vil- lage, and that a heavy stone dwelling stands a little up from the water on a point of verdant meadow-land, which forms a lip of the stream, where it empties into the more majestic river. This farm-house is the only object that breaks the green and luxuriant beauty of the point, on that side, and its quiet and entire loneliness contrasts pleasantly with the bustling and crowded little village on the opposite body of land. There is much to attract at- tention to that dwelling. Besides occupying one of the most lovely sites on the river, it is remarkable for an appearance of old-fashioned comfort at 3 4 MALAESKA variance with the pillared houses and rustic cot- tages which meet the eye everywhere on the banks of the Hudson. There are no flowers to fling fra- grance about it, and but little of embellishment is manifest in its grounds; but it is surrounded by an abundance of thrifty fruit-trees; an extensive or- chard sheds its rich foliage to the sunshine on the bank, and the sward is thick and heavy which slopes greenly from the front door down to the river's brink. The interior of the house retains an air of sub- stantial comfort which answers well to the promise conveyed without. The heavy furniture has grown old with its occupants; rich it has been in its time, and now it possesses the rare quality of fitness, and of being in harmony with surrounding things. Ev- ery thing about that house is in perfect keeping with the character and appearance of its owner. The occupant himself, is a fine stately farmer of the old class—shrewd, penetrating, and intelligent —one of those men who contrive to keep the heart green when the frost of age is chilling the blood and whitening upon the brow. He has already THE INDIAN WIFE 5 numbered more than the threescore years and ten allotted to man. His habits and the fashion of his attire are those of fifty years ago. He still clings to huge wood-fires, apples, and cider in the winter- season, and allows a bevy of fine cows to pasture on the rich grass in front of his dwelling in the sum- mer. All the hospitable feeling of former years re- mains warm at his heart. He is indeed a fine speci- men of the staunch old republican farmer of the last century, occupying the house which his father erected, and enjoying a fresh old age beneath the roof tree which shadowed his infancy. During a sojourn in this vicinity last season, it was one of our greatest pleasures to spend an even- ing with the old gentleman, listening to legends of the Indians, reminiscences of the Revolution, and pithy remarks on the present age, with which he loved to entertain us, while we occasionally inter- rupted him by comparing knitting-work with the kind old lady, his wife, or by the praises of a sweet little grandchild, who would cling about his knees and play with the silver buckles on his_shoes as he talked. That tall, stately old man, and the sweet THE INDIAN WIFE 7 frowned against the sky as they do now, but ren- dered more gloomy by the thick growth of timber which clothed them at the base; they loomed up from the dense sea of foliage like the outposts of a darker world. Of all the cultivated acres which at the present day sustain thousands with their prod- ucts, one little clearing alone smiled up from the heart of the wilderness. A few hundred acres had been cleared by a hardy band of settlers, and a clus- ter of log-houses was erected in the heart of the little valley which now contains Catskill village. Although in the neighborhood of a savage Indian tribe, the little band of pioneers remained unmol- ested in their humble occupations, gradually clear- ing the land around their settlement, and sustain- ing their families on the game which was found in abundance in the mountains. They held little inter- course with the Indians, but hitherto no act of hos- tility on either side had aroused discontent between the settler and the savages. It was early in May, about a year after the first settlement of the whites, when some six or eight of the stoutest men started for the woods in search of 8 MALAESKA game. A bear had been seen on the brink of the clearing at break of day, and while the greater num- ber struck off in search of more humble game, three of the most resolute followed his trail, which led to the mountains. The foremost of the three hunters was an Eng- lishman of about forty, habited in a threadbare suit of blue broadcloth, with drab gaiters buttoned up to his knees, and a hat sadly shorn of its original nap. His hunting apparatus bespoke the peculiar care which all of his country so abundantly bestow on their implements of sport. The other two were much younger, and dressed in home-made cloth, over which were loose frocks manufactured from the refuse flax or swingled tow. Both were hand- some, but different in the cast of their features. The character of the first might be read in his gay air and springy step, as he followed close to the Englishman, dashing away the brushwood with the muzzle of his gun, and detecting with a quick eye the broken twigs or disturbed leaves which betrayed the course of the hunted bear. There was also some- thing characteristic in the wearing of his dress, in THE INDIAN WIFE 9 the fox-skin cap thrown carelessly on one side of his superb head, exposing a mass of short brown curls around the left ear and temple, and in the bosom of his coarse frock, thrown open so as to give free motion to a neck Apollo might have cov- eted. He was a hunter, who had occasionally vis- ited the settlement of late, but spent whole weeks in the woods, professedly in collecting furs by his own efforts, or by purchase from the tribe of In- dians encamped at the foot of the mountains. The last was more sedate in his looks, and less buoyant in his air. There was an intellectual ex- pression in his high, thoughtful brow, embrowned though it was by exposure. A depth of thought in his serious eye, and a graceful dignity in his car- riage, bespoke him as one of those who hide deep feeling under an appearance of coldness and apathy. He had been a schoolmaster in the Bay State, from whence he had been drawn by the bright eyes and merry laugh of one Martha Fel- lows, a maiden of seventeen, whose father had moved to the settlement at Catskill the preceding summer, and to whom, report said, he was to be io MALAESKA married whenever a minister, authorized to per- form the ceremony, should find his way to the settlement. The three hunters bent their way in a southwest- ern direction from the settlement, till the forest suddenly opened into a beautiful and secluded piece of meadow-land, known to this day by its Dutch title of "the Straka," which means, our aged friend informed us, a strip of land. The Straka lay before them of an oblong form, some eight or ten acres in expanse, with all its luxuriance of trees, grass, and flowers, bathed in the dew and sunshine of a warm summer's morning. It presented a lovely contrast to the dense wilderness from which the hunters emerged, and they halted for a moment beneath the boughs 'of a tall hickory to enjoy its delicious freshness. The surface of the inclosure was not exactly level, but down the whole length it curved gently up from the middle, on either side, to the magnificent trees that hedged it in with a beautiful and leafy rampart. The margin was irregular; here and there a clump of trees shot down into the in- closure, and the clearing occasionally ran up into THE INDIAN WIFE II the forest in tiny glades and little grassy nooks, in which the sunlight slumbered like smiles on the face of a dreaming infant. On every side the trunks of huge trees shot up along the margin beneath their magnificent canopy of leaves, like the ivied columns of a ruin, or fell back in the misty perspec- tive of the forest, scarcely discernible in its gloom of shadow. The heavy piles of foliage, which fell amid the boughs like a wealth of drapery flung in masses to the summer wind, was thrifty and ripe with the warm breath of August. No spirit of decay had as yet shed a gorgeous breath over its deep, rich green, but all was wet with dew, and kindled up by the sunlight to a thousand varying tints of the same color. A bright spring gushed from a swell of ground in the upper part of the inclosure, and the whole surface of the beautiful spot was covered with a vigorous growth of tall meadow-grass, which rose thicker and brighter and of a more delicate green down the middle, where the spring curved onward in a graceful rivulet, musical as the laugh of a child. As if called to life by the chime of a little brook, a host of white wild-flowers unfolded 12 MALAESKA their starry blossoms along the margin, and clumps of swamp-lilies shed an azure hue along the grass. Until that day, our hunters had ever found "the Straka" silent and untenanted, save by singing- birds, and wild deer which came down from the mountains to feed on its rich verdure; but now a dozen wreaths of smoke curled up from the trees at the northern extremity, and a camp of newly- erected wigwams might be seen through a vista in the wood. One or two were built even on the edge of the clearing; the grass was much trampled around them, and three or four half-naked Indian children lay rolling upon it, laughing, shouting, and flinging up their limbs in the pleasant morning air. One young Indian woman was also frolicking among them, tossing an infant in her arms, caroling and playing with it. Her laugh was musical as a bird song, and as she darted to and fro, now into the forest and then out into the sunshine, her long hair glowed like the wing of a raven, and her mo- tion was graceful as an untamed gazelle. They could see that the child, too, was very beautiful, THE INDIAN WIFE 13 even from the distance at which they stood, and occasionally, as the wind swept toward them, his shout came ringing upon it like the gush of waters leaping from their fount. "This is a little too bad," muttered the English- man, fingering his gun-lock. "Can they find no spot to burrow in but 'the Straka?' St. George! but I have a mind to shoot the squaw and wring the neck of every red imp among them." "Do it!" exclaimed Danforth, turning furiously upon him; "touch but a hair of her head, and by the Lord that made me, I will bespatter that tree with your brains!" The Englishman dropped the stock of his mus- ket hard to the ground, and a spot of fiery red flashed into his cheek at this savage burst of anger so uncalled for and so insolent. He gazed a moment on the frowning face of the young hunter, and then lifting his gun, turned carelessly away. "Tut, man, have done with this," he said; "I did but jest. Come, we have lost the trail, and shall miss the game, too, if we tarry longer; come." The Englishman shouldered his musket, as he THE INDIAN WIFE 15 reach of his voice. When he became sensible of his situation, he found himself in a deep ravine sunk into the very heart of the mountains. A small stream crept along the rocky bottom, untouched by a single sun's ray, though it was now high noon. Every thing about him was wild and fearfully sub- lime, but the shadows were refreshing and cool, and the stream, rippling along its rocky bed, sent up a pleasant murmur as he passed. Gradually a soft, flowing sound, like the rush of a current of air through a labyrinth of leaves and blossoms, came gently to his ear. As he proceeded, it became more musical and liquid, swelled upon the ear gradually and with a richer burden of sound, till he knew that it was the rush and leap of waters at no great dis- tance. The ravine had sunk deeper and deeper, and fragments of rock lay thickly in the bed of the stream. Arthur Jones paused, and looked about him bewildered, and yet with a lofty, poetical feeling at his heart, aroused by a sense of the glorious handi- work of the Almighty encompassing him. He stood within the heart of the mountain, and it seemed to heave and tremble beneath his feet with some un- 16 MALAESKA known influence as he gazed. Precipices, and rocks piled on rocks were heaped to the sky on either side. Large forest-trees stood rooted in the wide clefts, and waved their heavy boughs abroad like torn banners streaming upon the air. A strip of the blue heavens arched gently over the whole, and that was beautiful. It smiled softly, and like a promise of love over that sunless ravine. Another step, and the waterfall was before him. It was sub- lime, but beautiful—oh, very beautiful—that little body of water, curling and foaming downward like a wreath of snow sifted from the clouds, breaking in a shower of spray over the shelf of rocks which stayed its progress, then leaping a second foaming mass, down, down, like a deluge of flowing light, another hundred feet to the shadowy depths of the ravine. A shower of sunlight played amid the foli- age far overhead, and upon the top of the curving precipice where the waters made their first leap. As the hunter became more calm, he remarked how harmoniously the beautiful and sublime were blended in the scene. The precipices were rugged and frowning, but soft, rich mosses and patches of 18 MALAESKA and springing up with the bound of a wild animal, fell headlong from the shelf. Trembling with ex- citement, yet firm and courageous, the hunter re- loaded his gun, and stood ready to sell his life as dearly as possible, for he believed that the ravine was full of concealed savages, who would fall upon him like a pack of wolves. But every thing re- mained quiet, and when he found that he was alone, a terrible consciousness of bloodshed came upon him. His knees trembled, his cheek burned, and, with an impulse of fierce excitement, he leaped over the intervening rocks and stood by the slain savage. He was lying with his face to the earth, quite dead; Jones drew forth his knife, and lifting the long, black hair, cut it away from the crown. With the trophy in his hand, he sprang across the ravine. The fearless spirit of a madness seemed upon him, for he rushed up the steep ascent, and plunged into the forest, apparently careless what direction he took. The sound of a musket stopped his aimless career. He listened, and bent his steps more calmly toward the eminence on which the Mountain House now stands. Here he found the Englishman with the THE INDIAN WIFE 19 carcass of a huge bear stretched at his feet, gazing on the glorious expanse of country, spread out like a map, hundreds of fathoms beneath him. His face was flushed, and the perspiration rolled freely from his forehead. Danforth stood beside him, also bear- ing traces of recent conflict. "So you have come to claim a share of the meat," said the old hunter, as Jones approached. "It is brave to leave your skulking-place in the bushes, when the danger is over. Bless me, lad! what have you there?" he exclaimed, starting up and pointing to the scalp. Jones related his encounter with the savage. The Englishman shook his head forebodingly. "We shall have hot work for this job before the week is over," he said. "It was a foolish shot; but keep a good heart, my lad, for, hang me, if I should not have done the same thing if the red devil had sent a bullet so near my head. Come, we will go and bury the fellow the best way we can." Jones led the way to the fall, but they found only a few scattered locks of black hair, and a pool of blood half washed from the rock by the spray. 20 MALAESKA The body of the savage and his rifle had disap- peared—how, it was in vain to conjecture. One of the largest log-houses in the settlement had been appropriated as a kind of tavern, or place of meeting for the settlers when they returned from their hunting excursions. Here a store of spirits was kept, under the care of John Fellows and pretty Martha Fellows, his daughter, the maiden before mentioned. As the sun went down, the men who had gone to the woods in the morning, began to collect with their game. Two stags, raccoons and meaner game in abundance, were lying before the door, when the three hunters came in with the slain bear. They were greeted with a boisterous shout, and the hunters crowded eagerly forward to exam- ine the prize; but when Jones cast the Indian's scalp on the pile, they looked in each other's faces with ominous silence, while the young hunter stood pale and collected before them. It was the first time that Indian life had been taken by any of their number, and they felt that in the shedding of red blood, the barriers of their protection were broken down. "It is a bad business," said one of the elder THE INDIAN WIFE it settlers, waving his head and breaking the general silence. "There'll be no clear hunting in the woods after this; but how did it all come about, Jones? Let us know how you came by that scalp—did the varmint fire at you, or how was it?" The hunters gathered around Jones, who was about to account for his possession of the scalp, when the door of the house was opened, and he happened to look into the little room thus exposed. It was scantily furnished with a few benches and stools; a bed was in one corner, and Martha Fel- lows, his promised wife, stood by a rough deal table, on which were two or three drinking-cups, a couple of half-empty bottles, with a pitcher of water, backed by a broken mug, filled to the frac- tured top with maple molasses. Nothing of the kind could have been more beautiful than pretty Martha as she bent forward, listening with rapt attention to the animated whisper of William Danforth, who stood by her, divested of his coarse frock, his cap lying on the table before him, and his athletic fig- ure displayed to the best advantage by the round- about buttoned closely over his bosom. A red silk 14 MALAESKA handkerchief, tied like a scarf round his waist, gave a picturesque gracefulness to his costume, alto- gether in harmony with his fine proportions, and with the bold cast of his head, which certainly was a model of muscular beauty. A flash of anger shot athwart Arthur Jones' fore- head, and a strange jealous feeling came to his heart. He began a confused account of his adven- ture, but the Englishman interrupted him, and took it upon himself to gratify the clamorous curiosity of the hunters, leaving Jones at liberty to scrutinize each look and motion of his lady-love. He watched with a jealous feeling the blush as it deepened and glowed on her embrowned cheek; he saw the spark- ling pleasure of her hazel eyes, and the pretty dimples gathering about her red lips, like spots of sunlight flickering through the leaves of a red rose, and his heart sickened with distrust. But when the handsome hunter laid his hand on hers and bent his head, till the short curls on his temples almost mingled with her glossy ringlets, the lover could bear the sight no more. Breaking from the little band of hunters, he stalked majestically into the 24 MALAESKA room. In a few minutes the other hunters entered, and Jason Fellows, father to Martha, announced it as decided by the hunters, who had been holding a kind of council without, that Arthur Jones and William Danforth, as the two youngest members of the community, should be dispatched to the nearest settlement to request aid to protect them from the Indians, whose immediate attack they had good reason to fear. Martha, on hearing the names of the emissaries mentioned, dropped the cup she had been filling. "Oh, not him—not them, I mean—they will be overtaken and tomahawked by the way!" she ex- claimed, turning to her father with a look of affright. "Let Mr. Danforth remain," said Jones, advanc- ing to the table; "I will undertake the mission alone." Tears came into Martha's eyes, and she turned them reproachfully to her lover; but, full of his heroic resolution to be tomahawked and comfort- ably scalped on his own responsibility, he turned majestically, without deigning to meet the tearful 26 MALAESKA ing with Danforth—put his hand softly under her forehead and raised her face, the creature was laughing—laughing at his folly, as he thought. "Martha, you are doing wrong—wrong to your- self and to me," said the disappointed lover, rising indignantly and taking his hat, with which he ad- vanced to the door. "Don't go," said Martha, turning her head till one cheek only rested on her arm, and casting a glance, half-repentant, half-comic, on her retreat- ing lover; "don't go off so; if you do, you'll be very sorry for it." Jones hesitated—she became very serious—the tears sprang to her eyes, and she looked exceed- ingly penitent. He returned to her side. Had he appealed to her feelings then—had he spoken of the pain she had given him in her encouragement of another, she would have acknowledged the fault with all proper humility; but he did no such thing —he was a common-sense man, and he resolved to end his first love-quarrel in a common-sense man- ner, as if common-sense ever had any thing to do with lovers' quarrels. "I will reason with her," he 28 MALAESKA scolding, and that she did not care if she never set eyes on him again. He would have remonstrated; "Do listen to common-sense," he said, extending his hand to take hers. "I hate common-sense!" she exclaimed, dashing away his hand; "I won't hear any more of your lecturing,—leave the house, and never speak to me again as long as you live." Mr. Arthur Jones took up his hat, placed it de- liberately on his head, and walked out of the house. With a heavy heart Martha watched his slender form as it disappeared in the darkness, and then stole away to her bed in the garret. "He will call in the morning before he starts; he won't have the heart to go away without saying one word,—I am sure he won't," she repeated to herself over and over again, as she lay sobbing and weeping penitent tears on her pillow that night. When William left the log tavern, he struck into the woods, and took his course toward the Pond. There was a moon, but the sky was clouded, and the little light which struggled to the earth, 30 MALAESKA arrange themselves around the camp-fire, each with his firelock in his hand. There was a general movement. Dark faces flittered in quick succession between him and the blaze, as the warriors per- formed the heavy march, or war-dance, which usually preceded the going out of a hostile party. Danforth left the shore, and striking out in an oblique direction, arrived, after half an hour of quick walking, at the Indian encampment. He threaded his way through the cluster of bark wig- wams, till he came to one standing on the verge of the inclosure. It was of logs, and erected with a regard to comfort which the others wanted. The young hunter drew aside the mat which hung over the entrance, and looked in. A young Indian girl was sitting on a pile of furs at the opposite extrem- ity. She wore no paint—her cheek was round and smooth, and large gazelle-like eyes gave a soft brilliancy to her countenance, beautiful beyond ex- pression. Her dress was a robe of dark chintz, open at the throat, and confined at the waist by a narrow belt of wampum, which, with the bead bracelets on her naked arms, and the embroidered moccasins THE INDIAN WIFE 31 laced over her feet, was the only Indian ornament about her. Even her hair, which all of her tribe wore laden with ornaments, and hanging down the back, was braided and wreathed in raven bands over her smooth forehead. An infant, almost naked, was lying in her lap, throwing its unfettered limbs about, and lifting his little hands to his mother's mouth, as she rocked back and forth on her seat of skins, chanting, in a sweet, mellow voice, the bur- den of an Indian lullaby. As the form of the hunter darkened the entrance, the Indian girl started up with a look of affectionate joy, and laying her child on the pile of skins, advanced to meet him. "Why did the white man leave his woman so many nights?" she said, in her broken English, hanging fondly about him; "the boy and his mother have listened long for the sound of his moccasins." Danforth passed his arm around