Chapter V: Introduction: Of Slavery--The Slave-Trade--African Tribes--The Code (4)

The story was soon told. The cattle had strayed farther than they supposed, and Willie was very tired before they came in sight of them. It was not convenient to spare a man to convey him home, and it was agreed that Charley should take him a short distance from their route to a log-cabin, with whose friendly inmates they were well acquainted. There he was to be left to rest, while his brother returned for a while to help in bringing the cattle together. The men separated, going in various circuitous directions, agreeing to meet at a specified point, and wait for Charley. He had a boy's impatience to be at the place of rendezvous. When he arrived near the cabin, and had led Willie into the straight path to it, he charged him to go into the house, and not leave it till he came for him; and then he ran back with all speed to Uncle George. The transaction seemed to him so safe that it did not occur to his honest mind that he had violated the promise given to his mother. While the sun was yet high in the heavens, his uncle sent him back to the log-cabin for Willie, and sent a man with him to guide them both within sight of home. Great was their alarm when the inmates of the house told them they had not seen the little boy. They searched, in hot haste, in every direction. Diverging from the road to the cabin was a path known as the Indian trail, on which hunters, of various tribes, passed and repassed in their journeys to and from Canada. The prints of Willie's shoes were traced some distance on this path, but disappeared at a wooded knoll not far off. The inmates of the cabin said a party of Indians had passed that way in the forenoon. With great zeal they joined in the search, taking with them horns and dogs. Charley ran hither and thither, in an agony of remorse and terror, screaming, "Willie! Willie!" Horns were blown with all the strength of manly lungs; but there was no answer,--not even the illusion of an echo. All agreed in thinking that the lost boy had been on the Indian trail; but whether he had taken it by mistake, or whether he had been tempted aside from his path by hopes of finding prairie-dogs, was matter of conjecture. Charley was almost exhausted by fatigue and anxiety, when his father's man guided him within sight of home, and told him to go to his mother, while he returned to give the alarm to Uncle George. This was all the unhappy brother had to tell; and during the recital his voice was often interrupted by sobs, and he exclaimed, with passionate vehemence,--

"Oh, father! oh, mother! do forgive me! I didn't think I was doing wrong,--indeed, I didn't!"

With aching hearts, they tried to soothe him; but he would not be comforted.

Mr. Wharton's first impulse was to rush out in search of his lost child. But the shades of evening were close at hand, and he deemed it unsafe to leave Jenny and Mary and their little girls with no other protector than an overtired boy.

"Oh, why did I advise her to let the dear child go?" was the lamenting cry continually resounding in his heart; and the mother reproached herself bitterly that she had consented against her better judgment.

Neither of them uttered these thoughts; but remorseful sorrow manifested itself in increased tenderness toward each other and the children. When Emma was undressed for the night, the mother's tears fell fast among her ringlets; and when the father took her in his arms to carry her to the trundle-bed, he pressed her to his heart more closely than ever before; while she, all wondering at the strange tearful silence round her, began to grieve, and say,--

"I want Willie to go to bed with me. Why don't Willie come?"

Putting strong constraint upon the agony her words excited, the unhappy parents soothed her with promises until she fell into a peaceful slumber. As they turned to leave the bedroom, both looked at the vacant pillow where that other young head had reposed for years, and they fell into each other's arms and wept.

Charley could not be persuaded to go to bed till Uncle George came; and they forbore to urge it, seeing that he was too nervous and excited to sleep. Stars were winking at the sleepy flowers on the prairie, when the party returned with a portion of the cattle, and no tidings of Willie. Uncle George's mournful face revealed this, before he exclaimed,--

"Oh, my poor sister! I shall never forgive myself for not going with your boys. But the cabin was in plain sight, and the distance so short I thought I could trust Charley."

"Oh, don't, uncle! don't!" exclaimed the poor boy. "My heart will break!"

A silent patting on the head was the only answer; and Uncle George never reproached him afterward.

Neither of the distressed parents could endure the thoughts of discontinuing the search till morning. A wagon was sent for the miller and his men, and, accompanied by them, Mr. Wharton started for the Indian trail. They took with them lanterns, torches, and horns, and a trumpet, to be sounded as a signal that the lost one was found. The wretched mother traversed the piazza slowly, gazing after them, as their torches cast a weird, fantastic light on the leafless trees they passed. She listened to the horns resounding in the distance, till the _tremolo_ motion they imparted to the air became faint as the buzz of insects. At last, Charles, who walked silently by her side, was persuaded to go to bed, where, some time after midnight, he cried himself into uneasy, dreamful slumber. But no drowsiness came to the mother's eyelids. All night long she sat watching at the bedroom-window, longing for the gleam of returning torches, and the joyful _fanfare_ of the trumpet. But all was dark and still. Only stars, like the eyes of spirits, looked down from the solemn arch of heaven upon the desolate expanse of prairie.

The sun had risen when the exploring party returned, jaded and dispirited, from their fruitless search. Uncle George, who went forth to meet them, dreaded his sister's inquiring look. But her husband laid his hand tenderly on her shoulder, and said.---

"Don't be discouraged, Jenny. I don't believe any harm has happened to him. There are no traces of wild beasts."

