THEY ENCOUNTER THE WITCH.
"You ain't an Injun, be you!" gasped Benny, with a look and tone which expressed volumes of consternation and disappointment at her utter failure to come up to his ideal Indian. Why, she wasn't the least bit like the pictures! She wasn't like the magnificent figures he had seen in front of the cigar stores in New Haven. Where were all her feathers and things—her red and yellow tunic, her gorgeous moccasons, her earrings and noserings and bracelets and armlets and beads? Why, she was ju-u-u-ust as ragged and dirty!
All this and more Benny's tone expressed when he said: "Why, you ain't an Injun, be you?"
"Well, I was. I ain't nothing at all now. I ain't even a squaw, and they said they was going to make a Christian on me. I was a Chetonquin."
"Oh, yes," said Benny, looking at her now with the interest attaching to one who had worn the feathers, and beads, and moccasons, and rings. "Well, what did you do when the colonel told you to go West?"
"We had a fight."
That was satisfactory to Benny. "Which whipped?" he asked, with his own native briskness, as if this, now, was common ground, and he was ready to talk at his ease.
"Which a'most always whips? It was a hard fight. I hid behind a big tree and watched it. When I saw my father shot I started to go to him and a shot struck me. See there!" said she, pushing up her coarse gray locks and showing a deeper, wider seam than the creases and wrinkles on her face. "A bullet grazed me hard and I was stunned and blinded with the blood, and couldn't run, but my people had to. They didn't any on 'em see or know about me, I s'pose, and I laid there and sorter went to sleep. Colonel Hammerton took a notion to pick me up when he rode over the ground he had soaked with the blood of my people—ground that belonged to my people," shrieked the woman, straightening herself up and shaking her fists in the air.
Benny liked that. Even Fanny gazed at the strange creature with fascination. And when the Indian's excitement abated and she ceased to mutter and chatter to herself and sunk her face into her palms again, gazing absently on the ground, Fanny pulled Benny's sleeve and whispered, "Ask her what he did then, after he picked her up."
"What did he do with you then?" ventured Benny.
The old woman started, and gazed at them curiously, as if she had forgotten all about them, and had to recall them out of the distant past. "What did who do?" said she.
"What did Colonel Hammerton do with you when he picked you up?"
"Oh, I didn't know who picked me up—thought 'twas some of my people, I s'pose. Colonel Hammerton carried me off to the fort, and then took me to Washington: said he was going to make a Christian on me. I had to stay in houses—sleep in houses!—like being nailed up in a box. Ugh! what a misery 'tis to be made a Christian on! Hoo-oo-oo-oo-oo! You wouldn't want to know all the racks and miseries and fights and grinds on it. I guess they got sick on it themselves, for after I'd tried a many times to get away from houses, and been brought back, I tried again and they let me go, and I've been a-going ever since. I asked for my people, and they told me they was exterminated, every one on 'em. Yes, I've been a-going ever since, but I can't go any more. I hope they'll let me stay in these forests 'till the Great Spirit takes me away to my people. He can't find me in the houses, but if I keep out in the forest, I hope he'll find me soon. It's been a weary, long time."
"Are you two hundred years old?" asked Benny softly. "That's what folks say."
"Two hunderd? Hoo-oo-oo-oo! two hunderd? I'm ten hundered, if I'm a day," said the poor old creature. "But don't be afeard on me—I hope there won't be anybody afeard on me here, for then they'd be driving on me off, or shutting me up again somewhere where the Great Spirit can't find me. Tell your people not to be skeered on me—ask 'em to let me stay here."
The sad old eyes looked wistfully at Benny, whose generous heart took up the poor Indian's cause at once.
"You can stay here fast enough," said he. "I know who these woods belong to—some o' my relations. There won't anybody be afraid of you. Me 'n 'Bijah'll take care of you."
"O, bless you!" said she. "I thought I'd got to the right place when I got here—it looked like it—it felt like it. It seemed a'most as if I most expected to see wigwams. A-h-h-h-h, if I could sleep in a wigwam!"
