Indian Captive (18 page)

“Please, Earth Woman,” she asked, suddenly, “could I not make a cooking-pot?”

“Ohè!
You!” cried Earth Woman, astonished. “An ear of corn not half filled out?” She frowned, then with all the appearance of anger, broke out: “Do you not know then that it is hard work to make a cooking-pot? That the fingers which shape it must be trained to skill? That only Earth Woman, of all the women in the village, has the skill to make a perfect cooking-pot? No! A fledgling that lingers in the warmth of the nest has not yet the strength to fly. By and by, perhaps…”

“But if Beaver Girl can make one…She’s no bigger than I!” cried Molly.

“Ah, but Beaver Girl has dipped her hands in clay ever since she stepped out of her baby frame!” laughed Earth Woman. “And Beaver Girl is as strong as a beaver.”

“But I grow stronger day by day,” protested Molly. “See!” She held out her arm and doubled her elbow.

“Ohè!”
Earth Woman laughed again. “Corn Tassel is as strong as a little humming-bird. Only a strong woman can do a strong woman’s work. The making of a pot is not easy. The clay must be gathered from the banks by the river bed. First Earth Woman prays to Mother Earth for permission to remove it. Then she digs it carefully and brings it home. She spreads it on the stone slab, she beats it with her hands and with stones; she treads it with her feet. When the clay-is soft and smooth, it must be mixed with ground clam shells or mica and be beaten smooth again. All this before the coils are rolled.”

“When I am strong like Beaver Girl, then may I make one?” asked Molly.

“Yes, little humming-bird, then you may try,” said Earth Woman, with a smile. “Meanwhile it is well to watch how a cooking-pot grows under hands of long experience. That is the best way to learn.”

Beaver Girl carefully turned and shaped the collar of her pot, and made a scalloped design on the edge. Then she set the pot aside, with others, to dry:

“When the water has been drawn out of the clay by the sun,” said Earth Woman, “the pots will be ready for firing. We will set them over a slow-burning fire and keep them there. The fire must not be too hot, because that would crack the pots. If it is too cool, it will smoke them. Oh, no—like all good things, a cooking-pot is not easy to make.”

When Molly went back to bed, Earth Woman’s sharp eyes noticed that she did not pick up her cornhusk baby, her little white woman, and look at it with tears in her eyes. Earth Woman’s kind face beamed with satisfaction, for she knew that the white girl captive had forgotten, at least for the moment, her sorrow. She was thinking of the cooking-pot which one day she would make.

Ah, a cooking-pot was good in more ways than one. A cooking-pot could make a white girl forget to be homesick. A cooking-pot could make a girl want to be well and strong again. Earth Woman was wise enough to know that a cooking-pot could do what all the herbs and medicines in the world could not. But there was no hurry—there were many moons to come. In time, in the fulness of time, the white girl would forget altogether.

Molly’s body grew gradually stronger. Each day she lay on a blanket in the sun for hours. Then she began to walk about, taking longer and longer walks. A happy day came when she went as far as the banks of the Falling Waters, carrying her corn-husk baby with her and talking to it in English. There she rested on the leaf-covered bank and, as she watched the flying birds and the water’s swift movement, the beauty of the place gave her peace and eased the sharpness of her sorrow.

Restored again to health and strength, Molly returned to Red Bird’s lodge, but still spent most of her days with Earth Woman. One day the Indian woman suggested a trip to the forest.

“Now that the frost has loosened the nuts of the shag-bark hickory,” she said, “we must go out with the children and gather them before the squirrels carry them off. Some of the nuts we will store in pits for winter use; from some we will press out an oil to eat with bread or meat; some we will trade when the white trader comes. And before Hó-tho seals the ground up fast and hard, I must dig more roots for food and medicine. Beaver Girl will help me.”

“Who is Hó-tho?” asked Molly.

“Hó-tho is Cold Weather,” explained Earth Woman. “Every winter he takes his hatchet from his hip, waves it in the air and strikes the trees with it. That’s what makes them crack with such a loud noise. But man has learned to outwit Hó-tho. Man builds fires, drinks hot drinks and keeps warm under blankets and fur coverings.”

Earth Woman called the children together and they all started off with baskets on their arms. It was the first time Molly had seen the children and she was sorry Little Turtle was not among them. As Earth Woman told her their names—Chipmunk, Star Flower, Woodchuck, Lazy Duck, Storm Cloud, and others—they stared at the white newcomer with frank curiosity. Then they ran on and forgot her.