"But the Indians," she murmured, faintly.

"I am glad to hear you say that," said Uncle George. "My belief is that he is with the Indians; and for that reason, I think we have great cause to hope. Very likely he saw the Indians, and thought Wik-a-nee was with them, and so went in pursuit of her. If she, or any of her relatives, are with those hunters, they will be sure to bring back our little Willie; for Indians are never ungrateful."

The mother's fainting heart caught eagerly at this suggestion; and Charley felt so much relieved by it that he was on the point of saying he was sure it must have been either Moppet or a dogs' town-meeting that lured Willie from the path he had pointed out to him. But everybody looked too serious for jesting; and memory of his own fault quickly repressed the momentary elasticity.

Countless were the times that the bereaved parents east wistful glances over the prairie, with a vague hope of descrying Indians returning with their child. The search was kept up for days and weeks. All the neighbors, within a circuit of fifteen miles, entered zealously into the work, and explored prairie and forest far and wide. At last these efforts were given up as useless. Still Uncle George held out the cheerful prospect that the Indians would bring him, when they returned from their long hunting-excursion; and with this the mother tried to sustain her sinking hopes. But month after month she saw the snowy expanse of prairie gleaming in the moonlight, and no little footstep broke its untrodden crust. Spring returned, and the sea of flowers again rippled in waves, as if Flora and her train had sportively taken lessons of the water-nymphs; but no little hands came laden with blossoms to heap in Emma's lap. The birds twittered and warbled, but the responsive whistle of the merry boy was silent; only its echo was left in the melancholy halls of memory. His chair and plate were placed as usual, when the family met at meals. At first this was done with an undefined hope that he might come before they rose from table, and afterward they could not bear to discontinue the custom, because it seemed like acknowledging that he was entirely gone.

Mrs. Wharton changed rapidly. The light of her eyes grew dim, the color faded from her cheeks, and the tones of her once cheerful voice became plaintive as the "Light of Other Days." Always, from the depths of her weary heart, came up the accusing cry, "Oh, why did I let him go?" She never reproached others; but all the more bitterly did Mr. Wharton, Uncle George, and above all poor Charley, reproach themselves. The once peaceful cabins were haunted by a little ghost, and the petted child became an accusing spirit. Alas! who is there that is not chained to some rock of the past, with the vulture of memory tearing at his vitals, screaming forever in the ear of conscience? These unavailing regrets are inexorable as the whip of the Furies.

Four years had passed away, when some fur-traders passed through that region, and told of a white boy they had seen among the Pottawatomie Indians. Everybody had heard the story of Willie's mysterious disappearance, and the tidings were speedily conveyed to the Wharton family. They immediately wrote to the United-States Agent among that tribe. After waiting awhile, they all became restless. One day, Uncle George said to his sister,--

"Jenny, I have never forgiven myself for leaving your boys to take care of themselves, that fatal day. I cannot be easy. I must go in search of Willie."

"Heaven bless you!" she replied. "My dear James has just been talking of starting on the same journey. I confess I want some one to go and look for the poor boy; but it seems to me selfish; for it is a long and difficult journey, and may bring fresh misfortunes upon us."

After some friendly altercation between Mr. Wharton and the brother, as to which should go, it was decided that George should have his way; and brave, unselfish Aunt Mary uttered no word of dissuasion. He started on his arduous journey, cheered by hope, and strong in a generous purpose. It seemed long before a letter was received from him, and when it came, its contents were discouraging. The Indian Agent said he had caused diligent search to be made, and he was convinced there was no white child among the tribes in that region. Uncle George persevered in efforts to obtain some clue to the report which had induced him to travel so far. But after several weeks, he was obliged to return alone, and without tidings.

Mrs. Wharton's hopes had been more excited than she was herself aware of, and she vainly tried to rally from the disappointment. This never-ending uncertainty, this hope forever deferred, was harder to endure than would have been the knowledge that her dear son was dead. She thought it would be a relief, even if fragments of his clothes should be found, showing that he had been torn to pieces by wild beasts; for then she would have the consolation of believing that her darling was with the angels. But when she thought of him hopelessly out of reach, among the Indians, imagination conjured up all manner of painful images. Deeper and deeper depression overshadowed her spirits and seriously impaired her health. She was diligent in her domestic duties, careful and tender of every member of her household, but everything wearied her. Languidly she saw the seasons come and go, and took no pleasure in them. A village was growing up round her; but the new-comers, in whom she would once have felt a lively interest, now flitted by her like the shadows in a magic-lantern. "Poor woman!" said the old settlers to the new ones. "She is not what she was. She is heart-broken."

