When the Indian woman had eaten her breakfast, she said “good” again; then she asked Maud’s mother if she and the other Indians could have some trees which stood on the farm, “down in the lot;” they wanted the bark from them to make into baskets to sell, to buy blankets with. Maud’s mother said “she would ask John,” meaning Maud’s papa; and if he said yes, they might have them; but John was gone off in the fields, nobody knew where. And so the Indian woman knocked the ashes out of her pipe, strapped the solemn little papoose on her back, and tramped off, down the road, looking like a picture in her gay feathers, and bright blanket, as she wound in and out among the trees.
Perhaps you think because Maud’s papa had to plow, and hoe, and rake, and dig, that he had no time to play with his little girl. Ah, you are mightily mistaken; the minute the old farmer turned the corner of the road, which led up to the house, he gave a loud whistle for little Maud; she heard it, with her little sharp ears, and out she toddled, out the gate, and down the road, with her brown hair blowing about her rosy face, and her eyes all a glow with love and fun; then the old farmer would open his arms wide to catch her, and then she would laugh such a musical laugh that it made the little birds jealous; and then the old farmer would hoist Maud up on his broad, strong shoulder, her fat little calves dangling, and one round arm thrown about his neck, and away they would go under the trees, home. Then when they got there, they went into the kitchen (the floor of which was as white as snow), and the farmer would wash his sun-burned face, and honest brown hands, and then sitting down to the supper-table with his good wife opposite him, and Maud on his knee, he would thank God for them both, and ask His blessing on their supper; and the setting sun streaming in at the window on his silver hair, would light up little Maud’s sweet innocent face till you could almost believe it to be an angel’s.
After John, and his wife, and Maud, had finished their supper, Maud’s mother told John what the Indian woman said about wanting the bark of his trees to make baskets of.
John crossed his arms on the table, and leaning over it, so as to look his wife full in the face said, “Jenny! I can understand why the Lord made snakes, and musquitoes, and rats, and cockroaches, but I never could understand why an Indian was made. Now, I don’t want to hate any thing He has seen fit to make; but I should rather no Indians would cross my path. As to the trees, I can find a better use for them than to make Indian baskets of them, and so I told one of the tribe whom I met over yonder in the woods, a cut-throat looking rascal he was too.”
“Oh, John,” said Jenny, looking fearfully at little Maud; “I am always so careful to be friendly with those Indians.”
John laughed heartily, and getting up stretched out his brawny arms, as if it were impossible for any danger to come near any one whom he loved.
It was twelve o’clock of a bright Saturday noon. John’s wife had been very busy all the morning making pickles; now she took in her hand the huge bell to call John in to dinner, and rang it loudly outside the door. John heard its clear sharp tones, and stopping only to plow to the end of a furrow, unyoked his oxen, and trudged whistling home. “Where is Maud?” he asked, as he sat down to his smoking-hot dinner. “Out in the garden,” said his wife, “busy as a bee, picking berries in her little tin pail.”
John went to the door and whistled, shading his eyes with his hand, as he did so, to see if his pet were near.
He listened; no merry laugh met his ear. Ah, Maud must be hiding, for fun, amid the tall currant-bushes; the little rogue! and John crossed over the garden, to look for her. No, she was not there; nor swinging on the low branches of the great apple-tree; nor up in the barn, where the old horse contentedly munched his oats, and the little gray mice scampered over the floor, for grain; nor up on the log, peeping into the pig-stye; nor at the spring, looking at the darting little fish. Where was she? John went back to the house.
“The Indians!” was all Maud’s mother could whisper, through her white lips, as her husband returned alone.