The eldest of the trio removed his pipe for an instant and uttered the two words—'I savage.' Andy's rhetoric had been totally incomprehensible.
'Why, then, ye needn't tell me ye're a savidge: it's as plain as a pikestaff. What'll I do with this stick, did ye say, ma'am? Oh, surra bit o' me knows a word she's sayin', though it's mighty like the Irish of a Connaught man. I wondher what it is she's tryin' to make; it resimbles the beginnin' of a big basket at present, an' meself standin' in the inside of the bottom. I can't be far asthray if I dhrive down the three where there's a gap. I don't see how they're to make a roof, an' this isn't a counthry where I'd exactly like to do 'athout one. Now she's fastenin' down the branches round, stickin' 'em in the earth, an' tyin' 'em together wid cord. It's the droll cord, never see a rope-walk anyhow.'
Certainly not; for it was the tough bast of the Canadian cedar, manufactured in large quantities by the Indian women, twisted into all dimensions of cord, from thin twine to cables many fathoms long; used for snares, fishing nets, and every species of stitching. Mrs. Squaw, like a provident housekeeper, had whole balls of it in her traineau ready for use; also rolls of birch-bark, which, when the skeleton wigwam was quite ship-shape, and well interlaced with crossbars of supple boughs, she began to wrap round in the fashion of a covering skirt.
Had crinoline been in vogue in the year 1851, Robert would have found a parallel before his eyes, in these birch-bark flounces arranged over a sustaining framework, in four successive falls, narrowing in circumference as they neared the top, where a knot of bast tied the arching timbers together. He was interested in the examination of these forest tent cloths, and found each roll composed of six or seven quadrangular bits of bark, about a yard square apiece, sewed into a strip, and having a lath stitched into each end, after the manner in which we civilised people use rollers for a map. The erection was completed by the casting across several strings of bast, weighted at the ends with stones, which kept all steady.
The male Indians now vouchsafed to take possession of the wigwam. Solemnly stalking up to Andy, the chief of the party offered his pipe to him for a puff.
'Musha thin, thank ye kindly, an' I'm glad to see ye've some notions o' civiltude, though ye do work the wife harder than is dacent.' But after a single 'draw,' Andy took the pipe in his fingers and looked curiously into its bowl. 'It's the quarest tobacco I ever tasted,' he observed: 'throth if I don't think it's nothin' but chips o' bark an' dead leaves. Here 'tis back for you, sir; it don't shute my fancy, not bein' an Indjin yet, though I dunno what I mightn't come to.' The pipe was received with the deepest gravity.
No outward sign had testified surprise or any other emotion, at the discovery that white men had settled close to their 'sugar-bush,' and of course become joint proprietors. The inscrutable sphinx-like calm of these countenances, the strangeness of this savage life, detained Robert most of the afternoon as by a sort of fascination. Andy's wrath at the male indolence was renewed by finding that the squaw and her girls had to cut and carry all the firewood needful: even the child of seven years old worked hard at bringing in logs to the wigwam. He was unaware that the Indian women hold labour to be their special prerogative; that this very squaw despised him for the help he rendered her; and that the observation in her own tongue, which was emphasized by an approving grunt from her husband, was a sarcasm levelled at the inferiority and mean-spiritedness of the white man, as exemplified in Andy's person.
One of the young fellows, who had dived into the forest an hour before, returned with spoil in the shape of a skunk, which the ever-industrious squaw set about preparing for the evening meal. The fearful odour of the animal appeared unnoticed by the Indians, but was found so hateful by Robert and his Irish squire, that they left the place immediately.