The next politic movement was to build for them a cabin of their own, taking care to preserve an influence over them by frequent visits and kind attentions. They would have been very happy in the freedom of their new home, had it not been for the intrusion of many strangers, who came to look upon them from motives of curiosity. The universal Yankee nation is a self-elected Investigating Committee, which never adjourns its sessions. This is amusing, and perhaps edifying, to their own inquiring minds; but William and A-lee-lah had Indian ideas of natural politeness, which made them regard such invasions as a breach of good manners.
By degrees, however, the young couple became an old story, and were left in comparative peace. The system of attraction continued to work like a charm. As A-lee-lah was never annoyed by any assumption of superiority on the part of her white relatives, she took more and more pains to please them. This was manifested in many childlike ways, which were extremely winning, though they were sometimes well calculated to excite a smile. As years passed on, they both learned to read and write English very well. William worked industriously on his farm, though he never lost his predilection for hunting. A-lee-lah became almost as skilful at her needle as she was at weaving baskets and wampum. Her talk, with its slightly foreign arrangement, was as pretty as the unformed utterance of a little child. Her taste for music improved. She never attained to Italian embroidery of sound, still less to German intonations of intellect; but the rude, monotonous Indian chants gave place to the melodies of Scotland, Ireland, and Ethiopia. Her taste in dress changed also. She ceased to delight in garments of scarlet and yellow, though she retained a liking for bits of bright, warm color. Nature guided her taste correctly in this, for they harmonized admirably with her brown complexion and lustrous black hair. She always wore skirts shorter than others, and garments too loose to impede freedom of motion. Bonnets were her utter aversion, but she consented to wear a woman's riding-hat with a drooping feather. Those outside the family learned to call her Mrs. William Wharton; and strangers who visited the village were generally attracted by her handsome person and the simple dignity of her manners. Her father-in-law regarded her with paternal affection, not unmixed with pride.
"Who, that didn't know it," said he, "could be made to believe this fine-looking woman was once little Moppet, who coiled herself up to sleep on the floor of our log-cabin?"
Uncle George replied,—
"You know I always told you it was the nature of all sorts of flowers to grow, if they had plenty of genial air and sunshine."
As for A-lee-lah's little daughter, Jenny, she is universally admitted to be the prettiest and brightest child in the village. Mr. Wharton says her busy little mind makes him think of his Willie, at her age; and Uncle Charles says he has no fault to find with her, for she has her mother's beautiful eyes, and wears her hair "like folks."
* * * * *
A CALL TO MY COUNTRY-WOMEN.
In the newspapers and magazines you shall see many poems—written by women who meekly term themselves weak, and modestly profess to represent only the weak among their sex—tunefully discussing the duties which the weak owe to their country in days like these. The invariable conclusion is, that, though they cannot fight, because they are not men,—or go down to nurse the sick and wounded, because they have children to take care of,—or write effectively, because they do not know how,—or do any great and heroic thing, because they have not the ability,—they can pray; and they generally do close with a melodious and beautiful prayer. Now praying is a good thing. It is, in fact, the very best thing in the world to do, and there is no danger of our having too much of it; but if women, weak or strong, consider that praying is all they can or ought to do for their country, and so settle down contented with that, they make as great a mistake as if they did not pray at all. True, women cannot fight, and there is no call for any great number of female nurses; notwithstanding this, I believe, that, to-day, the issue of this war depends quite as much upon American women as upon American men,—and depends, too, not upon the few who write, but upon the many who do not. The women of the Revolution were not only Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Reed, and Mrs. Schuyler, but the wives of the farmers and shoemakers and blacksmiths everywhere. It is not Mrs. Stowe, or Mrs. Howe, or Miss Stevenson, or Miss Dix, alone, who is to save the country, but the thousands upon thousands who are at this moment darning stockings, tending babies, sweeping floors. It is to them I speak. It is they whom I wish to get hold of; for in their hands lies slumbering the future of this nation.
The women of to-day have not come up to the level of to-day. They do not stand abreast with its issues. They do not rise to the height of its great argument. I do not forget what you have done. I have beheld, O Dorcases, with admiration and gratitude, the coats and garments, the lint and bandages, which you have made. Tender hearts, if you could have finished the war with your needles, it would have been finished long ago; but stitching does not crush rebellion, does not annihilate treason, or hew traitors in pieces before the Lord. Excellent as far as it goes, it stops fearfully short of the goal. This ought ye to do, but there are other things which you ought not to leave undone. The war cannot be finished by sheets and pillow-cases. Sometimes I am tempted to believe that it cannot be finished till we have flung them all away. When I read of the Rebels fighting bare-headed, bare-footed, haggard, and unshorn, in rags and filth,—fighting bravely, heroically, successfully,—I am ready to make a burnt-offering of our stacks of clothing. I feel and fear that we must come down, as they have done, to a recklessness of all incidentals, down to the rough and rugged fastnesses of life, down to the very gates of death itself, before we shall be ready and worthy to win victories. Yet it is not so, for the hardest fights the earth has ever known have been made by the delicate-handed and purple-robed. So, in the ultimate analysis, it is neither gold-lace nor rags that overpower obstacles, but the fiery soul that consumes both in the intensity of its furnace-heat, bending impossibilities to the ends of its passionate purpose.