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 youseethem?"
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! Imustgo 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.
"Himpale-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, ifshewere 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 surelymustbe our Willie. I see the resemblance to myself. We cannot be mistaken."
"Iknowhe 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-steakveryslightly 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 notname" 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 wasyourlittle 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 inA-lee-lah's hair, when his mother came and looked at him with great blueeyes 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 thinkourway is theonlyway. 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."
"Andbewhat we felt like," replied Mr. Wharton; "and the worst part of it would be, we shouldn't long have sense enough tofeellike 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 followherfashion about short skirts. I should like to seeyoustep 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 hewouldthink 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 feelsomortified 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.
Thus adroitly, day by day, they were guided into increasing conformity with civilized habits. After a while, it was proposed that they should be married according to the Christian form, as they had previously been by Indian ceremonies. No attempt was made to offer higher inducements than the exhibition of wedding-finery, and the assurance that all William's relatives would be made very happy, if they would conform to the custom of his people. The bride's dress was a becoming hybrid between English and Indian costumes. Loose trousers of emerald-green merino were fastened with scarlet cord and tassels above gaiters of yellow beaver-skin thickly embroidered with beads of many colors. An upper garment of scarlet merino was ornamented with gilded buttons, on each of which was a shining star. The short, full skirt of this garment fell a little below the knee, and the border was embroidered with gold-colored braid. At the waist, it was fastened with a green morocco belt and gilded buckle. The front-hair, now accustomed to be parted, had grown long enough to be becomingly arranged with the jewelled side-combs, which she prized so highly. The long, glossy, black tresses behind were gathered into massive braids, intertwined on one side with narrow scarlet ribbon, and on the other with festoons of the identical Guinea-peas which had so delighted her when she was Wik-a-nee. The braids were fastened by a comb with gilded points, which made her look like a crowned Indian queen. Emma was decidedly struck by her picturesque appearance. She said privately to Cousin Bessie,—
"I should like such a dress myself, if other folks wore it; but don't you tell that I said so."
Charles smiled, as he remarked to his wife,—
"The grub has come out of her blanket a brilliant butterfly. UncleGeorge and Aunt Mary are working miracles."
After the wedding-ceremony had been performed, Mr. Wharton kissed the bride, and said to the bridegroom,—
"She is handsome as a wild tulip."
"Bright as the torch-flower of the prairies," added Uncle George.
When William made these compliments intelligible to A-lee-lah, she maintained her customary Indian composure of manner, but her brown cheeks glowed like an amber-colored bottle of claret in the sunshine. William, though he deemed it unmanly to give any outward signs of satisfaction, was inwardly proud of his bride's finery, and scarcely less pleased with his own yellow vest, blue coat, and brass buttons; though he preferred above them all the yellow gaiters, which A-lee-lah had skilfully decorated with tassels and bright-colored wampum.
The next politic movement was to build for them a cabin of their own, taking care to preserve an influence over them by frequent visits and kind attentions. They would have been very happy in the freedom of their new home, had it not been for the intrusion of many strangers, who came to look upon them from motives of curiosity. The universal Yankee nation is a self-elected Investigating Committee, which never adjourns its sessions. This is amusing, and perhaps edifying, to their own inquiring minds; but William and A-lee-lah had Indian ideas of natural politeness, which made them regard such invasions as a breach of good manners.
By degrees, however, the young couple became an old story, and were left in comparative peace. The system of attraction continued to work like a charm. As A-lee-lah was never annoyed by any assumption of superiority on the part of her white relatives, she took more and more pains to please them. This was manifested in many childlike ways, which were extremely winning, though they were sometimes well calculated to excite a smile. As years passed on, they both learned to read and write English very well. William worked industriously on his farm, though he never lost his predilection for hunting. A-lee-lah became almost as skilful at her needle as she was at weaving baskets and wampum. Her talk, with its slightly foreign arrangement, was as pretty as the unformed utterance of a little child. Her taste for music improved. She never attained to Italian embroidery of sound, still less to German intonations of intellect; but the rude, monotonous Indian chants gave place to the melodies of Scotland, Ireland, and Ethiopia. Her taste in dress changed also. She ceased to delight in garments of scarlet and yellow, though she retained a liking for bits of bright, warm color. Nature guided her taste correctly in this, for they harmonized admirably with her brown complexion and lustrous black hair. She always wore skirts shorter than others, and garments too loose to impede freedom of motion. Bonnets were her utter aversion, but she consented to wear a woman's riding-hat with a drooping feather. Those outside the family learned to call her Mrs. William Wharton; and strangers who visited the village were generally attracted by her handsome person and the simple dignity of her manners. Her father-in-law regarded her with paternal affection, not unmixed with pride.
