Chapter IV: Introduction: Of Slavery--The Slave-Trade--African Tribes--The Code (3)

The principal thing that they have to show you, at Greenwich Hospital, is the Painted Hall. It is a splendid and spacious room, at least a hundred feet long and half as high, with a ceiling painted in fresco by Sir James Thornhill. As a work of art, I presume, this frescoed canopy has little merit, though it produces an exceedingly rich effect by its brilliant coloring and as a specimen of magnificent upholstery. The walls of the grand apartment are entirely covered with pictures, many of them representing battles and other naval incidents that were once fresher in the world's memory than now, but chiefly portraits of old admirals, comprising the whole line of heroes who have trod the quarter-decks of British ships for more than two hundred years back. Next to a tomb in Westminster Abbey, which was Nelson's most elevated object of ambition, it would seem to be the highest meed of a naval warrior to have his portrait hung up in the Painted Hall; but, by dint of victory upon victory, these illustrious personages have grown to be a mob, and by no means a very interesting one, so far as regards the character of the faces here depicted. They are generally commonplace, and often singularly stolid; and I have observed (both in the Painted Hall and elsewhere, and not only in portraits, but in the actual presence of such renowned people as I have caught glimpses of) that the countenances of heroes are not nearly so impressive as those of statesmen,--except, of course, in the rare instances where warlike ability has been but the one-sided manifestation of a profound genius for managing the world's affairs. Nine-tenths of these distinguished admirals, for instance, if their faces tell truth, must needs have been blockheads, and might have served better, one would imagine, as wooden figureheads for their own ships than to direct any difficult and intricate scheme of action from the quarter-deck. It is doubtful whether the same kind of men will hereafter meet with a similar degree of success; for they were victorious chiefly through the old English hardihood, exercised in a field of which modern science had not yet got possession. Rough valor has lost something of its value, since their days, and must continue to sink lower and lower in the comparative estimate of warlike qualities. In the next naval war, as between England and France, I would bet, methinks, upon the Frenchman's head.

It is remarkable, however, that the great naval hero of England--the greatest, therefore, in the world, and of all time--had none of the stolid characteristics that belong to his class, and cannot fairly be accepted as their representative man. Foremost in the roughest of professions, he was as delicately organized as a woman, and as painfully sensitive as a poet. More than any other Englishman he won the love and admiration of his country, but won them through the efficacy of qualities that are not English, or, at all events, were intensified in his case and made poignant and powerful by something morbid in the man, which put him otherwise at cross-purposes with life. He was a man of genius; and genius in an Englishman (not to cite the good old simile of a pearl in the oyster) is usually a symptom of a lack of balance in the general making-up of the character; as we may satisfy ourselves by running over the list of their poets, for example, and observing how many of them have been sickly or deformed, and how often their lives have been darkened by insanity. An ordinary Englishman is the healthiest and wholesomest of human beings; an extraordinary one is almost always, in one way or another, a sick man. It was so with Lord Nelson. The wonderful contrast or relation between his personal qualities, the position which he held, and the life that he lived, makes him as interesting a personage as all history has to show; and it is a pity that Southey's biography--so good in its superficial way, and yet so inadequate as regards any real delineation of the man--should have taken the subject out of the hands of some writer endowed with more delicate appreciation and deeper insight than that genuine Englishman possessed.

But the English capacity for hero-worship is full to the brim with what they are able to comprehend of Lord Nelson's character. Adjoining the Painted Hall is a smaller room, the walls of which are completely and exclusively adorned with pictures of the great Admiral's exploits. We see the frail, ardent man in all the most noted events of his career, from his encounter with a Polar bear to his death at Trafalgar, quivering here and there about the room like a blue, lambent flame. No Briton ever enters that apartment without feeling the beef and ale of his composition stirred to its depths, and finding himself changed into a hero for the nonce, however stolid his brain, however tough his heart, however unexcitable his ordinary mood. To confess the truth, I myself, though belonging to another parish, have been deeply sensible to the sublime recollections there aroused, acknowledging that Nelson expressed his life in a kind of symbolic poetry which I had as much right to understand as these burly islanders. Cool and critical observer as I sought to be, I enjoyed their burst of honest indignation when a visitor (not an American, I am glad to say) thrust his walking-stick almost into Nelson's face, in one of the pictures, by way of pointing a remark; and the by-standers immediately glowed like so many hot coals, and would probably have consumed the offender in their wrath, had he not effected his retreat. But the most sacred objects of all are two of Nelson's coats, under separate glass cases. One is that which he wore at the Battle of the Nile, and it is now sadly injured by moths, which will quite destroy it in a few years, unless its guardians preserve it as we do Washington's military suit, by occasionally baking it in an oven. The other is the coat in which he received his death-wound at Trafalgar. On its breast are sewed three or four stars and orders of knighthood, now much dimmed by time and damp, but which glittered brightly enough on the battle-day to draw the fatal aim of a French marksman. The bullet-hole is visible on the shoulder, as well as a part of the golden tassels of an epaulet, the rest of which was shot away. Over the coat is laid a white waistcoat with a great blood-stain on it, out of which all the redness has utterly faded, leaving it of a dingy yellow hue, in the threescore years since that blood gushed out. Yet it was once the reddest blood in England,--Nelson's blood!