Eight years more passed away, and Mrs. Wharton, always feeble, but never complaining, continued to perform a share of household work, with a pensive resignation which excited tenderness in her family and inspired even strangers with pitying deference. Her heartstrings had not broken, but they gradually withered and dried up, under the blighting influence of this life-long sorrow. It was mild October weather, when she lay down to rise no more. Emma had outgrown the trundle-bed, and no one occupied it; but it remained in the old place. When they led her into the bedroom for the last time, she asked them to draw it out, that she might look upon Willie's pillow once more. Memories of her fair boy sleeping there in the moonlight came into her soul with the vividness of reality. Her eyes filled with tears, and she seemed to be occupied with inward prayer. At a signal from her, the husband and brother lifted her tenderly, and placed her in the bed, which Aunt Mary had prepared. The New Testament was brought, and Mr. Wharton read the fourteenth chapter of John. As they closed the book, she said faintly, "Sing, 'I'm going home.'" It was a Methodist hymn, learned in her youth, and had always been a favorite with her. The two families had often sung it together on Sabbath days, exciting the wonderment of the birds in the stillness of the prairie. They now sang it with peculiar depth of feeling; and as the clear treble of Aunt Mary's voice, and the sweet childlike tones of Emma, followed and hovered over the clear, strong tenor of Uncle George, and the deep bass of Mr. Wharton, the invalid smiled serenely, while her attenuated hand moved to the measure of the music.

She slept much on that and the following day, and seemed unconscious of all around her. On the third day, her watchful husband noticed that her countenance lighted up suddenly, like a landscape when clouds pass from the sun.

This was followed by a smile expressive of deep inward joy. He stooped down and whispered,--

"What is it, dear?"

She looked up, with eyes full of interior light, and said,--

"Our Willie!"

She spoke in tones stronger than they had heard from her for several days; and after a slight pause, she added,--

"Don't you see him? Wik-a-nee is with him, and he is weaving a string of the Guinea-peas in her hair. He wears an Indian blanket; but they look happy, there where yellow leaves are falling and the bright waters are sparkling."

"It is a flood of memory," said Mr. Wharton, in a low tone. "She recalls the time when Wik-a-nee was so pleased with the Guinea-peas that Willie gave her."

"She has wakened from a pleasant dream," said Uncle George, with the same subdued voice. "It still remains with her, and the pictures seem real."

The remarks were not intended for her ear, but she heard them, and murmured,--

"No,--not a dream. Don't you _see_ them?"

They were the last words she ever uttered. She soon dozed away into apparent oblivion; but twice afterward, that preternatural smile illumined her whole countenance.

At that same hour, hundreds of miles away, on the side of a wooded hill, mirrored in bright waters below, sat a white lad with a brown lassie beside him, among whose black shining tresses he was weaving strings of scarlet seeds. He was clothed with an Indian blanket, and she with a skirt of woven grass. Above them, from a tree glorious with sunshine, fell a golden shower of autumn leaves. They were talking together in some Indian dialect.

"A-lee-lah," said he, "your mother always told me that I gave you these red seeds when I was a little boy. I wonder where I was then. I wish I knew. I never understood half she told me about the long trail. I don't believe I could ever find my way."

"Don't go!" said his companion, pleadingly. "The sun will shine no more on A-lee-lah's path."

He smiled and was silent for a few minutes, while he twined some of the scarlet seeds on grasses round her wrist. He revealed the tenor of his musings by saying,--

"A-lee-lah, I wish I could see my mother. Your mother told me she had blue eyes and pale hair. I don't remember ever seeing a woman with blue eyes and pale hair."

Suddenly he started.

"What is it?" inquired the young girl, springing to her feet.

"My mother!" he exclaimed. "Don't you see her? She is smiling at me. How beautiful her blue eyes are! Ah, now she is gone!" His whole frame quivered with emotion, as he cried out, in an agony of earnestness, "I want to go to my mother! I _must_ go to my mother! Who can tell me where to find my mother?"

"You have looked into the Spirit-Land," replied the Indian maiden, solemnly.

Was the mighty power of love, in that dying mother's heart, a spiritual force, conveying her image to the mind of her child, as electricity transmits the telegram? Love photographs very vividly on the memory; when intensely concentrated, may it not perceive scenes and images unknown to the bodily eye, and, like the sunshine, under favorable circumstances, make the pictures visible? Who can answer such questions? Mysterious beyond comprehension are the laws of our complex being. The mother saw her distant son, and the son beheld his long-forgotten mother. How it was, neither of them knew or thought; but on the soul of each, in their separate spheres of existence, the vision was photographed.

In the desolated dwelling on the prairie, they were all unconscious of this magnetic transmission of intelligence between the dying mother and her far-off child. As she lay in her coffin, they spoke soothingly to each other, that she had passed away without suffering, dreaming pleasantly of Willie and the little Indian girl. Their memories were excited to fresh activity, and the sayings and doings of Willie and the pappoose were recounted for the thousandth time. Emma had no recollection of her lost brother, and the story of his adventure with Moppet always amused her young imagination. But such reminiscences never brought a smile to Charley's face. When he heard the clods fall on his mother's coffin, heavier and more dismally fell on his heart the remembrance of his broken promise, which had so dried up the fountains of her life. Four times had the flowers bloomed above that mother's grave, and still, for her dear sake, all the memorials of her absent darling remained as she had liked to have them. The trundle-bed was never removed, the Indian basket remained under the glass in the bedroom, where his own little hands had put it, and his chair retained its place at the table. Out of the family he was nearly forgotten; but parents now and then continued to frighten truant boys by telling them of Willie Wharton, who was carried off by Indians and never heard of after.