Benny felt that he could sympathize with her in that. He and the boys had played Indians and 'Bijah had built wigwams for them in the wood, and he had greatly wished and entreated to be allowed to sleep all night in one. But he could not guess at the longing of the aged to go back to the things dear and familiar to them in childhood; he did not know that all the old Indian's days were spent in dreaming of those things, and that she often wandered all night in the woods, fancying herself surrounded by the wigwams of her people—searching anxiously for that of her father. Though Benny could understand nothing of the pathetic sadness, he felt a strong desire to offer consolation and cheer, and he said, "I can build wigwams. Me 'n 'Bijah'll make you a wigwam!"
But the aged Chetonquin muttered to herself in a tuneless quaver, and shook her head doubtingly.
"What! She don't believe it!" Benny exclaimed to himself. "Don't believe that 'Bijah can make wigwams! We'll show her!"
And he was so eager to be about it that he took leave directly of his strange acquaintance, who seemed lost in reverie, and to have forgotten him entirely.
When Mr. and Mrs. Briggs heard Benny's story of the poor Indian woman, their excellent hearts were at once filled with compassion for so forlorn a creature. Mr. Briggs had very radical theories about equal mercy and justice for each member of the human race.
"It isn't likely," he often said, "that some have a right to be in this world and others haven't;" and he immediately set himself to illustrate his theories in the case of the Chetonquin.
Mrs. Briggs said there could be not doubt that she needed other things besides wigwams, which conjecture was found to be sadly true upon investigation. An attempt was made to put this last of the Chetonquins into more comfortable quarters, but she received the suggestion with dismay, and prayed so earnestly to be left on the spot she seemed to think was like her own native forest, that it was decided to make her as comfortable as possible there, since it was early summer and no harm could come from exposure. When the weather was cold again, she would be glad to be sheltered elsewhere. So Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, Grandma Potter and 'Bijah, took care that she needed nothing, and left her to be happy in her own way.
Her shattered mind, little by little, let go of everything save the memories of her childhood. All the people of the neighboring region, old and young, came to understand and respect the sorrows of the poor creature they had talked of as a witch. But the most friendly people seemed to disturb her—to break in upon her dreams—and children, especially, were not allowed to visit her.
Benny could not forego, however, the pleasure he had promised himself, of getting 'Bijah to help him make a fine wigwam in the woods, and saying to old Winneenis—as she called herself—"There! what d'ye call that? There's a wigwam for ye, 'n me 'n 'Bijah made it, too!"
Benny might make as many wigwams as he pleased, Mr. Briggs said, "but he was not to go near or disturb old Winneenis."
One extremity of the island was in the vicinity of Grandma Potter's, and Benny passed a good many days of his vacation at Grandma's. One day Benny said to 'Bijah, "Now you can make that wigwam, can't you, 'Bijah? You said you would when the hay was all in, and it is all in, ain't it? Le's make it to-day over there in the woods, on the island. The boys are coming over to-morrow, and I want to have it done before they get here. Say, will you, 'Bijah?"
"Wal, I'd know but I can," said 'Bijah.
"I want a real one," said Benny, "life-size, just like them you saw when you was out there to Dakota—none o' your baby-houses."
'Bijah went up-stairs into the barn chamber, humming The Sweet By and By, and Benny accompanied him in doing both. 'Bijah opened an enormous chest and pulled out a lot of old buffalo and other robes, the worn-out and moth-eaten accumulation of years, not to say generations, and sitting down, took out his jack-knife and ripped the ragged linings out of several that were pretty well divested of their fur, and making a pile of skins, old horse blankets and lap rugs, he said, "Now, then, sir, we'll have a wigwam fit for old Black Hawk himself."
And you may be sure 'Bijah was as good as his word. He got out old Tom and the wagon, and he and Benny and the skins and blankets all got in and drove over to the woods on the island, and there 'Bijah cut poles and made the finest wigwam ever seen this side of the Rocky Mountains—or the other side either, for that matter. They spread blankets on the ground inside, and Benny declared it wanted nothing but a few Indians and tomahawks and bows and arrows lying round to make it look just like the picture in his g'ography.