The hospital stands close adjacent to the town of Greenwich, which will always retain a kind of festal aspect in my memory, in consequence of my having first become acquainted with it on Easter Monday. Till a few years ago, the first three days of Easter were a carnival-season in this old town, during which the idle and disreputable part of London poured itself into the streets like an inundation of the Thames,--as unclean as that turbid mixture of the offscourings of the vast city, and overflowing with its grimy pollution whatever rural innocence, if any, might be found in the suburban neighborhood. This festivity was called Greenwich Fair, the final one of which, in an immemorial succession, it was my fortune to behold.

If I had bethought myself of going through the fair with a note-book and pencil, jotting down all the prominent objects, I doubt not that the result might have been a sketch of English life quite as characteristic and worthy of historical preservation as an account of the Roman Carnival. Having neglected to do so, I remember little more than a confusion of unwashed and shabbily dressed people, intermixed with some smarter figures, but, on the whole, presenting a mobbish appearance such as we never see in our own country. It taught me to understand why Shakspeare, in speaking of a crowd, so often alludes to its attribute of evil odor. The common people of England, I am afraid, have no daily familiarity with even so necessary a thing as a washbowl, not to mention a bathing-tub. And furthermore, it is one mighty difference between them and us, that every man and woman on our side of the water has a working-day suit and a holiday suit, and is occasionally as fresh as a rose, whereas, in the good old country, the griminess of his labor or squalid habits clings forever to the individual, and gets to be a part of his personal substance. These are broad facts, involving great corollaries and dependencies. There are really, if you stop to think about it, few sadder spectacles in the world than a ragged coat or a soiled and shabby gown, at a festival.

This unfragrant crowd was exceedingly dense, being welded together, as it were, in the street through which we strove to make our way. On either side were oyster-stands, stalls of oranges, (a very prevalent fruit in England, where they give the withered ones a guise of freshness by boiling them,) and booths covered with old sail-cloth, in which the commodity that most attracted the eye was gilt gingerbread. It was so completely enveloped in Dutch gilding that I did not at first recognize an old acquaintance, but wondered what those golden crowns and images could be. There were likewise drums and other toys for small children, and a variety of showy and worthless articles for children of a larger growth; though it perplexed me to imagine who, in such a mob, could have the innocent taste to desire playthings, or the money to pay for them. Not that I have a right to accuse the mob, on my own knowledge, of being any less innocent than a set of cleaner and better dressed people might have been; for, though one of them stole my pocket-handkerchief, I could not but consider it fair game, under the circumstances, and was grateful to the thief for sparing me my purse. They were quiet, civil, and remarkably good-humored, making due allowance for the national gruffness; there was no riot, no tumultuous swaying to and fro of the mass, such as I have often noted in an American crowd, no noise of voices, except frequent bursts of laughter, hoarse or shrill, and a widely diffused, inarticulate murmur, resembling nothing so much as the rumbling of the tide among the arches of London Bridge. What immensely perplexed me was a sharp, angry sort of rattle, in all quarters, far off and close at hand, and sometimes right at my own back, where it sounded as if the stout fabric of my English surtout had been ruthlessly rent in twain; and everybody's clothes, all over the fair, were evidently being torn asunder in the same way. By-and-by, I discovered that this strange noise was produced by a little instrument called "The Fun of the Fair,"--a sort of rattle, consisting of a wooden wheel, the cogs of which turn against a thin slip of wood, and so produce a rasping sound when drawn smartly against a person's back. The ladies draw their rattles against the backs of their male friends, (and everybody passes for a friend at Greenwich Fair,) and the young men return the compliment on the broad British backs of the ladies; and all are bound by immemorial custom to take it in good part and be merry at the joke. As it was one of my prescribed official duties to give an account of such mechanical contrivances as might be unknown in my own country, I have thought it right to be thus particular in describing the Fun of the Fair.

But this was far from being the sole amusement. There were theatrical booths, in front of which were pictorial representations of the scenes to be enacted within; and anon a drummer emerged from one of them, thumping on a terribly lax drum, and followed by the entire _dramatis personae_, who ranged themselves on a wooden platform in front of the theatre. They were dressed in character, but woefully shabby, with very dingy and wrinkled white tights, threadbare cotton-velvets, crumpled silks, and crushed muslin, and all the gloss and glory gone out of their aspect and attire, seen thus in the broad daylight and after a long series of performances. They sang a song together, and withdrew into the theatre, whither the public were invited to follow them at the inconsiderable cost of a penny a ticket. Before another booth stood a pair of brawny fighting-men, displaying their muscle, and soliciting patronage for an exhibition of the noble British art of pugilism. There were pictures of giants, monsters, and outlandish beasts, most prodigious, to be sure, and worthy of all admiration, unless the artist had gone incomparably beyond his subject. Jugglers proclaimed aloud the miracles which they were prepared to work; and posture-makers dislocated every joint of their bodies and tied their limbs into inextricable knots, wherever they could find space to spread a little square of carpet on the ground. In the midst of the confusion, while everybody was treading on his neighbor's toes, some little boys were very solicitous to brush your boots. These lads, I believe, are a product of modern society,--at least, no older than the time of Gay, who celebrates their origin in his "Trivia"; but in most other respects the scene reminded me of Bunyan's description of Vanity Fair,--nor is it at all improbable that the Pilgrim may have been a merry-maker here, in his wild youth.