the waist of his Indian wife, and drawing her to him, bent his cheek to hers, as if that slight caress was sufficient answer to her gentle greeting, and so it was; her untutored heart, rich in its natural affections, had 32 MALAESKA no aim, no object, but what centered in the love she bore her white husband. The feelings which in civilized life are scattered over a thousand objects, were, in her bosom, centered in one single being; he supplied the place of all the high aspirations— of all the passions and sentiments which are fos- tered into strength by society, and as her husband bowed his head to hers, the blood darkened her cheek, and her large, liquid eyes were flooded with delight. "And what has Malaeska been doing since the boy's father went to the wood?" inquired Dan- f orth, as she drew him to the couch where the child was lying half buried in the rich fur. "Malaeska has been alone in the wigwam, watch- ing the shadow of the big pine. When her heart grew sick, she looked in the boy's eyes and was glad," replied the Indian mother, laying the in- fant in his father's arms. Danforth kissed the child, whose eyes certainly bore a striking resemblance to his own; and part- ing the straight, black hair from a forehead which scarcely bore a tinge of its mother's blood, mut- THE INDIAN WIFE 33 tered, "It's a pity the little fellow is not quite white." The Indian mother took the child, and with a look of proud anguish, laid her finger on its cheek, which was rosy with English blood. "Malaeska's father is a great chief—the boy will be a chief in her father's tribe; but Malaeska never thinks of that when she sees the white man's blood come into the boy's face." She turned mournfully to her seat again. "He will make a brave chief," said Danforth, anxious to soften the effects of his inadvertent speech $ "but tell me, Malaeska, why have the war- riors kindled the council fire? I saw it blaze by the pond as I came by." Malaeska could only inform that the body of a dead Indian had been brought to the encampment about dusk, and that it was supposed he had been shot by some of the whites from the settlement. She said that the chief had immediately called a council to deliberate on the best means of reveng- ing their brother's death. Danforth had feared this movement in the sav- 34 MALAESKA ages, and it was to mitigate their wrath that he sought the encampment at so late an hour. He had married the daughter of their chief, and, conse- quently, was a man of considerable importance in the tribe. But he felt that his utmost exertion might fail to draw them from their meditated vengeance, now that one of their number had been slain by the whites. Feeling the necessity of his immediate pres- ence at the council, he left the wigwam and pro- ceeded at a brisk walk to the brink of the Pond. He came out of the thick forest which fringed it a little above the point on which the Indians were col- lected. Their dance was over, and from the few guttural tones which reached him, Dan forth knew that they were planning the death of some particu- lar individuals, which was probably to precede their attack on the settlement. The council fire still streamed high in the air, reddening the waters and lighting up the trees and foreground with a beauti- ful effect, while the rocky point seemed of emerald pebbles, so brilliant was the reflection cast over it, and so distinctly did it display the painted forms of the savages as they sat in a circle round the blaze, THE INDIAN WIFE 35 each with his weapon lying idly by his side. The light lay full on the glittering wampum and feath- ery crest of one who was addressing them with more energy than is common to the Indian warrior. Danforth was too far off to collect a distinct hearing of the discourse, but with a. feeling of per- fect security, he left the deep shadow in which he stood, and approached the council fire. As the light fell upon him, the Indians leaped to their feet, and a savage yell rent the air, as if a company of fiends had been disturbed in their orgies. Again and again was the fierce cry reiterated, till the woods re- sounded with the wild echo rudely summoned from the caves. As the young hunter stood lost in aston- ishment at the strange commotion, he was seized by the savages, and dragged before their chief, while the group around furiously demanded vengeance, quick and terrible, for the death of their slain brother. The truth flashed across the hunter's mind. It was his death they had been planning. It was he they supposed to be the slayer of the Indian. He remonstrated and declared himself guiltless of the red man's death. It was in vain. He had been seen 36 MALAESKA on the mountain by one of the tribe, not five min- utes before the dead body of the Indian was found. Almost in despair the hunter turned to the chief. "Am I not your son—the father of a young chief —one of your own tribe?" he said, with appealing energy. The saturnine face of the chief never changed, as he answered in his own language: "The red man has taken a rattlesnake to warm in his wigwam— the warriors shall crush his head!" and with a fierce grin, he pointed to the pile of resinous wood which the savages were heaping on the council fire. Danforth looked round on the group preparing for his destruction. Every dusky face was lighted up with a demoniac thirst for blood, the hot flames quivering into the air, their gorgeous tints amal- gamating and shooting upward like a spire of living rainbows, while a thousand fiery tongues, hissing and darting onward like vipers eager for their prey, licked the fresh pine-knots heaped for his death-pyre. It was a fearful sight, and the heart of the brave hunter quailed within him as he looked. With another wild whoop, the Indians THE INDIAN WIFE 37 seized their victim, and were about to strip him for the sacrifice. In their blind fury they tore him from the grasp of those who held him, and were too in- tent on divesting him of his clothes to remark that his limbs were free. But he was not so forgetful. Collecting his strength for a last effort, he struck the nearest savage a blow in the chest, which sent him reeling among his followers, then taking ad- vantage of the confusion, he tore off his cap, and springing forward with the bound of an uncaged tiger, plunged into the lake. A shout rent the air, and a score of dark heads broke the water in pur- suit. Fortunately, a cloud was over the moon, and the fugitive remained under the water till he reached the shadow thrown by the thickly-wooded bank, when, rising for a moment, he supported himself and hurled his cap out toward the center of the pond. The ruse succeeded, for the moon came out just at the instant, and with renewed shouts the savages turned in pursuit of the empty cap. Before they learned their mistake, Danforth had made considerable headway under the friendly bank, and 38 MALAESKA took to the woods just as the shoal of Indians' heads entered the shadow in eager chase. The fugitive stood for a moment on the brink of the forest, irresolute, for he knew not which course to take. "I have it; they will never think of looking for me there," he exclaimed, dashing through the undergrowth and taking the direction toward "the Straka." The whoop of the pursuers smote his ear as they made the land. On, on he bounded with the swiftness of a hunted stag, through swamp and brushwood, and over rocks. He darted till he came in sight of his own wigwam. The sound of pursuit had died away, and he began to hope that the savages had taken the track which led to the settle- ment. Breathless with exertion he entered the hut. The boy was asleep, but his mother was listening for the return of her husband. "Malaeska," he said, catching her to his panting heart; "Malaeska, we must part; your tribe seek my life; the warriors are on my track now—now! Do you hear their shouts?" he added. THE INDIAN WIFE 39 A wild whoop came from the woods below, and forcing back the arms she flung about him, he seized a war-club and stood ready for the attack. Malaeska sprang to the door, and looked out with the air of a frightened doe. Darting back to the pile of furs, she laid the sleeping child on the bare earth, and motioning her husband to lie down, heaped the skins over his prostrate form; then tak- ing the child in her arms, she stretched herself on the pile, and drawing a bear-skin over her, pre- tended to be asleep. She had scarcely composed her- self, when three savages entered the wigwam. One bore a blazing pine-knot, with which he proceeded to search for the fugitive. While the others were busy among the scanty furniture, he approached the trembling wife, and after feeling about among the furs without effect, lifted the bear-skins which covered her; but her sweet face in apparent slum- ber, and the beautiful infant lying across her bosom, were all that rewarded his search. As if her beauty had power to tame the savage, he carefully replaced the covering over her person, and speaking to his 40 MALAESKA companions, left the hut without attempting to dis- turb her further. Malaeska remained in her feigned slumber till she heard the Indians take to the woods again. Then she arose and lifted the skins from off her husband, who was nearly suffocated under them. When he had regained his feet, she placed the war-club in his hand, and taking up the babe, led the way to the entrance of the hut. Danforth saw by the act, that she intended to desert her tribe and accompany him in his flight. He had never thought of introducing her as his wife among the whites, and now that circumstances made it necessary for him to part with her forever, or to take her among his people for shelter, a pang, such as he had never felt, came to his heart. His affections struggled powerfully with his pride. The picture of his dis- grace—of the scorn with which his parents and sis- ters would receive the Indian wife and half-Indian child, presented itself before him, and he had not the moral courage to risk the degradation which her companionship would bring upon him. These conflicting thoughts flashed through his mind in an THE INDIAN WIFE 41 instant, and when his wife stopped at the door, and, looking anxiously in his face, beckoned him to fol- low, he said, sharply, for his conscience was ill at ease: "Malaeska, I go alone; you and the boy must re- main with your people." His words had a withering effect on the poor Indian. Her form drooped, and she raised her eyes with a look so mingled with humiliation and re- proach, that the hunter's heart thrilled painfully in his bosom. Slowly, and as if her soul and strength were paralyzed, she crept to her husband's feet, and sinking to her knees, held up the babe. "Malaeska's breast will die, and the boy will have no one to feed him," she said. That beautiful child—that young mother kneel- ing in her humiliation—those large dark eyes, dim with the intensity of her solicitude, and that voice so full of tender entreaty—the husband's heart could not withstand them. His bosom heaved, tears gathered in his eyes, and raising the Indian and her child of his bosom, he kissed them both again and again. 4.2 MALAESKA "Malaeska," he said, folding her close to his heart, "Malaeska, I must go now; but when seven suns have passed, I will come again; or, if the tribe still seek my life, take the child and come to the settlement. I shall be there." The Indian woman bowed her head in humble submission. "The white man is good. Malaeska will come," she said. One more embrace, and the poor Indian wife was alone with her child. Poor Martha Fellows arose early, and waited with nervous impatience for the appearance of her lover; but the morning passed, the hour of noon drew near, and he came not. The heart of the maiden grew heavy, and when her father came in to dine, her eyes were red with weeping, and a cloud of mingled sorrow and petulance dark- ened her handsome face. She longed to ques- tion her father about Jones, but he had twice replenished his brown earthen bowl with pud- ding and milk, before she could gather courage to speak. 44 MALAESKA while those who remained, were dispersed in a fruitless pursuit after Danforth. On the afternoon of the fifth day after the de- parture of their emissaries, the whites began to see unequivocal symptoms of an attack; and now their fears did not deceive them. The hunting-party had returned to their encampment, and the detached parties were gathering around "the Straka." About dark, an Indian appeared in the skirts of the clear- ing, as if to spy out the position of the whites. Soon after, a shot was fired at the Englishman, before mentioned, as he returned from his work, which passed through the crown of his hat. That hostili- ties were commencing, was now beyond a doubt, and the males of the settlement met in solemn con- clave, to devise measures for the defence of their wives and children. Their slender preparations were soon made; all were gathered around one of the largest houses in gloomy apprehension; the women and children within, and the men standing in front, sternly resolving to die in the defence of their loved ones. Suddenly there came up a sound from the wood, the trampling of many feet, and the THE INDIAN WIFE 45 crackling of brushwood, as if some large body of men were forcing a way through the tangled forest. The women bowed their pallid faces, and gather- ing their children in their arms, waited appalled for the attack. The men stood ready, each grasping his weapon, their faces pallid, and their eyes kindled with stern courage, as they heard the stifled groans of the loved objects cowering behind them for protection. The sound became nearer and more distinct; dark forms were seen dimly moving among the trees, and then a file of men came out into the clearing. They were whites, led on by William Danforth and Arthur Jones. The settlers uttered a boisterous shout, threw down their arms, and ran in a body to meet the new-comers. The women sprang to their feet, some weeping, others laughing in hys- terical joy, and all embracing their children with frantic energy. Never were there more welcome guests than the score of weary men who refreshed themselves in the various houses of the settlement that night. Sen- tinels were placed, and each settler returned to his 46 MALAESKA dwelling, accompanied by three or four guests; every heart beat high, save one—Martha Fellows; she, poor girl, was sad among the general rejoic- ing; her lover had not spoken to her, though she lingered near his side in the crowd, and had once almost touched him. Instead of going directly to her father's house, as had been his custom, he ac- cepted the Englishman's invitation, and departed to sleep in his dwelling. Now this same Englishman had a niece residing with him, who was considered by some to be more beautiful than Martha herself. The humble maiden thought of Jones, and of the bright blue eyes of the English girl, till her heart burned with the very same jealous feelings she had so ridiculed in her lover. "I will see him! I will see them both!" she ex- claimed, starting up from the settle where she had remained, full of jealous anxiety, since the dis- persing of the crowd; and unheeded by her father, who was relating his hunting exploits to the five strangers quartered on him, she dashed away her tears, threw a shawl over her head, and taking a THE INDIAN WIFE 47 cup, as an excuse for borrowing something, left the house. The Englishman's dwelling stood on the out- ward verge of the clearing, just within the shadow of the forest. Martha had almost reached the en- trance, when a dark form rushed from its covert in the brushwood, and rudely seizing her, darted back into the wilderness. The terrified girl uttered a fearful shriek; for the fierce eyes gazing down upon her, were those of a savage. She could not re- peat the cry, for the wretch crushed her form to his naked chest with a grasp of iron, and winding his hand in her hair, was about to dash her to the ground. That moment a bullet whistled by her cheek. The Indian tightened his hold with spas- modic violence, staggered back, and fell to the ground, still girding her in his death-grasp; a mo- ment he writhed in mortal agony—warm blood gushed over his victim—the heart under her struggled fiercely in its last throes; then the life- less arms relaxed, and she lay fainting on a corpse. CHAPTER II He lay upon the trampled ground, She knelt beside him there, While a crimson stream gush'd slowly 'Neath the parting of his hair. His head was on her bosom thrown— She sobb'd his Christian name— He smiled, for still he knew her, And strove to do the same. —Frank Lee Benedict. "Oh, Arthur! dear Arthur, I am glad it was you that saved me," whispered Martha, about an hour after her rescue, as she lay on the settle in her father's house, with Arthur Jones bending anx- iously over her. Jones dropped the hand he had been holding, and turned away with troubled features. Martha looked at him, and her eyes were brim- ming with tears. "Jones," she said humbly and very affectionately, "Jones, I did wrong the other night, and I am sorry for it; will you forgive me?" "I will—but never again—never, as I live," he 48 THE INDIAN WIFE 49 replied, with a stern determination in his manner, accompanied by a look that humbled her to the heart. In after years, when Martha was Arthur Jones' wife, and when the stirrings of vanity would have led her to trifle with his feelings, she remem- bered that look, and dared not brave it a second time. At sunrise, the next morning, an armed force went into the forest, composed of all who could be spared from the settlement, amounting to about thirty fighting-men. The Indians, encamped about "the Straka," more than doubled that number, yet the handful of brave whites resolved to offer them a decisive combat. The little band was approaching the northeastern extremity of the Pond, when they halted for a mo- ment to rest. The spot on which they stood was level, and thinly timbered. Some were sitting on the grass, and others leaning on their guns, consulting on their future movements, when a fiendish yell arose like the howl of a thousand wild beasts, and, as if the very earth had yawned to emit them, a band of warriors sprang up in appalling numbers, 50 MALAESKA on the front and rear, and approaching them, three abreast, fired into the group with terrible slaugh- ter. The whites returned their fire, and the sounds of murderous strife were indeed horrible. Sternly arose the white man's shout amid the blazing of guns and the whizzing of tomahawks, as they flashed though the air on their message of blood. Above all burst out the war-whoop of the savages, sometimes rising hoarse, and like the growling of a thousand bears; then, as the barking of as many wolves, and again, sharpening to the shrill, un- earthly cry of a tribe of wild-cats. Oh, it was fear- ful, that scene of slaughter. Heart to heart, and muzzle to muzzle, the white and red man battled in horrid strife. The trees above them drooped under a cloud of smoke, and their trunks were scarred with gashes, cut by the tomahawks which had missed their more deadly aim. The ground was burdened with the dead, and yet the strife raged fiercer and fiercer, till the going down of the sun. In the midst of the fight was William Danforth. Many a dusky form bit the dust, and many a sav- THE INDIAN WIFE 51 age howl followed the discharge of his trusty gun. But at length it became foul with continued use, and he went to the brink of the Pond to wash it. He was stooping to the water, when the dark form of an Indian chief cast its shadow a few feet from him. He, too, had come down to clean his gun. The moment he had accomplished his purpose, he turned to the white man, who had been to him as a son, and drawing his muscular form up to its ut- most height, uttered a defiance in the Indian tongue. Instantly the weapons of both were loaded and discharged. The tall form of the chief wavered unsteadily for a moment, and fell forward, half its length, into the Pond. He strove to rise. His hands dashed wildly on the crimson water, the blows grew fainter, and the chief was dead. The setting sun fell brilliantly over the glitter- ing raiment of the prostrate chief—his long, black hair streamed out upon the water, and the tiny waves rippled playfully among the gorgeous feathers which had been his savage crown. A little back on the green bank, lay Danforth, wounded unto death. He strove to creep to the battle-field, 52 MALAESKA but the blood gushed afresh from his wounds, and he fell back upon the earth faint and in despair. The savages retreated; the sounds of strife be- came more distant, and the poor youth was left alone with the body of the slain warrior. He made one more desperate effort, and secured the gun which had belonged to the chief; though faint with loss of blood, he loaded that as well as his own, and placing them beside him, resolved to defend the remnant of life, yet quivering at his heart, to the last moment. The sun went slowly down; the dark- ness fell like a veil over the lake, and there he lay, wounded and alone, in the solitude of the wilder- ness. Solemn and regretful were the thoughts of the forsaken man as that night of agony went by. Now his heart lingered with strange and terrible dread around the shadowy portals of eternity which were opening before him; again it turned with a strong feeling of self-condemnation to his Indian wife and the infant pledge of the great love, which had made him almost forsake kindred and people for their sakes. The moon arose, and the dense shadow of a hem- THE INDIAN WIFE 53 lock, beneath which he had fallen, lay within a few feet of him like the wing of a great bird, swayed slowly forward with an imperceptible and yet cer- tain progress. The eyes of the dying man were fixed on the margin of the shadow with a keen, intense gaze. There was something terrible in its stealthy creeping and silent advance, and he strove to elude it as if it had been a living thing; but with every motion the blood gushed afresh from his heart, and he fell back upon the sod, his white teeth clenched with pain, and his hands clutched deep into the damp moss. Still his keen eyes glittered in the moonlight with the fevered workings of pain and imagination. The shadow on which they turned was to him no shadow, but now a nest of serpents, creep- ing with their insidious coils toward him 5 and again, a pall—a black funereal pall, dragged forward by invisible spirits, and about to shut him out from the light forever. Slowly and surely it crept across his damp forehead and over his glowing eyes. His teeth unclenched, his hands relaxed, and a gentle smile broke over his pale lips, when he felt with what a cool and spirit-like touch it visited him. 54 MALAESKA Just then a human shadow mingled with that of the tree, and the wail of a child broke on the still night air. The dying hunter struggled and strove to cry out,—"Malaeska—Ma—Ma—Mala—" The poor Indian girl heard the voice, and with a cry, half of frenzied joy and half of fear, sprang to his side. She flung her child on the grass and lifted her dying husband to her heart, and kissed his damp forehead in a wild, eager agony of sor- row. "Malaeska," said the young man, striving to wind his arms about her, "my poor girl, what will become of you? O God! who will take care of my boy?" The Indian girl pushed back the damp hair from his forehead, and looked wildly down into his face. A shiver ran through her frame when she saw the cold, gray shadows of death gathering there; then her black eyes kindled, her beautiful lip curved to an expression more lofty than a smile, her small hand pointed to the West, and the wild religion of her race gushed up from her heart, a stream of liv- ing poetry. THE INDIAN WIFE 55 "The hunting-ground of the Indian is yonder, among the purple clouds of the evening. The