The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

But there was a silence between them for some time, and the scheme that had seemed so brilliant, when it had originated in Gaspar’s mind, began to lose something of its glitter under the clear questioning gaze of the Sun Maid.

It was fast falling twilight when they came to the sandhills; and though, by all reckoning, Wahneenah should have been long awaiting them there was no sign of the familiar Chestnut or its beloved rider.

“Gaspar, will Wahneenah understand it? Will she believe it is right for you to do what is wrong for another to do? Will the soldier men pay you – just a boy, so – the money, real money, for her, anyway?”

Gaspar lost his patience, with which he was not greatly blessed.

“Kit, I wish you wouldn’t keep thinking of things. I didn’t tell Other Mother, of course. She might – she might not have been pleased. I acted for the best. That’s the way men always have to do.”

The argument was not as convincing to the Sun Maid as she herself would have liked; but she trusted Gaspar, and tried to put the money question aside, while she strained her eyes to search the darkening landscape for the missing one.

But there was no trace of her anywhere; even though Gaspar dismounted and scanned the sward for fresh tracks, as his Indian friends had taught him; and when, at length, he felt compelled to hasten to the Fort and seek its shelter for the Sun Maid, his young heart was heavy with foreboding. However, he put the cheerful side of the subject before the little girl, observing:

“It’s the very easiest thing in the world for people to make mistakes in meeting this way. What seems a certain point to one person may look very different to another. I’ve noticed that.”

“Oh! you have!” commented Kitty. “I think you’ve noticed almost too much, Gaspar. I – I think it’s awful lonely out here, and I don’t believe Abel would have let anybody hurt Wahneenah, even if Mercy would. And – I want her, I want her!”

“Sun Maid! Are you afraid?”

“No, I am not. Not for myself. But if some of those dreadful white people whom Wahneenah thought were her friends should overtake her on their way home, and – and – take her prisoner! I can’t have it, – I must go back, and search again and again.”

“Sing, Kit! If she’s anywhere within hearing, she’ll come at the sound of your voice. Sing your loudest!”

Obediently, the Sun Maid lifted her clear voice and sang, at the beginning with vigor and hope in the notes, but at the end with a sorrowful trembling and pathos that made Gaspar’s heart ache. So, to still his own misgivings, he commanded her, also, to be silent.

“It’s no use, girlie. She’s out of hearing somewhere. Maybe she has gone to the Fort already. Any way, it’s getting very dark, and the clouds are awful heavy. I believe there’s a thunder-shower coming, and if it does, it will be a bad one. They always are worse, Mercy says, when they come this time of year. We would better hurry on to shelter ourselves. If she isn’t there, we can look for her in the morning.”

“I like a thunder-storm. I believe it would be fine to go under that clump of trees yonder and watch it. I have to go to bed so early, always, that I think it is just grand to be up late and out-of-doors, too.”

“You are not afraid of anything, Kitty Briscoe! I never saw a girl like you!” cried the lad, reproachfully.

“But you don’t know other girls, boy. Maybe they are not afraid, either. I can’t help it if I’m not, can I?”

Gaspar laughed. “I guess I’m cross, child, that’s all. Of course I wouldn’t want you to be a scared thing. But, let’s hurry. The later we get there the more trouble we may have to get in.”

“Why – will there be trouble? If there is, let’s go home.”

“We can’t go home. We’ve run away, you know. Besides, there would be the same anxiety about Wahneenah. All ’s left for us is to go on.”

So the Sun Maid settled herself firmly in her saddle and followed Tempest’s rather reckless pace forward into the darkness. Memory made the dim road familiar to Gaspar, and soon the garrison lights came into sight.

But martial law is strict and the gates had been closed for the night, as the lad had feared. The sentinel on duty did not respond to his first summons with the promptness which the boy desired, so, springing to his feet upon the gelding’s back, he shouted, over the stockade:

“Entrance for two citizens of the United States! In the name of its President!”

“Ugh. There is no need for such a noise, pale-face.”

These words fell so suddenly upon Gaspar’s ears that he nearly tumbled backward from his perch. He was further amazed to see the Sun Maid leap from her horse, straight through the gloom into the arms of a tall Indian who seemed to have risen out of the ground beside them.

