“Yes, real Indians, bows and arrows and all! They owned all the land before the white man came and drove them off. But now the Indians are far away from here and they are different from the ones we read about in the history books. The Indians now are more like the poor birds people put in cages---” Her eyes gleamed and her face grew eloquent with expression as she thought of the gross injustice meted out to some of the red men in this land of the free.
“Go on, Manda, go on with the story,” cried the children. Only Martin had seen the look in her eyes, that mother-look of compassion.
“Very well, I’ll go on.”
“And, Charlie,” said Mary, “you keep quiet now and don’t break in when Manda talks.”
“Well,” the story-teller resumed, “the Indians who lived out in the woods, far from towns or cities, had to find all their own food. They caught fish, shot animals and birds, planted corn and gathered berries. Some of them they ate at once, but many of them they dried and stored away for winter use. While the older Indians did harder work, the little Indian children ran off to the woods and gathered the berries. But one thing they had to look out for--bears! Great big bears lived in the woods and they are very fond of sweet things. The bears would amble along, peel great handfuls of ripe berries from the bushes with their big clawed paws and eat them. So all good Indian mothers taught their children a Bear Charm Song to sing as they gathered berries. Whenever the bears heard the Bear Charm Song they went to some other part of the woods and left the children to pick their berries unharmed. But once there was a little Indian boy who wouldn’t mind his mother. He went to the woods one day to gather berries, but he wouldn’t sing the Bear Charm Song, not he! So he picked berries and picked berries, and all of a sudden a great big bear stood by him. Then the little Indian boy, who wouldn’t mind his mother, began to sing the Bear Charm Song. But it was too late. The great big bear put his big paws around the little boy and squeezed him, squeezed him, tighter and tighter and tighter--till the little boy who wouldn’t mind his mother was changed into a tiny black bat. Then he flew back to his mother, but she didn’t know him, and so she chased him and said, ’Go away! Little black bird of the night, go away!’ And that is where the bats first came from.”
“Ain’t that a good story?” said Charlie as Amanda ended. “Tell us another.”
“Not now. Perhaps after a while,” she promised. “Here’s another patch of berries. Shall we pick here?”
“Yes, fill the pails,” said Martin, “then we’ll be ready for the next number on the program. It seems Amanda’s the committee of one to entertain us.”
But the next number on the program was furnished by an unexpected participant. The berrying party was busy picking when a crash was heard as if some heavy body were running wild through the leaves and sticks of the woods near by.
“Oh,” cried Charlie, “I bet that’s a bear! Manda, sing a Bear Charm Song!”