“Ah, true, I forgot that. I wonder what the redskin, as the guide calls him, is thinking about,” added Charley, in a musing tone.
“Of home, perhaps, ‘sweet home,’” said Harry, with a sigh. “Do you think much of home, Charley, now that you have left it?”
Charley did not reply for a few seconds; he seemed to muse over the question.
At last he said slowly—
“Think of home? I think of little else when I am not talking with you, Harry. My dear mother is always in my thoughts, and my poor old father. Home? ay; and darling Kate, too, is at my elbow night and day, with the tears streaming from her eyes, and her ringlets scattered over my shoulder, as I saw her the day we parted, beckoning me back again, or reproaching me for having gone away—God bless her! Yes, I often, very often, think of home, Harry.”
Harry made no reply. His friend’s words had directed his thoughts to a very different and far-distant scene—to another Kate, and another father and mother, who lived in a glen far away over the waters of the broad Atlantic. He thought of them as they used to be when he was one of the number, a unit in the beloved circle, whose absence would have caused a blank there. He thought of the kind voice that used to read the Word of God, and the tender kiss of his mother as they parted for the night. He thought of the dreary day when he left them all behind, and sailed away, in the midst of strangers, across the wide ocean to a strange land. He thought of them now—without him—accustomed to his absence, and forgetful, perhaps, at times that he had once been there. As he thought of all this a tear rolled down his cheek, and when Charley looked up in his face, that tear-drop told plainly that he too thought sometimes of home.
“Let us ask Redfeather to tell us something about the Indians,” he said at length, rousing himself. “I have no doubt he has had many adventures in his life. Shall we, Charley?”
“By all means.—Ho, Redfeather! are you trying to stop the wind by looking it out of countenance?”
The Indian rose, and walked towards the spot where the boys lay.
“What was Redfeather thinking about?” said Charley, adopting the somewhat pompous style of speech occasionally used by Indians. “Was he thinking of the white swan and his little ones in the prairie; or did he dream of giving his enemies a good licking the next time he meets them?”