Elaine Goodale Eastman

“ Do not soon forget our love,” sighed the wife, and she died.
The goat-hunter mourned her truly, and he did as she had asked him to do. He remained on the spot where he had lost her and seemed to have no thought of going back to the village. He kept her body with him in the hut as long as he could, and when at last he was forced to lay it away, he carved an image out of cedar wood and set it up in front of her loom, so that as one entered the hut it seemed that a woman sat there, weaving a dancing-blanket. ”

“ The honey-sweet plums, a peck or more, had been harvested in a wide-mouthed cotton sack. “Let me carry it—you have the baby!” cried Yellow Star, gayly tossing the sack over one shoulder, while the other picked up a placid bundle rolled in a patchwork quilt from under the wild plum tree, and with much maternal cooing and chattering proceeded to secure it on her back, in the folds of the bright shawl she wore. ”

“ For nobody knows how many hundreds of years they have plied their feminine implements—such as awl of bone and sinew of deer—and with dyed quills of the porcupine and hand-wrought of trader-bought beads, with skins tanned to a velvety softness or costly broadcloth of red and blue, have made and decorated their native finery with no mean skill, the while their tongues were busy with soft syllables of domestic chat and village gossip, after the universal feminine pattern. ”

“ Doris and Cynthia were the only ones privileged to admire Ethan’s gift.
Next to the bride in the affections of rural New England stands the fair girl graduate, and that June day in Laurel was apparently quite given over to the triumphant parade of simple-hearted youth. In many a modest home, solicitous [201] mothers were robing and adorning their daughters as if for the altar itself, and that evening in the town hall it seemed as if every soul in the village, old and young, rich and poor, must be pressing into a seat or peering curiously in at open door or window. ”

“ Mystery to the Indian is not mystery after all, but a reflection of the Great Mystery which opens out as simply as a flower. To us nothing is strange or impossible. It seems natural that an animal or even a rock should speak ”

“ Yellow Star’s Indian blood fairly curdled within her in the face of this close strife of the elements; for brave as her people truly were, the angry moods of nature were to them full of threat and awful personality. ”

“ In the depths of the Great Smoky Mountains there lies a hidden lake which no human eye has ever seen. The hunters know where it must be, for sometimes one has come near enough to scent its freshness, and to hear the rustle of thousands of wings as the ducks rise in great clouds from its cool, green depths. ”

“ Once there was a beautiful girl who had many suitors, and among the most persistent were the Crane and the Hummingbird. She rather fancied the latter, since the Crane was a long-legged, awkward fellow, not at all to her taste. In order to rid herself of his pretensions once and for all, she told them that they might fly round the world, and the first one to return should be her husband. As the Hummingbird is very swift, she had no doubt of the result. ”

“ Glimpsed in the distance, under a sky quivering with heat and against a wide background of sunburnt grass, the whole looked more like a toy village than anything real and serious, at all events to the new-comer, who, with all her earnestness of purpose, had fallen to some degree under the spell of that colorful, elemental existence. ”

“ Are you really going to settle down in Laurel?”
“Doctor Brown is anxious to divide his practice, but I haven’t given him my answer yet,” responded Ethan, his serious eyes upon the soft, averted cheek that had at last begun to burn with a delicate consciousness.
“You see, Stella, the place doesn’t matter much,” he went on, with tender confidence. “Any place holds duties to fill a lifetime; it’s the spirit that really counts. ”

“ The third brother went as a great storm of rain, and he had nearly reached the spot where his sister was eagerly waiting, when the icy wind turned the rain to hail and drove it back, and the poor girl was in despair.
However, there was still the youngest brother. He went as a sharp-edged and thin cloud which slipped right by North Wind and reached his palace, where he turned all the ice to water. The whole country was flooded, and North Wind and his family were helpless. ”

“ Presently Stella and her teacher appeared, and the four set out at once—or five, counting in the irrepressible Sir Walter, whose care-free bark voiced the adventurous spirit of the holiday party. It was a warm Saturday in April—one of the few days when our New England spring really opens her heart to the wayfarer, and from time to time they were overtaken by country teams whose occupants gazed curiously, even pityingly, upon them. Once a farmer returning homeward with an empty lumber wagon offered the whole party “a lift,” which proposal was gracefully evaded by Miss Morrison. ”

“ The hearing and repeating of the legends took in large part the place of both school and story-books to the Indian boy or girl, and it is good practice for any of us.
It seems likely that every tribe has in its folklore a mischievous character with supernatural powers, who is at the same time a butt for jokes and a successful wonder-worker. He is boastful and resourceful, always trying to outwit other people, and in his turn is often outwitted. Among the Sioux this character is known as Unktomee, the Spider; the Tsimshians call him the Raven; the Cherokees the Rabbit. ”

“ But, like another Cinderella, she forgot, and lingered near an open window of the large, circular dance-house, her baby asleep on her back, gazing fascinated on the gorgeous, barbaric spectacle of painted, half-clad men executing their wonderful steps and poses, till aroused by a touch on her arm and a sweet, reproachful voice in her ear. ”

“ Many men wished to marry the chief’s pretty daughter, but she laughed at them all. One day as she sat quite close to the fire, a spark snapped upon her dress and burned a tiny hole in it. [Pg 153] She pointed at the fire and called it a bad name in her anger, for it must be admitted that the girl had a quick temper.
That night the chief’s daughter was missing. All the people sought for her. They searched every house in the village and in the other villages, wherever men lived who had proposed for her hand. When she could not be found anywhere, they employed the wisest medicine men. ”

“ She’s getting old, you see, and she isn’t used to doing for herself, and she really does need me, girls. Don’t look like that, Cynthia; she’s my dear, dear Mother Waring’s only sister—the only near kin she had in this world—so she used to say. Girls, I know I should be perfectly happy with either of you, but I can’t leave Miss Sophia—she’s folks. ”

“ THERE was sorrow on the Casa Grande (the Great Pueblo) , for the prettiest woman in the village would accept no man for her husband. Her suitors were many and impatient, but her black glossy locks were still wound above her ears in the manner of virgins, and she steadily refused to allow them to hang down in the matron’s coils.
One day a great Cloud came out of the east, looked down upon the maiden and wished to marry her, for she was very beautiful. ”

“ The sun-brimmed solitude of a September day enfolded the two girls, Blue Earth and Yellow Star—for, although mother of a five-year-old boy, the deserted wife of Young Eagle was in reality not so much older than her friend—as they happily gathered red-and-yellow Dakota plums in the rustling thickets away up the creek. The young mother [208] was quaintly robed in a loose, wide-sleeved “Dakota gown” of Turkey red calico, while the young maid was more trimly clad in one of the plain, indigo-blue prints that she had last worn in Mrs. Sophia’s kitchen. ”

“ Raven made a new plan. He went a little way off and sent the Sea Gull to the camp with this message:
“A handsome young chief will come to feast and dance in the dwelling of your chief. See that all is ready.”
He knew that the people would prepare for their guest, so he caught a Deer and tied a bundle of pitch-pine to its tail, for at that time the deer had a long tail like that of the fox. He borrowed the canoe of the Great Shark, and with the Deer came in it to the village. ”

“ Now and again her black eyes darted keenly from one subdued face to the other, as if in search of something; a [47] “trick,” Miss Sophia said, that made her “as nervous as a witch!”
The long, heavy, and, to tell the truth, rather silent and oppressive meal had come to an end at last, with pumpkin pie and Indian pudding made punctiliously after the old family recipes, and a mold of “quaking jelly,” that had been a favorite of Lucy’s from childhood. After the black coffee was brought in, Stella slid her nuts and raisins into her pocket, and rose at a nod from her foster-mother. ”

“ On the next day, the smallest bear came back alone in human form, and spoke to his host in his own tongue, telling him that he was a man who had long since been captured and adopted into the Bear tribe. “The Bear Chief,” said this person, “is very sorry for you, because he too has lost all of his friends. He understood your sorrow and for that reason refrained from killing you. I was not permitted to speak to you in his presence, but he wishes you to remember him when you mourn for your dead.”
Ever since this time, the old men, when they kill a grizzly bear, paint a cross on its skin. ”

“ Doris set the ball rolling with the very old tale of the Ash and the Elm, the father and mother of mankind, as told by the Abenakis, the Indians of New England. Both trees grew in Uncle’s door-yard; and her hearers, looking up, seemed to realize for the first time the graceful femininity of the drooping elm, and the sturdiness of the more robust and straight-limbed ash-tree.
“There was once a chief who had three [189] daughters,” began Rosey, promptly, “and the youngest daughter was much the prettiest, so that all the young men wanted to marry her. ”

“ At last one morning the old woman said to her daughter, “Go quietly, my child; follow your husband without letting him know it, and see for yourself what progress he is making.”
The young wife did as she was told, and there was the trickster pounding a rotten stump with the stone ax so as [Pg 95] to make the sounds they had heard. When she told her mother what she had seen, the two women packed up all the goods they had left and went away.
When Raven went home that night, he found only the empty hut, which was as much as he deserved. ”

“ Cynthia proposed an armful of thick moss, while ease-loving Doris declared that for her part she preferred to bring out a hammock.
“What makes you so quiet, Jibby?” demanded Sin, as they stepped forth into the open, under the skyey roof.
“I feel in my heart what I have no words to say,” murmured the Indian girl.
“Our neighbors would be quite as well pleased, perhaps, if we were all as quiet as Stella,” suggested Ethan, quickly.
“What neighbors do you mean? Uncle Si doesn’t care how much noise we make,” remarked literal Doris. ”

“ There’s nothing else in the whole world I should like so much.”
“Yes, it was I set her up in business, and a fair sort of business it’s turning out,” chuckled the Doctor some three months later, from the depths of his shabby easy chair. “Not a fortune in it, of course; but she makes seventy-five cents or a dollar many days, with Cynthia’s help. Why aren’t you out with them, Doris? Afraid of a freckle or two [165] my girl? Well, health is beauty, and their long days in the sun and air, close to the life-giving earth, will be worth more than a fortune to them.” ”