“It certainly is,” her mother assured her. “Why, dear, I’ve told you the story of it many a time.”
“Not for a long time now,” persuaded her daughter. “I think I’ve forgotten some of it. Didn’t a real Indian give it to grandmother?”
“The Indian didn’t exactly give it to her, it belonged to the Indian’s baby.”
“Oh, tell me the story!” urged Florence sleepily. “I want to hear, too!”
Mrs. Merriam made room for Florence in her lap, and went on above her with the sandwich and the story.
“Your great-grandfather was an Indian missionary, and when he and your Great-grandmother Martin went out to live among the Indians, they took with them their little baby daughter, so young they had not named her yet. Well, one day, while your grandmother was sitting on the steps of the log house where they lived with her baby on her lap, a squaw came along with her baby. She had it strapped to her back, the way they carry them, you know. She was a stranger, not one of the mission Indians, and oh, so tired and ragged and dusty!
“Great-grandmother Martin couldn’t understand her language, but she beckoned her into the house and gave her food for herself and milk for the baby. And then, by signs, she asked the baby’s name. And the Indian woman said ‘Winona—papoose Winona—yes.’ It seemed she could speak a very little English. So then Great-grandmother Martin asked the woman what the name meant—for all Indian names have meanings, you know. But the woman hadn’t enough English words to answer her. So she got up from the floor where she had been sitting and took the bright steel bread-knife that lay where great-grandmother had been cutting bread for her. She held it in a ray of sunlight that crossed the room, and shook it so the light flashed and was reflected, bright and quivering, in the room.
“‘That Winona!’ she explained.
“After she was rested she wouldn’t stay. She went on her travels, wherever she was going,—great-grandmother never saw her again. But she didn’t forget the name, and as soon as she could she asked the Indian interpreter what ‘Winona’ really meant. He told her that it was the name of another tribe for ‘ray of light that sparkles,’ or ‘flashing ray of light.’
“So Great-grandmother Martin named her own little girl Winona. The name was pretty, and the meaning was prettier still. And she grew up and married Grandfather Merriam—and when you came we named you for her.”