It seemed very singular--though, of course, I immediately classified it as an English characteristic--to see a great many portable weighing-machines, the owners of which cried out continually and amain,--"Come, know your weight! Come, come, know your weight to-day! Come, know your weight!"--and a multitude of people, mostly large in the girth, were moved by this vociferation to sit down in the machines. I know not whether they valued themselves on their beef, and estimated their standing as members of society at so much a pound; but I shall set it down as a national peculiarity, and a symbol of the prevalence of the earthly over the spiritual element, that Englishmen are wonderfully bent on knowing how solid and physically ponderous they are.

On the whole, having an appetite for the brown bread and the tripe and sausages of life, as well as for its nicer cates and dainties, I enjoyed the scene, and was amused at the sight of a gruff old Greenwich pensioner, who, forgetful of the sailor-frolics of his young days, stood looking with grim disapproval at all these vanities. Thus we squeezed our way through the mob-jammed town, and emerged into the Park, where, likewise, we met a great many merry-makers, but with freer space for their gambols than in the streets. We soon found ourselves the targets for a cannonade with oranges, (most of them in a decayed condition,) which went humming past our ears from the vantage-ground of neighboring hillocks, sometimes hitting our sacred persons with an inelastic thump. This was one of the privileged freedoms of the time, and was nowise to be resented, except by returning the salute. Many persons were running races, hand in hand, down the declivities, especially that steepest one on the summit of which stands the world-central Observatory, and (as in the race of life) the partners were usually male and female, and often caught a tumble together before reaching the bottom of the hill. Hereabouts we were pestered and haunted by two young girls, the eldest not more than thirteen, teasing us to buy matches; and finding no market for their commodity, the taller one suddenly turned a somerset before our faces, and rolled heels over head from top to bottom of the hill on which we stood. Then, scrambling up the acclivity, the topsy-turvy trollop offered us her matches again, as demurely as if she had never flung aside her equilibrium; so that, dreading a repetition of the feat, we gave her sixpence and an admonition, and enjoined her never to do so any more.

The most curious amusement that we witnessed here--or anywhere else, indeed--was an ancient and hereditary pastime called "Kissing in the Ring." It is one of the simplest kinds of games, needing little or no practice to make the player altogether perfect; and the manner of it is this. A ring is formed, (in the present case, it was of large circumference and thickly gemmed around with faces, mostly on the broad grin,) into the centre of which steps an adventurous youth, and, looking round the circle, selects whatever maiden may most delight his eye. He presents his hand, (which she is bound to accept,) leads her into the centre, salutes her on the lips, and retires, taking his stand in the expectant circle. The girl, in her turn, throws a favorable regard on some fortunate young man, offers her hand to lead him forth, makes him happy with a maidenly kiss, and withdraws to hide her blushes, if any there be, among the simpering faces in the ring; while the favored swain loses no time in transferring her salute to the prettiest and plumpest among the many mouths that are primming themselves in anticipation. And thus the thing goes on, till all the festive throng are inwreathed and intertwined into an endless and inextricable chain of kisses; though, indeed, it smote me with compassion to reflect that some forlorn pair of lips might be left out, and never know the triumph of a salute, after throwing aside so many delicate reserves for the sake of winning it. If the young men had any chivalry, there was a fair chance to display it by kissing the homeliest damsel in the circle.

To be frank, however, at the first glance, and to my American eye, they looked all homely alike, and the chivalry that I suggest is more than I could have been capable of, at any period of my life. They seemed to be country-lasses, of sturdy and wholesome aspect, with coarse-grained, cabbage-rosy cheeks, and, I am willing to suppose, a stout texture of moral principle, such as would bear a good deal of rough usage without suffering much detriment. But how unlike the trim little damsels of my native land! I desire above all things to be courteous; but, since the plain truth must be told, the soil and climate of England produce feminine beauty as rarely as they do delicate fruit, and though admirable specimens of both are to be met with, they are the hot-house ameliorations of refined society, and apt, moreover, to relapse into the coarseness of the original stock. The men are man-like, but the women are not beautiful, though the female Bull be well enough adapted to the male. To return to the lasses of Greenwich Fair, their charms were few, and their behavior, perhaps, not altogether commendable; and yet it was impossible not to feel a degree of faith in their innocent intentions, with such a half-bashful zest and entire simplicity did they keep up their part of the game. It put the spectator in good-humor to look at them, because there was still something of the old Arcadian life, the secure freedom of the antique age, in their way of surrendering their lips to strangers, as if there were no evil or impurity in the world. As for the young men, they were chiefly specimens of the vulgar sediment of London life, often shabbily genteel, rowdyish, pale, wearing the unbrushed coat, unshifted linen, and unwashed faces of yesterday, as well as the haggardness of last night's jollity in a gin-shop. Gathering their character from these tokens, I wondered whether there were any reasonable prospect of their fair partners returning to their rustic homes with as much innocence (whatever were its amount or quality) as they brought to Greenwich Fair, in spite of the perilous familiarity established by Kissing in the Ring.

The manifold disorders resulting from the fair, at which a vast city was brought into intimate relations with a comparatively rural district, have at length led to its suppression; this was the very last celebration of it, and brought to a close the broad-mouthed merriment of many hundred years. Thus my poor sketch, faint as its colors are, may acquire some little value in the reader's eyes from the consideration that no observer of the coming time will ever have an opportunity to give a better. I should find it difficult to believe, however, that the queer pastime just described, or any moral mischief to which that and other customs might pave the way, can have led to the overthrow of Greenwich Fair; for it has often seemed to me that Englishmen of station and respectability, unless of a peculiarly philanthropic turn, have neither any faith in the feminine purity of the lower orders of their countrywomen, nor the slightest value for it, allowing its possible existence. The distinction of ranks is so marked, that the English cottage-damsel holds a position somewhat analogous to that of the negro girl in our Southern States. Hence comes inevitable detriment to the moral condition of those men themselves, who forget that the humblest woman has a right and a duty to hold herself in the same sanctity as the highest. The subject cannot well be discussed in these pages; but I offer it as a serious conviction, from what I have been able to observe, that the England of to-day is the unscrupulous old England of Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random; and in our refined era, just the same as at that more free-spoken epoch, this singular people has a certain contempt for any fine-strained purity, any special squeamishness, as they consider it, on the part of an ingenuous youth. They appear to look upon it as a suspicious phenomenon in the masculine character.

Nevertheless, I by no means take upon me to affirm that English morality, as regards the phase here alluded to, is really at a lower point than our own. Assuredly, I hope so, because, making a higher pretension, or, at all events, more carefully hiding whatever may be amiss, we are either better than they, or necessarily a great deal worse. It impressed me that their open avowal and recognition of immoralities served to throw the disease to the surface, where it might be more effectually dealt with, and leave a sacred interior not utterly profaned, instead of turning its poison back among the inner vitalities of the character, at the imminent risk of corrupting them all. Be that as it may, these Englishmen are certainly a franker and simpler people than ourselves, from peer to peasant; but if we can take it as compensatory on our part, (which I leave to be considered,) that they owe those noble and manly qualities to a coarser grain in their nature, and that, with a finer one in ours, we shall ultimately acquire a marble polish of which they are unsusceptible, I believe that this may be the truth.

* * * * *

THE VAGABONDS.

We are two travellers, Roger and I.
Roger's my dog.--Come here, you scamp!
Jump for the gentlemen,--mind your eye!
Over the table,--look out for the lamp!--
The rogue is growing a little old;
Five years we've tramped through wind and weather,
And slept out-doors when nights were cold,
And ate and drank--and starved--together.

We've learned what comfort is, I tell you!
A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin,
A fire to thaw our thumbs, (poor fellow!
The paw he holds up there's been frozen,)
Plenty of catgut for my fiddle,
(This out-door business is bad for strings,)
Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle,
And Roger and I set up for kings!

No, thank ye, Sir,--I never drink;
Roger and I are exceedingly moral,--
Aren't we, Roger?--See him wink!--
Well, something hot, then,--we won't quarrel.
He's thirsty, too,--see him nod his head?
What a pity, Sir, that dogs can't talk!
He understands every word that's said,--
And he knows good milk from water-and-chalk.

The truth is, Sir, now I reflect,
I've been so sadly given to grog,
I wonder I've not lost the respect
(Here's to you, Sir!) even of my dog.
But he sticks by, through thick and thin;
And this old coat, with its empty pockets,
And rags that smell of tobacco and gin,
He'll follow while he has eyes in his sockets.

There isn't another creature living
Would do it, and prove, through every disaster,
So fond, so faithful, and so forgiving,
To such a miserable thankless master!
No, Sir!--see him wag his tail and grin I
By George! it makes my old eyes water!
That is, there's something in this gin
That chokes a fellow. But no matter!

We'll have some music, if you 're willing,
And Roger (hem! what a plague a cough is, Sir!)
Shall march a little.--Start, you villain!
Stand straight! 'Bout face! Salute your officer!
Put up that paw! Dress! Take your rifle!
(Some dogs have arms, you see!) Now hold your
Cap while the gentlemen give a trifle,
To aid a poor old patriot soldier!

March! Halt! Now show how the rebel shakes,
When he stands up to hear his sentence.
Now tell us how many drams it takes
To honor a jolly new acquaintance.
Five yelps,--that's five; he's mighty knowing!
The night's before us, fill the glasses!--
Quick, Sir! I'm ill,--my brain is going!--
Some brandy,--thank you,--there!--it passes!

Why not reform? That's easily said;
But I've gone through such wretched treatment,
Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread,
And scarce remembering what meat meant,
That my poor stomach's past reform;
And there are times when, mad with thinking,
I'd sell out heaven for something warm
To prop a horrible inward sinking.

Is there a way to forget to think?
At your age, Sir, home, fortune, friends,
A dear girl's love,--but I took to drink;--
The same old story; you know how it ends.
If you could have seen these classic features,----
You needn't laugh, Sir; they were not then
Such a burning libel on God's creatures:
I was one of your handsome men!

If you had seen HER, so fair and young,
Whose head was happy on this breast!
If you could have heard the songs I sung
When the wine went round, you wouldn't have guessed
That ever I, Sir, should be straying
From door to door, with fiddle and dog,
Ragged and penniless, and playing
To you to-night for a glass of grog!

She's married since,--a parson's wife:
'T was better for her that we should part,--
Better the soberest, prosiest life
Than a blasted home and a broken heart.
I have seen her? Once: I was weak and spent
On the dusty road: a carriage stopped:
But little she dreamed, as on she went,
Who kissed the coin that her fingers dropped!

You've set me talking, Sir; I'm sorry;
It makes me wild to think of the change!
What do you care for a beggar's story?
Is it amusing? you find it strange?
I had a mother so proud of me!
'T was well she died before--Do you know
If the happy spirits in heaven can see
The ruin and wretchedness here below?

Another glass, and strong, to deaden
This pain; then Roger and I will start.
I wonder, has he such a lumpish, leaden,
Aching thing, in place of a heart?
He is sad sometimes, and would weep, if he could,
No doubt, remembering things that were,--
A virtuous kennel, with plenty of food,
And himself a sober, respectable cur.

I'm better now; that glass was warming.--
You rascal! limber your lazy feet I
We must be fiddling and performing
For supper and bed, or starve in the street.--
Not a very gay life to lead, you think?
But soon we shall go where lodgings are free,
And the sleepers need neither victuals nor drink;--
The sooner, the better for Roger and me!

WILLIE WHARTON.

Would you like to read a story which is true, and yet not true? The one I am going to tell you is a superstructure of imagination on a basis of facts. I trust you are not curious to ascertain the exact proportion of each. It is sufficient for any reasonable reader to be assured that many of the leading incidents interwoven in the following story actually occurred in one of our Western States, a few years ago.

It was a bright afternoon in the spring-time; the wide, flowery prairie waved in golden sunlight, and distant tree-groups were illuminated by the clear, bright atmosphere. Throughout the whole expanse, only two human dwellings were visible. These were small log-cabins, each with a clump of trees near it, and the rose of the prairies climbing over the roof. In the rustic piazza of one of these cabins a woman was sewing busily, occasionally moving a cradle gently with her foot. On the steps of the piazza was seated a man, who now and then read aloud some paragraph from a newspaper. From time to time, the woman raised her eyes from her work, and, shading them from the sunshine with her hand, looked out wistfully upon the sea of splendor, everywhere waving in flowery ripples to the soft breathings of the balmy air. At length she said,--

"Brother George, I begin to feel a little anxious about Willie. He was told not to go out of sight, and he is generally a good boy to mind; but I should think it was more than ten minutes since I have seen him. I wish you would try the spy-glass."

The man arose, and, after looking abroad for a moment, took a small telescope from the corner of the piazza, and turned it in the direction the boy had taken.

"Ah, now I see the little rogue!" he exclaimed. "I think it must have been that island of high grass that hid him from you. He has not gone very far; and now he is coming this way. But who upon earth is he leading along? I believe the adventurous little chap has been to the land of Nod to get him a wife. I know of no little girl, except my Bessie, for five miles round; and it certainly is not she. The fat little thing has toppled over in the grass, and Willie is picking her up. I believe in my soul she's an Indian."

"An Indian!" exclaimed the mother, starting up suddenly. "Have you heard of any Indians being seen hereabouts? Do blow the horn to hurry him home."

A tin horn was taken from the nail on which it hung, and a loud blast stirred the silent air. Moles stopped their digging, squirrels paused in their gambols, prairie-dogs passed quickly from one to another a signal of alarm, and all the little beasts wondered what could be the meaning of these new sounds which had lately invaded the stillness of their haunts.

George glanced at the anxious countenance of his sister, and said,--

"Don't be frightened, Jenny, if some Indians do happen to call and see us. You know you always agreed with me that they would be as good as Christians, if they were treated justly and kindly. Besides, you see this one is a very small savage, and we shall soon have help enough to defend us from her formidable blows. I made a louder noise with the horn than I need to have done; it has startled your husband, and he is coming from his plough; and there is my wife and Bessie running to see what is the matter over here."

By this time the truant boy and his companion approached the house, and he mounted the steps of the piazza with eager haste, pulling her after him, immediately upon the arrival of his father, Aunt Mary, and Cousin Bessie. Brief explanation was made, that the horn was blown to hurry Willie home; and all exclaimed,--

"Why, Willie! who is this?"

"Found her squatting on the grass, pulling flowers," he replied, almost out of breath. "Don't know her name. She talks lingo."

The whole company laughed. The new-comer was a roly-poly, round enough to roll, with reddish-brown face, and a mop of black hair, cut in a straight line just above the eyes. But _such_ eyes! large and lambent, with a foreshadowing of sadness in their expression. They shone in her dark face like moonlit waters in the dusky landscape of evening. Her only garment was a short kirtle of plaited grass, not long enough to conceal her chubby knees. She understood no word of English, and, when spoken to, repeated an Indian phrase, enigmatical to all present. She clung to Willie, as if he were an old friend; and he, quite proud of the manliness of being a protector, stood with his arm across her brown shoulders, half offended at their merriment, saying,--

"She's _my_ little girl. _I_ found her."