In fact, he had merely stepped from a canoe at the foot of the path and his moccasined feet had made no sound upon the sward as he approached. He received the girl’s eager spring with grave dignity, and immediately replaced her upon the Snowbird’s back.

“Why, Black Partridge! Don’t you know me? Aren’t you glad to see me? Four years since we said good-by, that day at poor Muck-otey-pokee.”

“I remember all things. Why is the Sun Maid here, at this hour?”

Gaspar had recovered himself and now broke into a torrent of explanation, which the chief quietly interrupted as soon as he had gathered the facts of the case.

“But don’t you think, dear Feather-man, that our Wahneenah will soon come?” demanded Kitty, anxiously.

“The gates are open. Let us enter,” he answered evasively; and the novelty of her surroundings so promptly engrossed the girl’s mind that she forgot to question him further then. Somewhere on the dimly lighted campus a bugle was sounding; and it awakened sleeping memories of her earliest childhood. So did the regular “step-step” of soldiers relieving guard. A new and delightful sense of safety and familiarity thrilled her heart, and she exclaimed, joyfully:

“Oh, Gaspar! it is home! it is home! More than the cabin, more than Other Mother’s tepee, this is home!”

“I hope it will prove so.”

“Do you suppose I will find any of the dear white ‘mothers’ who were so good to me? Or Bugler Jim, who used to play me to sleep under the trees in the corner? I wish it wasn’t so dark. I wish – ”

“It’s all new, Kit. They are all strangers. The rest, you know – well, none of them are here. But these will be kind, no doubt. Yet to me, even in this dark, it seems – it seems horrible! It all comes back: that morning when I first rode Tempest. The massacre – ”

The tone of his voice startled her, and she begged at once:

“Let us go right away again. I am not afraid of the storm, nor the darkness, and nothing can harm us if we pray to be taken care of. The Great Spirit always hears. Let us go.”

“It is too late. It’s beginning to rain and that man is ordering us to dismount, that he may put the horses in the stables. Jump down.”

There were always some refugees at the Fort. Just then there were more than ordinary; or, if all were not such, there were many passing travellers, journeying in emigrant trains toward the unsettled west, to make their new homes there, and these used “Uncle Sam’s tavern” as an inn of rest and refreshment.

Amid so many, therefore, small attention was paid to the arrival of these two young people. They were furnished with a plain supper, in the main living room of the building which seemed a big and dreary place, and immediately afterward were dismissed to bed. Kitty was assigned a cot among the women guests and Gaspar slept in the men’s quarters.

But neither had very comfortable thoughts, and the talk of her dormitory neighbors kept the Sun Maid long awake. Here, as in Mercy’s cabin, the dominant subject was the reward offered for the capture of the Indians, and a fresh fear set her trembling as one indignant matron exclaimed:

“There’s one of those pesky red-skins in this very Fort this night. He came with that girl yonder, but I hope he won’t be let to get away as easy. The country is overrun with the Indians, and is no place for decent white folks. They outnumber us ten to one. That’s why I’ve got my husband to sell out. We’re on our way back East, to civilization.”

“Well, if one’s come here to-night, I reckon he’ll be taken care of! Massacres are more plenty than money, and some man or other’ll make out to claim the prize. What sort of Indian was he?”

“Oh, like them all. All paint and feather and wickedness. I wish somebody’d take and hang him to the sally-port, just for an example.”

This was too much for loyal Kitty Briscoe. She could no more help springing up in defence of her friends than she could help breathing.

“You women must not talk like that! There are good Indians, and they are the best people in the world. They won’t hurt anybody who lets them alone. That Indian you’re talking against is the Black Partridge. He is splendid. He is my very oldest friend, except Gaspar. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, and he’d help everybody needed help. It’s this horrible offer of money for every Indian caught that has set my precious Other Mother wandering over the country this dark night, and made Gaspar and me homeless runaways.”

There was instant hubbub in the room, and no more desire for sleep on anybody’s part until Kitty had been made to tell her story, the story of her life as she remembered it, over and over again; and when finally slumber overtook her, even in the midst of her narrative, her dreams were filled with visions of Wahneenah fleeing and forever pursued by uniformed soldiers with glistening bayonets, who fired after her to the merry sound of a bugle and drum.

In the morning she found Gaspar and related her night’s experience. He received it gravely, without the sympathy she expected.

