During the last winter of her life Kateri had frequent attacks of illness severe enough to keep her in the cabin. No sooner was she on her feet, however, than she was again at work. She did not spare herself or shorten her devotions. When she was too weak to kneel, she could still be seen at her prayers in the church, supporting herself against a bench. On one occasion when her health was restored for a time, she accompanied Thérèse to La Prairie, whither she was sent to carry certain articles from the village at the Sault. On the way there or back, Kateri, falling a little behind the others, took off her moccasins and walked barefooted on the ice. She was noticed and hastily put on her shoes again. She soon overtook the others, and would willingly have let them suppose she had been delayed by a little accident of some sort. Thérèse, who knew her best, thought otherwise.
On the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin most of the villagers were away at the hunting-camp. Kateri chose to walk through her field on that day with bare feet, as if in a sort of procession, while she recited her beads several times over, the snow being more than knee-deep.
As Lent approached, she increased her austerities till at last she reached the climax of all. Thinking that she had not much longer to live, and must hasten to do penance while on earth, she looked about for some new instrument of pain. It was then the beginning of Lent, and she had been meditating on the Passion of our Lord. She was gathering wood. Near at hand, she saw a great thorny brier. In a transport of fervor she seized it. The thorns were sharp and cutting. Had she looked far and near, she could not have found anything better suited to her purpose. She eagerly and hurriedly conceals it in her bundle of fagots, then lifts the scraggy mass to her back, adjusts the burden strap on her forehead, and starts at once for the lodge of Anastasia. Finding her own lodge-seat, she loosens the thorny brier from the fagots, covers it quickly with a large mat, and then proceeds to stow the wood in its proper place. The evening drags, but at length the inmates all come in for the night, and soon the evening meal is over. The prayers have been said. The lodge-fires flicker and die out. The Indians fall asleep,—all but Kateri. She has no thought of rest. She prays far into the night. Her bed is made, and a cruel bed it is. At last she looks towards it. She lifts the rug that covers it, clasps tightly in her hand a little crucifix she always wears about her neck, and with a fervent aspiration of love to God, throws herself upon the thorns. As she rolls from side to side, she grows faint, and her lips are parched with thirst, but still she has no desire to leave her thorny couch. She murmurs prayer after prayer, and waits for the daylight to come before rising from her bed to hide the brambles, now flecked with blood. Kateri is as busy as usual the next day, and her blithe smile comes and goes as freely as ever. Still, when night settles down on the village, she does not sleep, but tosses again on her bed of thorns. On the following day Thérèse observes that Kateri is tired and weak. She draws her breath quickly, as they walk over the rough ground together, and her head droops low at her prayers. Her friend tries to coax her to take more rest, to leave this or that task for another day. But all in vain. To Kateri every moment is precious now, and not one daily duty is left undone when she retires for the third time to her bed of thorns. When day dawns, she is up as usual, and Thérèse comes early to see her. Gladly would she escape the searching eye of her friend, but it is of no use. Kateri is ghastly pale, and Thérèse, suspecting the truth, will not be put off. She espies the thorns, and Kateri confesses all. A pang went to the heart of Thérèse, when she thought of Kateri's innocence and of her own sins. How could she have slept while this pure-hearted one whom she loved so well was rolling upon thorns! The next thought of the impulsive, warm-hearted Thérèse was one of concern for the life of her friend. She spoke quickly and vehemently to Kateri, declaring that she would certainly offend God if she inflicted such sufferings on herself without the permission of her confessor. This aroused the scruples of Tekakwitha. "Catherine, who trembled at the very appearance of sin," says Cholenec, "came immediately to find me, to confess her fault and ask pardon of God. I blamed her indiscretion, and directed her to throw the thorns into the fire." This she did at once. When it was simply a question of obedience to one who held rightful authority over her, Kateri did not hesitate. Her confessor testifies that she never showed the least attachment to her own will, but was always submissive to his direction. "She found herself very ill," he continues, "towards the time that the men are accustomed to go out to the hunting-grounds in the forest, and when the females are occupied from morning until evening in the fields. Those who are ill are therefore obliged to remain alone through the whole day in their cabins, a plate of Indian corn and a little water having in the morning been placed near the mat." It was thus that Kateri Tekakwitha passed through her last illness, during the Lent of 1680. She lay helpless in the lodge of Anastasia, while the corn was being planted in the fields, and the birds were flying northward across the Mohawk River. These little friends of hers brought back to her many a thought of her native valley, as they stopped to dip their bills in the St. Lawrence, and to sing awhile to Kateri in her pain.
The children, too, came in to see her now and then. The blackgown whose task it was to teach them, gathered them close to her mat one day. She was too ill to move; but when he unrolled the pictures of the Old and New Testaments which he had with him, and began to explain them to the eager, bright-eyed little ones, a glow of interest came into the weary eyes that were dull with suffering a moment before. Forgetting all else but her insatiable desire for true knowledge, Kateri with great effort raised herself on her elbow, that she might see and understand better what was going on. A question now and then from her drew out a fuller explanation from the blackgown. The children themselves, with quick sympathy, caught from her low, earnest tones, a keener relish for the truth, and listened with rapt attention to the lesson drawn from the sacred story. At the stroke of the Angelus the instruction was over, and also the children's visit. How quickly the time had passed! Kateri thanked the blackgown, and begged him to come again with his class to the lodge, that he might teach both her and them. "Farewell, Kateri," the children cry, as they hasten out to their sports. Quickly they forget her, and she too has forgotten them; she has clasped her crucifix in her hands, and is still buried in prayer when the women begin to come in from the field.
FOOTNOTES:
[67] This incident is given by Cholenec in his manuscript entitled "La Vie de Catherine Tegakouita, Première Vierge Irokoise." He adds: "Père Chauchetière wanted her put in the church; but I put her in the place she had indicated, without knowing it till long afterwards."
CHAPTER XXIV.
KATERI'S DEATH.—"I WILL LOVE THEE IN HEAVEN."—THE BURIAL.—HER GRAVE AND MONUMENT.