I have thought since that they resented with stoical pain his taking their white son from them. They both stood severely reserved, passively loosening the filial bond.
All the business of life was suspended, as when there is death in the lodge. Skenedonk and I sat down together on a bunk.
"Lazarre," my father spoke, "do you want to be educated?"
The things we pine for in this world are often thrust upon us in a way to choke us. I had tramped miles, storming for the privileges that had made George Croghan what he was. Fate instantly picked me up from unendurable conditions to set me down where I could grow, and I squirmed with recoil from the shock.
I felt crowded over the edge of a cliff and about to drop into a valley of rainbows.
"Do you want to live in De Chaumont's house and learn his ways?"
My father and mother had been silent when I questioned them. It was my turn to be silent.
"Or would you rather stay as you are?"
"No, father," I answered, "I want to go."
The camp had never been dearer. I walked among the Indian children when the evening fires were lighted, and the children looked at me curiously as at an alien. Already my people had cut me off from them.