The landscape had greatly changed since Mr. Wharton and his brother-in-law built their cabins in the wilderness. Those cabins were now sheds and kitchens appended to larger and more commodious dwellings. A village had grown up around them. On the spire of a new meeting-house a gilded fish sailed round from north to south, to the great admiration of children in the opposite schoolhouse. The wild-flowers of the prairie were supplanted by luxuriant fields of wheat and rye, forever undulating in wave-like motion, as if Nature loved the rhythm of the sea, and breathed it to the inland grasses. Neat little Bessie was a married woman now, and presided over the young Squire's establishment, in a large white house with green blinds. Charley had taken to himself a wife, and had a little Willie in the cradle, in whose infant features grandfather fondly traced some likeness to the lost one.

Such was the state of things, when Charles Wharton returned from the village-store, one day, with some articles wrapped in a newspaper from Indiana. A vague feeling of curiosity led him to glance over it, and his attention was at once arrested by the following paragraph:--

"A good deal of interest has been excited here by the appearance of a young man, who supposes himself to be twenty-three years old, evidently white, but with the manners and dress of an Indian. He says he was carried away from his home by Indians, and they have always told him he was then six years old. He speaks no English, and an Indian interpreter who is with him is so scantily supplied with words that the information we have obtained is very unsatisfactory. But we have learned that the young man is trying to find his mother. Some of our neighbors regard him as an impostor. But he does not ask for money, and there is something in his frank physiognomy calculated to inspire confidence. We therefore believe his statement, and publish it, hoping it may be seen by some bereaved family."

Charles rushed into the field, and exclaimed,--

"Father, I do believe we have at last got some tidings of Willie!"

"Where? What is it?" was the quick response.

The offered newspaper was eagerly seized, and the father's hand trembled visibly while he read the paragraph.

"We must start for Indiana directly," he said; and he walked rapidly toward the house, followed by his son.

Arriving at the gate, he paused and said,--

"But, Charles, he will have altered so much that perhaps we shouldn't know him; and it may be, as the people say, that this youth is an impostor."

The young man replied, unhesitatingly,--

"I can tell whether he is an impostor. I shall know my brother."

His voice quivered a little, as he spoke the last word.

Mr. Wharton, without appearing to notice it, said,--

"You have a great deal of work on hand at this season. Wouldn't it be better for Uncle George and me to go?"

He answered impetuously,--

"If all my property goes to ruin, I will hunt for Willie all over the earth, so long as there is any hope of finding him, I always felt as if mother couldn't forgive me for leaving him that day, though she always tried to make me think she did. And now, if we find him at last, she is not here to"----

His voice became choked.

Mr. Wharton replied, impressively,--

"She will come with him, my son. Wherever he may be, they are not divided now."

The next morning Charles started on his expedition, having made preparations for an absence of some months, if so long a time should prove necessary. The first letters received from him were tantalizing. The young man and his interpreter had gone to Michigan, in consequence of hearing of a family there who had lost a little son many years ago. But those who had seen him in Indiana described him as having brown eyes and hair, and as saying that his mother's eyes were the color of the sky, Charles hastened to Michigan. The wanderer had been there, but had left, because the family he sought were convinced he was not their son. They said he had gone to Canada, with the intention of rejoining the tribe of Indians he had left.

We will not follow the persevering brother through all his travels. Again and again he came close upon the track, and had the disappointment of arriving a little too late. On a chilly day of advanced autumn, he mounted a pony and rode toward a Canadian forest, where he was told some Indians had encamped. He tied his pony at the entrance of the wood, and followed a path through the underbrush. He had walked about a quarter of a mile, when his ears were pierced by a shrill, discordant yell, which sounded neither animal nor human. He stopped abruptly, and listened. All was still, save a slight creaking of boughs in the wind. He pressed forward in the direction whence the sound had come, not altogether free from anxiety, though habitually courageous. He soon came in sight of a cluster of wigwams, outside of which, leaning against trees, or seated on the fallen leaves, were a number of men, women, and children, dressed in all sorts of mats and blankets, some with tufts of feathers in their hair, others with bands and tassels of gaudy-colored wampum. One or two had a regal air, and might have stood for pictures of Arab chiefs or Carthaginian generals; but most of them looked squalid and dejected. None of them manifested any surprise at the entrance of the stranger. All were as grave as owls. They had, in fact, seen him coming through the woods, and had raised their ugly war-whoop, in sport, to see whether it would frighten him. It was their solemn way of enjoying fun. Among them was a youth, tanned by exposure to wind and sun, but obviously of white complexion. His hair was shaggy, and cut straight across his forehead, as Moppet's had been. Charles fixed upon him a gaze so intense that he involuntarily took up a hatchet that lay beside him, as if he thought it might be necessary to defend himself from the intruder.

"Can any of you speak English?" inquired Charles.

"Me speak," replied an elderly man.

Charles explained that he wanted to find a white young man who had been in Indiana and Michigan searching for his mother.

"_Him_ pale-face," rejoined the interpreter, pointing to the youth, whose brown eyes glanced from one to the other with a perplexed expression.

Charles made a strong effort to restrain his impatience, while the interpreter slowly explained his errand. The pale-faced youth came toward him.