“Kit, I don’t understand. What you said was true, and right enough for me to say. But it’s not like you to be so bold. Yesterday, you were saucy to the harvest-women and now again to these. Is it because you are growing up so fast, I wonder? All women are not like Other Mother. They might get angry with you, and punish you. If I should go – ”

“If what, Gaspar Keith?”

“Kitty, I can’t stay here. It would kill me. I must get out into the open. I am going away. Right away. Now. This very hour even. You must be brave, and understand.”

“Go away? I, too? All right. Only don’t look so sober. I don’t care. I promised to go anywhere you wished and I will. I’m ready.”

“But – but – It’s only I, my Kit. Not you.”

“You would go away, and – leave me here? Just because you don’t like it?”

All the color went out of her fair, round face, and she caught his head between her hands, and turned it so that she could look into his dark eyes, which could not bear to look into her own startled and reproachful ones.

CHAPTER XV.

PARTINGS AND MEETINGS

Gaspar’s courage returned, and he led her to a sheltered place under the stockade, where he made her sit beside him for the brief time that was his.

“Not all because I do not like it; but because I am almost a man and I have found the chance of my life. There is one here, a voyageur, with his boat. The finest vessel I ever saw, though they’ve not been so many. He is going north into the great woods; will sail this morning. He is a great trader and hunter and he has asked me to apprentice myself to him. He promises he will make my fortune. He has taken as great a liking to me, I reckon, as I have to him. We shall get on famously together. In that broad, free life I shall grow a full man, and soon. I can earn money, and make a home for you and Wahneenah, and many another lonely, helpless soul. Yes, I must go. I can’t let the chance pass. And you must be brave, and the Sun Maid still, and forever. I shall want to think of you as always bright and full of laughter. Like yourself. But you are not like yourself now, Girl-Child. Why don’t you speak? Why don’t you say something?”

“I guess there isn’t any ‘say’ left in me, Gaspar,” answered the girl, in a tone so hopelessly sad that it almost made the lad waver in his determination. Only that wavering had no portion in the character of the ambitious youth, and he looked far forward toward a great good beyond the present pain.

When the day was well advanced, the schooner sailed away, from the dock at the foot of the path from fort to lake, with Gaspar upon her deck, trying to look more brave and manly than he really felt. But a forlorn little maid watched with eyes that shed no tears, and a pitiful attempt at a smile upon her quivering lips till the vessel became a mere speck, then disappeared.

After a long while, she was aroused by something again moving over the water.

“He’s coming back! My Gaspar’s coming back!” she cried, and tossed back the hair which the wind blew about her face that she might see the clearer. A moment later her disappointment found words: “It’s nothing but a common Indian canoe!”

However, she remembered her foster-brother had set her a task to do. She must begin it right away. She was to be as helpful to everybody she ever should meet as it was possible. Here might be one coming who hadn’t heard about that dreadful fifty-dollar prize money. She must call out and warn him. So she did, and never had human voice sounded pleasanter to any wayfarer. But her own intentness discovered something familiar in the appearance of the young brave, paddling so cautiously toward her and keeping so well to the shore. She began to question herself where she had seen him, and in a flash she remembered. Then, indeed, did she shout, and joyfully:

“Osceolo! Osceolo! Don’t you know me? Kitty? The Sun Maid? The daughter of your own tribe? Osceolo!”

“By the moccasins of my grandfather! You here? How? When? No matter. The brother of the Sun Maid rejoices. Never a friend so convenient. Run around to the edge of the wharf. There must be talk between us, and at once.”

He pushed his little boat close under the shadow of the pier that had long since been deserted of those who had come down to watch, as Kitty had done, the sailing of the northern-bound schooner. There was none to hear them, yet Osceolo chose to muffle his tones and to make himself mysterious. In truth, he was fleeing from justice, having been mixed up in a raid upon a settler’s homestead a few miles back; in which, fortunately, there had been no bloodshed, though a deal of thieving and other dirty work which would make it uncomfortable for the young warrior should he be caught just then. The story he was prepared to tell was true as far as it went; and the Sun Maid was too innocent to suspect guile in others. She thought he was referring to the prize money when he spoke of quite other matters; and after the briefest inquiry and answer as to what had befallen either since their parting at doomed Muck-otey-pokee, he concluded:

“Now, Sister-Of-My-Heart, Blood-Daughter-Of-My-Chief, you must help me. You must give me, or lend me, a horse; and you must bring me food. Then I will ride to fetch you back Wahneenah.”

