"We are indeed builders," answered Mordecai a little dryly, "but not always for ourselves." He rose. "Shall I send for them?"
"The sooner the better. And it will be good to meet your fellow Hebrews again, eh, Mordecai?"
Abram Mordecai, already at the door, turned a moment. His eyes, a striking hazel in the tan of his roughened face, grew wistful for a moment. "I am more Indian than Jew, more savage than white man," he answered gravely. "Perhaps it is a pity," and he was gone.
Mordecai, the child of the wilderness, where the struggle against savage and beast of prey sharpen the wits and teach the pioneer the need for rapid decisions, lost no time in executing his commission. As soon as word could reach Lyon, he informed his old comrade of the work he had in mind for him. The next post told Mordecai that the two men with their tools, gin saws and other materials loaded upon pack horses, were already on their way to Alabama. He waited eagerly for their arrival. The gin meant more to him than a source of revenue, were he successful in the cotton market. For, as Hawkins had observed, the Jew was not content to be a mere trader and hunter, like so many adventurers of the back woods. He longed to build, to create something lasting even in that ever-changing wilderness. And perhaps, mingled with his impatience, was a queer longing to see his own again, not merely white men like Colonel Hawkins, but Jews such as he had known before leaving his native Pennsylvania so many years ago. He smiled to find himself actually counting the days before he could expect Lyon and Barrett to arrive.
They came at last one evening near sunset, two brown-skinned rovers in half-savage dress affected by the backwoodsmen of that day; Lyon, grave and silent, Barrett, with a boy's laugh, despite the sprinkling of gray in his curly hair. Mordecai stood at the door of his hut to greet them. A little behind him, humbly respectful like all the women of her nation to her lord and master, stood a squaw clad in a blanket with strings of beads woven in the long, dark braids of her hair. Her bright, black eyes sparkled with interest as she surveyed the strangers; but as they came nearer, she turned quickly and went back into the hut, where she continued to prepare the evening meal. But Mordecai advanced toward the travellers, his hand extended in welcome.
"Shalom Aleichem," he began, his tongue faltering a little over the old Hebrew greeting he had not used for so long. "I am glad you have come at last."
"Aleichem Shalom," answered Lyon. "It is long since we have met, Abram Mordecai." He took his old comrade's outstretched hand and indicated Barrett with a curt nod. "My friend," he said, briefly. "He will help us build the gin."
"You are both welcome," their host assured them. "Becky," he called, and the Indian woman appeared at the door, "unload the horses and bed them for the night with ours," and he indicated a roughly constructed barn a little way from the hut which it so resembled. "But first bring a pail of fresh water from the spring that these gentlemen may wash after their journey."
Becky, still devouring the newcomers with her eyes, curiously, like those of an inquisitive squirrel, caught up a wooden bucket that stood by the open door and started down the winding path that led to the spring. "My wife," explained Mordecai, pretending not to see the look of surprise with which his former friend Lyon greeted his statement. "Yes," half in apology, "I know it seems strange to you. But for so many years I felt myself a part of the Creek nation, that when I was ill with malarial fever and she nursed me back to health, I was glad to lessen my loneliness and make her my wife according to the customs of her people. Yet," and he smiled a little bitterly, "yet, strange as it may seem, I still remember that I am a Jew."
He led them into the little cabin with its one window and floor of clay. At one end stood a rude fireplace made of bricks where a huge kettle swung Indian-fashion above the logs. At the other end of the room several heavy blankets indicated a bed, the only furniture being a few rough chairs, a table and an old trunk half covered by a gayly striped blanket such as Indian women weave. "A rough place, even for the wilderness," confessed Mordecai, "but I dare attempt no better. Of late, the Indians once so friendly, have grown surly and suspicious; they rightly fear that the white man will wrench the wilderness from them. Especially Towerculla, a neighboring chief, who hates the ways of the whites and has been murmuring against me ever since he has heard that a cotton gin will be erected through my agency. So who knows when I will be driven from this place by the red men—providing that they allow me to escape with my life."