CHAPTER XV
THE SCENE SHIFTS
Cherry Creek is one of those erratic streams that flow eastward into the brown Missouri across the billowing plains—now a mere wavy line of timber fringing a dry ravine; again an angry yellow flood that drowns box-elder and wild cherry and washes the feet of the slim young cottonwoods.
The sun-brimmed solitude of a September day enfolded the two girls, Blue Earth and Yellow Star—for, although mother of a five-year-old boy, the deserted wife of Young Eagle was in reality not so much older than her friend—as they happily gathered red-and-yellow Dakota plums in the rustling thickets away up the creek. The young mother was quaintly robed in a loose, wide-sleeved “Dakota gown” of Turkey red calico, while the young maid was more trimly clad in one of the plain, indigo-blue prints that she had last worn in Mrs. Sophia’s kitchen. Only the freedom of the new life was symbolized and expressed by sleeves rolled over the dimpled, brown elbows, uncovered, glossy head, and soft, richly embroidered moccasins on the slender feet.
The honey-sweet plums, a peck or more, had been harvested in a wide-mouthed cotton sack. “Let me carry it—you have the baby!” cried Yellow Star, gayly tossing the sack over one shoulder, while the other picked up a placid bundle rolled in a patchwork quilt from under the wild plum tree, and with much maternal cooing and chattering proceeded to secure it on her back, in the folds of the bright shawl she wore.
“Chas-kay! Chas-ka-a-ay! Where is the little rascal?” she scolded, good-humoredly; and Yellow Star took up the musical call and sent it ringing through the ravines. In a minute or so, there came obediently stumbling up the slippery bank a queer little nondescript figure, attired in nothing but a green calico shirt and a pair of tiny moccasins, its two tight braids of black hair tied up with red flannel, and the round face of a shining cinnamon brown set with two black gems, in the shape of a pair of sparkling, mischievous eyes.
“I was only digging medicine,” the elf soberly announced; “good medicine for The-One-who-was-left-Alive!” He held up a long, straggling root, and looked so irresistibly important that both girls burst into peals of tuneful laughter.
