Indian Captive (14 page)

“Hé-no has come!” said Shining Star softly, and something of her calm and wonder passed into the white girl who met her gaze and held tightly to her hand.

“We thank thee, oh Hé-no!

Thou hast come and spoken!

Thou hast washed the earth again,

And brought water to the thirsty corn to the beans and the squashes.

We thank thee, oh Hé-no!”

The thunder-storm ended the drought and from that time on, the corn grew apace. Each day, as Molly walked between the rows, she could almost see the corn-stalks grow. First, they were knee high, then up to her waist, then abreast of her shoulder, so she could barely look over the top of the waving sea of green. Then came a day when the corn-stalks blossomed in tassel. The field of corn, with green tassels nodding, was a pleasant sight to the Indians, but to no one more than to Molly.

“Oh, how beautiful is the corn in tassel!” cried Shining Star, as they walked between the rows together.

Molly looked up with a puzzled expression. She had long ago noticed that the Indians called her by an Indian name. She had grown used to the sound, but she had not questioned its meaning. Now she heard Shining Star use it when speaking of the tassels on the corn.

“Corn Tassel?” she asked, using the Indian word.

“Yes,” replied Shirting Star. “When first we saw your pale yellow hair, there was only one thing we could think of—a stalk of corn in tassel. So we gave you its name—Corn Tassel!”

“Oh, thank you, Shining Star!” cried Molly. “Thank you for the beautiful name.”

Through her mind came singing sweet words she had heard on her father’s lips: “The Injuns’ll never hurt
you,
Molly-child. Why, when they see your yaller hair a-shinin’ in the sun, they’ll think ’tis only a corn-stalk in tassel!”

A corn-stalk in tassel! He must have known the Indians would treat her kindly. Corn Tassel—they had named her Corn Tassel because they loved the corn so much. How pleased her father would be if he knew! Where was he now? She had not thought of him for days. Molly’s eyes filled with sudden tears; then with the back of her hand, she brushed them away.

“I like to work in the corn,” she said. “I always worked in the corn at home.”

“It is time now you worked for Bear Woman,” replied Shining Star. They walked through the rows till they came to the overseer.

“Is she ready to work?” Bear Woman glared at the white captive and her voice was gruff like a bear’s. “She ran away before.”

“She works well now,” answered Shining Star. “She works like an Indian woman. She wants work to do in the corn-field.”

The old woman’s face and figure bristled with fierceness and Molly trembled to see Shining Star go off and leave her. But Bear Woman’s voice, gruff though it was, held kindness as she talked to Molly about the corn.

“The corn, the beans and the squashes are Three Sisters,” Bear Woman explained. “We call them Our Life, because it is they who sustain us.”

She pointed to the south side of the corn-hills where the women had planted beans and squash seeds. The vines grew thick around the hills, the beans curling their tendrils about the corn-stalks, the squash plants a mass of broad green leaves spread out on the ground.

“In the same hill the Three Sisters grow,” Bear Woman went on. “They take the same food from the earth; they drink the same moisture. They love each other so dearly that they grow better when planted together. They can never be separated without pain.”

“Three Sisters!” cried Molly, her eyes shining. “Three Sisters always happy together!” She had never heard anything like this from the white people.

“The corn has enemies, too,” continued Bear Woman. “First there are the weeds, rank and tall, who try to choke its roots. They must be pulled out and destroyed. After three weedings the corn is safe. Now that the ears are beginning to form, there are thieves who come to steal—birds, squirrels, field mice, crows, deer.”

“Do the Indians have to fight to save their corn as the white people do?” asked Molly.

“Yes,” said Bear Woman. “Long and hard they must fight for the precious corn.”

She led Corn Tassel to a tall covered platform built of poles. When the girl climbed up the ladder and looked, she could see far out across the waving tassels. It was like looking over an ocean that ebbed and flowed with soft, gentle movements.

“You will come here for part of each day,” said Bear Woman, “taking turns with the other children. The worst offender is Kah-Kah, the crow. Wave the blanket and shout, but throw no stones, lest you kill him. He is our friend, however mischievous. To frighten him off is enough. Long ago, Kah-Kah lived far away to the southwest. One day he took a grain of corn in his beak and brought it here to us. He brought us our first grain of corn for a gift. So to Kah-Kah we must ever be grateful.”

Days passed, hot summer days, in which Molly pulled weeds with the Indian women and took turns with the children on the platforms, guarding the grain and frightening marauders away. In the corn-field she was happy and for her work won frequent praise from stern-faced Bear Woman.

As the days came and went, bringing hot summer sunshine and cooling rains, Molly watched the beans bloom and the pods begin to form. She saw the squash plants open their great yellow blossoms, then drop their petals to grow their fruit. She saw the ears on the corn-stalks grow fuller day by day, watched over with constant care by sharp-eyed Bear Woman. Each day without fail, with Corn Tassel by her side, the woman looked to see how big the grains had grown. Each day she shook her head and said to the questioning Indians, “It is not ready.” The whole village waited, as eagerly as Molly, for the ripening of the corn.

On a pleasant morning in mid-August, Bear Woman announced that the corn was ready. The ears, now grown to full size, were in the soft, milky state best for roasting. She called the Indians together to celebrate the Feast of the Green Corn. Always, she explained to Corn Tassel, the first fruit of the corn that was fit to use was made a feast offering by the Senecas.