“Oh! You know where she is? Can you do it and not be taken?”

“Is not the Brother of the Sun Maid now become a mighty warrior?”

“You – you don’t look so very mighty,” returned the girl, truthfully.

Osceolo frowned. “That is as one sees. Fetch me the horse and the meat, if you would have your Other Mother restored.”

“I will. I will!” she cried, and ran back to the Fort. She went first to the kitchen, and begged a meal “for a stranger that’s just come,” and the food was given her without question. Strangers were always coming to be fed; herself, also, no longer ago than the last evening.

From the kitchen to the stables, where a bright thought came to her. She would lead the Tempest to Osceolo, and herself ride the Snowbird. Together they would go to find Wahneenah.

“The black gelding?” asked the soldier of whom she sought assistance. “The hostler can maybe tell you. But I think the Black Partridge rode away on him before daybreak.”

“The Black Partridge! Oh! I had forgotten him in my trouble about Gaspar. Did any harm come to him, sir?”

“No. What harm should? If every red-skin in Illinois was like him there’d be little need of us fellows out here in this mud-hole. But you look disappointed. If you want to take a ride, there’s the white mare you came on. But you’d better not go far away. It isn’t safe for a child like you.”

“I’m not afraid, but – Well, if Tempest’s gone, I can’t. That’s all.”

So the Snowbird was brought out, and she led the pretty creature away behind the shelter of the few trees which hid the spot where Osceolo had bade her meet him.

“I tried to get Tempest for you, but the Chief has ridden him away. I meant to go with you. But you’ll have to go alone. Tell my darling Other Mother that I am here, and waiting. Tell her about Gaspar, and that he said he had found out she would be quite safe here. Why, so, I suppose, would you. I didn’t think.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” returned the young Indian hastily. Then, noting her surprise, explained:

“I’m a warrior, you see. That makes a difference.”

“It will be all right, though, I think. And if you cannot come back with Wahneenah, do hurry and send her by herself. Will you?”

“Oh, I’ll hurry!” answered the youth, evasively, and leaped to the Snowbird’s back. The food he had stuffed within his shirt till a more convenient season, and with a cry that even to Kitty’s trusting ears sounded in some way derisive, he was off out of sight along the lakeside.

As the Snowbird disappeared, Kitty felt that the last link between herself and her friends had been severed, and for a moment the tears had sway. Then, ashamed of her own weakness and remembering her promise to Gaspar that she would be “just the sunniest kind of a girl, and true to her name,” she brushed them away and entered the busy Fort, to proffer her services to the women in charge.

These had already learned her story and had reprimanded her for running away from her protectors, the Smiths; but it was nobody’s business to return her and, meanwhile, she was safe at the Fort until they should choose to call for her.

“Well, there is always plenty of work in the world for the hands that will do it,” said an officer’s wife, with a kindly smile. “You seem too small to be of much practical use; but, however, if you want a task, there are some little fellows yonder who need amusing and comforting. Their mother has died of a fever, and their father is more of a student and preacher than a nurse. I guess his wife was the ruling spirit in the household, and now that she has left him, he is sadly unsettled. He doesn’t know whether to go on and take up the claim he expected or not. He and you, and the oddly-named little sons, may all yet have to become wards of the Government.”

“I’m very sorry for him.”

“You well may be. Yet he’s a gentle, blessed old man. No more fit to marry and bring that flock of youngsters out here into the wilderness than I am to command an army. She was much younger than he, and felt the necessity of doing something toward providing for their children and educating them. But the more I talk, the more I puzzle you. Run along and lend them a hand. The very smallest Littlejohn of the lot has filled his mouth with dirt, and is trying to squall it out. See if a drink of water won’t mend matters.”

Kitty hastened to the child, and begged;

“My dear, don’t cry like that. You are disturbing the people.”

“Don’t care. I ain’t my dear; I’m Four.”

“You’re what?”

“Just Four. Four Littlejohns. What pretty hair you’ve got. May I pull it?”

“I’d rather not. Unless it will make you forget the dirt you ate.”

