You wouldn't have relished living in those days, would you? What do you think you would have done had the Indians come into your door?—scampered under the bed, or seized the gun and defended your mother? It is hard telling, isn't it? I'm very glad you are not obliged to live in such days. The poor Indians had also their story of wrong to tell. God will judge both rightly.
The sun shone brightly one autumn afternoon into a room where two little children were playing, in a pretty little village in the State of South Carolina. "Robert," said little Nina, to a dark-eyed boy of twelve years, "I'm tired of staying in this unfurnished room; it isn't pretty. Hasn't mother most done baking, Robert? Can't we go into the kitchen? I'm afraid of the Indians, too, without mamma."
Robert took his little sister in his arms, and stroked her little black head, and kissed her cheek, and then he drew himself proudly up, saying, "Nina? Do you see that gun? Well, it is loaded, and I know how to use it."
"Oh, Robert!" said Nina, "hush! Is not that mamma screaming? Oh, Robert, hide me—the Indians—the Indians!"
Robert had just time to seize his gun, when a tall Indian opened the door, and receiving the contents of it in his face, fell, quivering, to the floor.
Bald Eagle, the chief of the party, heard the report of Robert's gun, and rushed in with a dozen Indians. Robert, with his eye flashing, was standing over the dead Indian, with one arm round his little sister, who was clinging to his jacket.
Bald Eagle admired bravery; so, when the other Indians seized Robert by the hair to tomahawk him, for killing their comrade, he said, "No;—the pappoose is brave enough to make a chief. He shall go home with Bald Eagle and be his son."
The Indians frowned, for they thirsted for somebody's blood. They seized hold of Nina's long curls to kill her; but Robert clung to the old chief's knees, and, though he didn't think much of girls or women, Bald Eagle said, "She shall live—to please the boy."
The Indians lowered their tomahawks, for they didn't dare to disobey Bald Eagle, and led Nina and Robert out of the house, which had been set on fire and was beginning to burn.
As they passed the kitchen door, Nina gave a loud scream, for there lay her mother, across the threshold, quite dead. The old chief lifted his tomahawk, frowning at her fiercely from beneath his nodding plume, and Robert whispered, "Hush, Nina, or they will kill you, too;" and Nina stifled her sobs, and permitted the Indians to lead her away.