Benny's last thought was of his wigwam that night as he slid off into the delicious sleep that only rosy-cheeked, tired boys know. He dreamed he was the chief of a powerful tribe, and that he found old Winneenis, not old any longer, but a little girl like Fanny, crying in the forest because she couldn't find her way to her people, and that he took her by the hand and led her home. Her shout of rapture when she found herself once more with her people, wakened Benny, and he saw it was morning, and the shout he had heard instead of being that of little Winneenis, was grandma's voice calling him to get up. He was rather disappointed to find he wasn't a powerful chief, but he consoled himself with the thought of his uncommonly fine wigwam, and hurried down stairs to see what time it was, for the boys were to come on the early train, and he meant to go right over to the woods with them.
He had scarcely finished his breakfast when the boys arrived, and they all started for the woods in great glee.
On the way, Benny told them the story of old Winneenis, and the boys were full of wonder, interest, and curiosity to see her.
Upon reaching the wigwam, they admired its outside, agreed that nothing in that style of architecture could surpass it.
"And now," said Benny, "see how nice 'tis inside," and he took a peep in himself. "Why," whispered he, drawing back, "she's here—she's here in the wigwam, sound asleep, and she looks awful glad. Sh-sh"—with a warning shake of his finger—"we mustn't disturb her; father said I mustn't. Le's go away and wait till she wakes up."
They each took a peep at the old Indian woman and went away softly.
They remained in sight of the wigwam, exhausting every device for wearing away the time, and Joe's watch was frequently consulted. Time and patience wore away together.
"There," said Charlie, at last, "we've waited long enough; we ought to wake her up now."
"It might make her crazy again to see such a lot of us, and I—I don't like to," said Benny. "I'll go 'n ask 'Bijah what to do."
They went and brought 'Bijah, who said he should think likely she would want to sleep a spell, she must be pretty well beat out, pokin' around all night. He'd heard her making them queer noises o' hern—something like a hoarse kind o' Phœbe bird, it sounded, in the distance.
"I shouldn't be surprised," he began, in a low tone, stooping and peering in at the wigwam; but, contrary to his words, he did look very much surprised indeed.
He stepped into the wigwam and touched the sleeper gently. Then he shook his head at the boys and motioned them away, and when he came out, they understood from his look, that old Winneenis was dead.
Wandering, as was her wont at night, she had come upon Benny's wigwam, standing in the clear moonlight, and to her longing, bewildered mind it had probably seemed the wigwam of her father. Who can ever know the joy, the feeling of peace, and rest, and relief, with which she laid her tired bones down in it, and fell asleep, a care-free child once more, and thus passed from its door into the happy hunting-grounds? And Benny always felt glad the wigwam had been built.
BENNY'S DISAPPEARANCE.
Every year a few of the blest among the boys of Still Harbor were taken to New Haven or New London to see the Greatest Show on Earth, while the unlucky remainder were obliged to content themselves with what imagination could do for them. But one memorable year Mr. P. T. Barnum landed and magnified himself on our own fences. His magnanimity ran over and flamed into Still Harbor, bringing all his miracles and monsters to our very doors, as it were, and we had no more miserable boys. But we had plenty of boys who aspired to be miracles and monsters, or boys who essayed the trapeze, the tight rope, the flying leap and all sorts of possible and impossible acrobatic contortions and distortions.
Eminent among these was Benny Briggs, for if you looked high enough, you could see him any day with a balancing pole in his hand, walking on the ridge-poles and fences, or making of himself all sorts of peduncles and pendulums; bringing about in his own individual person the most astonishing inversions, subversions and retroversions, and the most remarkable twists and lurches and topsey-turveys and topplings-over.