But the permission given, the child became indifferent to it. He pointed to three other lads crouching against the door-step, and explained:

“They’re One, Two, and Three. My father, he says it saves trouble. Some folks laugh at us. They say it’s funny to be named that way. I was eating the dirt because I was – I was mad.”

“Indeed! At whom?”

“At everybody. I’m just mis’able. I don’t care to live no longer.”

The round, dimpled face was so exceedingly wholesome and happy, despite its transient dolefulness, that Kitty laughed and her merriment brought an answering smile to the four dusty countenances before her.

“Wull – wull – I is. My father, he’s mis’able, too. So, course, we have to be. He’s a minister man. He can’t tell stories. He just tells true ones out the Bible. Can you tell Bible stories?”

“No. I – I’m afraid I don’t know much about that book. Mercy had one, but she kept it in the drawer. She took it out on Sundays, though. She didn’t let Gaspar nor me touch it. She said we might spoil the cover. That was red. It was a reward of merit when she was a girl. It had clasps, and was very beautiful. It had pictures in it, too, about saints and dead folks; but I never read it. I couldn’t read it if I tried, you know, because I’ve never been taught.”

This was amazing to the four book-crammed small Littlejohns. One exclaimed, with superior disgust:

“Such a great big girl, and can’t read your Bible! You must be a heathen, and bow down to wood and stone.”

“Maybe I am. I don’t remember bowing down to anything, except when I say my prayers.”

“Your prayers! Then you can’t be a real heathen. Heathens don’t say prayers, not our kind. Hmm. What lovely eyes you’ve got and how pretty you are! All the women never saw such wonderful hair as yours, nor the men either. I heard them say so. If I had a sister, I’d like her to look just like you. But it’s wicked to be vain.”

“What do you mean, you funny boy?”

“I’m not funny. I’m serious. My mother – my mother said – my mother – Oh! I want her! I want her!”

Religion, superiority, priggishness, all flew to the winds as his real and fresh grief overcame him; and it was a heart-broken lad that hurled himself against the shoulder of this sympathetic-looking girl who, though so much taller, was not so very much older than he.

The Sun Maid’s own heart echoed the cry with a keen pain, and she received the orphan’s outburst with exceeding tenderness. Now, whatever One, the eldest, did the other young numerals all imitated, so that each was soon weeping copiously. Yet, from very excess of energy, their grief soon exhausted itself and they regarded each other with some curiosity. Then Three began to smile, in a shamefaced sort of way, not knowing how far his recovery of composure would be approved by sterner One.

After a habit familiar to him the latter opened his lips to reprove but, fortunately, refrained, as he discovered a tall, stoop-shouldered man crossing the parade-ground.

This gentleman seemed oddly out of place amid that company of immigrants and soldiers. Student and bookworm was written all over his fine, intellectual countenance, and his eyes had that absent expression that had made the commandant’s wife call him a “dreamer.”

His bearing impressed the Sun Maid with reverent awe; a feeling apparently not shared by his sons. For Three ran to him and shook him violently, to secure attention, as he eagerly exclaimed:

“Oh, father! We’ve found one of ’em already! A heathen. Or, any way, a heatheny sort of a girl, but not Indian. She doesn’t know how to read, and she hasn’t any Bible. Come and give her one and teach her quick!”

“Eh? What? A heathen? My child, where?”

“Right there with my brothers. That yellow-headed girl. She’s nice. Are all the heathen as pretty as she is?”

“My son, that young person? Surely, you are mistaken. She must be the daughter of some resident at the Fort, or of some traveller like ourselves.”

“I don’t believe she is. She’s been taking care of herself all day. I haven’t heard anybody tell her ‘Don’t’ once. If she belonged to folk they’d do it wouldn’t they?”

“Very likely. Parents have to discipline their young. Don’t drag me so. I’m walking fast enough.”

“That’s what I say, father. ‘Don’t’ shows I belong to you. But I do wish you’d come. She might get away before you could catch her.”

“Catch her, Three? I don’t understand.”

“I know it. My mother used to say you never did understand plain every-day things. That’s why she had to take care of you the same as us. Oh! I wish we’d never come to this horrid place.”

The reference to his wife and the child’s grief roused the clergyman more completely than even an appeal for the heathen. Laying his thin hand tenderly upon the small rumpled head, he stroked it as he answered: