That needless, unpremeditated, pitiful slaughter of helpless children and women, so recklessly thrust in the way of the all-conquering white man! Stella tried not to dwell upon it; but whenever she was deeply moved the prostrate figure of the nameless mother would appear before her eyes—an ample womanly form shrouded in a dark blanket, and always with the face hidden.
To-night the crowd and the music and the beauty of the sunset and the Bishop’s words together had so wrought upon her, that the mother who sheltered her from the bullets seemed very near, and, forgetting pride and resentment and a certain secret longing, Stella gave herself up wholly to the deep magic of the hour. In her soul there reverberated that phrase Father Waring had once repeated to them, as coming from the lips of one of his native helpers:
“Pray for my people when the sun goes down!”
CHAPTER XVIII
FACING THE SUNRISE
“I don’t see how they can breathe, do you?” Stella prettily apologized to the agency doctor, her bright face a pleasant enough sight in his musty old office, its shelves filled with unwholesome drugs reaching from floor to ceiling. Still a “fresh-air” enthusiast, as in the old Laurel days, she had insisted upon holding long consultations with this official, until he had simply been obliged to rouse himself and forsake the old routine of doling out these same drugs to a long line of Indians,—so far, at least, as Cherry Creek was concerned. Curious, how that young woman would take a personal interest in every single case.
Accordingly, he had entrusted to her a shelf of simple remedies, and had fallen into the habit of sending her full written directions for the care of patients in her neighborhood, especially the children. After she had brought the village almost single-handed through an epidemic of measles, with not a single fatality, he did not withhold from her the praise she certainly deserved, for measles had been regarded as generally fatal among the camp children.
Not satisfied with her accomplishments as a nurse, the young field matron had ideas of her own, which, as confidence grew, she imparted to her ally the doctor, and through him they gradually sifted into the office, and sometimes even appeared on official estimates and requisitions. It was, in fact, at her suggestion that the assistant farmers throughout the reservation had been instructed to teach milking and feeding calves by hand, so that there might be milk for young children and motherless babies. An improved brand of vegetable seeds supplied in greater variety had likewise produced good results. Perhaps her best idea was that of building mud and stone chimneys on to the unventilated log cabins—a plan that might have saved many lives if there had been energy enough available to put it into effect. To be sure, there were plenty of tents for tuberculous patients, but to suggest moving from a house into a teepee would have been far too reactionary.
Within eighteen months, she had become quite the autocrat of her own little village—old Standing Cloud being merely the figure-head. She had drilled her small household with infinite patience—and not without a long siege with Grandmother—to such “civilized” habits as regular meal-times, sitting down at table, and a weekly wash-day. The children’s bath night was duly observed, even though the ceremony must take place in a wooden wash-tub beside the kitchen stove.