stars are very thick there, and the red light is heaped to- gether like mountains in the heart of a forest. The sugar-maple gives its waters all the year round, and the breath of the deer is sweet, for it feeds on the golden spire-bush and the ripe berries. A lake of bright waters is there. The Indian's canoe flies over it like a bird high up in the morning. The West has rolled back its clouds, and a great chief has passed through. He will hold back the clouds that his white son may go up to the face of the Great Spirit. Malaeska and her boy will follow. The blood of the red man is high in her heart, and the way is open. The lake is deep, and the arrow sharp; death will come when Malaeska calls him. Love will make her voice sweet in the land of the Great Spirit; the white man will hear it, and call her to his bosom again!" A faint, sad smile flitted over the dying hunter's face, and his voice was choked with a pain which was not death. "My poor girl," he said, feebly drawing her kindling face to his lips, "there is no 56 MALAESKA great hunting-ground as you dream. The whites have another faith, and—O God! I have taken away her trust, and have none to give in return!" The Indian's face drooped forward, the light of her wild, poetic faith had departed with the hunter's last words, and a feeling of cold desolation settled on her heart. He was dying on her bosom, and she knew not where he was going, nor that their parting might not be eternal. The dying man's lips moved as if in prayer. "Forgive me, O Father of mercies! forgive me that I have left this poor girl in her heathen igno- rance," he murmured, faintly, and his lips con- tinued to move though there was no perceptible sound. After a few moments of exhaustion, he fixed his eyes on the Indian girl's face with a look of solemn and touching earnestness. "Malaeska," he said, "talk not of putting your- self and the boy to death. That would be a sin, and God would punish it. To meet me in another world, Malaeska, you must learn to love the white man's God, and wait patiently till he shall send you to me. THE INDIAN WIFE 57 Go not back to your tribe when I am dead. Down at the mouth of the great river are many whites; among them are my father and mother. Find your way to them, tell them how their son died, and beseech them to cherish you and the boy for his sake. Tell them how much he loved you, my poor girl. Tell them—I can not talk more. There is a girl at the settlement, one Martha Fellows; go to her. She knows of you, and has papers—a letter to my father. I did not expect this, but had prepared for it. Go to her—you will do this—promise, while I can understand." Malaeska had not wept till now, but her voice was choked, and tears fell like rain over the dying man's face as she made the promise. He tried to thank her, but the effort died away in a faint smile and a tremulous motion of the white lips—"Kiss me, Malaeska." The request was faint as a breath of air, but Malaeska heard it. She flung herself on his bosom with a passionate burst of grief, and her lips clung to his as if they would have drawn him back from the very grave. She felt the cold lips moving be- 58 MALAESKA neath the despairing pressure of hers, and lifted her head. "The boy, Malaeska; let me look on my son." The child had crept to his mother's side, and crouching on his hands and knees, sat with his large black eyes filled with a strange awe, gazing on the white face of his father. Malaeska drew him closer, and with instinctive feelings he wound his arms round the neck, and nestled his face close to the ashy cheek of the dying man. There was a faint motion of the hands as if the father would have embraced his child, and then all was still. After a time, the child felt the cheek beneath his waxing hard and cold. He lifted his head and pored with breathless wonder over the face of his father's corpse. He looked up at his mother. She, too, was bending intently over the face of the dead, and her eyes were full of a wild, melancholy light. The child was bewildered. He passed his tiny hand once more over the cold face, and then crept away, buried his head in the folds of his mother's dress, and began to cry. Morning dawned upon the little lake, quietly THE INDIAN WIFE 59 and still, as if nothing but the dews of heaven and the flowers of earth had ever tasted its freshness; yet all under the trees, the tender grass and the white blossoms, were crushed to the ground, stained and trampled in human blood. The delicious light broke, like a smile from heaven, over the still bosom of the waters, and flickered cheeringly through the dewy branches of the hemlock which shadowed the prostrate hunter. Bright dew-drops lay thickly on his dress, and gleamed, like a shower of seed pearls, in his rich, brown hair. The green moss on either side was soaked with a crimson stain, and the pale, leaden hue of dissolution had settled on his features. He was not alone; for on the same mossy couch lay the body of the slaughtered chief; the limbs were composed, as if on a bier—the hair wiped smooth, and the crescent of feathers, broken and wet, were arranged with care around his bronzed temples. A little way off, on a hillock, purple with flowers, lay a beautiful child, beckon- ing to the birds as they fluttered by—plucking up the flowers, and uttering his tiny shout of gladness, as if death and sorrow were not all around him. 60 MALAESKA There, by the side of the dead hunter, sat Malaeska, the widow, her hands dropping nervously by her side, her long hair sweeping the moss, and her face bowed on her bosom, stupefied with the over- whelming poignancy of her grief. Thus she re- mained, motionless and lost in sorrow, till the day was at its noon. Her child, hungry and tired with play, had cried itself to sleep among the flowers; but the mother knew it not—her heart and all her faculties seemed closed as with a portal of ice. That night when the moon was up, the Indian widow dug a grave, with her own hands, on the green margin of the lake. She laid her husband and her father side by side, and piled sods upon them. Then she lifted the wretched and hungry babe from the earth, and, with a heavy heart, bent her way to "the Straka." CHAPTER III The sunset fell to the deep, deep stream, Ruddy as gold could be, While russet brown and a crimson gleam Slept in each forest-tree; But the heart of the Indian wife was sad As she urged her light canoe, While her boy's young laugh rose high and glad When the wild birds o'er them flew. Martha Fellows and her lover were alone in her father's cabin on the night after the Indian engage- ment. They were both paler than usual, and too anxious about the safety of their little village for any thing like happiness, or tranquil conversation. The old man had been stationed as sentinel on the verge of the clearing; and as the two sat together in silence, with hands interlocked, and gazing wist- fully in each other's face, a rifle-shot cut sharply from the old man's station. They both started to their feet, and Martha clung shrieking to her lover. Jones forced her back to the settle—and, snatching his rifle, sprang to the door. There was a sound of 61 62 MALAESKA approaching footsteps, and with it was mingled the voice of old Fellows, and the sweeter and more im- perfect tones of a female, with the sobbing breath of a child. As Jones stood wondering at the strange sound, a remarkable group darkened the light which streamed from the cabin door. It was Fel- lows partly supporting and partly dragging for- ward a pale and terrified Indian girl. The light glittered upon her picturesque raiment, and re- vealed the dark, bright eyes of a child which was fastened to her back, and which clung to her neck silent with terror and exhaustion. "Come along, you young porcupine! You skulking copper-colored little squaw, you! We shan't kill you, nor the little pappoose, neither; so you needn't shake so. Come along! There's Martha Fellows, if you can find enough of your darnationed queer English to tell her what you want." As he spoke, the rough, but kind-hearted old man entered the hut, pushing the wretched Malaeska and her child before him. "Martha! why what in the name of nature THE INDIAN WIFE 63 makes you look so white about the mouth? You needn't be afraid of this little varmint, no how. She's as harmless as a gartersnake. Come, see if you can find out what she wants of you. She can talk the drollest you ever heard. But I've scared away her senses, and she only stares at me like a shot deer." When the Indian heard the name of the as- tonished girl, into whose presence she had been dragged, she withdrew from the old man's grasp and stole timidly toward the settle. "The white man left papers with the maiden— Malaeska only wants the papers," she pleaded, placing her small palms beseechingly together. Martha turned still more pale, and started to her feet. "It is true then," she said, almost wildly. "Poor Danforth is dead, and these forlorn crea- tures, his widow and child, have come to me at last. Oh! Jones, he was telling me of this the night you got so angry. I could not tell you why we were talking so much together; but I knew all the time that he had an Indian wife—it seemed as if he had a forewarning of his death, and must 64 MALAESKA tell some one. The last time I saw him, he gave me a letter, sealed with black, and bade me seek his wife, and persuade her to carry it to his father, if he was killed in the fight. It is that letter she has come after; but how will she find her way to Manhattan?" "Malaeska knows which way the waters run: she can find a path down the big river. Give her the papers that she may go!" pleaded the sad voice of the Indian. "Tell us first," said Jones, addressing her kindly, "have the Indians left our neighborhood? Is there no danger of an attack?" "The white man need not fear. When the great chief died, the smoke of his wigwam went out; and his people have gone beyond the mountains. Malaeska is alone." There was wretchedness and touching pathos in the poor girl's speech, that affected the little group even to tears. "No you ain't, by gracious!" exclaimed Fellows, dashing his hand across his eyes. "You shall stay and live with me, and help Matt, you shall—and THE INDIAN WIFE 65 that's the end on't. I'll make a farmer of the little pappoose. I'll bet a beaver-skin that he'll larn to gee and haw the oxen and hold plow afore half the Dutch boys that are springing up here as thick as clover-tops in a third year's clearing." Malaeska did not perfectly understand the kind settler's proposition; but the tone and manner were kindly, and she knew that he wished to help her. "When the boy's father was dying, he told Malaeska to go to his people, and they would tell her how to find the white man's God. Give her the papers, and she will go. Her heart will be full when she thinks of the kind words and the soft looks which the white chiefs and the bright-haired maiden have given her." "She goes to fulfill a promise to the dead—we ought not to prevent her," said Jones. Malaeska turned her eyes eagerly and grate- fully upon him as he spoke, and Martha went to her bed and drew the letter, which had been in- trusted to her care, from beneath the pillow. The Indian took it between her trembling hands, and 66 MALAESKA pressing it with a gesture almost of idolatry to her lips, thrust it into her bosom. "The white maiden is good! Farewell!" she turned toward the door as she spoke. "Stay! It will take many days to reach Manhat- tan—take something to eat, or you will starve on the way," said Martha, compassionately. "Malaeska has her bow and arrow, and she can use them; but she thanks the white maiden. A piece of bread for the boy—he has cried to his mother many times for food; but her bosom was full of tears, and she had none to give him." Martha ran to the cupboard and brought forth a large fragment of bread and a cup of milk. When the child saw the food, he uttered a soft, hungry murmur, and his little fingers began to work eagerly on his mother's neck. Martha held the cup to his lips, and smiled through her tears to see how hungrily he swallowed, and with what a satisfied and pleased look his large, black eyes were turned up to hers as he drank. When the cup was withdrawn, the boy breathed a deep sigh of THE INDIAN WIFE 67 satisfaction, and let his head fall sleepily on his mother's shoulder; her large eyes seemed full of moonlight, and a gleam of pleasure shot athwart her sad features; she unbound a bracelet of wam- pum from her arm and placed it in Martha's hand. The next instant she was lost in the dark- ness without. The kind settler rushed out, and hal- looed for her to come back; but her step was like that of a fawn, and while he was wandering fruit- lessly around the settlement, she reached the margin of the creek; and, unmooring a canoe, which lay concealed in the sedge, placed herself in it, and shot round the point to the broad bosom of the Hudson. Night and morning, for many successive days, that frail canoe glided down the current, amid the wild and beautiful scenery of the Highlands, and along the park-like shades of a more level coun- try. There was something in the sublime and lofty handiwork of God which fell soothingly on the sad heart of the Indian. Her thoughts were continu- ally dwelling on the words of her dead husband, ever picturing to themselves the land of spirits 68 MALAESKA where he had promised that she should join him. The perpetual change of scenery, the sunshine playing with the foliage, and the dark, heavy masses of shadow, flung from the forests and the rocks on either hand, were continually exciting her untamed imagination to comparison with the heaven of her wild fancy. It seemed, at times, as if she had but to close her eyes and open them again to be in the presence of her lost one. There was something heavenly in the solemn, perpetual flow of the river, and in the music of the leaves as they rippled to the wind, that went to the poor widow's heart like the soft voice of a friend. After a day or two, the gloom which hung about her young brow, partially departed. Her cheek again dimpled to the happy laugh of her child, and when he nestled down to sleep in the furs at the bottom of the canoe, her soft, plaintive lullaby would steal over the waters like the song of a wild bird seeking in vain for its mate. Malaeska never went on shore, except to gather wild fruit, and occasionally to kill a bird, which her true arrow seldom failed to bring down. She THE INDIAN WIFE 69 would strike a fire and prepare her game in some shady nook by the river side, while the canoe swung at its mooring, and her child played on the fresh grass, shouting at the cloud of summer insects that flashed by, and clapping his tiny hands at the hum- ming-birds that came to rifle honey from the flowers that surrounded him. The voyage was one of strange happiness to the widowed Indian. Never did Christian believe in the pages of Divine Writ with more of trust, than she placed in the dying promise of her hus- band, that she should meet him again in another world. His spirit seemed forever about her, and to her wild, free imagination, the passage down the magnificent stream seemed a material and glorious path to the white man's heaven. Filled with strange, sweet thoughts, she looked abroad on the mountains looming up from the banks of the river—on the forest-trees so various in their tints, and so richly clothed, till she was inspired almost to forgetfulness of her affliction. She was young and healthy, and every thing about her was so lovely, so grand and changing, that her heart 70 MALAESKA expanded to the sunshine like a flower which has been bowed down, but not crushed beneath the force of a storm. Part of each day she spent in a wild, dreamy state of imagination. Her mind was lulled to sweet musings by the gentle sounds that hovered in the air from morning till evening, and through the long night, when all was hushed save the deep flow of the river. Birds came out with their cheerful voices at dawn, and at midday she floated in the cool shadow of the hills, or shot into some cove for a few hours' rest. When the sunset shed its gorgeous dyes over the river—and the mountain ramparts, on either side, were crimson as with the track of contending armies—when the boy was asleep, and the silent stars came out to kindle up her night path, then a clear, bold mel- ody gushed from the mother's lips like a song from the heart of a nightingale. Her eye kindled, her cheek grew warm, the dip of her paddle kept a liquid accompaniment to her rich, wild voice, as the canoe floated downward on waves that seemed rippling over a world of crushed blossoms, and were misty with the approach of evening. THE INDIAN WIFE 71 Malaeska had been out many days, when the shady gables and the tall chimneys of Manhattan broke upon her view, surrounded by the sheen of its broad bay, and by the forest which covered the uninhabited part of the island. The poor Indian gazed upon it with an unstable but troublesome fear. She urged her canoe into a little cove on the Hoboken shore, and her heart grew heavy as the grave, as she pondered on the means of fulfilling her charge. She took the letter from her bosom; the tears started to her eyes, and she kissed it with a regretful sorrow, as if a friend were about to be rendered up from her affections forever. She took the child to her heart, and held him there till its throbbings grew audible, and the strength of her misgivings could not be restrained. After a time she became more calm. She lifted the child from her bosom, laved his hands and face in the stream, and brushed his black hair with her palm till it glowed like the neck of a raven. Then she girded his little crimson robe with a string of wampum, and after arranging her own attire, shot the canoe out of the cove and urged it slowly across 72 MALAESKA the mouth of the river. Her eyes were full of tears all the way, and when the child murmured, and strove to comfort her with his infant caress, she sobbed aloud, and rowed steadily forward. It was a strange sight to the phlegmatic inhabi- tants of Manhattan, when Malaeska passed through their streets in full costume, and with the proud, free tread of her race. Her hair hung in long braids down her back, each braid fastened at the end with a tuft of scarlet feathers. A coronet of the same bright plumage circled her small head, and her robe was gorgeous with beads, and fringed with porcupine quills. A bow of exquisite work- manship was in her hand, and a scarf of scarlet cloth bound the boy to her back. Nothing could be more strikingly beautiful than the child. His spirited head was continually turning from one strange object to another, and his bright, black eyes were brim-full of childish wonder. One lit- tle arm was flung around his young mother's neck, and its fellow rested on the feathered arrow- shafts which crowded the quiver slung against her left shoulder. The timid, anxious look of the THE INDIAN WIFE 73 mother, was in strong contrast with the eager gaze of the boy. She had caught much of the delicacy and refinement of civilized life from her hus- band, and her manner became startled and fawn- like beneath the rude gaze of the passers-by. The modest blood burned in her cheek, and the sweet, broken English trembled on her lips, when several persons, to whom she showed the letter passed by without answering her. She did not know that they were of another nation than her husband, and spoke another language than that which love had taught her. At length she accosted an aged man who could comprehend her imperfect language. He read the name on the letter, and saw that it was addressed to his master, John Danforth, the richest fur-trader in Manhattan. The old serving- man led the way to a large, irregular building, in the vicinity of what is now Hanover Square. Ma- laeska followed with a lighter tread, and a heart relieved of its fear. She felt that she had found a friend in the kind old man who was conducting her to the home of her husband's father. The servant entered this dwelling and led the 74 MALAESKA way to a low parlor, paneled with oak and lighted with small panes of thick, greenish glass. A series of Dutch tiles—some of them most exquisite in finish and design, surrounded the fire-place, and a coat-of-arms, elaborately carved in oak, stood out in strong relief from the paneling above. A car- pet, at that time an uncommon luxury, covered a greater portion of the floor, and the furniture was rich in its material, and ponderous with heavy carved work. A tall, and rather hard-featured man sat in an arm-chair by one of the narrow windows, reading a file of papers which had just arrived in the last merchant-ship from London. A little dis- tance from him, a slight and very thin lady of about fifty was occupied with household sewing; her work-box stood on a small table before her, and a book of common-prayer lay beside it. The servant had intended to announce his strange guests, but, fearful of losing sight of him, Ma- laeska followed close upon his footsteps, and be- fore he was aware of it, stood within the room, holding her child by the hand. "A woman, sir,—an Indian woman, with a let- 76 MALAESKA The merchant composed himself in his chair, settled his spectacles, and after another severe glance at the bearer, opened the letter. His wife kept her eyes fixed anxiously on his face as he read. She saw that his face grew pale, that his high, narrow forehead contracted, and that the stern mouth became still more rigid in its expression. She knew that some evil had befallen her son— her only son, and she grasped a chair for support; her lips were bloodless, and her eyes became keen with agonizing suspense. When her husband had read the letter through, she went close to him, but looked another way as she spoke. "Tell me! has any harm befallen my son?" Her voice was low and gentle, but husky with sus- pense. Her husband did not answer, but his hand fell heavily upon his knee, and the letter rattled in his unsteady grasp; his eyes were fixed on his trem- bling wife with a look that chilled her to the heart. She attempted to withdraw the letter from his hand, but he clenched it the firmer. THE INDIAN WIFE 77 "Let it alone—he is dead—murdered by the savages—why should you know more?" The poor woman staggered back, and the fire of anxiety went out from her eyes. "Can there be any thing worse than death— the death of the first-born of our youth—cut off in his proud manhood?" she murmured, in a low, broken voice. "Yes, woman!" said the husband, almost fiercely; "there is a thing worse than death—dis- grace!" "Disgrace coupled with, my son? You are his father, John. Do not slander him now that he is dead—before his mother, too." There was a faint, red spot then upon that mild woman's face, and her mouth curved proudly as she spoke. All that was stern in her nature had been aroused by the implied charge against the departed. "Read, woman, read! Look on that accursed wretch and her child! They have enticed him into their savage haunts, and murdered him. Now they come to claim protection and reward for the foul deed." 78 MALAESKA Malaeska drew her child closer to her as she listened to this vehement language, and shrank slowly back to a corner of the room, where she crouched, like a frightened hare, looking wildly about, as if seeking some means to evade the vengeance which seemed to threaten her. After the first storm of feeling, the old man buried his face in his hands and remained motion- less, while the sobs of his wife, as she read her son's letter, alone broke the stillness of the room. Malaeska felt those tears as an encouragement, and her own deep feelings taught her how to reach those of another. She drew timidly to the mourner and sank at her feet. "Will the white woman look upon Malaeska?" she said, in a voice full of humility and touching earnestness. "She loved the young white chief, and when the shadows fell upon his soul, he said that his mother's heart would grow soft to the poor Indian woman who had slept in his bosom while she was very young. He said that her love would THE INDIAN WIFE 79 open to his boy like a flower to the sunshine. Will the white woman look upon the boy? He is like his father." "He is, poor child, he is!" murmured the be- reaved mother, looking on the boy through her tears—"like him, as he was when we were both young, and he the blessing of our hearts. Oh, John, do you remember his smile?—how his cheek would dimple when we kissed it! Look upon this poor, fatherless creature; they are all here again; the sunny eye and the broad forehead. Look upon him, John, for my sake—for the sake of our dead son, who prayed us with his last breath to love his son. Look upon him!" The kind woman led the child to her husband as she spoke, and resting her arm on his shoulder, pressed her lips upon his swollen temples. The pride of his nature was touched. His bosom heaved, and tears gushed through his rigid fingers. He felt a little form draw close to his knee, and a tiny, soft hand strive with its feeble might to un- cover his face. The voice of nature was strong within him. His hands dropped, and he pored with 80 MALAESKA a troubled face over the uplifted features of the child. Tears were in those young, bright eyes as they returned his grandfather's gaze, but when a softer expression came into the old man's face, a smile broke through them, and the little fellow lifted both his arms and clasped them over the bowed neck of his grandfather. There was a momentary struggle, and then the merchant folded the boy to his heart with a burst of strong feeling such as his iron nature had seldom known. "He is like his father. Let the woman go back to her tribe; we will keep the boy." Malaeska sprang forward, clasped her hands, and turned with an air of wild, heart-thrilling ap- peal to the lady. "You will not send Malaeska from her child. No—no, white woman. Your boy has slept against your heart, and you have felt his voice in your ear, like the song of a young mocking-bird. You would not send the poor Indian back to the woods without her child. She has come to you from the forest, that she may learn the path to the white THE INDIAN WIFE 81 man's heaven, and see her husband again, and you will not show it her. Give the Indian woman her boy; her heart is growing very strong; she will not go back to the woods alone!" As she spoke these words, with an air more energetic even than her speech, she snatched the child from his grandfather's arms, and stood like a lioness guarding her young, her lips writhing and her black eyes flashing fire, for the savage blood kindled in her veins at the thought of being separated from her son. "Be quiet, girl, be quiet. If you go, the child shall go with you," said the gentle Mrs. Danforth. "Do not give way to this fiery spirit; no one will wrong you." Malaeska dropped her air of defiance, and plac- ing the child humbly at his grandfather's feet, drew back, and stood with her eyes cast down, and her hands clasped deprecatingly together, a posture of supplication in strong contrast with her late wild demeanor. "Let them stay. Do not separate the mother and the child!" entreated the kind lady, anxious to CHAPTER IV "Her heart is in the wild wood; Her heart is not here. Her heart is in the wild wood; It was hunting the deer." It would have been an unnatural thing, had that picturesque young mother abandoned the woods, and prisoned herself in a quaint old Dutch house, under the best circumstances. The wild bird, which has fluttered freely from its nest through a thou- sand forests, might as well be expected to love its cage, as this poor wild girl her new home, with its dreary stillness and its leaden regularity. But love was all-powerful in that wild heart. It had brought Malaeska from her forest home, separated her from her tribe in its hour of bitter defeat, and sent her a forlorn wanderer among strangers that re- garded her almost with loathing. The elder Danforth was a just man, but hard as granite in his prejudices. An only son had been 83 84 MALAESKA murdered by the savages to whom this poor young creature belonged. His blood—all of his being that might descend to posterity—had been mingled with the accursed race who had sacrificed him. Gladly would he have rent the two races asunder, in the very person of his grandchild, could the pure half of his being been thus preserved. But he was a proud, childless old man, and there was something in the boy's eyes, in the brave lift of his head, and in his caressing manner, which filled the void in his heart, half with love and half with pain. He could no more separate the two passions in his own soul, than he could drain the savage blood from the little boy's veins. But the house-mother, the gentle wife, could see nothing but her son's smile in that young face, nothing but his look in the large eyes, which, black in color, still possessed something of the azure light that had distinguished those of the father. The boy was more cheerful and bird-like than his mother, for all her youth had gone out on the banks of the pond where her husband died. Al- THE INDIAN WIFE 85 ways submissive, always gentle, she was neverthe- less a melancholy woman. A bird which had fol- lowed its young out into strange lands, and caged it there, could not have hovered around it more hopelessly. Nothing but her husband's dying wish would have kept Malaeska in Manhattan. She thought of her own people incessantly—of her broken, harassed tribe, desolated by the death of her father, and whose young chief she had carried off and given to strangers. But shame dyed Malaeska's cheek as she thought of these things. What right had she, an Indian of the pure blood, to bring the grandchild of her father under the roof of his enemies? Why had she not taken the child in her arms and joined her people as they sang the death-chant for her father, "who," she murmured to her- self again and again, "was a great chief," and retreated with them deep into the wilderness, to which they were driven, giving them a chief in her son? But no! passion had been too strong in Ma- 86 MALAESKA laeska's heart. The woman conquered the patriot; and the refinement which affection had given her, enslaved the wild nature without returning a com- pensation of love for the sacrifice. She pined for her people—all the more that they were in peril and sorrow. She longed for the shaded forest- paths, and the pretty lodge, with its couches of fur and its floor of blossoming turf. To her the very winds seemed chained among the city houses; and when she heard them sighing through the gables, it seemed to her that they were moaning for freedom, as she was in the solitude of her lonely life. They had taken the child from her. A white nurse was found, who stepped in between the young heir and his mother, thrusting her ruth- lessly aside. In this the old man was obstinate. The wild blood of the boy must be quenched; he must know nothing of the race from which his disgrace sprang. If the Indian woman remained under his roof, it must be as a menial, and on condition that all natural affection lay crushed within her—unex- pressed, unguessed at by the household. THE INDIAN WIFE 87 But Mrs. Danforth had compassion on the poor mother. She remembered the time when her own child had made all the pulses of her being thrill with love, which now took the form of a thousand tender regrets. She could not watch the lone In- dian stealing off to her solitary room under the gable roof—a mother, yet childless—without throbs of womanly sorrow. She was far too good a wife to brave her husband's authority, but, with the cowardliness of a kind heart, she frequently managed to evade it. Sometimes in the night she would creep out of her prim chamber, and steal the boy from the side of his nurse, whom she bore on her own motherly bosom to the solitary bed of Malaeska. As if Malaeska had a premonition of the kindli- ness, she was sure to be wide awake, thinking of her child, and ready to gush forth in murmurs of thankfulness for the joy of clasping her own son a moment to that lonely heart. Then the grandmother would steal to her hus- band's side again, charging it upon her memory to awake before daylight, and carry the boy back to 88 MALAESKA the stranger's bed, making her gentle charity a secret as if it had been a sin. It was pitiful to see Malaeska haunting the foot- steps of her boy all the day long. If he was taken into the garden, she was sure to be hovering around the old pear-trees, where she could some- times unseen lure him from his play, and lavish kisses on his mouth as he laughed recklessly, and strove to abandon her for some bright flower or butterfly that crossed his path. This snatch of af- fection, this stealthy way of appeasing a hungry nature, was enough to drive a well-tutored woman mad; as for Malaeska, it was a marvel that she could tame her erratic nature into the abject posi- tion allotted her in that family. She had neither the occupation of a servant, nor the interests of an equal. Forbidden to associate with the people in the kitchen, yet never welcomed in the formal parlor when its master was at home, she hovered around the halls and corners of the house, or hid herself away in the gable chambers, embroidering beauti- ful trifles on scraps of silk and fragments of bright THE INDIAN WIFE 89 cloth, with which she strove to bribe the woman who controlled her child, into forbearance and kindness. But alas, poor woman! submission to the wishes of the dead was a terrible duty; her poor heart was breaking all the time; she had no hope, no life; the very glance of her eye was an appeal for mercy; her step, as it fell on the turf, was leaden with despondency—she had nothing on earth to live for. This state of things arose when the child was a little boy; but as he grew older the bitterness of Malaeska's lot became more intense. The nurse who had supplanted her went away; for he was becoming a fine lad, and far removed from the need of woman's care. But this brought her no nearer to his affections. The Indian blood was strong in his young veins; he loved such play as brought activity and danger with it, and broke from the Indian woman's caresses with a sort of scorn, and she knew that the old grandfather's prejudice was taking root in his heart, and dared not utter a protest. She was forbidden to lavish 90 MALAESKA tenderness on her son, or to call forth his in re- turn, lest it might create suspicion of the relation- ship. In his early boyhood, she could steal to his chamber at night, and give free indulgence to the wild tenderness of her nature; but after a time even the privilege of watching him in his sleep was denied to her. Once, when she broke the tired boy's rest by her caresses, he became petulant, and chided her for her obtrusiveness. The repulse went to her heart like iron. She had no power to plead; for her life, she dared not tell him the secret of that aching love which she felt—too cruelly felt —oppressed his boyhood; for that would be to expose the disgrace of blood which embittered the old man's pride. She was his mother; yet her very existence in that house was held as a reproach. Every look that she dared to cast on her child, was watched jeal- ously as a fault. Poor Malaeska! hers was a sad, sad life. She had borne every thing for years, dreaming, poor thing, that the eternal cry that went up from THE INDIAN WIFE 91 her heart would be answered, as the boy grew older; but when he began to shrink proudly from her caresses, and question the love that was killing her, the despair which smoldered at her heart broke forth, and the forest blood spoke out with a power that not even a sacred memory of the dead could oppose. A wild idea seized upon her. She would no longer remain in the white man's house, like a bird beating its wings against the wires of a cage. The forests were wide and green as ever. Her people might yet be found. She would seek them in the wilderness. The boy should go with her, and become the chief of his tribe, as her father had been. That old man should not forever trample down her heart. There was a free life which she would find or die. The boy's childish petulance had created this wild wish in his mother's heart. The least sign of repulsion drove her frantic. She began to thirst eagerly for her old free existence in the woods; but for the blood of her husband, which ran in the old man's veins, she would have given way to the savage hate of her people, against the house- 92 MALAESKA hold in which she had been so unhappy. As it was, she only panted to be away with her child, who must love her when no white man stood by to rebuke him. With her aroused energies the native reticence of her tribe came to her aid. The stealthy art of warfare against an enemy awoke. They should not know how wretched she was. Her plans must be securely made. Every step toward free- dom should be carefully considered. These thoughts occupied Malaeska for days and weeks. She became active in her little chamber. The bow and sheaf of arrows that had given her the appear- ance of a young Diana when she came to Manhat- tan in her canoe, was taken down from the wall, newly strung, and the stone arrow-heads patiently sharpened. Her dress, with its gorgeous embroi- dery of fringe and wampum, was examined with care. She must return to her people as she had left them. The daughter of a chief—the mother of a chief—not a fragment of the white man's bounty should go with her to the forest. Cautiously, and with something of native craft, Malaeska made her preparations. Down upon the THE INDIAN WIFE 93 shores of the Hudson, lived an old carpenter who made boats for a living. Malaeska had often seen him at his work, and her rude knowledge of his craft gave peculiar interest to the curiosity with which she regarded him. The Indian girl had long been an object of his especial interest, and the carpenter was flattered by her admiration of his work. One day she came to his house with a look of eager watchfulness. Her step was hurried, her eye wild as a hawk's when its prey is near. The old man was finishing a fanciful little craft, of which he was proud beyond any thing. It was so light, so strong, so beautifully decorated with bands of red and white around the edge—no wonder the young woman's eyes brightened when she saw it. "What would he take for the boat?" That was a droll question from her. Why he had built it to please his own fancy. A pair of oars would make it skim the water like a bird. He had built it with an eye to old Mr. Danforth, who had been down to look at his boats for that dark-eyed grandson, whom he seemed to worship. None of his boats 94 MALAESKA were fanciful of light enough for the lad. So he had built this at a venture. Malaeska's eyes kindled brighter and brighter. Yes, yes; she, too, was thinking of the young gentleman; she would bring him to look at the boat. Mrs. Danforth often trusted the boy out with her; if he would only tell the price, perhaps they might be able to bring the money, and give the boat a trial on the Hudson. The old man laughed, glanced proudly at his handiwork, and named a price. It was not too much; Malaeska had double that amount in the embroidered pouch that hung in her little room at home—for the old gentleman had been liberal to her in every thing but kindness. She went home elated and eager; all was in readiness. The next day—oh, how her heart glowed as she thought of the next day! CHAPTER V Her boat is on the river, With the boy by her side j With her bow and her quiver She stands in her pride. The next afternoon old Mr. Danforth was absent from home. A municipal meeting, or something of that kind, was to be attended, and he was al- ways prompt in the performance of public duties. The good housewife had not been well for some days. Malaeska, always a gentle nurse, attended her with unusual assiduity. There was something evidently at work in the Indian woman's heart. Her lips were pale, her eyes full of pathetic trouble. After a time, when weariness made the old lady sleepy, Malaeska stole to the bedside, and kneeling down, kissed the withered hand that fell over the bed, with strange humility. This action was so light that the good lady did not heed it, but afterward it came to her like a dream, and as 95 96 MALAESKA such she remembered this leave-taking of the poor mother. William—for the lad was named after his father—was in a moody state that afternoon. He had no playfellows, for the indisposition of his grandmother had shut all strangers from the house, so he went into the garden, and began to draw the outlines of a rude fortification from the white pebbles that paved the principal walk. He was interrupted in the work by a pair of orioles, that came dashing through the leaves of an old apple-tree in a far end of the garden, in full chase and pursuit, making the very air vibrate with their rapid motion. After chasing each other up and down, to and fro in the clear sunshine, they were attracted by something in the distance, and darted off like a couple of golden arrows, sending back wild gushes of music in the start. The boy had been watching them with his great eyes full of envious delight. Their riotous free- dom charmed him; he felt chained and caged even in that spacious garden, full of golden fruit and THE INDIAN WIFE 97 bright flowers as it was. The native fire kindled in his frame. "Oh, if I were only a bird, that could fly home when I pleased, and away to the woods again— the bright, beautiful woods that I can see across the river, but never must play in. How the birds love it though!" The boy stopped speaking, for, like any other child kept to himself, he was talking over his thoughts aloud. But a shadow fell across the white pebbles on which he sat, and this it was which dis- turbed him. It was the Indian woman, Malaeska, with a forced smile on her face and looking wildly strange. She seemed larger and more stately than when he had seen her last. In her hand she held a light bow tufted with yellow and crimson feathers. When she saw his eyes brighten at the sight of the bow, Malaeska took an arrow from the sheaf which she carried under her cloak, and fitted it to the string. "See, this is what we learn in the woods." The two birds were wheeling to and fro across 98 MALAESKA the garden and out into the open space; their plumage flashed in the sunshine and gushes of musical triumph floated back as one shot ahead of the other. Malaeska lifted her bow with something of her old forest gracefulness—a faint twang of the bowstring—a sharp whiz of the arrow, one of the birds fluttered down- ward, with a sad little cry, and fell upon the ground, trembling like a broken poplar flower. The boy started up—his eye brightened and his thin nostrils dilated, the savage instincts of his na- ture broke out in all his features. "And you learned how to do this in the woods, Malaeska?" he said, eagerly. "Yes; will you learn too?" "Oh, yes—give hold here—quick—quick!" "Not here; we learn these things in the woods; come with me, and I will show you all about it." Malaeska grew pale as she spoke, and trembled in all her limbs. What if the boy refused to go with her? "What! over the river to the woods that look THE INDIAN WIFE 99 so bright and so brown when the nuts fall? Will you take me there, Malaeska?" "Yes, over the river where it shines like silver." "You will? oh my!—but how?" "Hush! not so loud. In a beautiful little boat." "With white sails, Malaeska?" "No—with paddles." "Ah, me!—but I can't make them go in the water; once grandfather let me try, but I had to give it up." "But I can make them go." "You! why, that isn't a woman's work." "No, but everybody learns it in the woods." "Can I?" "Yes!" "Then come along before grandfather comes to say we shan't; come along, I say; I want to shoot and run and live in the woods—come along, Malaeska. Quick, or somebody will shut the gate." Malaeska looked warily around—on the win- dows of the house, through the thickets, and along the gravel walks. No one was in sight. She and ioo MALAESKA her boy were all alone. She breathed heavily and lingered, thinking of the poor lady within. "Come!" cried the boy, eagerly; "I want to go —come along to the woods." "Yes, yes," whispered Malaeska, "to the woods —it is our home. There I shall be a mother once more." With the steps of a young deer, starting for its covert, she left the garden. The boy kept bravely on with her, bounding forward with a laugh when her step was too rapid for him to keep up with it. Thus, in breathless haste, they passed through the town into the open country and along the rough banks of the river. A little inlet, worn by the constant action of the water, ran up into the shore, which is now broken with wharves and bristling with masts. A clump of old forest-hemlocks bent over the waters, cast- ing cool, green shadows upon it till the sun was far in the west. In these shadows, rocking sleepily on the rip- ples, lay the pretty boat which Malaeska had pur- chased. A painted basket, such as the peaceful In- 104 MALAESKA "Poor bird!" sighed the boy; "how it wants to get home." "No, it loves the woods. The bird would die if you took it from the shade of the trees," said Ma- laeska, striving to pacify the boy, who crept up- ward into her lap and laid his cheek against hers. She felt that he trembled, and that tears lay cold on his cheeks. "Don't, my William, but look up and see how many stars hang over us—the river is full of them." "Oh, but grandfather will be missing me," pleaded the boy. Malaeska felt herself chilled; she had taken the boy but not his memory; that went back to the opu- lent home he had left. With her at his side, and the beautiful universe around, he thought of the old man who had made her worse than a serf in his household—who had stolen away the human soul that God had given into her charge. The In- dian woman grew sad to the very depths of her soul when the boy spoke of his grandfather. "Come," she said, with mournful pathos, "now we will find an open place in the woods. You shall THE INDIAN WIFE 105 have a bed like the pretty flowers. I will build a fire, and you shall see it grow red among the branches." The boy smiled in the moonlight. "A fire out of doors! Yes, yes, let's go into the woods. Will the birds talk to us there?" "The birds talk to us always when we get into the deep of the woods." Malaeska urged her boat into a little inlet that ran up between two great rocks upon the shore, where it was sheltered and safe; then she took the tiger-skin and the cushions in her arms, and, cau- tioning the boy to hold on to her dress, began to mount a little elevation where the trees were thin and the grass abundant, as she could tell from the odor of wild-flowers that came with the wind. A rock lay embedded in this rich forest-grass, and over it a huge white poplar spread its branches like a tent. Upon this rock Malaeska enthroned the boy, talking to him all the time, as she struck sparks from a flint which she took from her basket, and began to kindle a fire from the dry sticks which 106 MALAESKA lay around in abundance. When William saw the flames rise up high and clear, illuminating the beautiful space around, and shooting gleams of gold through the poplar's branches he grew brave again, and coming down from his eminence, began to gather brushwood that the fire might keep bright. Then Malaeska took a bottle of water and some bread, with fragments of dried beef, from her basket, and the boy came smiling from his work. He was no longer depressed by the dark, and the sight of food made him hungry. How proudly the Indian mother broke the food and surrendered it to his eager appetite. The