“Aniwee is a woman,” answered the Indian girl with all the dignity of sixteen and a half summers. “Aniwee is no longer a child.”
They were conversing in Spanish, a language which, by the way, Harry had “got up” sufficiently to make himself understood in view of the visit to Aniwee. “He wasn’t going to be made a fool of again, and look like one, as had been the case in Patagonia,” he had declared, “when all the speaking and interpreting had been done by Topsie, and he had had to sit by and act the part of audience.” Of course, now that he had become a Spanish scholar, this was no longer necessary, and he rejoiced thereat exceedingly.
“Of course you are not a child now, Aniwee,” he answered in a somewhat important tone. “We are all three grown up. Let me see, you are sixteen and a half, and I and my sister celebrated our seventeenth birthday a few days ago. We are all of a great age.” Harry possessed the knack of saying funny things with a face grave as an owl. His remark tickled Topsie immensely, but was received by Aniwee with dignified complaisance.
“How old are your cousins?” she inquired, looking at Freddy, Willie, and Mary Vane, who were riding close alongside them.
“Well, that one there is a man,” observed Harry, indicating Freddy with his finger. “He is sixteen, and a great warrior. The other two are children still. The boy is fourteen, the girl thirteen,—just about the age you were, Aniwee, when we first met you. The boy, like myself, is a sailor, and the girl would like to be one too, if only the laws of our country would permit it.”
“Then women, too, are slaves in the great white land, the same as my father’s people are?” inquired the Indian girl, with a bitter smile.
“Oh no, Aniwee!” answered Topsie quickly; “not slaves. For you see, Aniwee, unlike the Patagonian women, they don’t do the whole work of the nation. The men have to work, too, and not simply feast, hunt, and make war as your father’s men do. All the same, women in our country can’t be warriors, or be sailors on ships, or attend Parliament. That is what my brother means.”
“And don’t they want to be warriors, and sea Caciques, and attend Parliamentos?” again inquired the young Queen.
“Some do, Aniwee,” replied Topsie. “I, for instance, and my cousin Mary, would like to be sea Caciques. But we must alter the laws before we can become so. Great changes often come quickly, however. If, four years ago, the Araucanians had been told that a woman would reign over them, they would have laughed to scorn the very idea. Yet, behold your little girl is head Cacique of the great Warrior tribe, and you are the Queen-Regent. Would this great people have acted thus if they had not recognised in you a fearless ruler and an undaunted warrior?”
The Indian girl’s cheeks flushed, as she listened to Topsie’s words.