CONFIDENCE IN AN INDIAN.
That part of the country round the thriving town of Utica, in the State of New York, and through which a railroad now runs, was formerly called Whitesborough, and there is now a small town joining Utica so called. The first settler in that part of the country was a Mr. White, after whom the place was named. At the time we speak of, there were numerous Indians living in the neighborhood; with them he had several interviews, and mutual promises of friendship were exchanged. He also smoked the pipe of peace with them, to confirm the contract more solemnly.
Still the Indians were suspicious. “The white men,” said they, “are deceitful, and we must have some proof of his sincerity.”
Accordingly, one evening, during Mr. White’s absence from home, three Indians went to his house. At first, Mrs. White and her children were much alarmed, but on perceiving one of the Indians to be Shen-an-do-ah, whom they knew to be a mild, humane man, their fear was in some degree quieted. On entering the house, they addressed Mrs. White, saying, “We are come to ask you for your little daughter Jane, that we may take her home with us to-night.”
Such a request might well startle the good woman; she knew not what answer to give. To refuse might, she feared, excite their anger; to grant their request might hazard the liberty or even the life of her child.
Lucidly at this moment, whilst the Indians were waiting for a reply, Mr. White, the father of the child, came in. The request was repeated to him, and he had sufficient presence of mind to grant it, instantly and cheerfully.
The mother was overwhelmed with surprise, and felt all the horror that can be conceived; but she was silent, for she knew it would be vain to resist. The little girl was fetched, and delivered to the Indians, who lived about ten or twelve miles off.
Shen-an-do-ah took the child by the hand, and led her away through the woods, having first said to her father, “To-morrow, when the sun is high in the heavens, we will bring her back.”
Mrs. White had often heard that the Indians were treacherous; and she well knew they were cruel; she therefore looked upon her little daughter as lost, and considered that she was given as a kind of sacrifice to save the family.
Mr. White endeavored to comfort her, for he felt assured that his child would be brought safely back the following morning. To the poor mother the night was long and sleepless; her anxiety became greater as the promised time approached. Already she imagined that the Indians would keep their word, and indeed bring back their child, but she fully believed that they would not bring her back alive. She watched the sun with a beating heart, and just when it seemed at the highest point of the heavens, she cried out to her husband, “there they are!”
Shen-an-do-ah and his companions were faithful to their promise; they now came back with the little Jane, who, smiling with delight, was decked out in all the finery that an Indian wigwam could furnish—necklaces of shells, dyed feathers, and moccasins beautifully worked with porcupine quills. She was delighted with her visit and with her presents.
The effect of Mr. White’s confidence was just what might be expected. From this time the Indians were his friends; had he acted with timidity, and refused to let his child visit them, they would have had no confidence in him.
Shen-an-do-ah was an Oneida chief of some celebrity, having fought on the side of the Americans in the Revolutionary war. He lived to be a hundred years old, and though in his youth he was very wild, and addicted to drunkenness, yet by the force of his own good sense, and the benevolent exhortations of a Christian missionary, he lived a reformed man for more than sixty years.[3] He was intrepid in war, but mild and friendly in the time of peace. His vigilance once preserved the infant settlements of the German flats (on the Mohawk) from being cruelly massacred by a tribe of hostile Indians; his influence brought his own tribe to assist the Americans, and his many friendly actions in their behalf gained for him, among the Indian tribes, the appellation of the “White man’s friend.”
To one who went to see him a short time before his death, he thus expressed himself: “I am an aged hemlock—the winds of a hundred winters have whistled through my branches—I am dead at the top. The generation to which I belonged have passed away and left me. Why I still live, the Great Spirit alone knows! But I pray to him that I may have patience to wait for my appointed time to die.”
[3] In 1775 Shen-an-do-ah was present at a treaty made in Albany. At night he was excessively drunk, and in the morning he found himself in the street, stripped of all his ornaments, and every article of clothing. His pride revolted at his self-degradation, and he resolved never more to deliver himself over to the power of “strong water.”
