“Sing again to me,” he said. And so she sang:
“Lo! glad I come; and thou, blest Lamb,
Shalt take me to thee, as I am;
Nothing but sin have I to give;
Nothing but love shall I receive.”
“What did you say his name was?” said the dying man.
“Jesus,” she sobbed.
“Lift up my head,” he said to his weeping wife. “Take hold of my hand, my niece,” he said. “It is getting so dark I cannot see the trail. I have no guide. What did you say was his name?”
“Jesus,” again she sobbed. And with that name on his lips he was gone.
Call not this picture overdrawn. Hundreds of these Indians have long lost faith in paganism, and in their hours of peril, or in the presence of death even, many of them who have learned but little about Christianity cling to those who have some knowledge of the great salvation and strive to grope into the way.
The two women were alone on the island with their dead, and with no canoe by which they could return to the distant mainland. But Indian women are quick at devising plans to meet emergencies, and so Astumastao speedily resolved on a plan to bring help to them. What she did was this. She cut a long pole from a clump of tall, slender trees which grew near their wigwam, and then securely fastening her shawl to it, she hoisted it up as a signal on a point where it was visible from the shore. Soon it was observed, and help came speedily.
There was a good deal of genuine sorrow expressed by the Indians in their own quiet way. After many questions had been asked and answered, they wrapped up the body in birch bark, and conveyed it across to the mainland, and there buried it with their usual Indian pagan rites, much to the regret of Astumastao.
Left alone with her aunt, who was quite feeble, upon Astumastao fell the chief work of supplying food for both. Bravely did she apply herself to the task; and such was her skill and industry that a good degree of success crowned her efforts, and very seldom indeed was it that their wigwam was destitute of food. Often had she some to spare for the old and feeble ones who, according to the heartless custom of some of the tribes, when they reach the time of life when they can neither snare rabbits nor catch fish, are either thrown out of the wigwams in the bitter cold, and left to freeze to death, or they are deserted in the forests, and left to be devoured by the wild beasts.