“Certainly not,” assented March; “it ain’t possible to know, not havin’ bin told; but if you’ll tell me I’ll listen.”
March Marston had at last struck a chord that vibrated intensely in the bosom of the warm-hearted child. She drew her log closer to him in her eagerness to dilate on the goodness of her adopted father, and began to pour into his willing ears such revelations of the kind and noble deeds that he had done, that March was fired with enthusiasm, and began to regard his friend Dick in the light of a demigod. Greatheart, in the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” seemed most like to him, he thought, only Dick seemed grander, which was a natural feeling; for Bunyan drew his Greatheart true to nature, while Mary and March had invested Dick with a robe of romance, which glittered so much that he looked preternaturally huge.
March listened with rapt attention; but as the reader is not March, we will not give the narrative in Mary’s bad English. Suffice it to say, that she told how, on one occasion, Dick happened to be out hunting near to a river, into which he saw a little Indian child fall. It was carried swiftly by the current to a cataract fifty feet high, and in a few minutes would have been over and dashed to pieces, when Dick happily saw it, and plunging in brought it safe to shore, yet with such difficulty that he barely gained the bank, and grasped the branch of an overhanging willow, when his legs were drawn over the edge of the fall. He had to hold on for ten minutes, till men came from the other side of the stream to his assistance.
Mary also told him (and it was evening ere she finished all she had to tell him) how that, on another occasion, Dick was out after grislies with a hunter, who had somehow allowed himself to be caught by a bear, and would have been torn in pieces had not Dick come up with his great two-edged sword—having fired off his rifle without effect—and, with one mighty sweep at the monster’s neck, cut right through its jugular vein, and all its other veins, down to the very marrow of its backbone; in fact, killed it at one blow—a feat which no one had ever done, or had ever heard of as being done, from the days of the first Indian to that hour.
Many such stories did Mary relate to the poor invalid, who bore his sufferings with exemplary patience and fortitude, and listened with unflagging interest; but of all the stories she told, none seemed to afford her so much pleasure in the telling as the following:—
One day Dick went out to hunt buffaloes, on his big horse, for he had several steeds, one or other of which he rode according to fancy; but he always mounted the big black one when he went after the buffalo or to war. Mary here explained, very carefully, that Dick never went to war on his own account—that he was really a man of peace, but that, when he saw oppression and cruelty, his blood boiled within him at such a rate that he almost went mad, and often, under the excitement of hot indignation, would he dash into the midst of a band of savages and scatter them right and left like autumn leaves.
Well, as he was riding along among the mountains, near the banks of a broad stream, and not far from the edge of the great prairie, he came suddenly on an object that caused his eyes to glare and his teeth to grind; for there, under the shade of a few branches, with a pot of water by her side, sat an old Indian woman. Dick did not need to ask what she was doing there. He knew the ways of the redskins too well to remain a moment in doubt. She had grown so old and feeble that her relations had found her burdensome; so, according to custom, they left her there to die. The poor old creature knew that she was a burden to them. She knew also the customs of her tribe—it was at her own request she had been left there, a willing victim to an inevitable fate, because she felt that her beloved children would get on better without her. They made no objection. Food, to last for a few days, was put within reach of her trembling hand; a fire was kindled, and a little pile of wood placed beside it, also within reach. Then they left her. They knew that when that food was consumed, and the last stick placed upon the fire, the shrunken limbs would stand in no need of warmth—the old heart would be still. Yet that heart had once beat joyfully at the sound of those pattering feet that now retired with heavy ruthless tread for ever. What a commentary on savage life! What a contrast between the promptings of the unregenerate heart of man and the precepts of that blessed—thrice blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ, where love, unalterable, inextinguishable, glows in every lesson and sweetens every command.
When Dick came upon her suddenly, as we have said, he was not ten paces distant from the spot where she sat; but she was apparently deaf and blind, for she evinced no knowledge of his presence. She was reaching out her skinny arm to place another stick upon the sinking fire at the time, for it was a sharp and cold, though a bright and sunny autumn day. Dick stopped his horse, crushed his teeth together, and sat for a few moments regarding her intently.
Either the firewood had originally been placed too far away from the old woman’s hand, or she had shifted her position, for she could not reach it. Once and again she made the effort—she stretched out her withered arm and succeeded in just touching the end of one of the pieces of wood, but could not grasp it. She pawed it once or twice, and then gave up the attempt with a little sigh. Drawing herself slowly together, she gathered up the rabbit-skin blanket which rested on her shoulders and attempted feebly to fold it across her chest. Then she slowly drooped her white head, with an expression of calm resignation on her old wrinkled visage.
Dick’s great heart almost burst with conflicting emotions. The wrath that welled up as he thought of the deserters was met by a gush of tender pity as he gazed through blinding tears on the deserted. With a fling that caused his stout warhorse to stagger, he leaped to the ground, tore open the breast of his hunting-shirt, and, sitting down beside the old woman, placed her cold hand in his bosom.