“I suppose,” interrupted Reginald, “the dream of the Great Medicine, and all its accompaniments, were secretly arranged between him and the chief?”
“Probably they were,” replied Paul; “but you must beware how you say as much to any Delaware: if you did not risk your life, you would give mortal offence. After all, an imposition that has resulted in harm to no one, and in so much good to an interesting and unprotected creature, may be forgiven.”
“Indeed I will not gainsay it,” replied our hero: “pray continue your narrative.”
“My sacred office, and the kindly feelings entertained towards me by these Indians, gave me frequent opportunities of seeing and conversing with Olitipa, or the ‘Prairie–bird;’ and I found in her such an amiable disposition, and so quick an apprehension, that I gave my best attention to the cultivation of talents which might, I hoped, some day produce a harvest of usefulness. In reading, writing, and in music, she needed but little instruction. I furnished her from time to time with books, and paper, and pencils: an old Spanish guitar, probably taken from some of the dwellings of that people in Missouri, enabled her to practise simple melodies; and you would be surprised at the sweetness with which she now sings words, strung together by herself in English and German, and also in the Delaware tongue, adapting them to wild airs, either such as she hears among the Indians, or invents herself. I took especial pains to instruct her in the practical elements of a science that my long residence among the different tribes has rendered necessary and familiar to me,—I mean that of medicine, as connected with the rude botany of the woods and prairies; and so well has she profited by my instruction, and by her own persevering researches, that there is scarcely a tree, or gum, or herb, possessing any sanatory properties, which she does not know and apply to the relief of those around her.”
“Indeed,” said Reginald, laughing; “I had not expected to find this last among the accomplishments of Prairie–bird.”
“You were mistaken then,” replied Paul Müller; “nay more, I fear that, in your estimate of what are usually termed female accomplishments, you have been accustomed to lay too much stress on those which are light or trifling, and too little on those which are useful and properly feminine: even in settled and civilised countries the most grievous fevers and ailments to which we are subject require the ministration of a female nurse; can it be then unreasonable that we should endeavour to mingle in their education some knowledge of the remedies which they may be called upon to administer, and of the bodily ills which it is to be their province to alleviate?”
“You are right,” answered Reginald, modestly; “and I entreat your pardon for the hasty levity with which I spoke on the subject. I am well aware that, in olden times, no young woman’s education was held to be complete without some knowledge both of the culinary and healing arts; and I much doubt whether society has not suffered from their having altogether abandoned the cultivation of these in favour of singing, dancing, and reading of the lightest kind.”
“It is the character of the artificial state to which society is fast verging,” replied Paul, “to prefer accomplishments to qualities, ornament to usefulness, luxury to comfort, tinsel to gold: setting aside the consideration of a future state, this system might be well enough, if the drawing–room, the theatre, and the ball were the sum of human life; but it is ill calculated to render man dignified in his character, and useful to his fellow–creatures, or woman what she ought to be,—the comfort, the solace, the ornament of home.”
“These observations may be true as regards England or France,” replied Reginald; “but you surely would not apply them to our country?”
“To a certain extent, I do,” answered the missionary. “I have been now thirty years on this continent, and have observed that, as colonists, the Americans have been very faithful imitators of these defects in their mother country; I am not sure that they will be rendered less so by their political emancipation.”