Most of the leaves had fallen and the trees were almost bare. The ground lay white beneath the straight shaggy hickory trunks, covered with nuts all free from their shells, nuts which had been showered down by the wind. The children ran off in all directions, but Molly stayed near Earth Woman and set to work to fill her basket. As they worked busily, Earth Woman talked and eagerly Molly drank in her words.

Earth Woman was wiser than any Indian woman Molly had known before. She had all the wisdom of Red Bird, Bear Woman, Shining Star and far, far more. Her wisdom reached out through the endless forest, up to the changing skies and deep, deep down into the earth. She knew everything about the earth, its plants and its creatures. She knew about the unknown world as well—the world of dreams and spirits. Molly saved up her words and grew stronger in more ways than she knew.

“I will tell you,” said Earth Woman, “why there are so many trees in the forest. The squirrels plant them. Each time a squirrel buries a nut in the earth, he puts but one in a hole. If he should fail to return for his nut, it grows into a tree and then the forest has one tree more.”

Then Earth Woman told how the chipmunk got its stripes and why the rabbit runs in circles. She had a story for everything.

One of the Indian girls; small and chubby, came running up with a frown on her face.

“What is the matter, Storm Cloud?” asked Earth Woman. “Why is it that you always pout?”

“A big dog chased me,” replied the girl. “Or else it was a deer.”

“Why, Storm Cloud!” cried Chipmunk, a boy somewhat older. “You are as stupid as a pale-face! The patter of a dog’s feet sounds nothing like the tread of a running deer.”

“But I saw it!” insisted Storm Cloud. “Maybe it was a wolf, then.”

“A wolf!” laughed Chipmunk. “Wolves always howl—you can hear them a long way off.”

Molly turned to Earth Woman. “Can an Indian tell what animal it is from listening to its hoofbeats? How does he know?”

“The Indian child goes to the forest to learn,” replied Earth Woman, “to learn to see with his eyes and hear with his ears. He watches the young of the bear at play. The fawns come to eat from his hand. He coaxes the squirrels and rabbits from their holes. He is their brother, their play-fellow. The forest is the Indian child’s home. He is more at home in the forest than in his own lodge.”

Earth Woman paused, then she continued: “Every plant that grows in the forest was put there by the Great Spirit for some purpose. A girl who is soon to be a woman must learn their names and uses. Whenever you see a new plant whose name you do not know, bring it in to me and I will tell you about it.”

“But I should have to bring my hands full every day!” laughed Molly. “I know so few. I know blood-root, trillium and jack-in-the-pulpit when they are in bloom. The pale-faces have no time to study all the plants in the forest.”

“If you will bring in one plant each day during the summer, you will soon know a great deal,” said Earth Woman. “The Indians find time for everything useful. The Great Spirit placed his children in the forest so that they might learn to understand and love it.”

With their digging sticks in hand, Earth Woman and Beaver Girl walked away to a boggy place beside a small creek, to dig lily roots and green arum. For a while after she was left alone, Molly worked busily. Not a breath of air was stirring in the quiet woods. Now and then bright-colored leaves dropped gently to the earth. The hickory nuts made a soft clatter as they fell into her basket. Then suddenly she felt tired. Her strength was not so great as she had supposed. She picked up a nut from the ground and its slight weight felt heavy in her hand.

She sat down at the base of a large maple tree and leaned against the trunk to rest. Idly she watched a gray squirrel. It ran down the trunk of a tree, chattering noisily, picked up a nut and scampered back again. “Are you planting a tree, little squirrel?” asked Molly. Then she saw that he was burying his nuts, not in the ground, but in a hollow of the tree. He worked fast, putting aside his winter’s food supply. “Take them, little squirrel,” said Molly, softly. “I give them to you, so you will not be hungry when winter comes.”

Molly thought of Earth Woman’s story. It was pleasant to know that the squirrels had planted the beautiful forest. The Indians lived closer to growing things and to the animals than the white people did. They knew and understood them better. They accepted them as friends to be cherished, not enemies to be destroyed or conquered.