"Let me examine your right arm," said Charles.

The beaver-skin mantle was raised; and there, in a dotted outline of blue spots, was the likeness of the prairie-dog which in boyish play he had pricked into Willie's arm. With a joyful cry he fell upon his neck, exclaiming, "My brother!" The interpreter repeated the word in the Indian tongue. The youthful stranger uttered no sound; but Charles felt his heart throb, as they stood locked in a close embrace. When their arms unclasped, they looked earnestly into each other's faces. That sad memory of the promise made to their gentle mother, and so thoughtlessly broken, brought tears to the eyes of the elder brother; but the younger stood apparently unmoved. The interpreter, observing this, said,--

"Him sorry-glad; but red man he no cry."

There was much to damp the pleasure of this strange interview. The uncouth costume, and the shaggy hair falling over the forehead, gave Willie such a wild appearance, it was hard for Charles to realize that they were brothers. Inability to understand each other's language created a chilling barrier between them. Charles was in haste to change his brother's dress, and acquire a stock of Indian words. The interpreter was bound farther north; but he agreed to go with them three days' journey, and teach them on the way. They were merely guests at the encampment, and no one claimed a right to control their motions. Charles distributed beads among the women and pipes among the men; and two hours after he had entered the wood, he was again mounted on his pony, with William and the interpreter walking beside him. As he watched his brother's erect figure striding along, with such a bold, free step, he admitted to himself that there were some important compensations for the deficiencies of Indian education.

Languages are learned rapidly, when the heart is a pupil. Before they parted from the interpreter, the brothers were able, by the aid of pantomime, to interchange various skeletons of ideas, which imagination helped to clothe with bodies. At the first post-town, a letter was despatched to their father, containing these words: "I have found him. He is well, and we are coming home. Dear Lucy must teach baby Willie to crow and clap his hands. God bless you all! Charley."

They pressed forward as fast as possible, and at the last stage of their journey travelled all night; for Charles had a special reason for wishing to arrive at the homestead on the following day. The brothers were now dressed alike, and a family-likeness between them was obvious. Willie's shaggy hair had been cut, and the curtain of dark brown locks being turned aside revealed a well-shaped forehead whiter than his cheeks. He had lost something of the freedom of his motions; for the new garments sat uneasily upon him, and he wore them with an air of constraint.

The warm golden light of the sun had changed to silvery brightness, and the air was cool and bracing, when they rode over the prairie so familiar to the eye of Charles, but which had lost nearly all the features that had been impressed on the boyish mind of William. At a little distance from the village they left their horses and walked across the fields to the back-door of their father's house; for they were not expected so soon, and Charles wished to take the family by surprise. It was Thanksgiving day. Wild turkeys were prepared for roasting, and the kitchen was redolent of pies and plum-pudding. When they entered, no one was there but an old woman hired to help on festive occasions. She uttered a little cry when she saw them; but Charles put his finger to his lip, and hurried on to the family sitting-room. All were there,--Father, Emma, Uncle George, Aunt Mary, Bessie and her young Squire, Charles's wife, baby, and all. There was a universal rush, and one simultaneous shout of, "Willie! Willie!" Charles's young wife threw herself into his arms; but all the rest clustered round the young stranger, as the happy father clasped him to his bosom. When the tumult of emotion had subsided a little, Charles introduced each one separately to his brother, explaining their relationship as well as he could in the Indian dialect. Their words were unintelligible to the wanderer, but he understood their warmth of welcome, and said,--

"Me tank. Me no much speak."

Mr. Wharton went into the bedroom and returned with a morocco case, which he opened and placed in the stranger's hand, saying, in a solemn tone,--

"Your mother."

Charles, with a tremor in his voice, repeated the word in the Indian tongue. Willie gazed at the blue eyes of the miniature, touched them, pointed to the sky, and said,--

"Me see she, time ago."

All supposed that he meant the memories of his childhood. But he in fact referred to the vision he had seen four years before, as he explained to them afterward, when he had better command of their language.

The whole family wept as the miniature passed from hand to hand, and, with a sudden outburst of grief, Charles exclaimed,--

"Oh, if _she_ were only here with us this happy day!"

"My son, she is with us," said his father, impressively.

William was the only one who seemed unmoved. He did not remember his mother, except as he had seen her in that moment of clairvoyance; and it had been part of his Indian training to suppress emotion. But he put his hand on his heart, and said,--

"Me no much speak."

When the little red-and-yellow basket was brought forward, it awakened no recollections in his mind. They pointed to it, and said, "Wik-a-nee, Moppet"; but he made no response.

His father eyed him attentively, and said,--

"It surely _must_ be our Willie. I see the resemblance to myself. We cannot be mistaken."

"I _know_ he is our Willie," said Charles; and removing his brother's coat, he showed what was intended to be the likeness of a prairie-dog. His father and Uncle George remembered it well; and it was a subject of regret that William could not be made to understand any jokes about his boyish state of mind on that subject. Mr. Wharton pointed to the chair he used to occupy, and said,--

"It seems hardly possible that this tall stranger can be the little Willie who used to sit there. But it is our Willie. God be praised!" He paused a moment, and added, "Before we partake of our Thanksgiving dinner, let us all unite in thanks to our Heavenly Father; 'for this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.'"