bright beauty of her face was something wonder- ful to look upon as she watched him by the fire- light. For the first time, since he was a little in- fant, he really seemed to belong to her. When he was satisfied with food, and she saw that his eyelids began to droop, Malaeska went to some rocks at a little distance, and tearing up the moss in great green fleeces, brought it to the place she had chosen under the poplar-tree, and heaped a soft couch for the child. Over this she spread the THE INDIAN WIFE 107 tiger-skin with its red border, and laid the crim- son pillows whose fringes glittered in the firelight like gems around the couch of a prince. To this picturesque bed Malaeska took the boy, and seating herself by his side, began to sing as she had done years ago under the roof of her wig- wam. The lad was very weary, and fell asleep while her plaintive voice filled the air and was an- swered mournfully back by a night-bird deep in the blackness of the forest. When certain that the lad was asleep, Malaeska lay down on the hard rock by his side, softly steal- ing one arm over him and sighing out her troubled joy as she pressed his lips with her timid kisses. Thus the poor Indian sunk to a broken rest, as she had done all her life, piling up soft couches for those she loved, and taking the cold stone for herself. It was her woman's destiny, not the more certain because of her savage origin. Civilization does not always reverse this mournful picture of womanly self-abnegation. When the morning came, the boy was aroused by a full chorus of singing-birds that fairly made 108 MALAESKA the air vibrate with their melody. In and out through the branches rang their wild minstrelsy, till the sunshine came laughing through the green- ness, giving warmth and pleasant light to the mu- sic. William sat up, rubbing his eyes, and wonder- ing at the strange noises. Then he remembered where he was, and called aloud for Malaeska. She came from behind a clump of trees, carrying a partridge in her hand, pierced through the heart with her arrow. She flung the bird on the rock at William's feet, and kneeling down before him, kissed his feet, his hands, and the folds of his tunic, smoothing his hair and his garments with pathetic fondness. "When shall we go home, Malaeska?" cried the lad, a little anxiously. "Grandfather will want us." "This is the home for a young chief," replied the mother, looking around upon the pleasant sky and the forest-turf, enameled with wild-flowers. "What white man has a tent like this?" The boy looked up and saw a world of golden tulip-blossoms starring the branches above him. no MALAESKA berries, and eager to distinguish himself among the brushwood, while Malaeska withdrew a little distance and prepared her game for roasting. The boy was quick and full of intelligence; he had a fire blazing at once, and shouted back a challenge to the birds as its flames rose in the air, sending up wreaths of delicate blue smoke into the poplar branches, and curtaining the rocks with mist. Directly the Indian woman came forward with her game, nicely dressed and pierced with a wooden skewer; to this she attached a piece of twine, which, being tied to a branch overhead, swung its burden gently to and fro before the fire. While this rustic breakfast was in preparation, the boy went off in search of flowers or berries— any thing that he could find. He came back with a quantity of green wild cherries in his tunic, and a bird's nest, with three speckled eggs in it, which he had found under a tuft of fern leaves. A striped squirrel, that ran down a chestnut-limb, looked at him with such queer earnestness, that he shouted THE INDIAN WIFE in lustily to Malaeska, saying that he loved the beau- tiful woods and all the pretty things in it. When he came back, Malaeska had thrown off her cloak, and crowned herself with a coronal of scarlet and green feathers, which rendered her savage dress complete, and made her an object of wondering admiration to the boy, as she moved in and out through the trees, with her face all aglow with proud love. While the partridge was swaying to and fro before the fire, Malaeska gathered a handful of chestnut-leaves and wove them together in a sort of mat; upon this cool nest she laid the bird, and carved it with a pretty poniard which William's father had given her in his first wooing; then she made a leaf-cup, and, going to a little spring which she had discovered, filled it with crystal water. So, upon the flowering turf, with wild birds serenad- ing them, and the winds floating softly by, the mother and boy took their first regular meal in the forest. William was delighted; every thing was fresh and beautiful to him. He could scarcely con- tain his eagerness to be in action long enough to 112 MALAESKA eat the delicate repast which Malaeska diversified with smiles and caresses. He wanted to shoot the birds that sang so sweetly in the branches, all un- conscious that the act would inflict pain on the poor little songsters; he could not satisfy himself with gazing on the gorgeous raiment of his mother— it was something wonderful in his eyes. At last the rustic meal was ended, and with his lips reddened by the juicy fruit, he started up, pleading for the bow and arrow. Proud as a queen and fond as a woman, Ma- laeska taught him how to place the arrow on the bowstring, and when to lift it gradually toward his face. He took to it naturally, the young rogue, and absolutely danced for joy when his first arrow leaped from his bow and went rifling through the poplar-leaves. How Malaeska loved this practice! how she triumphed in each graceful lift of his arm! how her heart leaped to the rich tumult of his shouts! He wanted to go off alone and try his skill among the squirrels, but Malaeska was afraid, and followed him step by step, happy and watchful. Every moment increased his skill; he THE INDIAN WIFE 113 would have exhausted the sheaf of arrows, but that Malaeska patiently searched for them after each shot, and thus secured constant amusement till he grew tired even of that rare sport. Toward noon, Malaeska left him at rest on the tiger-skin, and went herself in search of game for the noonday meal; never had she breathed so freely, never had the woods seemed so like her home. A sense of profound peace stole over her. These groves were her world, and on the rock near by lay her other life—all that she had on earth to love. She was in no haste to find her tribe. What care had she for any thing while the boy was with her, and the forest so pleasant? What did she care for but his happiness? It required but few efforts of her woodcraft to obtain game enough for another pleasant meal; so, with a light step, she returned to her fairy-like encampment. Tired with his play, the boy had fallen asleep on the rock. She saw the graceful repose of his limbs, and the sunshine shimmering softly through his black hair. Her step grew lighter; she was afraid of rustling a leaf, lest the THE INDIAN WIFE 115 of saving her boy. With her cold hands she had fitted the arrow and lifted the bow, but as the serpent grew passive, the weapon dropped again; for he lay on the other side of the child, and to kill him she was obliged to shoot over that sleeping form. But the reptile crested himself again, and now with a quiver of horrible dread at her heart, but nerves strained like steel, she drew the bow- string, and, aiming at the head, which glittered like a jewel, just beyond her child, let the arrow fly. She went blind on the instant—the darkness of death fell upon her brain; the coldness of death lay upon her heart; she listened for some cry— nothing but a sharp rustling of leaves and then profound stillness met her strained senses. The time in which Malaeska was struck with darkness seemed an eternity to her, but it lasted only an instant, in fact; then her eyes opened wide in the agonized search, and terrible thrills shot through her frame. A laugh rang up through the trees, and then she saw her boy sitting up on the tiger-skin, his cheeks all rosy with sleep and dimpled with surprise, gazing down upon the 116 MALAESKA headless rattlesnake that had uncoiled convulsively in its death-spasms, and lay quivering across his feet. "Ha! ha!" he shouted, clapping his hands, "this is a famous fellow—prettier than the birds, pret- tier than the squirrels. Malaeska! Malaeska! see what this checkered thing is with no head, and rings on its tail." Malaeska was so weak she could hardly stand, but, trembling in every limb, she staggered to- ward the rock, and seizing upon the still quivering snake, hurled it with a shuddering cry into the un- dergrowth. Then she fell upon her knees, and clasped the boy close, close to her bosom till he struggled and cried out that she was hurting him. But she could not let him go; it seemed as if the serpent would coil around him the moment her arms were loos- ened; she clung to his garments—she kissed his hands, his hair, and his flushed forehead with pas- sionate energy. He could not understand all this. Why did Ma- laeska breathe so hard, and shake so much? He THE INDIAN WIFE 117 wished she had not flung away the pretty creature which had crept to his bed while he slept, and looked so beautiful. But when she told how dan- gerous the reptile was, he began to be afraid, and questioned her with vague terror about the way she had killed him. Some yards from the rock, Malaeska found her arrow on which the serpent's head was impaled, and she carried it with trembling exultation to the boy, who shrank away with new-born dread, and began to know what fear was. CHAPTER VI "Mid forests and meadow lands, though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home; Home, home, sweet, sweet, home, There's no place like home; There's no place like home." This event troubled Malaeska, and gathering up her little property, she unmoored the boat, and made progress up the river. The child was de- lighted with the change, and soon lost all unpleas- ant remembrance of the rattlesnake. But Malaeska was very careful in the selection of her encamp- ment that afternoon, and kindled a bright fire be- fore she spread the tiger-skin for William's bed, which she trusted would keep all venomous things away. They ate their supper under a huge white pine, that absorbed the firelight in its dusky branches, and made every thing gloomy around. As the darkness closed over them William grew silent, and by the heaviness of his features Ma- laeska saw that he was oppressed by thoughts of 118 120 MALAESKA "We are going home—to our beautiful home in the woods, which I told you of." "Dear me, I'm so tired of the woods." "Tired of the woods?" "Yes, I am tired. They are nice to play in, but it isn't home, no way. How far is it, Malaeska, to where grandfather lives?" "I don't know—I don't want to know. We shall never—never go there again," said the Indian, pas- sionately. "You are mine, all mine." The boy struggled in her embrace restively. "But I won't stay in the woods. I want to be in a real house, and sleep in a soft bed, and—and— there, now, it is going to rain; I hear it thunder. Oh, how I want to go home!" There was in truth a storm mustering over them; the wind rose and moaned hoarsely through the pines. Malaeska was greatly distressed, and gathered the tired boy lovingly to her bosom for shelter. "Have patience, William; nothing shall hurt you. Tomorrow we will row the boat all day. You shall pull the oars yourself." THE INDIAN WIFE 121 "Shall I, though?" said the boy, brightening a little; "but will it be on the way home?" "We shall go across the mountains where the Indians live. The brave warriors who will make William their king." "But I don't want to be a kine, Malaeska!" "A chief—a great chief—who shall go to the war-path and fight battles." "Ah, I should like that, with your pretty bow and arrow, Malaeska; wouldn't I shoot the wicked red-skins?" "Ah, my boy, don't say that." "Oh," said the child, shivering, "the wind is cold; how it sobs in the pine boughs. Don't you wish we were at home now?" "Don't be afraid of the cold," said Malaeska, in a troubled voice; "see, I will wrap this cloak about you, and no rain can come through the fur blanket. We are brave, you and I—what do we care for a little thunder and rain—it makes me feel brave." "But you don't care for home; you love the woods and the rain. The thunder and lightning 122 MALAESKA makes your eyes bright, but I don't like it; so take me home, please, and then you may go to the woods; I won't tell." "Oh, don't—don't. It breaks my heart," cried the poor mother. "Listen, William: the Indians— my people—the brave Indians want you for a chief. In a few years you shall lead them to war." "But I hate the Indians." "No, no." "They are fierce and cruel." "Not to you—not to you!" "I won't live with the Indians!" "They are a brave people—you shall be their chief." "They killed my father." "But I am of those people. I saved you and brought you among the white people." "Yes, I know; grandmother told me that." "And I belonged to the woods." "Among the Indians?" "Yes. Your father loved these Indians, Wil- liam." "Did he—but they killed him." THE INDIAN WIFE 123 "But it was in battle." "In fair battle; did you say that?" "Yes, child. Your father was friendly with them, but they thought he had turned enemy. A great chief met him in the midst of the fight, and they killed each other. They fell and died to- gether." "Did you know this great chief, Malaeska?" "He was my father," answered the Indian woman, hoarsely; "my own father." "Your father and mine; how strange that they should hate each other," said the boy, thought- fully. "Not always," answered Malaeska, struggling against the tears that choked her words; "at one time they loved each other." "Loved each other! that is strange; and did my father love you, Malaeska?" White as death the poor woman turned; a hand was clenched under her deer-skin robe, and pressed hard against her heart; but she had prom- ised to reveal nothing, and bravely kept her word. THE INDIAN WIFE 125 the light of Malaeska's fire gleamed far and wide, casting a golden track far down the Hudson. Four men, who were urging a boat bravely against the storm, saw the light, and shouted eagerly to each other. "Here she is; nothing but an Indian would keep up a fire like that. Pull steadily, and we have them." They did pull steadily, and defying the storm, the boat made harbor under the cliff where Ma- laeska's fire still burned. Four men stole away from the boat, and crept stealthily up the hill, guided by the lightning and the gleam- ing fire above. The rain, beating among the branches, drowned their footsteps; and they spoke only in hoarse whispers, which were lost on the wind. William had dropped asleep with tears on his thick eyelashes, which the strong firelight revealed to Malaeska, who regarded him with mournful affection. The cold wind chilled her through and through, but she did not feel it. So long as the boy slept comfortably she had no want. 126 MALAESKA I have said that the storm muffled all other sounds; and the four men who had left their boat at the foot of the cliff stood close by Malaeska before she had the least idea of their approach. Then a blacker shadow than fell from the pine, darkened the space around her, and looking sud- denly up, she saw the stern face of old Mr. Dan- forth between her and the firelight. Malaeska did not speak or cry aloud, but snatch- ing the sleeping boy close to her heart, lifted her pale face to his, half-defiant, half-terrified. "Take my grandson from the woman and bring him down to the boat," said the old man, address- ing those that came with him. "No, no, he is mine!" cried Malaeska, fiercely. "Nothing but the Great Spirit shall take him from me again!" The sharp anguish in her voice awoke the boy. He struggled in her arms, and looking around, saw the old man. "Grandfather, oh! grandfather, take me home. I do want to go home," he cried, stretching out his arms. THE INDIAN WIFE 127 "Oh!" I have not the power of words to express the bitter anguish of that single exclamation, when it broke from the mother's pale lips. It was the cry of a heart that snapped its strongest fiber there and then. The boy wished to leave her. She had no strength after that, but allowed them to force him from her arms without a struggle. The rattlesnake had not paralyzed her so completely. So they took the boy ruthlessly from her em- brace, and carried him away. She followed after without a word of protest, and saw them lift him into the boat and push off, leaving her to the piti- less night. It was a cruel thing—bitterly cruel— but the poor woman was stupefied with the blow, and watched the boat with heavy eyes. All at once she heard the boy calling after her: "Malaeska, come too. Malaeska—Malaeska!" She heard the cry, and her icy heart swelled passionately. With the leap of a panther she sprang to her own boat, and dashed after her tormenters, pulling fiercely through the storm. But with all her desperate energy, she was not able to overtake those four powerful men. They were out of sight s 128 MALAESKA directly, and she drifted after them alone—all alone. Malaeska never went back to Mr. Danforth's house again, but she built a lodge on the Weehaw- ken shore, and supported herself by selling painted baskets and such embroideries as the Indians excel in. It was a lonely life, but sometimes she met her son in the streets of Manhattan, or sailing on the river, and this poor happiness kept her alive. After a few months, the lad came to her lodge. His grandmother consented to the visit, for she still had compassion on the lone Indian, and would not let the youth go beyond sea without bidding her farewell. In all the bitter anguish of that parting Malaeska kept her faith, and smothering the great want of her soul, saw her son depart without putting forth the holy claim of her moth- erhood. One day Malaeska stood upon the shore and saw a white-sailed ship veer from her moor- ings and pass away with cruel swiftness toward the ocean, the broad, boundless ocean, that seemed to her like eternity. CHAPTER VII Alone in the forest, alone, When the night is dark and late— Alone on the waters, alone, She drifts to her woman's fate. Again Malaeska took to her boat and, all alone, began her mournful journey to the forest. After the fight at Catskill, her brethren had retreated into the interior. The great tribe, which gave its name to the richest intervale in New York State, was always munificent in its hospitality to less for- tunate brethren, to whom its hunting-grounds were ever open. Malaeska knew that her people were mustered somewhere near the amber-colored falls of Genesee, and she began her mournful voyage with vague longings to see them again, now that she had nothing but memories to live upon. With a blanket in the bow of her boat, a few loaves of bread, and some meal in a coarse linen bag, she started up the river. The boat was bat- 129 130 MALAESKA tered and beginning to look old—half the gor- geous paint was worn from its sides, and the interior had been often washed by the tempests that beat over the little cove near her lodge where she had kept it moored. She made no attempt to remedy its desolate look. The tigerskin was left behind in her lodge. No crimson cushions rendered the single seat tempting to sit upon. These fanciful comforts were intended for the boy—motherly love alone provided them; but now she had no care for things of this kind. A poor lone Indian woman, trampled on by the whites, deserted by her own child, was going back to her kinsfolk for shelter. Why should she attempt to appear less desolate than she was? Thus, dreary and abandoned, Malaeska sat In her boat, heavily urging it up the stream. She had few wants, but pulled at the oars all day long, keeping time to the slow movement with her voice, from which a low funereal chant swelled continually. Sometimes she went ashore, and building a fire in the loneliness, cooked the fish she had speared THE INDIAN WIFE 131 or the bird her arrow had brought down; but these meals always reminded her of the few happy days spent, after the sylvan fashion, with her boy, and she would sit moaning over the un- tasted food till the very birds that hovered near would pause in their singing to look askance at her. So she relaxed in her monotonous toil but seldom, and generally slept in her little craft, with the current rippling around her, wrapped only in a coarse, gray blanket. No one cared about her movements, and no one attempted to bring her back, or she might have been traced at intervals by some rock close to the shore, blackened with embers, where she had baked her corn-bread, or by the feathers of a bird which she had dressed, without caring to eat it. Day after day—day after day, Malaeska kept on her watery path till she came to the mouth of the Mohawk. There she rested a little, with a weary, heavy-hearted dread of pursuing her journey further. What if her people should reject her as a renegade? She had deserted them in their hour of deep trouble—fled from the grave of her 132 MALAESKA father, their chief, and had carried his grandson away to his bitterest enemy, the white man. Would the people of her tribe forgive this treason, and take her back? She scarcely cared; life had become so dreary, the whole world so dark, that the poor soul rather courted pain, and would have smiled to know that death was near. Some vague ideas of religion, that the gentle grandmother of her son had taken pains to instill into that wild nature, kept her from self-destruc- tion; but she counted the probabilities that the tribe might put her to death, with vague hope. Weary days, and more weary nights, she spent upon the Mohawk, creeping along the shadows and seeking the gloomiest spots for her repose: under the wild grape-vines that bent down the young elms with their purple fruit—under the golden willows and dusky pines she sought rest, never caring for danger; for, what had she to care how death or pain presented itself, so long as she had no fear of either? At last she drew up her boat under a shelving precipice, and making it safe, took to the wilder- THE INDIAN WIFE 133 ness with nothing but a little corn meal, her blanket, and bow. With the same heavy listless- ness that had marked her entire progress, she threaded the forest-paths, knowing by the hacked trees that her tribe had passed that way. But her path was rough, and the encampment far off, and she had many a heavy mile to walk before it could be reached. Her moccasins were worn to tatters, and her dress, once so gorgeous, all rent and weather stained when she came in sight of the little prairie, hedged in by lordly forest-trees, in which her broken tribe had built their lodges. Malaeska threw away her scant burden of food, and took a prouder bearing when she came in sight of those familiar lodges. In all her sorrow, she could not forget that she was the daughter of a great chief and a princess among the people whom she sought. Thus, with an imperial tread, and eyes bright as the stars, she entered the encampment and sought the lodge which, by familiar signs, she knew to be that of the chief who had superseded her son. It was near sunset, and many of the Indian 134 MALAESKA women had gathered in front of this lodge, wait- ing for their lords to come forth; for there was a council within the lodge, and like the rest of their sex, the dusky sisterhood liked to be in the way of intelligence. Malaeska had changed greatly during the years that she had been absent among the whites. If the lightness and grace of youth were gone, a more imposing dignity came in their place. Habits of refinement had kept her com- plexion clear and her hair bright. She had left them a slender, spirited young creature; she re- turned a serious woman, modest, but queenly withal. The women regarded