As she sat there, Molly could almost imagine she was back at Marsh Creek Hollow again. On the trail that led to Neighbor Dixon’s there was just such a huge maple tree as the one under which she was sitting. Earth Woman’s stories faded away. Molly liked them but they never quite filled up her mind. Always behind them and behind everything she did, lay her longing for home, unchanged—the homesickness that would not be blotted out. Sometimes she did not hear Earth Woman’s words at all. She was living in two places at once, her body with the Indians, but her spirit where she wanted to be—at home with the white people. Once she and Betsey had sat down to rest under the maple tree on the trail to the Dixons’ and had seen a deer run by so close they could have touched it…

Molly caught her breath. Was she dreaming? There before her, as if in answer to her thought, stood a deer—a tall and stately buck, with antlers like a growing tree upon its head. Molly’s hand flew to her mouth, to smother her cry of surprise. The deer paused a moment, as if listening, looking past her into the depth of the forest. Then, with a bound, away into the forest it leaped. Molly held its picture in her mind long after it was gone.

Some moments later, she heard a movement inside the trunk of the tree behind her. She rose hastily, walked round the tree and soon found a long, narrow opening, wider at the bottom. The trunk was rotten inside and had been hollowed out. Along one side the bark was scratched and she could see the marks of claws.

“If I were an Indian,” thought Molly, “I would know at once what animal it is. But I’m as stupid as four-year-old Storm Cloud.”

She peeped into the hole. It was dark inside and she could see nothing. The movement continued. Seeing the Indian children not far away, she called and they came running.

“Bear cubs!” announced Woodchuck, wisely.

“Let’s take one home!” begged Star Flower. “I want a cub for a pet.”

“What?” asked Molly. “What do you want him for?”

“We will put a rope round his neck,” answered Star Flower, jumping up and down. “We will teach the bear cub to do tricks. Once when the trader came, he brought a bear cub that could dance and do tricks.”

“You would take the bear cub away from its mother,” asked Molly slowly, “and make it a captive?”

“Yes,” answered Woodchuck, coldly. “Why not?” This white girl who spoke in Indian was a queer person, indeed. Woodchuck scowled at her with disgust.

“Oh, you have to take him very young,” cried Chipmunk, “if you want to tame him. If he’s too old, he will stay savage and manage to get away somehow. Or else, the men will kill him before he does, for bear meat.”

“Let us first ask Earth Woman,” suggested Molly. “Earth Woman will not let you make a bear a captive. She will say it is better for the baby bear to run free in the forest…”

“How do you know what she will say?” demanded Lazy Duck.

“We will ask no one,” said Woodchuck, firmly. “I am the eldest boy and I shall decide. We shall take the mother bear, too. Bear meat is good to eat.”

“Bears have lots of fat,” chimed in Storm Cloud. “My grandmother fries it out and makes a deerskin bag to hold it.”

“Bear oil is good to spread on chapped faces in winter,” added Star Flower. “Bear oil makes my hair lie smooth and black and shiny. Is bear oil good for yellow hair, too?”

Molly turned away from her and faced the two boys boldly. “How will you take the mother bear?” she asked with quiet patience.

“Kill her, of course!” answered Woodchuck, promptly. “My mother is always pleased to have bear meat brought to her lodge. What does a pale-face know about bears, anyhow?”

“I know this much,” retorted Molly, hotly. “I know that to kill a bear you must at least have a bow and arrow!”

“Ho ho! A bow and arrow!” laughed Woodchuck.

“We might chase her home…” began Chipmunk.

“Here comes Earth Woman,” said Molly quickly, as she heard footsteps rustling in the leaves behind her. “Let us ask her and do what she says.”

“Oh, may we take the bear cub?” cried the Indian girls, together.

“Don’t let them!” begged Molly. “Oh, please don’t let them put a rope round its neck.”

No answer came. Why did Earth Woman not speak? Molly turned and looked behind her. To her surprise she saw a huge black animal coming directly toward her.

“There’s that big black dog again!” said Storm Cloud, pointing.

Molly gasped. It was not Earth Woman at all. It was not a dog, deer or wolf. Anyone should know that such awkward, clumsy motions could only be made by a heavy animal like the bear.

The children fell into sudden silence. “The-mother bear!” said Woodchuck, in a low voice. “The mother bear is angry!”

Like falling leaves blown by a gust of wind, the children slipped noiselessly into the underbrush and disappeared. All but Chipmunk. Chipmunk and Molly stayed where they were.