"I _thought_ he'd been to the land of Nod to get him a wife," said Uncle George, smiling.

Little Bessie, with clean apron, and flaxen hair nicely tied up with ribbons, was rather shy of the stranger.

"She'th dirty," lisped she, pointing to her feet.

"Well, s'pose she is?" retorted William. "I guess _you_'d be dirty, too, if you'd been running about in the mud, without any shoes. But she's pretty. She's like my black kitten, only she a'n't got a white nose."

Willie's comparison was received with shouts of laughter; for there really was some resemblance to the black kitten in that queer little face. But when the small mouth quivered with a grieved expression, and she clung closer to Willie, as if afraid, kind Uncle George patted her head, and tried to part the short, thick, black hair, which would not stay parted, but insisted upon hanging straight over her eyebrows. Baby Emma had been wakened in her cradle by the noise, and began to rub her eyes out with her little fists. Being lifted into her mother's lap, she hid her face for a while; but finally she peeped forth timidly, and fixed a wondering gaze on the new-comer. It seemed that she concluded to like her; for she shook her little dimpled hand to her, and began to crow. The language of children needs no interpreter. The demure little Indian understood the baby-salutation, and smiled.

Aunt Mary brought bread and milk, which she devoured like a hungry animal. While she was eating, the wagon arrived with Willie's older brother, Charley, who had been to the far-off mill with the hired man. The sturdy boy came in, all aglow, calling out,--"Oh, mother! the boy at the mill has caught a prairie-dog. Such a funny-looking thing!"

He halted suddenly before the small stranger, gave a slight whistle, and exclaimed,--

"Halloo! here's a funny-looking prairie-puss!"

"She a'n't a prairie-puss," cried Willie, pushing him back with doubled fists. "She's a little girl; and she's _my_ little girl. I found her."

"She's a great find," retorted the roguish brother, as he went behind her, and pulled the long black hair that fell over her shoulders.

"Now you let her alone!" shouted Willie; and the next moment the two boys were rolling over on the piazza, pommelling each other, half in play, half in earnest. The little savage sat coiled up on the floor, watching them without apparent emotion; but when a hard knock made Willie cry out, she sprang forward with the agility of a kitten, and, repeating some Indian word with strong emphasis, began to beat Charley with all her might. Instinctively, he was about to give blows in return; but his father called out,--

"Hold there, my boy! Never strike a girl!"

"And never harm a wanderer that needs protection," said Uncle George. "It isn't manly, Charley."

Thus rebuked, Charley walked away somewhat crestfallen. But before he disappeared at the other end of the piazza, he turned back to sing,--

"Willie went a-hunting, and caught a pappoose."

"She a'n't a pappoose, she's a little girl," shouted Willie; "and she's _my_ little girl. I didn't hunt her; I found her."

Uncle George and his family did not return to their cabin till the warm, yellow tint of the sky had changed to azure-gray. While consultations were held concerning how it was best to dispose of the little wanderer for the night, she nestled into a corner, where, rolled up like a dog, she fell fast asleep. A small bed was improvised for her in the kitchen. But when they attempted to raise her up, she was dreaming of her mother's wigwam, and, waking suddenly to find herself among strangers, she forgot the events of the preceding hours, and became a pitiful image of terror. Willie, who was being undressed in another room, was brought in in his nightgown, and the sight of him reassured her. She clung to him, and refused to be separated from him; and it was finally concluded that she should sleep with her little protector in his trundle-bed, which every night was rolled out from under the bed of his father and mother. A tub of water was brought, and as Willie jumped into it, and seemed to like to splash about, she was induced to do the same. The necessary ablutions having been performed, and the clean nightgowns put on, the little ones walked to their trundle-bed hand in hand. Charley pulled the long hair once more, as they passed, and began to sing, "Willie went a-hunting"; but the young knight-errant was too sleepy and tired to return to the charge. The older brother soon went to rest also; and all became as still within-doors as it was on the wide, solitary prairie.

The father and mother sat up a little while, one mending a harness, the other repairing a rip in a garment. They talked together in low tones of Willie's singular adventure; and Mrs. Wharton asked her husband whether he supposed this child belonged to the Indians whose tracks their man had seen on his way to the mill. She shared her brother's kindly feeling toward the red men, because they were an injured and oppressed race. But, in her old New-England home, she had heard and read stories that made a painful impression on the imagination of childhood; and though she was now a sensible and courageous woman, the idea of Indians in the vicinity rendered the solitude of the wilderness oppressive. The sudden cry of a night-bird made her start and turn pale.

"Don't be afraid," said her husband, soothingly, "It is as George says. Nothing but justice and kindness is needed to render these wild people firm friends to the whites."

"I believe it," she replied; "but treaties with them have been so wickedly violated, and they are so shamefully cheated by Government-agents, that they naturally look upon all white men as their enemies. How can they know that we are more friendly to them than others?"

"We have been kind to their child," responded Mr. Wharton, "and that will prevent them from injuring us."

"I would have been just as kind to the little thing, if we had an army here to protect us," she rejoined.

"They will know that, Jenny," he said. "Indian instincts are keen. Your gentle eyes and motherly ways are a better defence than armies would be." The mild blue eyes thanked him with an affectionate glance. His words somewhat calmed her fears; but before retiring to rest, she looked out, far and wide, upon the lonely prairie. It was beautiful, but spectral, in the ghostly veil of moonlight. Every bolt was carefully examined, and the tin horn hung by the bedside. When all preparations were completed, she drew aside the window-curtain to look at the children in their trundle-bed, all bathed with silvery moonshine. They lay with their arms about each other's necks, the dark brow nestled close to the rosy cheek, and the mass of black hair mingled with the light brown locks. The little white boy of six summers and the Indian maiden of four slept there as cozily as two kittens with different fur. The mother gazed on them fondly, as she said,--

"It is a pretty sight. I often think what beautiful significance there is in the Oriental benediction, 'May you sleep tranquilly as a child when his friends are with him!'"

"It is, indeed, a charming picture," rejoined her husband. "This would be a text for George to preach from; and his sermon would be, that confidence is always born of kindness."

The fear of Indians vanished from the happy mother's thoughts, and she fell asleep with a heart full of love for all human kind.

The children were out of their bed by daylight. The little savage padded about with naked feet, apparently feeling much at home, but seriously incommoded by her night-gown, which she pulled at restlessly, from time to time, saying something in her own dialect, which no one could interpret. But they understood her gestures, and showed her the kirtle of plaited grass, still damp with the thorough washing it had had the night before. At sight of it she became quite voluble; but what she said no one knew. "What gibberish you talk!" exclaimed Charley. She would not allow him to come near her. She remembered how he had pulled her hair and tussled with Willie. But two bright buttons on a string made peace between them. He put the mop on his head, and shook it at her, saying, "Moppet, you'd be pretty, if you wore your hair like folks." Willie was satisfied with this concession; and already the whole family began to outgrow the feeling that the little wayfarer belonged to a foreign race.

Early in the afternoon two Indians came across the prairie. Moppet saw them first, and announced the discovery by a shrill shout, which the Indiana evidently heard; for they halted instantly, and then walked on faster than before. When the child went to meet them, the woman quickened her pace a little, and took her hand; but no signs of emotion were perceptible. As they approached the cabin, Moppet appeared to be answering their brief questions without any signs of fear. "Poor little thing!" said Mrs. Wharton. "I am glad they are not angry with her. I was afraid they might beat her."

The strangers were received with the utmost friendliness, but their stock of English was so very scanty that little information could be gained from them. The man pointed to the child, and said, "Wik-a-nee, me go way she." And the woman said, "Me tank." No further light was ever thrown upon Willie's adventure in finding a pappoose alone on the prairie. The woman unstrapped from her shoulder a string of baskets, which she laid upon the ground. Moppet said something to her mother, and placed her hand on a small one brightly stained with red and yellow. The basket was given to her, and she immediately presented it to Willie. At the same time the Indian woman offered a large basket to Mrs. Wharton, pointing to the child, and saying, "Wik-a-nee. Me tank." Money was offered her, but she shook her head, and repeated, "Wik-a-nee. Me tank." The man also refused the coin, with a slow motion of his head, saying, "Me tank." They ate of the food that was offered them, and received a salted fish and bread with "Me tank."

"Mother," exclaimed Willie, "I want to give Moppet something. May I give her my Guinea-peas?"

"Certainly, my son, if you wish to," she replied.

He ran into the cabin, and came out with a tin box. When he uncovered it, and showed Moppet the bright scarlet seeds, each with a shining black spot, her dark eyes glowed, and she uttered a joyous "Eugh!" The passive, sad expression of the Indian woman's countenance almost brightened into a smile, as she said, "Wik-a-nee tank."

After resting awhile, she again strapped the baskets on her shoulder, and taking her little one by the hand, they resumed their tramp across the prairie,--no one knowing whence they came, or whither they were going. As far as they could be seen, it was noticed that the child looked back from time to time. She was saying to her mother she wished they could take that little pale-faced boy with them.

"So Moppet is gone," said Charley. "I wonder whether we shall ever see her again." Willie heaved a sigh, and said, "I wish she was my little sister."

Thus met two innocent little beings, unconscious representatives of races widely separated in moral and intellectual culture, but children of the same Heavenly Father, and equally subject to the attractions of great Mother Nature. Blessed childhood, that yields spontaneously to those attractions, ignoring all distinctions of pride or prejudice! Verily, we should lose all companionship with angels, were it not for the ladder of childhood, on which they descend to meet us.

It was a pleasant ripple in the dull stream of their monotonous life, that little adventure of the stray pappoose. At almost every gathering of the household, for several days after, something was recalled of her uncouth, yet interesting looks, and of her wild, yet winning ways. Charley persisted in his opinion that "Moppet would be pretty, if she wore her hair like folks."

"Her father and mother called her Wik-a-nee," said Willie; "and I like that name better than I do Moppet." He took great pains to teach it to his baby sister; and he succeeded so well, that, whenever the red-and-yellow basket was shown to her, she said, "Mik-a-nee,"--the W being beyond her infant capabilities.

Something of tenderness mixed with Mrs. Wharton's recollections of the grotesque little stranger. "I never saw anything so like the light of an astral lamp as those beautiful large eyes of hers," said she. "I began to love the odd little thing; and if she had stayed much longer, I should have been very loath to part with her."