They all rose, and he offered a prayer, to which heart-felt emotion imparted eloquence.

Charles had taken every precaution to have his brother appear as little as possible like a savage, when he restored him to his family; and now, without mentioning that he would like raw meat better than all their dainties, he went to the kitchen to superintend the cooking of some Indian succotash, and buffalo-steak _very_ slightly broiled.

For some time, the imperfect means of communicating by speech was a great impediment to confidential intercourse, and a drawback upon their happiness. Emma, whose imagination had been a good deal excited by the prospect of a new brother, was a little disappointed. In her own private mind, she thought she should prefer for a brother a certain Oberlin student, with whom she had danced the last Thanksgiving evening. Bessie, always a stickler for propriety, ventured to say to her mother that she hoped he would learn to use his knife and fork, like other people. But to older members of the family, who distinctly remembered Willie in his boyhood, these things seemed unimportant. It was enough for them that the lost treasure was found.

The obstacle created by difference of language disappeared with a rapidity that might have seemed miraculous, were it not a well-known fact that one's native tongue forgotten is always easily restored. It seems to remain latent in the memory, and can be brought out by favorable circumstances, as writing with invisible ink reappears under the influence of warmth. Tidings of the young man's restoration to his family spread like fire on the prairie. People for twenty miles round came to see the Willie Wharton of whose story they had heard so much. Children were disappointed to find that he was not a little rosy-cheeked boy, such as had been described to them. Some elderly people, who prided themselves on their sagacity, shook their heads when they observed his rapid improvement in English, and said to each other,--

"It a'n't worth while to disturb neighbor Wharton's confidence; but depend upon it, that fellow's an impostor. As for the mark on his arm that they call a prairie-dog, it looks as much like anything else that has legs."

To the family, however, every week brought some additional confirmation that the stranger was their own Willie. By degrees, he was able to make them understand the outlines of his story. He did not remember anything about parting from his brother on that disastrous day, and of course could not explain what had induced him to turn aside to the Indian trail. He said the Indians had always told him that a squaw, whose pappoose had died, took a fancy to him, and decoyed him away; and that afterward, when he cried to go back, they would not let him go. From them he also learned that he called himself six years old, at the time of his capture; but his name had been gradually forgotten, both by himself and them. He wandered about with that tribe eight summers and winters. Sometimes, when they had but little food, he suffered with hunger; and once he was wounded by a tomahawk, when they had a fight with some hostile tribe; but they treated him as well as they did their own children. He became an expert hunter, thought it excellent sport, and forgot that he was not an Indian. His squaw-mother died, and, not long after, the tribe went a great many miles to collect furs. In the course of this journey they encountered various tribes of Indians. One night they encamped near some hunters who spoke another dialect, which they could partly understand. Among them was a woman, who said she knew him. She told him his mother was a white woman, with eyes blue as the sky, and that she was very good to her little pappoose, when she lost her way on the prairie. She wanted her husband to buy him, that they might carry him back to his mother. He bought him for ten gallons of whiskey, and promised to take him to his parents the next time the tribe travelled in that direction,--because, he said, their little pappoose had liked them very much.

"We remember her very well," said Mr. Wharton. "Her name was Wik-a-nee."

"That not _name_" replied William. "Wik-a-nee mean little small thing."

"You were a small boy when you found the pappoose on the prairie," rejoined his father. "You took a great liking to her, and said she was _your_ little girl. When she went away, you gave her your box of Guinea-peas."

"Guinea-peas? What that?" inquired the young man.

"They are red seeds with black spots on them," replied his father. "Emma, I believe you have some. Show him one."

The moment he saw it, he exclaimed,--

"Haha! A-lee-lah show me Guinea-peas. Her say me give she."

"Then you know Wik-a-nee?" said his father, in an inquiring tone.

The wanderer had acquired the gravity of the Indians. He never laughed, and rarely smiled. But a broad smile lighted up his frank countenance, as he answered,--

"Me know A-lee-lah very well. She not Wik-a-nee now."

Then he became grave again, and told how he was twining the red seeds in A-lee-lah's hair, when his mother came and looked at him with great blue eyes and smiled. Most of his auditors thought he was telling a dream. But Mr. Wharton said to his oldest son,--

"I told you, Charles, that mother and son were not separated now."

William seemed perplexed by this remark; but he comprehended in part, and said,--

"Me see into Spirit-Land."

When asked why he had not started in search of his mother then, he replied,--

"A-lee-lah's father, mother die. A-lee-lah say not go. Miles big many. Me not know the trail. But Indians go hunt fur. Me go. Me sleep. Me dream mother come, say go home. Me ask where mother? Charles come. Him say brother."

The little basket was again brought forth, and Mr. Wharton said,--

"Wik-a-nee gave you this, when she went away; but when we showed it to you, you did not remember it."

He took it and looked at it, and said,--

"Me not remember"; but when Emma would have put it away, he held it fast; and that night he carried it with him to his chamber.

