"We had a fight."
That was satisfactory to Benny. "Which whipped?" he asked, with his own native briskness, as if this, now, was common ground, and he was ready to talk at his ease.
"Which a'most always whips? It was a hard fight. I hid behind a big tree and watched it. When I saw my father shot I started to go to him and a shot struck me. See there!" said she, pushing up her coarse gray locks and showing a deeper, wider seam than the creases and wrinkles on her face. "A bullet grazed me hard and I was stunned and blinded with the blood, and couldn't run, but my people had to. They didn't any on 'em see or know about me, I s'pose, and I laid there and sorter went to sleep. Colonel Hammerton took a notion to pick me up when he rode over the ground he had soaked with the blood of my people—ground that belonged to my people," shrieked the woman, straightening herself up and shaking her fists in the air.
Benny liked that. Even Fanny gazed at the strange creature with fascination. And when the Indian's excitement abated and she ceased to mutter and chatter to herself and sunk her face into her palms again, gazing absently on the ground, Fanny pulled Benny's sleeve and whispered, "Ask her what he did then, after he picked her up."
"What did he do with you then?" ventured Benny.
The old woman started, and gazed at them curiously, as if she had forgotten all about them, and had to recall them out of the distant past. "What did who do?" said she.
"What did Colonel Hammerton do with you when he picked you up?"
"Oh, I didn't know who picked me up—thought 'twas some of my people, I s'pose. Colonel Hammerton carried me off to the fort, and then took me to Washington: said he was going to make a Christian on me. I had to stay in houses—sleep in houses!—like being nailed up in a box. Ugh! what a misery 'tis to be made a Christian on! Hoo-oo-oo-oo-oo! You wouldn't want to know all the racks and miseries and fights and grinds on it. I guess they got sick on it themselves, for after I'd tried a many times to get away from houses, and been brought back, I tried again and they let me go, and I've been a-going ever since. I asked for my people, and they told me they was exterminated, every one on 'em. Yes, I've been a-going ever since, but I can't go any more. I hope they'll let me stay in these forests 'till the Great Spirit takes me away to my people. He can't find me in the houses, but if I keep out in the forest, I hope he'll find me soon. It's been a weary, long time."
"Are you two hundred years old?" asked Benny softly. "That's what folks say."
"Two hunderd? Hoo-oo-oo-oo! two hunderd? I'm ten hundered, if I'm a day," said the poor old creature. "But don't be afeard on me—I hope there won't be anybody afeard on me here, for then they'd be driving on me off, or shutting me up again somewhere where the Great Spirit can't find me. Tell your people not to be skeered on me—ask 'em to let me stay here."