The remembrance of the incident gradually faded; but whenever a far-off neighbor or passing emigrant stopped at the cabin, Willie brought forward his basket, and repeated the story of Wik-a-nee,--seldom forgetting to imitate her strange cry of joy when she saw the scarlet peas. His mother was now obliged to be more watchful than ever to prevent him from wandering out of sight and hearing. He had imbibed an indefinite idea that there was a great realm of adventure out there beyond. If he could only get a little nearer to the horizon, he thought he might perhaps find another pappoose, or catch a prairie-dog and tame it. He had heard his father say that a great many of those animals lived together in houses under ground,--that they placed sentinels at their doors to watch, and held a town-meeting when any danger approached. When Willie was summoned from his exploring excursions, he often remonstrated, saying, "Mother, what makes you blow the horn so _soon_? You never give me time to find a prairie-dog. It would be capital fun to have a dog that knows enough to go to town-meeting." Charley took particular pleasure in increasing his excitement on that subject. He told him he had once seen a prairie-dog standing sentinel at the entrance-hole of their habitations. He made a picture of the creature with charcoal on the shed-door, and proposed to prick a copy of it into Willie's arm with India-ink, which was joyfully agreed to. The likeness, when completed, was very much like a squash upon two sticks, but it was eminently satisfactory to the boys. There was no end to Willie's inquiries. How to find that hole which Charley had seen, to crawl into it, and attend a dogs' town-meeting, was the ruling idea of his life. Unsentimental as it was, considering the juvenile gallantry he had manifested, it was an undeniable fact, that, in the course of a few months, prairie-dogs had chased Wik-a-nee almost beyond the bounds of his memory.

Autumn came, and was passing away. The waving sea of verdure had become brown, and the clumps of trees, dotted about like islands, stood denuded of their foliage. At this season the cattle were missing one day, and were not to be found. A party was formed to go in search of them, consisting of all the men from both homesteads, except Mr. Wharton, who remained to protect the women and children, in case of any unforeseen emergency. Charley obtained his father's permission to go with Uncle George; and Willie began to beg hard to go also. When his mother told him he was too young to be trusted, he did not cry, because he knew it was an invariable rule that he was never to have anything he cried for; but he grasped her gown, and looked beseechingly in her face, and said,--

"Oh, mother, do let me go with Charley, just this once! Maybe we shall catch a prairie-dog."

"No, darling," she replied. "You are not old enough to go so far. When you are a bigger boy, you shall go after the cattle, and go a-hunting with father, too, if you like."

"Oh, dear!" he exclaimed, impatiently, "when _shall_ I be a bigger boy? You _never_ will let me go far enough to see the prairie-dogs hold a town-meeting!"

The large brown eyes looked up very imploringly.

Mr. Wharton smiled and said,--

"Jenny, you do keep the little fellow tied pretty close to your apron-string. Perhaps you had better let him go this time."

Thus reinforced, the petted boy redoubled his importunities, and finally received permission to go, on condition that he would be very careful not to wander away from his brother. Charley promised not to trust him out of his sight; and the men said, if they were detained till dark, they would be sure to put the boys in a safe path to return home before sunset. Willie was equipped for the excursion, full of joyous anticipations of marvellous adventures and promises to return before sunset and tell his parents about everything he had seen. His mother kissed him, as she drew the little cap over his brown locks, and repeated her injunctions over and over again. He jumped down both steps of the piazza at once, eager to see whether Uncle George and Charley were ready. His mother stood watching him, and he looked up to her with such a joyful smile on his broad, frank face, that she called to him,--

"Come and kiss me again, Willie, before you go; and remember, dear, not to go out of sight of Uncle George and Charley."

He leaped up the steps, gave her a hearty smack, and bounded away.

When the party started, she stood a little while gazing after them. Her husband said,--

"What a pet you make of that boy, Jenny. And it must be confessed he is the brightest one of the lot."

"And a good child, too," she rejoined. "He is so affectionate, and so willing to mind what is said to him! But he is so active, and eager for adventures! How the prairie-dogs do occupy his busy little brain!"

"That comes of living out West," replied Mr. Wharton, smiling. "You know the miller told us, when we first came, that there was nothing like it for making folks know everything about all _natur_'."

They separated to pursue their different avocations, and, being busy, were consequently cheerful,--except that the mother had some occasional misgivings whether she had acted prudently in consenting that her darling should go beyond sound of the horn. She began to look out for the boys early in the afternoon; but the hours passed, and still they came not. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and was sending up regular streaks of gold, like a great glittering crown, when Charley was seen coming alone across the prairie. A pang like the point of a dagger went through the mother's heart. Her first thought was,--

"Oh, my son! my son! some evil beast has devoured him."

Charley walked so slowly and wearily that she could not wait for his coming, but went forth to meet him. As soon as she came within sound of his voice, she called out,--

"Oh, Charley, where's Willie?"

The poor boy trembled in every joint, as he threw himself upon her neck and sobbed out,--

"Oh, mother! mother!"

Her face was very pale, as she asked, in low, hollow tones,--

"Is he dead?"

"No, mother; but we don't know where he is. Oh, mother, do forgive me!" was the despairing answer.