“THE SPELL OF A GENTLE WORD.”
BY MARGARET J. BURWELL.
’Twas night, and the cool and perfumed breeze,
Breath’d soft mid the boughs of the waving trees,
Or low to the wild wood-flowers it sigh’d,
While the tiny buds to its tones replied;
But when the gay music of fairy-glee,
In the clear, calm midnight rose merrily,
And a thousand glancing beings of air,
Like countless gems held their revels there,
It fled from the woods and the flowers away,
And stole to a silent room, where lay
A dying girl:—
Her mournful eyes
Look’d out from their tears on the dark’ning skies,
Where a single star in its glory shone,
Like a haughty heart, bereft and lone.
Round the marble brow waved the clust’ring hair,
And the tiny hands were clasp’d as in pray’r;
She spoke, and each low and trembling word
Was sad as the wail of the widow’d bird.
“Oh! sweet is the spell that the zephyr flings
As it sweeps o’er the wild harp’s silvery strings;
And soft is the murmur’d minstrelsy
Of the flashing waves on the summer sea;
And the rain drops breathe, as they near the earth,
A gladsome chorus of joy and mirth;
The blue-bells ring ever in tones of glee,
And a pleasant sound hath the humming bee;
And though strangely sad is the spirit’s sigh,
When the crimson clouds leave the evening sky,
Yet when sunbeams burst on the sleeping flowers,
With visions of streamlets and fragrant bowers,
With a flush of joy on their petals bright,
They ope with a chorus of wild delight.
The gem that gleams on the velvet vest,
That shelters each slumbering floweret’s breast,
And has whisper’d all night of its home on high,
Where its sisters dwell in the beaming sky,
Takes a sweeter tone when the dawning day
Bids it leave the earth on its heavenward way;
The dancing brook murmurs a joyous tale,
Of the leafy wood and mossy vale;
And have ye not heard, when the shades of night
Hung dark o’er the earth, and the stars were bright,
A soft, sweet tone like the violet’s song,
Or the lay of the waves as they glide along?
But no! it is sweeter than they, by far,
’Tis the spirit-strain of some wand’ring star.
But softer than music of star or sea,
Than dew drops’ murmur, or hum of the bee,
Than the tale of the brook, or the song of the bird,
Is the mystic spell of a gentle word;
It falls on the heart as a summer shower
On the fading leaves of the thirsting flower;
Like a beam of hope, with its cheering ray,
It lightens the gloom of life’s weary way;
And when the darkness of death draws near,
And the spirit shrinks from a nameless fear,
It tells the soul of a radiant shore,
Where sorrow and sighing are known no more.
But I am alone;—no loved one is nigh
To bend kindly o’er me and pray e’er I die:
I hear the clear song of the joyous bird,
But I listen in vain for one gentle word.”
Then an aged man with his locks of snow,
Press’d an earnest kiss on her fever’d brow;
She had knelt with him oft at the hour of prayer,
In her childhood’s home, when the world seem’d fair,
And a thousand flow’rs on her path were shed;—
But now, when they all were faded and dead,
And her heart was sad, and her soul most drear,
And death hover’d o’er her, he only was near.
“My child!”—he said—“though none o’er thee may weep,
Fear not, for the angels a vigil shall keep
By thy lowly grave, and a requiem sing
For the bud that died in its blossoming.
Yon star that is shining so brightly above,
Would tell thee a tale of God’s merciful love;
For e’en as it glows through the darkness of night,
Thy spirit shall beam in the land of light;
Thy mother, my dear one, awaits thee on high,
She would welcome her child to her home in the sky.”
“My mother!” she murmur’d—a sweet smile play’d
Round the tiny mouth, while the cool breeze stray’d
’Mid the clustering curls on that low, pale brow,
And breath’d on the cheek of stainless snow;
But the dark eye was closed—the maiden ne’er stirred—
Her spirit had passed with that gentle word.