her first with surprise and then with kindling anger, for, after pausing to look at them without finding a familiar face, she walked on toward the lodge, and lifting the mat, stood within the opening in full view both of the warriors assembled there and the wrathful glances of the females on the outside. When the Indians saw the entrance to their council darkened by a woman, dead silence fell upon them, followed by a fierce murmur that THE INDIAN WIFE 135 would have made a person who feared death trem- ble. Malaeska stood undismayed, surveying the savage group with a calm, regretful look; for, among the old men, she saw some that had been upon the war-path with her father. Turning to one of these warriors, she said: "It is Malaeska, daughter of the Black Eagle." A murmur of angry surprise ran through the lodge, and the women crowded together, menac- ing her with their glances. "When my husband, the young white chief, died," continued Malaeska, "he told me to go down the great water and carry my son to his own people. The Indian wife obeys her chief." A warrior, whom Malaeska knew as the friend of her father, arose with austere gravity, and spoke: "It is many years since Malaeska took the young chief to his white fathers. The hemlock that was green has died at the top since then. Why does Malaeska come back to her people alone? Is the boy dead?" 136 MALAESKA Malaeska turned pale in the twilight, and her voice faltered. "The boy is not dead—yet Malaeska is alone!" she answered plaintively. "Has the woman made a white chief of the boy? Has he become the enemy of our people?" said another of the Indians, looking steadily at Malaeska. Malaeska knew the voice and the look; it was that of a brave who, in his youth, had besought her to share his wigwam. A gleam of proud re- proach came over her features, but she bent her head without answering. Then the old chief spoke again. "Why does Malaeska come back to her tribe like a bird with its wings broken? Has the white chief driven her from his wigwam?" Malaeska's voice broke out; the gentle pride of her character rose as the truth of her position presented itself. "Malaeska obeyed the young chief, her hus- band, but her heart turned back to her own people. She tried to bring the boy into the forest again, THE INDIAN WIFE 137 but they followed her up the great river and took him away; Malaeska stands here alone." Again the Indian spoke. "The daughter of the Black Eagle forsook her tribe when the death- song of her father was loud in the woods. She comes back when the corn is ripe, but there is no wigwam open to her. When a women of the tribe goes off to the enemy, she returns only to die. Have I said well?" A guttural murmur of assent ran through the lodge. The women heard it from their place in the open air, and gathering fiercely around the door, cried out, "Give her to us! She has stolen our chief—she has disgraced her tribe. It is long since we have danced at the fire-festival." The rabble of angry women came on with their taunts and menaces, attempting to seize Malaeska, who stood pale and still before them; but the chief, whom she had once rejected, stood up, and with a motion of his hands repulsed them. "Let the women go back to their wigwams. The daughter of a great chief dies only by the hands THE INDIAN WIFE 139 over it the day before. Thus, in darkness and pro- found silence, she walked on all night till her limbs were so weary that she longed to call out and pray the chief to kill her then and there; but he kept on a little in advance, only turning now and then to be sure that she followed. Once she ventured to ask him why he put off her death so long; but he pointed along the trail, and walked along without deigning a reply. Dur- ing the day he took a handful of parched corn from his pouch and told her to eat; but for him- self, through that long night and day, he never tasted a morsel. Toward sunset they came out on the banks of the Mohawk, near the very spot where she had left her boat. The Indian paused here and looked steadily at his victim. The blood grew cold in Malaeska's veins— death was terrible when it came so near. She cast one look of pathetic pleading on his face, then, folding her hands, stood before him, waiting for the moment. "Malaeska!" 140 MALAESKA His voice was softened, his lips quivered as the name once so sweet to his heart passed through them. "Malaeska, the river is broad and deep. The keel of your boat leaves no track. Go! the Great Spirit will light you with his stars. Here is corn and dried venison. Go in peace!" She looked at him with her wild tender eyes; her lips began to tremble, her heart swelled with gentle sweetness, which was the grace of her civil- ization. She took the red hand of the savage and kissed it reverently. "Farewell," she said; "Malaeska has no words; her heart is full." The savage began to tremble; a glow of the old passion came over him. "Malaeska, my wigwam is empty; will you go back? It is my right to save or kill." "He is yonder, in the great hunting-ground, waiting for Malaeska to come. Could she go blush- ing from another chief's wigwam?" For one instant those savage features were convulsed; then they settled down into the cold THE INDIAN WIFE 141 gravity of his former expression, and he pointed to the boat. She went down to the edge of the water, while he took the blanket from his shoulders and placed it in the boat. Then he pushed the little craft from its mooring, and motioned her to jump in; he forbore to touch her hand, or even look on her face, but saw her take up the oars and leave the shore without a word; but when she was out of sight, his head fell forward on his bosom, and he gradually sank to an attitude of profound grief. While he sat upon a fragment of rock, with a rich sunset crimsoning the water at his feet, a canoe came down the river, urged by a white man, the only one who ever visited his tribe. This man was a missionary among the Indians, who held him in reverence as a great medicine chief, whose power of good was something to marvel at. The chief beckoned to the missionary, who seemed in haste, but he drew near the shore. In a few brief but eloquent words the warrior spoke of Malaeska, of the terrible fate from which she had just been rescued, and of the forlorn life to 142 MALAESKA which she must henceforth be consigned. There was something grand in this compassion that touched a thousand generous impulses in the mis- sionary's heart. He was on his course down the river—for his duties lay with the Indians of many tribes—so he promised to overtake the lonely woman, to comfort and protect her from harm till she reached some settlement. The good man kept his word. An hour after his canoe was attached to Malaeska's little craft by its slender cable, and he was conversing kindly with her of those things that interested his pure nature most. Malaeska listened with meek and grateful at- tention. No flower ever opened to the sunshine more sweetly than her soul received the holy revelations of that good man. He had no time or place for teaching, but seized any opportunity that arose where a duty could be performed. His mis- sion lay always where human souls required knowledge. So he never left the lonely woman till long after they had passed the mouth of the Mohawk, and were floating on the Hudson. When THE INDIAN WIFE 143 they came in sight of the Catskill range, Malaeska was seized with an irresistible longing to see the graves of her husband and father. What other place in the wide, wide world had she to look for? Where could she go, driven forth as she was by her own people, and by the father of her husband? Surely among the inhabitants of the village she could sell such trifles as her inventive talent could create, and if any of the old lodges stood near "the Straka," that would be shelter enough. With these thoughts in her mind, Malaeska took leave of the missionary with many a whispered blessing, and took her way to "the Straka." There she found an old lodge, through whose crevices the winds had whistled for years; but she went diligently to work, gathering moss and turf with which this old home, connected with so many sweet and bitter associations, was rendered habit- able again. Then she took possession, and pro- ceeded to invent many objects of comfort and even taste, with which to beautify the spot she had consecrated with memories of her passionate youth, and its early, only love. 144 MALAESKA The woods were full of game, and wild fruits were abundant; so that it was a long, long time before Malaeska's residence in the neighborhood was known. She shrank from approaching a peo- ple who had treated her so cruelly, and so kept in utter loneliness so long as solitude was possible. In all her life Malaeska retained but one vague hope, and that was for the return of her son from that far-off country to which the cruel whites had sent him. She had questioned the missionary earn- estly about these lands, and had now a settled idea of their extent and distance across the ocean. The great waters no longer seemed like eternity to her, or absence so much like death. Some time she might see her child again; till then she would wait and pray to the white man's God. 146 MALAESKA If an uninterrupted course of prosperity could entitle a person to this privilege, Mrs. Jones cer- tainly made no false claim to it. Every year added something to her husband's possessions. Several hundred acres of cleared land were purchased be- side that which he inherited from his father-in- law; the humble shop gradually increased to a respectable variety-store, and a handsome frame- house occupied the site of the old log-cabin. Besides all this, Mr. Jones was a justice of the peace and a dignitary in the village; and his wife, though a great deal stouter than when a girl, and the mother of six children, had lost none of her healthy good looks, and at the age of thirty-eight continued to be a very handsome woman indeed. Thus was the family situated at the period when our story returns to them. One warm afternoon, in the depth of summer, Mrs. Jones was sitting in the porch of her dwelling occupied in mending a garment of home-made linen, which, from its size, evidently belonged to some one of her younger children. A cheese-press, with a rich heavy mass of curd compressed between the screws, occupied THE INDIAN WIFE 147 one side of the porch $ and against it stood a small double flax-wheel, unhanded, and with a day's work yet unreeled from the spools. A hatchel and a pair of hand-cards, with a bunch of spools tied together by a tow string, lay in a corner, and high above, on rude wooden pegs, hung several enor- mous bunches of tow and linen yarn, the products of many weeks' hard labor. Her children had gone into the woods after whortleberries, and the mother now and then laid down her work and stepped out to the green- sward beyond the porch to watch their coming, not anxiously, but as one who feels restless and lost without her usual companions. After standing on the grass for awhile, shading her eyes with her hand and looking toward the woods, she at last returned to the porch, laid down her work, and entering the kitchen, filled the tea-kettle and be- gan to make preparations for supper. She had drawn a long pine table to the middle of the floor, and was proceeding to spread it, when her eldest daughter came through the porch, with a basket of whortleberries on her arm. Her pretty face was THE INDIAN WIFE 149 sprigged with gold, standing upon it. I did not see any bed, but there was a pile of fresh, sweet fern in one corner, with a pair of clean sheets spread on it, which I suppose she sleeps on, and there certainly was a feather pillow lying at the top. "Well, the Indian woman looked kind and harmless; so I made an excuse to go in, and ask for a cup to drink out of. "As I went round to the other side of the wigwam, I saw that the smoke came up from a fire on the outside; a kettle was hanging in the flame, and several other pots and kettles stood on a little bench by the trunk of an oak-tree, close by. I must have made some noise, for the Indian woman was looking toward the door when I opened it, as if she were a little afraid, but when she saw who it was, I never saw any one smile so pleasantly; she gave me the china cup, and went with me out to the spring where the boys were playing. "As I was drinking, my sleeve fell back, and she saw the little wampum bracelet which you gave me, you know, mother. She started and took hold of my arm, and stared in my face, as if she THE INDIAN WIFE 153 her face. "Sweet as maple-sugar, wasn't it? Come, tell." "Arthur—Arthur! you had better be quiet, if you know when you're well off!" exclaimed the mother, with a slight motion of the hand, which had a great deal of significant meaning to the mischievous group. "Oh, don't—please, don't!" exclaimed the spoiled urchin, clapping his hands to his ears and running off to a corner, where he stood laughing in his mother's face. "I say, Sarah, was it sweet?" "Arthur, don't let me speak to you again, I say," cried Mrs. Jones, making a step forward and doing her utmost to get up a frown, while her hand gave additional demonstration of its hostile intent. "Well, then, make her tell me; you ought to cuff her ears for not answering a civil question— hadn't she, boys?" There was something altogether too ludicrous in this impudent appeal, and in the look of de- mure mischief put on by the culprit. Mrs. Jones bit her lips and turned away, leaving the boy, as THE INDIAN WIFE 155 pect. Eighteen is quite young enough. If you are very smart at home, you shall go when you are eighteen." "Two years is a long, long time," said the girl, in a tone of disappointment; "but then father is kind to let me go at all. I will run down to the store and thank him. But, mother," she added, turning back from the door, "was there really any harm in talking with the Indian woman? There was nothing about her that did not seem like the whites but her skin, and that was not so very dark." "Harm? No child; how silly you are to let the boys tease you so." "I will go and see her again, then—may I?" "Certainly—but see; your father is coming to supper; run out and cut the bread. You must be very smart, now; remember the school." During the time which intervened between Sarah Jones' sixteenth and eighteenth year, she was almost a daily visitor at the wigwam. The little footpath which led from the village to "the Straka," though scarcely definable to others, be- came as familiar to her as the grounds about her 156 MALAESKA father's house. If a day or two passed in which illness or some other cause prevented her usual visit, she was sure to receive some token of re- membrance from the lone Indian woman. Now, it reached her in the form of a basket of ripe fruit, or a bunch of wild flowers, tied together with the taste of an artist; again, it was a cluster of grapes, with the purple bloom lying fresh upon them, or a young mocking-bird, with notes as sweet as the voice of a fountain, would reach her by the hands of some village boy. These affectionate gifts could always be traced to the inhabitant of the wigwam, even though she did not, as was sometimes the case, present them in person. There was something strange in the appearance of this Indian woman, which at first excited the wonder, and at length secured the respect of the settlers. Her language was pure and elegant, some- times even poetical beyond their comprehension, and her sentiments were correct in principle, and full of simplicity. When she appeared in the vil- lage with moccasins or pretty painted baskets for 158 MALAESKA bilities which make at once the happiness and the misery of so many human beings. But all the ele- ments of an intellectual, delicate, and high-souled woman slumbered in the bosom of her child. They beamed in the depths of her large blue eyes, broke over her pure white forehead, like perfume from the leaves of a lily, and made her small mouth eloquent with smiles and the beauty of unpolished thoughts. At sixteen the character of the young girl had scarcely begun to develop itself; but when the time arrived when she was to be sent away to school, there remained little except mere accomplishments for her to learn. Her mind had become vigorous by a constant intercourse with the beautiful things of nature. All the latent properties of a warm, youthful heart, and of a superior intellect, had been gently called into action by the strange being who had gained such an ascendency over her feelings. The Indian woman, who in herself combined all that was strong, picturesque, and imaginative in savage life, with the delicacy, sweetness, and re- THE INDIAN WIFE 159 finement which follows in the train of civilization, had trod with her the wild beautiful scenery of the neighborhood. They had breathed the pure air of the mountain together, and watched the crimson and amber clouds of sunset melt into evening, when pure sweet thoughts came to their hearts naturally, as light shines from the bosom of the star. It is strange that the pure and simple religion which lifts the soul up to God, should have been first taught to the beautiful young white from the lips of a savage, when inspired by the dying glory of a sunset sky. Yet so it was; she had sat under preaching all her life, had imbibed creeds and shackled her spirit down with the opinions and traditions of other minds, nor dreamed that the love of God may sometimes kindle in the human heart, like fire flashing up from an altar-stone; and again, may expand gradually to the influence of the Divine Spirit, unfolding so gently that the soul itself scarcely knows at what time it burst into flower—that every effect we make, for the culture of the heart and the expanding of the 160 MALAESKA intellect, is a step toward the attainment of re- ligion, if nothing more. When the pure, simple faith of the Indian was revealed—when she saw how beautifully high energies and lofty feelings were mingled with the Christian meekness and enduring faith of her character, she began to love goodness for its own exceeding beauty, and to cultivate those qualities that struck her as so worthy in her wild-wood friend. Thus Sarah attained a refinement of the soul which no school could have given her, and no superficial gloss could ever conceal or dim. This refinement of principle and feeling lifted the young girl far out of her former commonplace associations; and the gentle influence of her char- acter was felt not only in her father's household, but through all the neighborhood. CHAPTER IX "She long'd for her mother's loving kiss, And her father's tender words, And her little sister's joyous mirth, Like the song of summer birds. Her heart went back to the olden home That her memory knew so well, Till the veriest trifle of the past Swept o'er her like a spell." Sarah Jones went to Manhattan at the appointed time, with a small trunk of clothing and a large basket of provisions; for a sloop in those days was a long time in coming down the Hudson, even with a fair wind, and its approach to a settlement made more commotion than the largest Atlantic steamer could produce at the present day. So the good mother provided her pretty pilgrim with a lading of wonder-cakes, with biscuits, dried beef, and cheese, enough to keep a company of soldiers in full ration for days. Besides all this plenteousness in the commissary department, the good lady brought out wonderful 161 162 MALAESKA specimens of her own handiwork in the form of knit muffles, fine yarn stockings, and colored wrist- lets, that she had been years in knitting for Sarah's outfit when she should be called upon to undertake this perilous adventure into the great world. Beyond all this, Sarah had keepsakes from the children, with a store of pretty bracelets and fancy baskets from Malaeska, who parted with her in tenderness and sorrow; for once more like a wild grape-vine, putting out its tendrils everywhere for support, she was cast to the earth again. After all, Sarah did not find the excitement of her journey so very interesting, and but for the presence of her father on the sloop, she would have been fairly homesick before the white sails of the sloop had rounded the Point. As it was, she grew thoughtful and almost sad as the somber magnifi- cence of the scenery unrolled itself. A settlement here and there broke the forest with smiles of civ- ilization, which she passed with a proud conscious- ness of seeing the world; but, altogether, she thought more of the rosy mother and riotous chil- dren at home than of new scenes or new people. THE INDIAN WIFE 163 At last Manhattan, with its girdle of silver waters, its gables and its overhanging trees, met her eager look. Here was her destiny—here she was to be taught and polished into a marvel of gentility. The town was very beautiful, but after the first novelty gave way, she grew more lonely than ever; every thing was so strange—the winding streets, the gay stores, and the quaint houses, with their peaks and dormer windows, all seeming to her far too grand for comfort. To one of these houses Arthur Jones conducted his daughter, followed by a porter who carried her trunk on one shoulder, while Jones took charge of the provision-basket, in person. There was nothing in all this very wonderful, but people turned to look at the group with more than usual interest, as it passed, for Sarah had all her mother's fresh beauty, with nameless graces of refinement, which made her a very lovely young creature to look upon. When so many buildings have been raised in a city, so many trees uprooted, and ponds filled up, it is impossible to give the localities that formerly 164. MALAESKA existed; for all the rural landmarks are swept away. But, in the olden times, houses had breath- ing space for flowers around them in Manhattan, and a man of note gave his name to the house he resided in. The aristocratic portion of the town was around the Bowling Green and back into the neigh- boring streets. Somewhere in one of these streets, I can not tell the exact spot, for a little lake in the neighborhood disappeared soon after our story, and all the pretty points of the scene were destroyed with it—but somewhere, in one of the most respectable streets, stood a house with the number of gables and win- dows requisite to perfect gentility, and a large brass plate spread its glittering surface below the great brass knocker. This plate set forth, in bright, gold letters, the fact that Madame Monot, relict of Monsieur Monot who had so distinguished him- self as leading teacher in one of the first female seminaries in Paris, could be found within, at the head of a select school for young ladies. Sarah was overpowered by the breadth and brightness of this door-plate, and startled by the THE INDIAN WIFE 165 heavy reverberations of the knocker. There was something too solemn and grand about the entrance for perfect tranquillity. Mr. Jones looked back at her, as he dropped the knocker, with a sort of tender self-complacency, for he expected that she would be rather taken aback by the splendor to which he was bringing her; but Sarah only trembled and grew timid; she would have given the world to turn and run away any distance so that in the end she reached home. The door opened, at least the upper half, and they were admitted into a hall paved with little Dutch tiles, spotlessly clean, through which they were led into a parlor barren and prim in all its ap- pointments, but which was evidently the grand reception-room of the establishment. Nothing could have been more desolate than the room, save that it was redeemed by two narrow windows which overlooked the angle of the green inclosure in which the house stood. This angle was separated by a low wall from what seemed a broad and spacious garden, well filled with fruit-trees and flowering shrubbery. 