But there was one opportunity that Benny's soaring ambition had not embraced. His active mind had never yet discovered the possibility of a real tight rope. For a real tight rope he languished, on a tight rope he yearned to walk. The clothes line was a little too slender; his sister Fanny's skipping rope was not only too slender, but too short; and these were the only ropes of his acquaintance. The ridge-poles and fences only mocked at his ideal. He wanted something that hung unsupported; something airy; something worthy of the acrobatic art, upon which he could walk with credit and grace, and, reaching the end, bow and kiss his hand to the spectators, before returning. For this he searched by day, and of this he dreamed by night. And one day he found it.
"Benny," said his mother on the morning of that day, "your grandmother Potter has sent for you to come over. She's going to have uncle John's and uncle Calvin's boys there. You'll like that, won't you?"
"Hi!" shouted Benny, throwing up his new straw hat, the sign and seal of pleasant summer weather, "I'd like to see the fellow that wouldn't!"
At nine o'clock that morning—at exactly nine o'clock—Benny started. His mother remembered it well, for she looked up at the clock and said:
"Now, don't hurry, Benny; go along easily and you'll get there before ten," for grandmother Potter's was scarcely two miles back in the country, and Benny thought nothing of stepping over there, especially when inducements were offered.
He called his dog Sandy, and marched off with a light step and a light heart; but his hands remained at home, that is to say, his hands were nowhere so much at home as in his trousers pockets, and there they reposed, while Benny paced along, whistling "Not for Joseph, not if I knows it," and Sandy nosing it all the way. His mother watched him with pride as usual; the neighbors saw him go by and said, "There goes Benny Briggs; he hain't broken his neck yet, but I presume to say that'll be the next thing he does."
Uncle John's and uncle Calvin's boys from New Haven, arrived early at grandmother Potter's, a place which seemed to them to contain all the pleasures of all the spheres, for grandmother's weakness was for boys, and nothing suited her better than getting all her grandsons together and giving them "full swing," as Abijah called it, and Abijah was made by nature to help grandmother out in her benevolent plans. He instituted jolly measures, and contrived possibilities of riot and revel that no mortal ever thought of before. As circuses were the fashion in urchin society, on that particular day, Abijah, like a wizard, had called up out of the farm resources, and out of certain mysterious resources of his own, that were so plainly of unearthly origin that it was of no use in the world to try to look into or understand them, such a circus as would have made not only P. T. Barnum, but the ancient Romans themselves perfectly miserable with envy. There was the trapeze, the tight rope, the—well, alas, I don't know the names of them all, having had a limited education in such matters, but there they all were, whatever they are called—those things that make a perfect, finished, spal-en-did, be-yeu-ti-ful circus. There were hoops with tissue paper pasted over them, to be jumped through by the most wonderful bareback riders on earth, and old Tom, grandmother's own horse, was perfectly safe as a trained Arabian steed, when 'Bijah was there to see how the thing was managed. Everything was safe and sure and delightful when 'Bijah had charge of it. Nothing ever went wrong, or upset, or came to a sorry end with him or his plans. He knew what he was about, and ends with him were even more brilliant and satisfactory than beginnings and means. I shouldn't dare to fully tell you what good times the boys had at grandmother Potter's, especially on Fourth of Julys, Thanksgivings, Christmases and birthdays, for fear of making all the boys who couldn't go there, discontented and low spirited for the rest of their lives. I'm sorry for those boys, but at the same time I may as well go on and tell them about Benny Briggs. He was preparing to be very discontented and low spirited just at the moment when Joe and Will and Harry and Rob and Charlie and Morris and Cad were shouting their exultation at the only wonderful circus on earth. They all decided that the performances were not to begin, however, until Benny Briggs arrived. There could be no circus without Ben. No, indeed! There were stars of the arena among them, of various magnitudes, but Benny was the comet that outshone and outstripped them all.
"Why don't he come along?" said Charlie, dancing a double-shuffle on the barn floor to let off his impatience.
"Let's go and look for him," said Joe, and they all shuffled off down to the gate, thinking to see Benny with his nose pointed straight for that gate, or as straight as could be expected, considering its faithfulness in another direction. But no Benny was to be seen.
"He can't be far off," said Joe, seizing an opportunity to look at his new silver watch, "for it's half-past ten now, and Ben is always here before ten—always was, I mean."