Some degree of restlessness had been observed in him previously to this conversation. It increased as the weeks passed on. He became moody, and liked to wander off alone, far from the settlement. The neighbors said to each other,--"He will never be contented. He will go back to the Indians." The family feared it also. But Uncle George, who was always prone to look on the bright side of things, said,--

"We shall win him, if we manage right. We mustn't try to constrain him. The greatest mistake we make in our human relations is interfering too much with each other's freedom. We are too apt to think _our_ way is the _only_ way. It's no such very great matter, after all, that William sometimes uses his fingers instead of a knife and fork, and likes to squat on the floor better than to sit in a chair. We mustn't drive him away by taking too much notice of such things. Let him do just as he likes. We are all creatures of circumstances. If you and I were obliged to dance in tight boots, and make calls in white kid gloves, we should feel like fettered fools."

"And _be_ what we felt like," replied Mr. Wharton; "and the worst part of it would be, we shouldn't long have sense enough to _feel_ like fools, but should fall to pitying and despising people who were of any use in the world. But really, brother George, to have a son educated by Indians is not exactly what one could wish."

"Undoubtedly not, in many respects; but it has its advantages. William has already taught me much about the habits of animals and the qualities of plants. Did you ever see an eye so sure as his to measure distances, or to send an arrow to the mark? He never studied astronomy, but he knows how to make use of the stars better than we do. Last week, when we got benighted in the woods, he at once took his natural place as our leader; and how quickly his sagacity brought us out of our trouble! He will learn enough of our ways, by degrees. But I declare I would rather have him always remain as he is than to make a city-fop of him. I once saw an old beau at Saratoga, a forlorn-looking mortal, creeping about in stays and tight boots; and I thought I should rather be the wildest Ojibbeway that ever hunted buffaloes in a ragged blanket."

The rational policy recommended by Uncle George was carefully pursued. Everything was done to attract William to their mode of life, but no remark was made when he gave a preference to Indian customs. Still, he seemed moody, and at times sad. He carried within him a divided heart. One day, when he was sitting on a log, looking absent and dejected, his father put his hand gently upon his shoulder, and said,--

"Are you not happy among us, my son? Don't you like us?"

"Me like very much," was the reply. "Me glad find father, brother. All good."

He paused a moment, and then added,--

"A-lee-lah's father, mother be dead. A-lee-lah alone. A-lee-lah did say not go. Me promise come back soon."

Mr. Wharton was silent. He was thinking what it was best to say. After waiting a little, William said,--

"Father, me not remember what is English for squaw."

"Woman," replied Mr. Wharton.

"Not that," rejoined the young man. "What call Charles's squaw?"

"His wife," was the reply.

"Father, A-lee-lah be my wife. Me like bring A-lee-lah. Me fraid father not like Indian."

Mr. Wharton placed his hand affectionately on his child's head, and said,--

"Bring A-lee-lah, in welcome, my son. Your mother loved her, when she was Wik-a-nee; and we will all love her now. Only be sure and come back to us."

The brown eyes looked up and thanked him, with a glance that well repaid the struggle those words had cost the wise father.

So the uncivilized youth again went forth into the wilderness, saying, as he parted from them, "Me bring A-lee-lah." They sent her a necklace and bracelets of many-colored beads, and bade him tell her that they remembered Wik-a-nee, and had always kept her little basket, and that they would love her when she came among them. Charles travelled some distance with his brother, bought a new Indian blanket for him, and returned with the garments he had worn during his sojourn at home. They felt that they had acted wisely and kindly, but it was like losing Willie again; for they all had great doubts whether he would ever return.

He was incapable of writing a letter, and months passed without any tidings of him. They all began to think that the attractions of a wild life had been strong enough to conquer his newly awakened natural affections. Uncle George said,--

"If it prove so, we shall have the consciousness of having done right. We could not have kept him against his will, even if we had wished to do it. If anything will win him to our side, it will be the influence of love and freedom."

"They are strong agencies, and I have great faith in them," replied Mr. Wharton.

Summer was far advanced, when a young man and woman in Indian costume were seen passing through the village, and people said, "There is William Wharton come back again!" They entered the father's house like strange apparitions. Baby Willie was afraid of them, and toddled behind his mother, to hide his face in the folds of her gown. All the other members of the family had talked over the subject frequently, and had agreed how they would treat Wik-a-nee, if she came among them again. So they kissed them both, as they stood there in their Indian blankets, and said, "Welcome home, brother! Welcome, sister!" A-lee-lah looked at them timidly, with her large moonlight eyes, and said, "Me no speak." Mr. Wharton put his hand gently on her head, and said, "We will love you, my daughter." William translated the phrase to her, heaved a sigh, which seemed a safety-valve for too much happiness, and replied, "Me thank father, brother, sister, all." And A-lee-lah said, "Me tank," as her mother had said, in years long gone by.

All felt desirous to remove from her eyebrows the mass of straight black hair, which she considered extremely becoming, but which they regarded as a great disfigurement to her really handsome face. However, no one expressed such an opinion, by word or look. They had previously agreed not to manifest any distaste for Indian fashions.

Mr. Wharton, apart, remarked to Charles,--

"When you were a boy, you said Moppet would be pretty, if she wore her hair like folks. It was true then, and is still more true now."

