“Ask the Great Spirit that the peace may long continue.”
Till, on one especial day, the younger woman demanded:
“Well, why should it not, my Mother? It is now many weeks since I have been called to settle any little quarrel among our people. Surely they are learning wisdom fast. Do you know something? I intend that some of the squaws who are idle shall make my baby, Gaspar the Second, a little costume of our own tribe. It shall be all complete; as if he were a tiny chief himself, with his leggings and head-dress, and—yes, even a little bow and quiver. I’ll have it finished, maybe, before his father comes down from this last trip into the far-away woods. Oh! I shall be glad when my ‘brave’ can trust all his business of mining and fur-buying and lumbering to somebody else. I miss him so. But won’t he be pleased with our little lad in feathers and buckskin?”
Wahneenah’s dark eyes looked keenly at her daughter’s face.
“No, beloved; he will not be pleased. In his heart of hearts, the white chief was ever the red man’s enemy. Me he loves and a few more. But let the White Papoose” (Wahneenah still called her foster-child by the old love names of her childhood) “let the White Papoose hear and remember: the day is near when the Dark-Eye will choose between his friends and the friends of his wife. It is time to prepare. There is a distress coming which shall make of this Chicago a burying-ground. Our Dark-Eye has bought much land. He is always, always buying. Some day he will sell and the gold in his purse will be too heavy for one man’s carrying. But first the darkness, the blood, the death. Let him choose now a house of refuge for you and the little children; choose it where there are trees to shelter and water to refresh. Let him build there a tepee large enough for all your needs,—a wigwam, remember, not a house. Let him stock it well with food and clothing and the guns which protect.”
“Why, Other Mother! What has come over you? Such a dismal prophecy as that is worse than any which old Katasha ever breathed. Are you ill, Wahneenah, dearest?”
“There is no sickness in my flesh; yet in my heart is a misery that bows it to the earth. But I warn you. If you would find favor in the eyes of your brave, clothe not his son in the costume of the red man.”
Kitty was unaccountably depressed. Hitherto she had been able to laugh aside the sometimes sombre auguries of the chief’s sister; but now something in the woman’s manner made her believe that she knew more than she disclosed of some impending disaster. However, it was not in her nature, nor did she believe it right, that she should worry over vague suggestions. So she answered once more before quite dismissing the subject:
“Well, we were already discussing the comfort of having another home out in the forest, and Abel has suggested that we build it on the land which was his farm and which Gaspar has bought. We both liked that; to have our own children play where we played as children. I want my little ones to learn about the wild things of the woods, and the dear old Doctor is still alive to teach them. You will like it, too, Other Mother. When the days grow hot and long we will ride to the ‘Refuge’; and I think the wigwam idea is better, after all, than the house; though I do not know what my husband will decide.”
“Before the days grow long, the ‘Refuge’ must be finished, and the earlier the better. It is rightly named, my daughter, and the time is ripe.”