“She is five years old. Her birthday was on the Fourth of July. We had a celebration. Our Captain fired as many rounds of ammunition as she was years old. The mothers made her a cake, with sugar on the top, and with five little candles they made themselves on purpose, and colored with strawberry juice. Oh, surely, there never was such a cake in all the world as they made for our ‘baby!’” cried the lad, forgetting for the moment present troubles in this delightful memory.
“Well, there are other women who can make other cakes,” said Wahneenah, with ready jealousy.
“Oh, but an Indian cake—” began Gaspar, then stopped abruptly, frightened at his own boldness.
Wahneenah smiled. For small Kitty was swift to see the change in her playmate’s face, and her own caught, for an instant, a reflection of its fear. The foster-mother wished to banish this fear.
“Wahneenah likes those who say their thoughts out straight and clear. She is the sister of the Man-Who-Cannot-Lie. It is the crime of the pale-faces that they will lie, and always. Wherefore, they are always in danger. Take warning. Learn to be truth-tellers, like the Pottawatomies, and you will have no trouble.”
A quick retort rose to Gaspar’s lips, but he subdued it. Then he watched what was being done to Kitty, and a faint smile brightened his face, that had been so far too gloomy for his years. Wahneenah had made a long rope of horsehair, gaily adorned with beads and trinkets, and was fastening it about the Sun Maid’s waist. The little one submitted merrily, at first; but when it flashed through her mind that she was thus being made a prisoner, being “tied up,” she burst into a paroxysm of tears and temper that astonished the others, and even herself.
“I will not be ‘tied up!’ I was not a naughty girl. When I am bad, I will be punished, and I will not cry nor stamp my feet. But when I am good, I will be free—free! There shall nobody, nobody do this to me! Not any single body. Gaspar, will you let her do it?”
The boy’s timidity flew to the winds. His dark eyes flashed with indignation, and his heavy brows contracted in a fierce scowl. At that instant, he appeared much older than he really was, and he advanced upon Wahneenah with upraised hand and threatening gesture.
She might easily have picked him up and tossed him out of the way; but there is nothing an Indian woman admires more greatly than courage. In this she does not differ from her pale-faced sisters, and, instead of resenting Gaspar’s rudeness, she smiled upon him.