“It was the last Indian ever heard of on the Quinneshockeny, and he had probably come back to revive old memories of his happy childhood. No, Poplar George was hardly like Emerson Collins’ ‘last Indian,’ as he, my mother averred, was part Indian, part ghost. He was also the last Indian that ever visited the Pucketa, which had been a famous stream in its day for redmen, from the time when old Pucketa, himself, came there to spend his last days, after having been driven out from his former hunting grounds at the head of Lost Creek, which runs into the ‘Blue Juniata’ above Mifflintown.
“The principal part of this story revolves around two large trees that used to stand near the Pucketa, one a big tulip or ‘whitewood’ tree, hollow at the butt, so much so that a half grown person could hide in it, and a huge water poplar tree, or ‘cottonwood,’ a rare tree in Pennsylvania, you know, that stood on lower ground directly in line with it, but on the far side of the creek, which ran parallel with the road. It wasn’t much of a road in those days, I’m told, isn’t much of one yet, little better than a cow path, with grass and dandelions growing between the wagon tracks, and worn foot-path on the creek side of it. Many’s the time I’ve gone along that path to and from school, or to fetch the cows.
AGED FLAX-SPINNER AT WORK, SUGAR VALLEY
“In my boyhood there were two big stumps which always arrested my attention, the stumps of the ‘cottonwood’ and the tulip which I have already mentioned. The native poplar stump, which was chopped breast high for some reason, had been cut before my day, but the tulip tree had stood a dead stab for many years, and was not finally cut until my babyhood. I was too young to recall it, and its stump had been sawed off almost level with the ground.
“When my mother was old enough to notice things, say along six, or seven or eight years of age, both trees was standing, and despite their venerable age, were thrifty and green; the hollow trunk of the tulip did not seem to lessen its vitality. Trees in those days, of all kinds, were pretty common, and regarded as nuisances; the farmers were still having ‘burning bees’ in the spring and fall when all hands would join in and drag with ox-spans the logs of the trees that had been cut when they were clearing new ground, and making huge bonfires, burn them like a modern section foreman does a pile of old railroad ties, and by the way, the time is going to come soon when tie burners will be as severely condemned as the instigators of the ‘burning bees’ in the olden days.
“Trees were too plentiful to attract much attention or create affection or veneration, but these two trees had a very special human interest.
“Long after the Indians passed out of our country they came back as ghosts or ‘familiars,’ just as the wolves, panthers and wild pigeons do, so that the stories of folks seeing them after they became extinct, while not literally true, are in a sense correct[correct]. Closely associated with the life of the big cottonwood was an old Indian, mother said; he wasn’t a real live Indian, yet not a ghost, was probably a half ghost, half Indian, if there could be any such thing.
“The tulip tree was inhabited by a very attractive spirit, an Indian girl, an odd looking one too, for her smooth skin was only a pumpkin color and her eyes a light blue. They all called her ‘Pale Eyes,’ and she was described as slight, winsome and wonderfully pretty. The Indian man, because he spent so much time under the cottonwood or water poplar, became generally known as ‘Poplar George.’ He would appear in the neighborhood early in the spring, in time to gather poke, milkweed, dandelion and bracken for the farmer’s wives, and to teach the young folks to fish, to use the bow and arrow, and snare wild pigeons and doves.
“It was a sure sign of spring when the young people would see him squatting before a very small fire of twigs under the still leafless branches of the ancient poplar tree. He would remain about all summer long, helping with the harvest, so he must have been real flesh and blood, in a sense, and in the fall he gathered nuts, and later cut some cordwood for those who favored him–but in truth he never liked hard, downright work overly much.