“I thank you, Pigeonswing, with all my heart, and am just as grateful for your good intentions, as I should be was you to do all you wish. It is the mind that makes the marcy, and not always the deed. But you can never find the food of a pale-face kitchen out here in the Openings of Michigan. When a body comes to reckon up all the good things of Ameriky, she don't know where to begin, or where to stop. I miss tea as much as anything. And milk comes next. Then there's buckwheat and coffee—though things may be found in the woods to make coffee of, but tea has no substitute. Then, I like wheaten bread, and butter, and potatoes, and many other such articles, that I was used to all my life, until I came out here, close to sunset. As for pies and custards, I can't bear to think of 'em now!”
Pigeonswing looked intently at the woman, as she carefully enumerated her favorites among the dishes of her home-kitchen. When she had ended, he raised a finger, looked still more significantly at her, and said:
“Why don't go back, get all dem good t'ings? Better for pale-face to eat pale-face food, and leave Injin Injin food.”
“For my part, Pigeonswing, I wish such had ever been the law. Venison, and prairie-fowls, and wild ducks, and trout, and bear's meat, and wild pigeons, and the fish that are to be found in these western rivers, are all good for them that was brought up on 'em, but they tire an eastern palate dreadfully. Give me roast beef any day before buffalo's hump, and a good barn-yard fowl before all the game-birds that ever flew.”
“Yes; dat de way pale-face squaw feel. Bess go back, and get what she like. Bess go quick as she can—go today.”
“I'm in no such hurry, Pigeonswing, and I like these Openings well enough to stay a while longer, and see what all these Injins, that they tell me are about 'em, mean to do. Now we are fairly among your people, and on good terms with them, it is wisest to stay where we are. These are war-times, and travelling is dangerous, they tell me. When Gershom and Bourdon are ready to start, I shall be ready.”
“Bess get ready, now,” rejoined Pigeonswing; who, having given this advice with point, as to manner, proceeded to the spring, where he knelt and slaked his thirst. The manner of the Chippewa was such as to attract the attention of the missionary, who, full of his theory, imagined that this desire to get rid of the whites was, in some way or other, connected with a reluctance in the Indians to confess themselves Jews. He had been quite as much surprised as he was disappointed, with the backwardness of the chiefs in accepting this tradition, and was now in a state of mind that predisposed him to impute everything to this one cause.
“I hope, Pigeonswing,” he said to the Chippewa, whom he had followed to the spring—“I hope, Pigeonswing, that no offence has been taken by the chiefs on account of what I told them yesterday, concerning their being Jews. It is what I think, and it is an honor to belong to God's chosen people, and in no sense a disgrace. I hope no offence has been taken on account of my telling the chief they are Jews.”
“Don't care any t'ing 'bout it,” answered the literal Indian, rising from his kneeling position, and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Don't care wedder Jew, or wedder Indian.”
“For my own part, gladly would I have it to say that I am descended from Israel.”