"Brothers," I said, "I come to buy. Sooner or later your young men will put on red paint and oil their bodies. Even now I see your rifles and your hatchets have been polished. Sooner or later the army will move four hundred miles through a wilderness so dark that neither sun nor moon nor stars can penetrate. The old men, the women, the children, and the littlest ones still strapped to the cradle-board, must then remain behind. Is it the truth I speak, my brothers?"
"It is the truth," they answered very quietly, "Then," said I, "they will require food and money to buy with. Is it not true, Oneidas?"
"It is true, brother."
I smiled and turned toward the women who were listening, and who now looked up at me with merry faces.
"I have," said I, "four hundred dollars. It is for the Oneida maid or matron who will sell to me her pretty bridal dress of doeskin—the dress which she has made and laid aside and never worn. I buy her marriage dress. And she will make another for herself against the hour of need."
Two or three girls leaped laughing to their feet; but, "Wait!" said I. "This is for my little sister; and I must judge you where you stand, Oneida forest flowers, so I may know which one among you is most like my little sister in height and girth and narrow feet."
"Is our elder brother's little sister fat and comely?" inquired one giggling and over-plump Oneida maid.
"Not plump," I said; and they all giggled.
Another short one stood on tip-toe, asking bashfully if she were not the proper height to suit me.
But there was a third, graceful and slender, who had risen with the rest, and who seemed to me nearer a match to Lois. Also, her naked, dusky feet were small and shapely.