166 MALAESKA The spring was just putting forth its first buds, and Sarah forgot the chilliness within as she saw the branches of a young apple-tree, flushed with the first tender green, drooping over the wall. It reminded her pleasantly of the orchard at home. The door opened, and, with a nervous start, Sarah arose with her father to receive the little Frenchwoman who came in with a fluttering court- esy, eager to do the honors of her establish- ment. Madame Monot took Sarah out of her father's hands with a graceful dash that left no room for appeal. "She knew it all—exactly what the young lady required—what would best please her very respectable parents—there was no need of explana- tions—the young lady was fresh as a rose—very charming—in a few months they should see—that was all—Monsieur Jones need have no care about his child—Madame would undertake to finish her education very soon—music, of course—an instru- ment had just come from Europe on purpose for the1 school—then French, nothing easier—Madame could promise that the young lady should speak THE INDIAN WIFE 167 French beautifully in one—two—three—four months, without doubt—Monsieur Jones might retire very satisfied—his daughter should come back different—perfect, in fact." With all this volubility, poor Jones was half talked, half courtesied out of the house, without having uttered a single last word of farewell, or held his daughter one moment against the honest heart that yearned to carry her off again, despite his great ambition to see her a lady. Poor Sarah gazed after him till Eer eyes were blinded with unshed tears; then she arose with a heavy heart and followed Madame to the room which was henceforth to be her refuge from the most dreary routine of duties that ever a poor girl was condemned to. It was a comfort that the win- dows overlooked that beautiful garden. That night, at a long, narrow table, set out with what the unsuspecting girl at first considered the prelimin- aries of a meal, Sarah met the score of young lad- ies who were to be her schoolmates. Fortunately she had no appetite and did not mind the scant fare. Fifteen or twenty girls, some furtively, 168 MALAESKA others boldly, turning their eyes upon her, was enough to frighten away the appetite of a less timid person. Poor Sarah! of all the homesick school-girls that ever lived, she was the most lonely. Madame's patronizing kindness only sufficed to bring Jhe tears into her eyes which she was struggling so bravely to keep back. But Sarah was courageous as well as sensitive. She came to Manhattan to study; no matter if her heart ached, the brain must work; her father had made great sacrifices to give her six months at this expensive school; his money and kindness must not be thrown away. Thus the brave girl reasoned, and, smothering the haunting wish for home, she took up her tasks with energy. Meantime Jones returned home with a heavy heart and a new assortment of spring goods, that threw every female heart in Catskill into a flutter of excitement. Every hen's nest in the neighbor- hood was robbed before the eggs were cold, and its contents transported to the store. As for butter, THE INDIAN WIFE 169 there was a universal complaint of its scarcity on the home table, while Jones began to think seri- ously of falling a cent on the pound, it came in so abundantly. THE INDIAN WIFE 171 It seemed to her that one romp with her broth- ers through the old orchard, pelting each other with the falling buds, would be worth all the French and music she could learn in a score of years. The beat of her mother's lathe in the old- fashioned loom, would have been pleasanter music to her ear, than that of the pianoforte, which she had once thought so grand an affair; but since then she had spent so many weary hours over it, shed so many tears upon the cold white keys, which made her fingers ache worse than ever the spin- ning-wheel had done, that, like any other school- girl, she was almost inclined to regard the vaunted piano as an instrument of torture, invented ex- pressly for her annoyance. She was tired of thinking and acting by rule, and though Madame Monot was kind enough in her way, the discipline to which Sarah was forced to submit, was very irksome to the untrained coun- try girl. She was tired of having regular hours for study—tired of walking out for a stated time in procession with the other girls—nobody daring to move with any thing like naturalness or freedom 172 MALAESKA —and very often she felt almost inclined to write home and ask them to send for her. It was in a restive, unhappy mood, like the one we have been describing, that she stood that morn- ing at the window, when she ought to have been hard at work over the pile of books which lay neg- lected upon her little table. That pretty garden which she looked down upon, was a sore temptation to her; and had Mad- ame Monot known how it distracted Sarah's atten- tion, there is every reason to believe that she would have been removed in all haste to the oppo- site side of the house, where, if she chose to idle at her casement, there would be nothing more en- tertaining than a hard brick wall to look at. Just then, the garden was more attractive than at any other season of the year. The spring sunshine had made the shorn turf like a green carpet, the trim flower-beds were already full of early blossoms, the row of apple-trees was one great mass of flowers, and the tall pear-tree in the corner was just beginning to lose its delicate white leaves, sprinkling them daintily over the grass, 174 MALAESKA diers on duty; great masses of snow-balls stood up in the center of the beds; peonies, violets, lilies of the valley, tulips, syringas, and a host of other dear old-fashioned flowers, lined the walks; and, altogether, the garden was lovely enough to just- ify the poor girl's admiration. There she stood, quite forgetful of her duties; the clock in the hall struck its warning note—she did not even hear it; some one might at any moment enter and surprise her in the midst of her idleness and disobedience—she never once thought of it, so busily was she watching every thing in the garden. The man finished his morning's work and went away, but Sarah did not move. A pair of robins had flown into the tall pear-tree, and were holding an animated conversation, interspersed with bursts and gushes of song. They flew from one tree to another, once hovering near the grape-vine, but returned to the pear-tree at last, sang, chirped, and danced about in frantic glee, and at last made it evident that they intended to build a nest in that very tree. Sarah could have clapped her hands with 178 MALAESKA flew out of her room down the stairs, fortunately encountering neither teachers nor pupils, and hur- ried out of the street-door. The garden was separated from Madame Monot's narrow yard by a low stone wall, along the top of which ran a picket fence. Sarah saw a step-ladder that had been used by a servant in washing windows; she seized it, dragged it to the wall, and sprang lightly from thence into the gar- den. It seemed to her that she would never reach the spot where the poor gentleman was lying, al- though, in truth, scarcely three minutes had elapsed between the time that she saw him fall and reached the place where he lay. Sarah stooped over him, raised his head, and knew at once what was the matter—he had been seized with apoplexy. She had seen her grand- father die with it, and recognized the symptoms at once. It was useless to think of carrying him; so she loosened his neckcloth, lifted his head upon the arbor seat, and darted toward the house, call- ing with all her might the name by which she had THE INDIAN WIFE 179 many times heard the gardener address the black cook. "Eunice! Eunice!" At her frantic summons, out from the kitchen rushed the old woman, followed by several of her satellites, all screaming at once to know what was the matter, and wild with astonishment at the sight of a stranger in the garden. "Quick! quick!" cried Sarah. "Your master has been taken with a fit; come and carry him into the house. One of you run for a doctor." "Oh, de laws! oh, dear! oh, dear!" resounded on every side; but Sarah directed them with so much energy that the women, aided by an old negro who had been roused by the disturbance, conveyed their master into the house, and laid him upon a bed in one of the lower rooms. "Where is your mistress?" questioned Sarah. "Oh, she's gwine out," sobbed the cook; "oh, my poor ole masser, my poor ole masser!" "Have you sent for the doctor?" "Yes, young miss, yes; he'll be here in a minit, bress yer pooty face." 180 MALAESKA Sarah busied herself over the insensible man, applying every remedy that she could remember of having seen her mother use when her grand- father was ill, and really did the very things that ought to have been done. It was not long before the doctor arrived, bled his patient freely, praised Sarah's presence of mind, and very soon the old gentleman returned to consciousness. Sarah heard one of the servants exclaim: "Oh, dar's missus! praise de Lord!" A sudden feeling of shyness seized the girl, and she stole out of the room and went into the garden, determined to escape unseen. But before she reached the arbor she heard one of the servants calling after her. "Young miss! young miss! Please to wait; ole missus wants to speak to you." Sarah turned and walked toward the house, ready to burst into tears with timidity and excite- ment. But the lady whom she had so longed to know, came down the steps and moved toward her, holding out her hand. She was very pale, and shak- THE INDIAN WIFE 181 ing from head to foot; but she spoke with a certain calmness, which it was evident she would retain under the most trying circumstances. "I can not thank you," she said; "if it had not been for you, I should never have seen my hus- band alive again." Sarah began to sob, the old lady held out her arms, and the frightened girl actually fell into them. There they stood for a few moments, weep- ing in each other's embrace, and by those very tears establishing a closer intimacy than years of com- mon intercourse would have done. "How did you happen to see him fall?" asked the old lady. "I was looking out of my window," replied Sarah, pointing to her open casement, "and when I saw it I ran over at once." "You are a pupil of Madame Monot's, then?" "Yes—and, oh my, I must go back! They will scold me dreadfully for being away so long." "Do not be afraid," said Mrs. Danforth, keep- ing fast hold of her hand when she tried to break 182 MALAESKA away. "I will make your excuses to Madame; come into the house. I can not let you go yet." She led Sarah into the house, and seated her in an easy chair in the old-fashioned sitting- room. "Wait here a few minutes, if you please, my dear. I must go to my husband." She went away and left Sarah quite confused with the strangeness of the whole affair. Here she was, actually seated in the very apartment she had so desired to enter—the old lady she had so longed to know addressing her as if she had been a favorite child. She peeped out of the window toward her late prison; every thing looked quiet there, as usual. She wondered what dreadful penance she would be made to undergo, and decided that even bread and water for two days would not be so great a hardship, when she had the incident of the morn- ing to reflect upon. She looked about the room, with its quaint furn- iture, every thing so tidy and elegant, looking as if a speck of dust had never by any accident settled THE INDIAN WIFE 183 in the apartment, and thinking it the prettiest place she had seen in her life. Then she began thinking about the poor sick man, and worked herself into a fever of anxiety to hear tidings concerning him. Just then a servant entered with a tray of refreshments, and set it on the table near her, saying: "Please, miss, my missus says you must be hun- gry, 'cause it's your dinner-time." "And how is your master?" Sarah asked. "Bery comferble now; missee'll be here in a minit. Now please to eat sumfin." Sarah was by no means loth to comply with the invitation, for the old cook had piled the tray with all sorts of delicacies, that presented a pleasing con- trast to the plain fare she had been accustomed to of late. By the time she had finished her repast Mrs. Danforth returned, looking more comppsed and relieved. "The doctor gives me a great deal of encourage- ment," she said; "my husband is able to speak; by to-morrow he will thank you better than I can." THE INDIAN WIFE 185 into the sick room, and made herself so useful there, that the dear lady mentally wondered how she had ever got on without her. When Sarah returned to her home that night, she felt that sense of relief which any one who has led a monotonous life for months must have ex- perienced, when some sudden event has changed its whole current, and given a new coloring to things that before appeared tame and insignificant. During the following days Sarah was a frequent visitor at Mr. Danforth's house, and after that, circumstances occurred which drew her into still more intimate companionship with her new friend. One of Madame Monot's house-servants was taken ill with typhus fever, and most of the young ladies left the school for a few weeks. Mrs. Dan- forth insisted upon Sarah's making her home at their house during the interval, an invitation which she accepted with the utmost delight. Mr. Danforth still lingered—could speak and move—but the favorable symptoms which at first presented themselves had entirely disappeared, 186 MALAESKA and there was little hope given that he could do more than linger for a month or two longer. Dur- ing that painful season Mrs. Danforth found in Sarah a sympathizing and consoling friend. The sick man himself became greatly attached to her, and could not bear that she should even leave his chamber. The young girl was very happy in feeling her- self thus prized and loved, and the quick weeks spent in that old house were perhaps among the happiest of her life, in spite of the saddening asso- ciations which surrounded her. One morning while she was sitting with the old gentleman, who had grown so gentle and depend- ent that those who had known him in former years would scarcely have recognized him, Mrs. Dan- forth entered the room, bearing several letters in her hand. "European letters, my dear," she said to her husband, and while she put on her glasses and seated herself to read them, Sarah stole out into the garden. She had not been there long, enjoying the fresh THE INDIAN WIFE 187 loveliness of the day, before she heard Mrs. Dan- forth call her. "Sarah, my dear; Sarah." The girl went back to the door where the old lady stood. "Share a little good news with me in the midst of all our trouble," she said; "my dear, my boy— my grandson—is coming home." Sarah's first thought was one of regret—every thing would be so changed by the arrival of a stranger; but that was only a passing pang of sel- fishness; her next reflection was one of unalloyed delight, for the sake of that aged couple. "I am very glad, dear madam; his coming will do his grandfather so much good." "Yes, indeed; more than all the doctors in the world." "When do you expect him?" "Any day, now; he was to sail a few days after the ship that brought these letters, and as this ves- sel has been detained by an accident, he can not be far away." "I am to go back to school to-day," said Sarah, regretfully. 188 MALAESKA "But you will be with us almost as much," re- plied Mrs. Danforth. "I have your mother's per- mission, and will go myself to speak with Mad- ame. You will run over every day to your lessons, but you will live here; we can not lose our pet so soon." "You are very kind—oh, so kind," Sarah said, quite radiant at the thought of not being confined any longer in the dark old school-building. "It is you who are good to us. But come, we will go over now; I must tell Madame Monot at once." The explanations were duly made, and Sarah returned to her old routine of lessons; but her study-room was now the garden, or any place in Mr. Danforth's house that she fancied. The old gentleman was better again; able to be wheeled out of doors into the sunshine; and there was nothing he liked so much as sitting in the gar- den, his wife knitting by his side, Sarah studying at his feet, and the robins singing in the pear-trees overhead, as if feeling it a sacred duty to pay their rent by morning advances of melody. CHAPTER XI A welcome to the homestead— The gables and the trees And welcome to the true hearts, As the sunshine and the breeze. One bright morning, several weeks after Mr. Danforth's attack, the three were seated in their favorite nook in the garden. It was a holiday with Sarah; there were no les- sons to study; no exercises to practice; no duty more irksome than that of reading the newspaper aloud to the old gentleman, who particularly fan- cied her fresh, happy voice. Mrs. Danforth was occupied with her knitting, and Sarah sat at their feet upon a low stool, look- ing so much like a favorite young relative that it was no wonder if the old pair forgot that she was unconnected with them, save by the bonds of affec- tion, and regarded her as being, in reality, as much 189 i9o MALAESKA a part of their family as they considered her in their hearts. While they sat there, some sudden noise at- tracted Mrs. Danforth's attention; she rose and went into the house so quietly that the others scarcely noticed her departure. It was not long before she came out again, walk- ing very hastily for her, and with such a tremulous flutter in her manner, that Sarah regarded her in surprise. "William!" she said to her husband, "Wil- liam!" He roused himself from the partial doze into which he had fallen, and looked up. "Did you speak to me?" he asked. "I have good news for you. Don't be agitated— it is all pleasant." He struggled up from his seat, steadying his trembling hands upon his staff. "My boy has come!" he exclaimed, louder and more clearly than he had spoken for weeks; "Wil- liam, my boy!" At the summons, a young man came out of the THE INDIAN WIFE 191 house and ran toward them. The old gentleman flung his arms about his neck and strained him close to his heart. "My boy!" was all he could say; "my Wil- liam!" When they had all grown somewhat calmer, Mrs. Danforth called Sarah, who was standing at a little distance. "I want you to know and thank this young lady, William," she said; "your grandfather and I owe her a great deal." She gave him a brief account of the old gentleman's fall, and Sarah's presence of mind; but the girl's crimson cheeks warned her to pause. "No words can repay such kindness," said the young man, as he relinquished her hand, over which he had bowed with the ceremonious respect of the time. "It is I who owe a great deal to your grand- parents," Sarah replied, a little tremulously, but trying to shake off the timidity which she felt be- neath his dark eyes. "I was a regular prisoner, like 192 MALAESKA any other school-girl, and they had the goodness to open the door and let me out." "Then fidgety old Madame Monot had you in charge?" young Danforth said, laughing; "I can easily understand that it must be a relief to get oc- casionally where you are not obliged to wait and think by rule." "There—there!" said the old lady; "William is encouraging insubordination already; you will be a bad counselor for Sarah." Both she and her husband betrayed the utmost satisfaction at the frank and cordial conversation which went on between the young pair; and in an hour Sarah was as much at ease as if she had been gathering wild-flowers in her native woods. Danforth gave them long and amusing accounts of his adventures, talked naturally and well of the countries he had visited, the notable places he had seen, and never had man three more attentive aud- itors. That was a delightful day to Sarah; and as Wil- liam Danforth had not lost, in his foreign wander- ings, the freshness and enthusiasm pleasant in 194 MALAESKA "And have you looked at them?" Danforth asked. "I am afraid they are mislaid," she replied, mischievously. "Not greatly to your annoyance, I fancy? I think if I had been obliged to learn French from old-fashioned sermons, it would have taken me a long time to acquire the language." "I don't think much of French sermons," re- marked Mrs. Danforth, with a doubtful shake of the head. "Nor of the people," added her husband; "you never did like them, Therese." She nodded assent, and young Danforth ad- dressed Sarah in Madame Monot's much-vaunted language. She answered him hesitatingly, and they held a little chat, he laughing good-naturedly at her mistakes and assisting her to correct them, a proceeding which the old couple enjoyed as much as the young pair, so that a vast amount of quiet amusement grew out of the affair. They spent the whole morning in the garden, and when Sarah went up to her room for a time to THE INDIAN WIFE 195 be alone with the new world of thought which had opened upon her, she felt as if she had known William Danforth half her life. She did not at- tempt to analyze her feelings; but they were very pleasant and filled her soul with a delicious rest- lessness like gushes of agony struggling from the heart of a song-bird. Perhaps Danforth made no more attempt than she to understand the emotions which had been aroused within him; but they were both very happy, careless as the young are sure to be, and so they went on toward the beauti- ful dream that brightens every life, and which spread before them in the nearing future. And so the months rolled on, and that pleasant old Dutch house grew more and more like a para- dise each day. Another and another quarter was added to Sarah's school-term. She saw the fruit swell from its blossoms into form till its golden and mellow ripeness filled the garden with frag- rance. Then she saw the leaves drop from the trees and take a thousand gorgeous dyes from the frost. Still the old garden was a paradise. She saw those leaves grow crisp and sere, rustling to her step with 196 MALAESKA mournful sighs, and giving themselves with shud- ders to the cold wind. Still the garden was paradise. She saw the snow fall, white and cold, over lawn and gravel-walk, bending down the evergreens and tender shrubs, while long, bright icicles hung along the gables or broke into fragments on the ground beneath. Still the garden was paradise; for love has no season, and desolation is unknown where he exists, even though his sacred presence is unsuspected. Long before the promised period arrived, there was no falsehood in Madame Monot's assertion that her pupil should be per- fect; for a lovelier or more graceful young crea- ture than Sarah Jones could not well exist. How it would have been had she been entirely depend- ent on the school-teachers for her lessons, I can not pretend to say; but the pleasant studies which were so delicately aided in that old summer-house, while the old people sat by just out of ear-shot— as nice old people should on such occasions—were effective enough to build up half a dozen schools, if the progress of one pupil would suffice. At such times old Mrs. Danforth would look up THE INDIAN WIFE 197 blandly from her work and remark in an innocent way to her husband, "That it was really beautiful to see how completely Sarah took to her lessons and how kindly William stayed at home to help her. Really," she thought, "traveling abroad did improve a person's disposition wonderfully. It gives a young man so much steadiness of character. There was William, now, who was so fond of ex- citement, and never could be persuaded to stay at home before, he could barely be driven across the threshold now." The old man listened to these remarks with a keen look of the eye; he was asking himself the reason of this change in his grandson, and the an- swer brought a grim smile to his lips. The fair girl, who was now almost one of his household, had become so endeared to him that he could not bear the idea of even parting with her again, and the thought that the line of his name and property might yet persuade her to make the relationship closer still, had grown almost into a passion with the old man. This state of things lasted only a few months. CHAPTER XII Put blossoms on the mantle-piece, Throw sand upon the floor, A guest is coming to the house, That never came before. Sarah Jones had been absent several months, when a rumor got abroad in the village, that the school-girl had made a proud conquest in Man- hattan. It was said that Squire Jones had received letters from a wealthy merchant of that place, and that he was going down the river to conduct his daughter home, when a wedding would soon fol- low, and Sarah Jones be made a lady. This report gained much of its probability from the demeanor of Mrs. Jones. Her port became more lofty when she appeared in the street, and she was continually throwing out insinuations and half-uttered hints, as if her heart were panting to unburden itself of some proud secret, which she was not yet at liberty to reveal. 