Molly went into the corn-fields with the women. The new splint basket, which she carried strapped upon her back, she filled with ears of corn for roasting. She took them to the fires where the Indians danced and sang in honor of the ripening harvest.

The festival lasted four days—a season of general thanksgiving to the Great Spirit, of feasting and rejoicing among the Indians themselves. Important men of the tribe made speeches and burned ceremonial tobacco. There were games and dances for men, women, and children in the great open space in front of the lodges and each day at twilight, a feast.

Huge kettles were hung over great smoking fires and everyone ate his fill of the bounteous, delicious food. In addition to boiled beans and squash, green corn was cooked in a variety of ways. It was both boiled and roasted in the ear; some was cut from the cob and cooked with beans to make succotash; some was made into a special kind of green corn bread, used only on this occasion.

At first, Molly watched the strange proceedings, wide-eyed and curious. The muffled beat of the drums, the shaking of the rattles and the shuffling movement of the dances filled her with a strange excitement. Then, suddenly, she felt out of place. The music beat on her ear with an alien note. She was not an Indian like the others—she was still a white girl. She was the only white person in the whole village.

She hurried away to the corn-field. There she worked diligently, pulling off ears of corn as fast as she could until her splint basket was full to the brim. Then she carried it back to the fires. Always more corn was needed. The amount that the Indians were able to eat was astonishing. Back and forth she hurried, emptying the corn from her basket onto the ground beside the boiling kettles.

Up and down the corn-rows she walked, pulling ears off one by one. Her arms grew tired, her back began to ache, but still she worked. Work—that was what she needed. Work, to fill her mind and heart. Work, to make her forget the sorrow that lay only covered—not dead. Work, to make her forget…

But, oh, she must not forget! How near she had come to forgetting! For the first time in days, her mother’s voice came back to her, saying: “Don’t forget your own name or your father’s and mother’s. Don’t forget to speak in English. Say your prayers and catechism to yourself each day…Say them again and again…don’t forget, oh, don’t forget…

She must not forget. She would never let herself forget. She dared not speak English in the presence of the Indians. She must contrive to be alone more often. She must not forget the English words she knew.
What if one day a white person should come to the Indian village to take her home again?

Slowly she walked down through the corn-rows, where all was silent, and slowly she said the names over: “Thomas Jemison, Jane Jemison, John, Thomas, Betsey, Mary, Matthew and baby Robert.” Her prayers and her catechism came next, then the names again: “Thomas Jemison, my father; Jane Jemison, my mother; John and Thomas, Betsey and Mary, little Matthew and baby Robert, of Marsh Creek Hollow in Penn…syl…va…nia…”

The rustling leaves whispered familiar memories in her ears and took her back in spirit to Marsh Creek Hollow. Sheltered by the huge green stalks of corn, she could almost believe she was there. Perhaps at the edge of the field when she came out, she would find a zigzag rail fence to climb over …

Slowly she walked along as darkness fell. “Thomas Jemison, my father; Jane Jemison, my mother…” The names made a sing-song rhythm on her tongue.

She had not guessed that anyone was near, so absorbed had she become in the sound of the English words and the pleasing picture of a loved one called up by each. Unconsciously she paused. Then, like a thunder-storm breaking the still beauty of a summer day, disaster fell. Squirrel Woman, running softly and swiftly up behind, heard sounds that were not Seneca words, sounds of English that enraged her.

“So you come alone to the corn-field,” she cried, hot with anger, “to say aloud to yourself words of the pale-face!”

She took the girl by the arm and began to shake her. She shook her till her teeth chattered in her head. She shook her till, limp and exhausted, she fell upon the ground. Only then did she let go her hold.

After a moment Molly staggered to her feet and looked up at the Indian woman, but there were no tears in her eyes. Like an Indian, she was learning to bear her pain. She looked at Squirrel Woman, but she saw in her place a neighbor from Marsh Creek Hollow—a woman whom everyone knew as a scold. She had seen her shake her children in just the same way.

She turned to Squirrel Woman and spoke calmly: “Like a rushing tornado, like the wind through the trees in winter, you come running up behind me. Like a white woman, you shake a defenseless child. Till her teeth rattle and fall out, you keep on shaking!” She paused to draw breath, then went on: “Squirrel Woman acts like a white woman, an angry white woman, a torment, a scold. Squirrel Woman is the only Indian in the village who, like a pale-face, gives loud expression to hot anger!”

The Indian woman stirred uneasily, staring. But Molly had more words to say: “If you speak to me in reason, I will listen to your words. Shining Star speaks words of wisdom, Red Bird does the same, and so do all the others. I listen when they speak. I try to heed their words.”

Squirrel Woman’s arms dropped, with a sudden movement, to her sides. At Corn Tassel, this new Corn Tassel, she stared in open-mouthed surprise. Perhaps the truth of the accusation reached and hurt her. Perhaps it would help her to mend her ways.

Then suddenly Molly saw Red Bird there, standing beside her daughter. Had she seen and heard all?

“As it is wrong to punish a child with a rod or a whip,” said Red Bird to her daughter, “so it is wrong to use any sort of violence. Water only is necessary and it is sufficient. If Corn Tassel has disobeyed, plunge her under. Whenever she promises to do better, the punishment must cease at once.”

The quiet words were unexpected. Molly turned, still expecting a shower of blows to rain down upon her head. She stood still a moment, waiting. But none came. She waited a moment longer, then ran fast, out of the cornfield, back to the lodge.