Evelyn Raymond - The Sun Maid - A Story of Fort Dearborn

This was good advice, but Wahneenah couldn’t take it. She was too human, too motherly, and under all her superstition, too sure of the Sun Maid’s real flesh-and-blood existence to be easily comforted. So she went, instead, to the outskirts of the settlement to watch for what might be coming of good or ill. And so she came all the sooner to find her lost darling, and she vowed within herself that never again, so long as her own life should last, would she lose sight of that precious golden head.

“My Girl-Child! My White Papoose, Beloved! Found again! But how could you?”

“I did get runned away with myself this time, nice Other Mother. Don’t look at Kitty that way. Kitty is very hungry. Nice Black Partridge Feather-man did find me, riding and riding and riding. The pretty Snowbird had lots of wings, I guess, for she flew and flew and flew. But I didn’t see Osceolo. He couldn’t have come, could he? I thought he was coming, too, when he clapped his hands and shooed me off so fast. Where is he?”

That was what several were desirous to learn. The affair had turned out much better than might have been expected, but there would be a day of reckoning for the village torment when he and its chief should chance to meet.

Knowing this, Osceolo remained in hiding for some time. Until, indeed, his curiosity got the better of his discretion. This happened when the Man-Who-Kills came stealing to his retreat and begged his assistance.

“I want you to take my white boy-captive and lead him to the tepee of the Woman-Who-Mourns. My wife Sorah will not have him in her wigwam. She says that from the moment that other white child, the Sun Maid, came to the lodge of Wahneenah, there has been trouble without end, even though all the three charms against evil have been bestowed upon her. There are no charms for this dark boy, but there’s always trouble enough (where Sorah is). He’s so worn and unhappy, he’ll make no objection, but will follow like a dog. He neither speaks nor sleeps nor eats. I have no use for a fool, I. You do it, Osceolo, and you’ll see what I will give you in reward! Also, if the Woman-Who-Mourns has lost the Sun Maid, maybe this Dark-Eye will be a better stayer.”

“But what will you give me, Man-Who-Kills? I – I think I’d rather not meddle any more with the family of my chief.”

“Ugh! Are a coward, eh? Never mind. There are other lads at Muck-otey-pokee, and plenty of plunder in my wigwam.”

“All right. Come along, Dark-Eye. Might as well be Dark-Brow, too, for he looks like a night without stars. What will you do with his horse, Man-Who-Kills?”

“Let you ride it for me, sometimes.”

“I can do it”; and without further delay, leading the utterly passive and disheartened Gaspar, the Indian lad set off for Wahneenah’s home. The captive had no expectation of anything but the most dreadful fate, and his tired brain reeled at the remembrance of what he might yet undergo. Yet, what use to resist?

Meanwhile, Osceolo, confident that all the braves whom he need fear were still absent from the village, started his charge along the trail at a rapid pace, and reached the wigwam of the Woman-Who-Mourns at the very moment when Black Partridge, White Pelican, and the Sun Maid came riding to it from the prairie.

She was alive, then! She was, in truth, a “spirit”! His mischievousness had had no power to harm her, she was exempt from any ill that might befall another, she had come back to – How could such an innocent-appearing creature punish one who had so misled her?

He had no time to guess. For the child had caught sight of the stupid lad he was leading, and with a cry of ecstacy had sprung from the Snowbird and landed plump upon the prisoner’s shoulders.

“Gaspar! My Gaspar, my Gaspar! Mine, mine, mine!”

It was a transformation scene. The white boy had staggered under the unexpected assault of his old playmate, but he had instantly recognized her. With a cry as full of joy as her own, he clasped her close, and showered his kisses on her upturned face.

“Kitty! why, Kitty! You aren’t dead, then? You are not hurt? And we thought – oh, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!”

Clinging to each other, they slipped to the ground, too absorbed in themselves to notice anything else; while Osceolo watched them in almost equal absorption.

But he was roused sooner than they. A hand fell on his shoulder. A hand whose touch could be as gentle as a woman’s, but was now like a steel band crushing the very bones.

“Osceolo!”

“Yes, Black Partridge,” quavered the terrified lad.

“You will come to my tepee. Alone!”

“She is a spirit. I know that nothing can harm her. Yet many things can harm me. I have no desire to suffer any further anxiety. Therefore – this. My Girl-Child, my White Papoose, come here.”

The Sun Maid reluctantly obeyed. It was the morning after her perilous ride on the back of an untamed horse and her joyful reunion with Gaspar, her old playmate of the Fort. The two were now just without the wigwam of Wahneenah, sitting clasped in each other’s arms, as if fearful that a fresh separation awaited them should they once relinquish this tight hold of one another; and it was in much the same feeling that the foster-mother regarded them.

“But why, Other Mother? I do love my Gaspar boy. I did know him always.”

“You’ve known me two years, Kitty,” corrected the truthful lad. “But I suppose that is as long as you can remember. You’re such a baby.”

“How old is the Sun Maid – as you white people reckon ages?” asked Wahneenah.

“She is five years old. Her birthday was on the Fourth of July. We had a celebration. Our Captain fired as many rounds of ammunition as she was years old. The mothers made her a cake, with sugar on the top, and with five little candles they made themselves on purpose, and colored with strawberry juice. Oh, surely, there never was such a cake in all the world as they made for our ‘baby!’” cried the lad, forgetting for the moment present troubles in this delightful memory.

“Well, there are other women who can make other cakes,” said Wahneenah, with ready jealousy.

“Oh, but an Indian cake – ” began Gaspar, then stopped abruptly, frightened at his own boldness.

Wahneenah smiled. For small Kitty was swift to see the change in her playmate’s face, and her own caught, for an instant, a reflection of its fear. The foster-mother wished to banish this fear.

“Wahneenah likes those who say their thoughts out straight and clear. She is the sister of the Man-Who-Cannot-Lie. It is the crime of the pale-faces that they will lie, and always. Wherefore, they are always in danger. Take warning. Learn to be truth-tellers, like the Pottawatomies, and you will have no trouble.”

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