"Let's go up to the top of the hill and meet him," proposed Will; "we can see him from there anyhow."
So Charlie and Joe and Morris and Will and Cad started for the top of the hill, while Harry and Rob, who were a good deal inclined to wait for things to come to them, remained to swing on the gate.
The five spies soon returned and reported that Benny was nowhere to be seen. Impatience now seized them all, and they flocked into the house to put it to grandma whether it wasn't mighty queer that Ben Briggs hadn't come.
"He hasn't come?" exclaimed grandma, looking up over her glasses at the clock. "Why, what can be the matter? It's almost eleven o'clock!"
"It's one minute and a quarter past," said Joe, appealing to his watch. "Your clock's 'leven minutes slow."
"O, get out!" said Charlie, with a contemptuous sniff. "All the clocks are either fast or slow, according to that turnip."
Here would have ensued a good deal of pro and con about watches, but grandma held them to the subject of Benny Briggs. She drew from them that they had been to the very top of the hill and couldn't see him coming.
Grandma was surprised and disappointed. "It's incomprehensible," said she.
"O, I say, grandma," groaned Charlie, flopping into a chair and fanning himself, with his hat, "what a big word! In-com-pre-hen-si-ble! And the other day you said Prist-by-te-ri-an-ism! O my!"
"P-p-p-p-pooh!" stuttered Morris, who was always a little ahead of everybody, except in conversation; "I know a l-l-l-l-longer word."
"Let's hear you say it, then," shouted the rest of the boys.
"Takes you to make long words," said Charlie.
"I-i-i-i-i-i-i"—began Morris, embarrassed by the evident want of confidence in his ability.
"Go it!" said Charlie.
"Fire away!" said Joe.
"In-co-co-co-co-co" proceeded Morris.
"Spell it!" suggested Harry.
"I-n, in, c-o-m-e, come," spelled Morris with great fluency, and then stopped short.
"Income!" exclaimed two or three voices disdainfully. "Call that a long word? Ho-ho!"
"N-n-no; wa-wa-wa-wait a minute," implored Morris, tugging at a button on his jacket, and fixing a studious, inquiring gaze on the kitchen floor.
"Write it," said Will.
"I c-c-c-c-can't," said poor Morris gloomily.
"Give it up, then," recommended Joe.
"No sir," said Charlie, putting his feet up in a second chair and making himself comfortable, "I don't give it up, sir; I'm going to know what this bumper of a word is."
"Well, how are we ever going to know if Morris can't say it nor spell it nor write it?" demanded Joe.
"Mebby he can thing it," said little Cad.
"Good for you, Caddy!" said Charlie. "You've hit it; Morris can sing fast enough. Now, Morris, we'll sing, 'I love to go to Sunday-school,' and you sing your word instead of those. Begin, boys! Sing loud, Morris."
So the boys all sang softly—
I love, I love, I love, I love,
I love to go to Sunday-school—
except Morris, who sang with a triumphant shout
I love, I love, I love, I love,
In-com-pre-hen-si-bil-i-ty!
and the boys gave him three cheers.
At that moment grandma purposely left the pantry door open, and there, disclosed to view, was a land of promise; a row of delicious little cakes, with chocolate frosting, smiling on the pantry shelf. The boys instantly crossed over to this inviting land and took possession, while grandma, who was sometimes rather unwise in her loving kindness, looked greatly pleased.
"I do wish Benny was here," said she. "Boys," she added, as if a new thought had come to her, "go and tell 'Bijah I want to speak to him."
The boys clattered out—a stampede of young colts, it seemed—and soon returned, each doing his part in bringing 'Bijah, for every separate boy had hold of him somewhere, as if at the least laxity on their part there was danger of his escape. 'Bijah grinned broadly and bore it bravely.
"'Bijah," said grandma Potter, "I must have Benny here to dinner; I can't have his place vacant. What can have kept him away?" she added, as if to herself. "I hope he hasn't been doing anything he ought not to—he's such a little rogue."
"Wal, I d' know's I should be for goin' so fur's to say that, Mis' Potter, but Benny is curis, and mebby he has slipped over to Spain or France before comin' round here," said 'Bijah.
"O dear!" groaned grandmother, the names of these far-away regions giving her a sense of exposure and danger, "I hope nothing has happened to my Benny. 'Bijah, you must harness up and go over and see what's the matter."
"Yes'm," said 'Bijah, turning to obey, and every boy set up a petition that he should go in the long wagon and let them go too. So in the long wagon they went, shouting and whistling and singing along, with their eyes wide open to catch a sight of Benny, if by chance he should be coming, loitering on his way. But not one of them looked in the right direction.
In spite of Benny's frequent little derelictions from the path he might have been expected to walk in, his mother was greatly surprised and troubled to hear that he had not arrived at his grandmother's, and, furthermore, that he had not been seen on the road.
"Why, nothing could have tempted him to stay away from grandma's," said she. "Still," she added after a moment's reflection, "he may have gone by the Brook road and met Johnny Barstow. If he has, and then stopped to do a little fishing, he would never think how the time was flying. I never saw a boy who had so little idea of time as Benny."
"Wal," said 'Bijah, "we'll go down the brook road way 'n see 'f we c'n ketch this young trout."
So they returned by the Brook, but found no Benny, and Johnny Barstow hadn't seen him.
Every ray of the calm smile which usually shone in grandma Potter's face faded when she saw 'Bijah and the boys come back without Benny and heard of their fruitless search. She sat silently down in her rocking-chair, and her dear, sweet old face was pale.
"'Bijah," said she at length, "you must take the colt and the light buggy and go—go somewhere—anywhere—everywhere, until you find him. No, boys, you can't go. 'Bijah mustn't be hindered."
'Bijah was at a loss where to go, but he obeyed directions, and went somewhere, anywhere, and it seemed as if he had been everywhere, and inquired at every house in and about Still Harbor, along the shore, in the woods and through the fields, but nobody had seen Benny since about nine o'clock that morning.
At last he went again to see if Benny, perhaps, had got home.
"What!" cried Mrs. Briggs, when she saw 'Bijah come the second time, "he hasn't come? You haven't found him? O, my boy, my boy!"
"O, now, Mis' Briggs, don't you go to worry about Benny," said 'Bijah. "I never see a boy 't knew how to take care of himself better'n Benny. He'll turn up all right, you'll see."
But in spite of his apparent cheerfulness, 'Bijah was a good deal troubled himself. Where could Benny be, unless at the bottom of the Sound?
'Bijah in his search had already been to Mr. Briggs' store to inquire for Benny, and in starting to go there again, he met Mr. Briggs coming home. He and 'Bijah discussed the possibilities and probabilities of Benny's case, and Mr. Briggs agreed to send word over to grandma Potter if Benny came home, and 'Bijah agreed to come directly over and tell his father and mother if Benny should reach his grandmother's at the eleventh hour.
The eleventh hour arrived, however, and still no Benny. The boys sat in the barn door and wondered in voices hushed almost to whispers, where Benny could be.
"Where is Benny?" asked little Fanny again and again. "O, where is Benny?" moaned his poor mother; and the question sank like lead into his father's heart. Grandma raised her gentle eyes and asked it of Heaven itself, and you, my children, by this time are asking it of me. I feel bound to tell you this much: Benny was—I shudder to say it—Benny was enduring the fate once proposed for Mr. Jefferson Davis.
The sun was getting low, the shadows were long on the grass, and Benny's pitiful shadow as it lengthened, stretched nearer and nearer home. Ah, would he ever get there himself again?
It was milking time. 'Bijah sat milking the cows in the barnyard, when in bounced Sandy. He hadn't come on Benny's account, that was plain. He was thirsty, and begged for milk, which he had frequently had from the hand of 'Bijah. He was no story-book dog—only quite a commonplace fellow, who hadn't the faintest idea that he ought to have arrived here hours ago, and won fame for himself by showing the way to Benny. However, you'll see presently that he wasn't to blame for that.
