“From the lodges along the Kennebec and from the camp fires of the Androscoggin they have come to make plans for peace upon Merrymeeting Bay. A captive maid is to be returned to the Kennebec lover from whom she was stolen and the wicked kidnapper, of another tribe, is to be sentenced to exile. Behold the council fire!”
Softly from behind the rocks, in the posed Indian moccasins, other figures joined the first group and with them marched in silent procession before the spectators. Then they circled round the camp fire, which was then lit by the chieftain.
After this interesting part of the ceremony had been watched by the audience (though not in silence, for the chief had some difficulty in getting his fire to burn), the other Indians lit their torches (flash-lights) from the camp fire and started a weird dance upon the rocks to the sound of an Indian drum beating in hollow tones. Presently the dance stopped and the Indians sat down in a circle around the chief.
“Bring forth the captive!” called the chief in a sepulchral voice. Then came an Indian maid, well hung with beads, her hands bound, her head bowed, as she walked between two Indian guards. While she knelt before the chief, Lilian’s voice came from the rocks in “From the Land of the Sky-Blue Water”. Like her prototype in the song, the “captive maid was mute”, though she told the girls afterward that she longed to break her bonds, for a bug was crawling up her arm and a mosquito had just bitten her nose.
The girls played well their short Indian drama. The bonds of the captive maid were loosened and she was restored to the arms of her Indian lover, who glared dramatically at his rival, the captive villain who was sentenced to exile and slunk away to his canoe, as pointed out by the old chief:
Far from the smiling Kennebec,
Far from thy lodge and tribe,
I bid thee go! Thy name shall be
A name for jeer and gibe.
The play over at this point, the attractive Indians now brought out the boxes of marshmallows and passed them around to the assembled company who had previously provided themselves with sticks. Afterward came the usual singing of the dear Merrymeeting songs and other favorites; and while Lilian’s voice, never sweeter, floated softly in “By the Waters of Minnetonka,” the waters of the Kennebec rippled past, and the same old moon which had looked upon the real Indians not so many years ago, shone down on the blithe Merrymeeting campers.