204 208 MALAESKA the spotless homespun sheet was carefully turned over the upper edge of the quilt, and the whole was surmounted by a pair of pillows, white as a pile of newly-drifted snow-flakes. A pot of roses, on the window-sill, shed a delicate reflection over the muslin curtains looped up on either side of the sash; and the fresh wind, as it swept through, scattered their fragrant breath deliriously through the little room. Mrs. Jones gave a satisfied look and then hur- ried to the chamber prepared for her daughter, and began to array her comely person in the chintz dress, which had created such a sensation in the village. She had just encased her arms in the sleeves, when the door partly opened, and the old woman, who had been hired for a few days as "help," put her head through the opening. "I say, Miss Jones, I can't find nothin' to make the stuffin' out on." "My goodness! isn't that turkey in the oven yet? I do believe, if I could be cut into a hundred pieces, it wouldn't be enough for this house. What do you come to me for?—don't you THE INDIAN WIFE 209 know enough to make a little stuffing, without my help?" "Only give me enough to do it with, and if I don't, why, there don't nobody, that's all; but I've been a looking all over for some sausengers, and can't find none, nowhere." "Sausages? Why, Mrs. Bates, you don't think that I would allow that fine turkey to be stuffed with sausages?" "I don't know nothin' about it, but I tell you just what it is, Miss Jones, if you are a-growing so mighty partic'lar about your victuals, just cause your darter's a-coming home with a rich beau, you'd better cook 'em yourself; nobody craves the job," retorted the old woman, in her shrillest voice, shutting the door with a jar that shook the whole apartment. "Now the cross old thing will go off just to spite me," muttered Mrs. Jones, trying to smother her vexation, and, opening the door, she called to the angry "help:" "Why, Mrs. Bates, do come back, you did not stay to hear me out. Save the chickens' livers and 212 MALAESKA umph in the thought, that almost every person in the village might witness the air of gallantry and homage with which she was regarded by the hand- somest and richest merchant of Manhattan. She saw that her child looked eagerly toward the house as they approached, and that her step was rapid, as if impatient of the quiet progress of her com- panions. Pride was lost in the sweet thrill of ma- ternal affection which shot through the mother's heart. She forgot all her plans, in the dear wish to hold her first-born once more to her bosom; and ran to the door, her face beaming with joy, her arms outstretched, and her lips trembling with the warmth of their own welcome. The next moment her child was clinging about her, lavishing kisses on her handsome mouth, and checking her caresses to gaze up through the mist of tears and smiles which deluged her own sweet face, to the glad eyes that looked down so fondly upon her. "Oh, mother! dear, dear mother, how glad I am to get home! Where are the boys? where is little Ned?" inquired the happy girl, rising from THE INDIAN WIFE 215 "What an eye he's got, hasn't he? I never saw any thing so black and piercing in my life. He's very handsome, too, only a little darkish—I don't wonder the girl took a fancy to him. I say, has any thing been said about the wedding?" "It must be next week, at any rate, for he wants to go back to Manhattan in a few days; he and Sarah will manage it without our help, I dare say." Here Mr. and Mrs. Jones looked at each other and smiled. "I say, squire, I want to ask you one question," interrupted Mrs. Bates, coming through the kit- chen door and sidling up to the couple, "is that watch which the gentleman carries rale genuine gold, or on'y pinchbeck? I'd give any thing on 'arth to find out." "I believe it's gold, Mrs. Bates." "Now, du tell! What, rale Guinea gold? Now, if that don't beat all natur. I ruther guess Miss Sarah's feathered her nest this time, any how. Now, squire, du tell a body, when is the wedding to be? I won't tell a single 'arthly critter, if you'll on'y jest give me a hint." THE INDIAN WIFE 217 bued with gentleness from the fount of love, that gushed up so purely in her heart. She knew that she was loved in return—not as she loved, fer- vently, and in silence, but with the fire of a pas- sionate nature; with the keen, intense feeling which mingles pain even with happiness, and makes sor- row sharp as the tooth of a serpent. Proud, fastidious, and passionate was the object of her regard; his prejudices had been strength- ened and his faults matured, in the lap of luxury and indulgence. He was high-spirited and generous to a fault, a true friend and a bitter enemy—one of those men who have lofty virtues and strong counterbalancing faults. But with all his heart and soul he loved the gentle girl to whom he was be- trothed. In that he had been thoroughly unselfish and more than generous; but not the less proud. The prejudices of birth and station had been in- stilled into his nature, till they had become a part of it; yet he had unhesitatingly offered hand and fortune to the daughter of a plain country farmer. In truth, his predominating pride might be seen in this, mingled with the powerful love which 2i8 MALAESKA urged him to the proposal. He preferred bestow- ing wealth and station on the object of his choice, rather than receiving any worldly advantage from her. It gratified him that his love would be looked up to by its object, as the source from which all benefits must be derived. It was a feeling of re- fined selfishness; he would have been startled had any one told him so; and yet, a generous pride was at the bottom of all. He gloried in exalting his chosen one; while his affianced wife, and her fam- ily, were convinced that nothing could be more noble than his conduct, in thus selecting a humble and comparatively portionless girl to share his brilliant fortune. On the afternoon of the second day after her return home, Sarah entered the parlor with her bonnet on and a shawl flung over her arm, pre- pared for a walk. Her lover was lying on the crimson cushions of the settee, with his fine eyes half-closed, and a book nearly falling from his listless hand. "Come," said Sarah, taking the volume play- fully from his hand, "I have come to persuade you 220 MALAESKA glance of an eagle. "Am I to understand that your friend is an Indian?" "Certainly, she is an Indian, but not a common one, I assure you." "She is an Indian. Enough, / will not go; and I can only express my surprise at a request so ex- traordinary. I have no ambition to cultivate the copper-colored race, or to find my future wife seeking her friends in the woods." The finely cut lip of the speaker curved with a smile of haughty contempt, and his manner was disturbed and irritable, beyond any thing the young girl had ever witnessed in him before. She turned pale at this violent burst of feeling, and it was more than a minute before she addressed him again. "This violence seems unreasonable—why should my wish to visit a harmless, solitary fellow- being create so much opposition," she said, at last. "Forgive me, if I have spoken harshly, dear Sarah," he answered, striving to subdue his irrita- tion, but spite of his effort it blazed out again the next instant. "It is useless to strive against the feel- ing; I hate the whole race! If there is a thing THE INDIAN WIFE 221 I abhor on earth, it is a savage—a fierce, blood- thirsty wild beast in human form!" There was something in the stern expression of his face which pained and startled the young girl who gazed on it; a brilliancy of the eye, and an expansion of the thin nostrils, which bespoke ter- rible passions when once excited to the full. "This is a strange prejudice," she murmured, unconsciously, while her eyes sank from their gaze on his face. "It is no prejudice, but a part of my nature," he retorted, sternly, pacing up and down the room. "An antipathy rooted in the cradle, which grew stronger and deeper with my manhood. I loved my grandfather, and from him I imbibed this early hate. His soul loathed the very name of Indian. When he met one of the prowling crea- tures in the highway, I have seen his lips writhe, his chest heave, and his face grow white, as if a wild beast had started up in his path. There was one in our family, an affectionate, timid creature, as the sun ever shone upon. I can remember loving her very dearly when I was a mere child, but my 222 MALAESKA grandfather recoiled at the very sound of her name, and seemed to regard her presence as a curse, which for some reason he was compelled to endure. I could never imagine why he kept her. She was very kind to me, and I tried to find her out after my return from Europe, but you remem- ber that my grandparents died suddenly during my absence, and no one could give me any informa- tion about her. Save that one being, there is not a savage, male or female, whom I should not rejoice to see exterminated from the face of the earth. Do not, I pray you, look so terribly shocked, my sweet girl; I acknowledge the feeling to be a prejudice too violent for adequate foundation; but it was grounded in my nature by one whom I re- spected and loved as my own life, and it will cling to my heart as long as there is a pulse left in it." "I have no predilection for savages as a race," said Sarah, after a few moments' silence, gratified to find some shadow of reason for her lover's vio- lence; "but you make one exception, may I not also be allowed a favorite especially as she is a white in education, feeling, every thing but color? THE INDIAN WIFE 223 You would not have me neglect one of the kind- est, best friends I ever had on earth, because the tint of her skin is a shade darker than my own?" Her voice was sweet and persuasive, a smile trembled on her lips, and she laid a hand gently on his arm as she spoke. He must have been a savage indeed, had he resisted her winning ways. "I would have you forgive my violence and follow your own sweet impulses," he said, putting back the curls from her uplifted forehead, and drawing her to his bosom; "say you have forgiven me, dear, and then go where you will." It was with gentle words like these, that he had won the love of that fair being; they fell upon her heart, after his late harshness, like dew to a thirsty violet. She raised her glistening eyes to his with a language more eloquent than words, and disengaging herself from his arms, glided softly out of the room. These words could hardly be called a lovers' quarrel, and yet they parted with all the sweet feelings of reconciliation, warm at the heart of each. 226 MALAESKA the margin of the inclosure, and a magnificent hem- lock shadowed the whole space with its drooping boughs. A sensation of awe fell upon the heart of the young girl, for, as she gazed, the mound took the form of a grave. A large rose-tree, heavy with blossoms, drooped over the head, and the sheen of rippling waters broke through a clump of sweet- brier, which hedged it in from the lake. Sarah remembered that the Indian chief's grave was on the very brink of the water, and that she had given a young rose-tree to Malaeska years ago, which must have shot up into the solitary bush standing before her, lavishing fragrance from its pure white flowers over the place of the dead. This would have been enough to convince her that she stood by the warrior's grave, had the place been solitary, but at the foot of the hemlock, with her arms folded on her bosom and her calm face uplifted toward heaven, sat Malaeska. Her lips were slightly parted, and the song which Sarah had listened to afar off broke from them—a sad pleasant strain, that blended in harmony with the THE INDIAN WIFE 227 rippling waters and the gentle sway of the hem- lock branches overhead. Sarah remained motionless till the last note of the song died away on the lake, then she stepped forward into the inclosure. The Indian woman saw her and arose, while a beautiful expression of joy beamed over her face. "The bird does not feel more joyful at the re- turn of spring, when snows have covered the earth all winter, than does the poor Indian's heart at the sight of her child again," she said, taking the maiden's hand and kissing it with a graceful move- ment of mingled respect and affection. "Sit down, that I may hear the sound of your voice once more." They sat down together at the foot of the hem- lock. "You have been lonely, my poor friend, and ill, I fear; how thin you have become during my ab- sence," said Sarah, gazing on the changed features of her companion. "I shall be happy again now," replied the In- 230 MALAESKA thought even when he is far away—to know that he is haunting your beautiful day-dreams, wander- ing with you through the lovely places which fancy is continually presenting to one in solitude, filling up each space and thought of your life, and yet in no way diminishing the affection which the heart bears to others, but increasing it rather—if to be made happy with the slightest trait of noble feel- ing, proud in his virtues, and yet quick-sighted and doubly sensitive to all his faults, clinging to him in spite of those faults—if this be love, then I do love with the whole strength of my being. They tell me it is but a dream, which will pass away, but I do not believe it; for in my bosom the first sweet nutter of awakened affection, has already settled down to a deep feeling of contentment. My heart is full of tranquillity, and, like that white rose which lies motionless in the sunshine burdened with the wealth of its own sweetness, it unfolds itself day by day to a more pure and subdued state of enjoyment. This feeling may not be the love which men talk so freely of, but it can not change THE INDIAN WIFE 233 "Dead—are they both dead? his grandparents, I mean?" she said, earnestly. "Yes, they are both dead; he told me so." "And he—the young man—where is he now?" "I left him at my father's house, not three hours since." "Come, let us go." The two arose, passed through the inclosure, and threaded the path toward the wigwam slowly and in silence. The maiden was lost in conjecture, and her companion seemed pondering in some hid- den thought of deep moment. Now her face was sad and regretful in its look, again it lighted up a thrilling expression of eager and yearning tenderness. The afternoon shadows were gathering over the forest, and being anxious to reach home before dark, Sarah refused to enter the wigwam when they reached it. The Indian went in for a moment, and returned with a slip of birch bark, on which a few words were lightly traced in pencil. "Give this to the young man," she said, placing 234 MALAESKA the bark in Sarah's hand; "and now good-night— good-night." Sarah took the bark and turned with a hurried step to the forest track. She felt agitated, and as if something painful were about to happen. With a curiosity aroused by the Indian's strange manner, she examined the writing on the slip of bark in her hand; it was only a request that William Danforth would meet the writer at a place appointed, on the bank of the Catskill Creek, that evening. The scroll was signed, "Malaeska." Malaeska! It was singular, but Sarah Jones had never learned the Indian's name before. 244 MALAESKA than a thousand sons. Oh, if you have mercy, con- tradict the wretched falsehood!" His frame shook with agitation, and he gazed upon her as one plead- ing for his life. When the wretched mother saw the hopeless misery which she had heaped upon her proud and sensitive child, she would have laid down her life could she have unsaid the tale which had wrought such agony, without bringing a stain of falsehood on her soul. But words are fearful weapons, never to be checked when once put in motion. Like barbed arrows they enter the heart, and can not be with- drawn again, even by the hand that has shot them. Poisoned they are at times, with a venom that clings to the memory forever. Words are, indeed, fearful things! The poor Indian mother could not recall hers, but she tried to soothe the proud feel- ings which had been so terribly wounded. "Why should my son scorn the race of his mother? The blood which she gave him from her heart was that of a brave and kingly line, war- riors and chieftains, all" THE INDIAN WIPE 445 The youth interrupted her with a low, bitter laugh. The deep prejudices which had been in- stilled into his nature—pride, despair, every feel- ing which urges to madness and evil—were a fire in his heart. "So I have a patent of nobility to gild my sable birthright, an ancestral line of dusky chiefs to boast of. I should have known this, when I of- fered my hand to that lovely girl. She little knew the dignity which awaited her union. Father of heaven, my heart will break—I am going mad!" He looked wildly around as he spoke, and his eyes settled on the dark waters, flowing so tran- quilly a few feet beneath him. Instantly he became calm, as one who had found an unexpected re- source in his affliction. His face was perfectly color- less and gleamed like marble as he turned to his mother, who stood in a posture of deep humility and supplication a few paces off, for she dared not approach him again either with words of com- fort or tenderness. All the sweet hopes which had of late been so warm in her heart, were utterly crushed. She was a heart-broken, wretched woman, THE INDIAN WIFE 247 been harsh to you, but I did not know your claim on my love. Even now, I have been unkind." "No, no, my son." "I remember you were always meek and forgiv- ing—you forgive me now, my poor mother?" Malaeska could not speak, but she sank to her son's feet, and covered his hand with tears and kisses. "There is one who will feel this more deeply than either of us. You will comfort her, Mala— mother, will you not?" Malaeska rose slowly up, and looked into her son's face. She was terrified by his child-like gentleness; her breath came painfully. She knew not why it was, but a shudder ran through her frame, and her heart grew heavy, as if some ter- rible catastrophe were about to happen. The young man stepped a pace nearer the bank, and stood, motionless, gazing down into the water. Malaeska drew close to him, and laid her hand on his arm. "My son, why do you stand thus? Why gaze so fearfully upon the water?" v He did not answer, but drew her to his bosom, 248 MALAESKA and pressed his lips down upon her forehead. Tears sprang afresh to the mother's eyes, and her heart thrilled with an exquisite sensation, which was almost pain. It was the first time he had kissed her since his childhood. She trembled with mingled awe and tenderness as he released her from his em- brace, and put her gently from the brink of the projection. The action had placed her back toward him. She turned—saw him clasp his hands high over his head, and spring into the air. There was a plunge; the deep rushing sound of waters flowing back to their place, and then a shriek, sharp and full of terrible agony, rung over the stream like the death-cry of a human being. The cry broke from the wretched mother, as she tore off her outer garments and plunged after the self-murderer. Twice the moonlight fell upon her pallid face and her long hair, as it streamed out on the water. The third time another marble face rose to the surface, and with almost superhuman strength the mother bore up the lifeless body of her son with one arm, and with the other struggled to the shore. She carried him up the steep bank 250 MALAESKA mother. Until the evening before, her dark hair had retained the volume and gloss of youth, but now it fell back from her hollow temples pro- fusely as ever, but perfectly gray. The frost of grief had changed it in a single night. Her features were sunken, and she sat by the dead, motionless and resigned. There was nothing of stubborn grief about her. She answered when spoken to, and was patient in her suffering; but all could see that it was but the tranquillity of a broken heart, mild in its utter desolation. When the villagers gath- ered for the funeral, Malaeska, in a few gentle words, told them of her relationship to the dead, and besought them to bury him by the side of his father. The coffin was carried out, and a solemn train followed it through the forest. Women and chil- dren all went forth to the burial. When the dead body of her affianced husband was brought home, Sarah Jones had been carried senseless to her chamber. The day wore on, the funeral procession passed forth, and she knew nothing of it. She was falling continually from 252 MALAESKA reached the inclosure. A sweet fragrance was shed over the trampled grass from the white rose-tree which bent low beneath the weight of its pure blos- soms. A shower of damp petals lay upon the chieftain's grave, and the green leaves quivered in the air as it sighed through them with a pleas- ant and cheering motion. But Sarah saw nothing but a newly-made grave, and stretched upon its fresh sods the form of a human being. A feeling of awe came over the maiden's heart. She moved reverently onward, feeling that she was in the sanctuary of the dead. The form was Malaeska's. One arm fell over the grave, and her long hair, in all its mournful change of color, had been swept back from her forehead, and lay tangled amid the rank grass. The sod on which her head rested was sprinkled over with tiny white blossoms. A hand- ful lay crushed beneath her cheek, and sent up a faint odor over the marble face. Sarah bent down and touched the forehead. It was cold and hard, but a tranquil sweetness was there which told that the spirit had passed away without a struggle. Malaeska lay dead among the graves of her house- THE INDIAN WIFE 253 hold, the heart-broken victim of an unnatural marriage. * * * * Years passed on—the stern, relentless years that have at last swept away every visible trace which links the present with the past. The old house in Manhattan, where Sarah Jones had known so much happiness, which had been brightened for a little season by the sunshine of two young hearts, then darkened by the gloom of death, had long stood silent and untenanted. After the death of William Danforth, there had been no relative in America to claim the estate left by his grandfather. In those days it took much time for tidings to cross the sea, and after they had reached England, there was such struggle and con- tention between those who claimed the property, that it was long before any actual settlement of it was made. At last the old house was to be torn down, and its garden destroyed, to give place to a block of stores, the usual fate of every relic of old time in our restless city. s