“It’s awful to hate,” she said, at last. “Don’t you think it is?—to hate so that you can’t breathe right when the person you hate comes near where you are—to be able to feel if he comes near, even when you don’t see or hear him, to feel a devil that rises up in your breast and makes you want to get a knife and cut—cut deep, until the blood you hate runs away from the face you hate, and leaves it white and cold. Ah! it’s bad, I reckon, to have some one hate you; but it’s a thousand times worse to hate back. It makes the prettiest day black when the devil tells you of the hate you must remember, and you can’t pray it away, and you can’t forget it, and you can’t help it! Oh, dear!”
She put her hands over her eyes and leaned her head against his hand. He felt her tears, but could not comfort her.
“You see, I know—how you felt,” she said, trying to speak steadily. “Girls shouldn’t know; girls should have love and good thoughts taught to them. I—I’ve dreamed dreams of what a girl’s life ought to be like; something like Ora’s home, where her mother kisses her and loves her, and her father kisses and loves them both. I went to their home once, and I never could go again. I was starving for the kind of home she has, and I knew I never would get it. That is the hardest part of it—to know, no matter how hard you try to be good, all your life, you can’t get back the good thoughts and the love that should have been yours when you were little—the good thoughts that would have kept hate from growing 159 in your heart, until it is stronger than you are. Oh, it’s awful!”
The squaw, who did not understand English, but did understand tears, rolled over and peered out from her blanket at the girl who knelt there as at the feet of a confessor. But the girl did not see her; she still knelt there, almost whispering now.
“And the worst of it is, Joe, after they are dead—the ones you hate—then the devil in you commences to torment you by making you think of some good points among the bad ones; some little kind word that would have made the hate in your heart less if it had not been for your own terrible wickedness. And it gnaws and torments you just like a rat gnawing the heart out of a log for a nest. And hate is terrible! whether it is live hate, or dead, it is terrible. Maybe I won’t feel so bad now that I’ve said out loud to some one how I feel—how much harder my heart is than it ought to be. I couldn’t tell any one else. But you hate, too, you know. Maybe you know, too, that dead hate hurts worst—that it haunts like a ghost.”
She looked up at him, and saw again that queer, wise smile about his lips.
“You don’t believe he’s dead!” she said, and her face grew paler. “You think he’s still alive, and that is why you don’t want folks to use your old name. You are laying for him yet, and you so helpless you can’t move!”
The man only looked at her grimly. He would not deny; he would not assent.
“But you are wrong,” she persisted. “He is dead. The Indians told me so—Akkomi told me so. Would they lie to me? Joe, can’t you let the hate go by, now that he is dead—dead?” 160
But no motion answered her, though his eyes rested on her kindly enough. Then the squaw arose and slouched away to pick up firewood in the forest, and the girl arose, too, and touched his hand.