Deerfoot on the Prairies

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

I need hardly say that it was not so with Deerfoot. He was as dainty as any lady with his person. Kenton, Boone and others had laughed at him many times because of his care in bathing and the frequency with which he plunged into icy cold water for no other reason than for tidiness and health. The material of which his hunting shirt and leggings were made allowed them to be worn a long time without showing the effects, but underneath them was underclothing kept scrupulously clean by Deerfoot’s own hands. Only his close friends knew of his care in this respect, and some of them looked upon it as a weakness approaching effeminacy. And you and I esteem him all the more for these traits, which harmonized with the nobility of his character.

So it was that in the large package secured to the back of Zigzag was considerable that Deerfoot himself had wrapped up, and with the modesty of a girl carefully screened from prying eyes. Aunt Dinah, had she been permitted, would have loaded down two horses with articles for the twins, who, she declared, could not possibly get on without them. As it was, it is enough to say that the boys were far better remembered than they would have been if left to themselves. As Victor expressed it when he saw her gathering and tying up the goods, they had enough to last them for a journey round the world.

The start was made early on Monday morning, when the sun was shining bright and the opening spring stirred every heart into life and filled it with thankfulness to the Giver of All Good. Men, women and children had gathered in the clearing to the north of the settlement to see the party start and to wish them good speed on their journey. Deerfoot and Mul-tal-la had ridden in from the Shawanoe’s home the day before, so that the start might be made from the settlement.

There were the laughing, the jesting, the merry and earnest expressions, with here and there a moist eye, when the travelers were seen seated on their horses and pausing for the final words. The one most to be pitied in all the group was Aunt Dinah, who was bravely trying to hide her real feelings under an expansive smile, in which there was not a shadow of mirth or pleasantry. She stood on the outer edge of the boisterous group, her folded hands under her apron, her eyes fixed on the boys, who were laughing, shaking hands and exchanging wishes and jests with their friends.

Suddenly the colored woman walked forward, pushing her way through the throng to the side of Deerfoot. Then she drew a piece of old-fashioned blue writing paper from under her apron and handed it up to him. He looked smilingly down at her, and she, without saying anything, walked back to the fringe of people and faced around again.

Deerfoot opened the slip and saw some writing in pencil. During the years when George and Victor Shelton struggled, with more or less success, to obtain a common-school education, Aunt Dinah had managed to pick up a bit here and there of elementary knowledge. She had spent a long time the night before, groaning in spirit, often sharpening her stub of a pencil, which, of course, she frequently thrust into her mouth, rubbing out and re-writing, perspiring and toiling with might and main to put together a message for the young Shawanoe’s eyes alone. Not until the other members of the household had long been sunk in slumber did she get the missive in final shape.

Some of the letters were turned backward, all curiously twisted, the lines irregular and the writing grotesque, but the youth to whom the paper was passed made out the following:

“Mister Dearfut—i feal orful bad 2 hav u go orf with them preshus babiz—pleas tak gud car of em, and bring em back rite side up—

“i’ll pra 4 u and the babiz evry nite and mornin, and if i doan forgot in de midle ob de da. i’ll pra speshully 4 u, cause as long as ure all rite, they’ll B all rite.

“Ant Dine.