"Let us have patience, and we shall see her handsome face come out of that cloud by-and-by," rejoined Uncle George. "If we prove that we love her, we shall gain influence over her. Wild-flowers, as well as garden-flowers, grow best in the sunshine."

Emma tried to conform to the wishes of the family in her behavior; but she did not feel quite sure that she should ever be able to love the young Indian. It was not agreeable to have a sister who was clothed in a blanket and wore her hair like a Shetland pony. Cousin Bessie thought stockings, long skirts, and a gown ought to be procured for her immediately. Her father said,--

"Let me tell you, Bessie, it would be far more rational for you to follow _her_ fashion about short skirts. I should like to see _you_ step off as she does. She couldn't move so like a young deer, if she had long petticoats to trammel her limbs."

But Bessie confidentially remarked to Cousin Emma that she thought her father had some queer notions; to which Emma replied, that, for her part, she thought A-lee-lah ought to dress "like folks," as Charley used to say, when he was a boy. They could not rest till they had made a dress like their own, and had coaxed William to persuade her to wear it. In a tone of patient resignation, she at last said, "Me try." But she was evidently very uncomfortable in her new habiliments. She often wriggled her shoulders, and her limbs were always getting entangled in the folds of her long, full skirts. She finally rebelled openly, and, with an emphatic "Me no like," cast aside the troublesome garments and resumed her blanket.

"I suppose she felt very much as I should feel in tight boots and white kid gloves," said Uncle George. "You will drive them away from us, if you interfere with them so much."

It was agreed that Aunt Mary would understand how to manage them better than the young folks did; and the uncivilized couple were accordingly invited to stay at their uncle's house. Emma cordially approved of this arrangement. She told Bessie that she did hope Aunt Mary would make them more "like folks," before the Oberlin student visited the neighborhood again; for she didn't know what he _would_ think of some of their ways. Bessie said,--

"I feel as if I ought to invite William and his wife to dine with us; but if any of my husband's family should come in, I should feel _so_ mortified to have them see a woman with a blanket over her shoulders sitting at my table! Besides, they like raw meat, and that is dreadful."

"Certainly it is not pleasant," replied her father; "but I once dined in Boston, at a house of high civilization, where the odor of venison and of Stilton cheese produced much more internal disturbance than I have ever experienced from any of their Indian messes."

This philosophical way of viewing the subject was thought by some of the neighbors to be assumed, as the best mode of concealing wounded pride. They said, in compassionate tones, that they really did pity the Whartons; for, let them say what they would, it must be dreadfully mortifying to have that squaw about. But if such a feeling was ever remotely hinted to Uncle George, he quietly replied,--

"So far from feeling ashamed of A-lee-lah, we are truly grateful to her; and we are deeply thankful that William married her. His love for her safely bridges over the wide chasm between his savage and his civilized life. Without her, he could not feel at home among us; and the probability is that we should not be able to keep him. By help of his Indian wife, I think we shall make him contented, and finally succeed in winning them over to our mode of life. Meanwhile, they are happy in their own way, and we are thankful for it."

The more enlightened portion of the community commended these sentiments as liberal and wise; but some, who were not distinguished either for moral or intellectual culture, said, sneeringly,--

"They talk about his Indian wife! I suppose they jumped over a stick together in some dirty wigwam, and that they call being married!"

Uncle George and Aunt Mary had been so long in the habit of regulating their actions by their own principles, that they scarcely had a passing curiosity to know what such neighbors thought of their proceedings. They never wavered in their faith that persevering kindness and judicious non-interference would gradually produce such transformations as they desired. No changes were proposed, till they and their untutored guests had become familiarly acquainted and mutually attached. At first, the wild young couple were indisposed to stay much in the house. They wandered far off into the woods, and spent most of their time in making mats and baskets. As these were always admired by their civilized relatives, and gratefully accepted, they were happier than millionnaires. They talked to each other altogether in the Indian dialect, which greatly retarded their improvement in English. But it was thus they had talked when they first made love, and it was, moreover, the only way in which their tongues could move unfettered. Her language no longer sounded to William like "lingo," as he had styled it in the boyish days when he found her wandering alone on the prairie. No utterance of the human soul, whether in the form of language or belief, is "lingo," when we stand on the same spiritual plane with the speaker, and thus can rightly understand it.

The first innovation in the habits of the young Indian was brought about by the magical power of two side-combs ornamented with colored glass. At the first sight of them, A-lee-lah manifested admiration almost equal to that which the scarlet peas had excited in her childish mind. Aunt Mary, perceiving this, parted the curtain of raven hair, and fastened it on each side with the gaudy combs. Then she led her to the glass, put her finger on the uncovered brow, and said,--

"A-lee-lah has a pretty forehead. Aunt Mary likes to see it so."

William translated this to his simple wife, who said,--

"Aunt Mary good. Me tank."

Mr. Wharton happened to come in, and he kissed the brown forehead, saying--

"Father likes to have A-lee-lah wear her hair so."

The conquest was complete. Henceforth, the large, lambent eyes shone in their moonlight beauty without any overhanging cloud.