"Who, that didn't know it," said he, "could be made to believe this fine-looking woman was once little Moppet, who coiled herself up to sleep on the floor of our log-cabin?"
Uncle George replied,—
"You know I always told you it was the nature of all sorts of flowers to grow, if they had plenty of genial air and sunshine."
As for A-lee-lah's little daughter, Jenny, she is universally admitted to be the prettiest and brightest child in the village. Mr. Wharton says her busy little mind makes him think of his Willie, at her age; and Uncle Charles says he has no fault to find with her, for she has her mother's beautiful eyes, and wears her hair "like folks."
* * * * *
In the newspapers and magazines you shall see many poems—written by women who meekly term themselves weak, and modestly profess to represent only the weak among their sex—tunefully discussing the duties which the weak owe to their country in days like these. The invariable conclusion is, that, though they cannot fight, because they are not men,—or go down to nurse the sick and wounded, because they have children to take care of,—or write effectively, because they do not know how,—or do any great and heroic thing, because they have not the ability,—they can pray; and they generally do close with a melodious and beautiful prayer. Now praying is a good thing. It is, in fact, the very best thing in the world to do, and there is no danger of our having too much of it; but if women, weak or strong, consider that praying is all they can or ought to do for their country, and so settle down contented with that, they make as great a mistake as if they did not pray at all. True, women cannot fight, and there is no call for any great number of female nurses; notwithstanding this, I believe, that, to-day, the issue of this war depends quite as much upon American women as upon American men,—and depends, too, not upon the few who write, but upon the many who do not. The women of the Revolution were not only Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Reed, and Mrs. Schuyler, but the wives of the farmers and shoemakers and blacksmiths everywhere. It is not Mrs. Stowe, or Mrs. Howe, or Miss Stevenson, or Miss Dix, alone, who is to save the country, but the thousands upon thousands who are at this moment darning stockings, tending babies, sweeping floors. It is to them I speak. It is they whom I wish to get hold of; for in their hands lies slumbering the future of this nation.
The women of to-day have not come up to the level of to-day. They do not stand abreast with its issues. They do not rise to the height of its great argument. I do not forget what you have done. I have beheld, O Dorcases, with admiration and gratitude, the coats and garments, the lint and bandages, which you have made. Tender hearts, if you could have finished the war with your needles, it would have been finished long ago; but stitching does not crush rebellion, does not annihilate treason, or hew traitors in pieces before the Lord. Excellent as far as it goes, it stops fearfully short of the goal. This ought ye to do, but there are other things which you ought not to leave undone. The war cannot be finished by sheets and pillow-cases. Sometimes I am tempted to believe that it cannot be finished till we have flung them all away. When I read of the Rebels fighting bare-headed, bare-footed, haggard, and unshorn, in rags and filth,—fighting bravely, heroically, successfully,—I am ready to make a burnt-offering of our stacks of clothing. I feel and fear that we must come down, as they have done, to a recklessness of all incidentals, down to the rough and rugged fastnesses of life, down to the very gates of death itself, before we shall be ready and worthy to win victories. Yet it is not so, for the hardest fights the earth has ever known have been made by the delicate-handed and purple-robed. So, in the ultimate analysis, it is neither gold-lace nor rags that overpower obstacles, but the fiery soul that consumes both in the intensity of its furnace-heat, bending impossibilities to the ends of its passionate purpose.
This soul of fire is what I wish to see kindled in our women,—burning white and strong and steady, through all weakness, timidity, vacillation, treachery in Church or State or press or parlor, scorching, blasting, annihilating whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie,—extinguished by no tempest of defeat, no drizzle of delay, but glowing on its steadfast path till it shall have cleared through the abomination of our desolation a highway for the Prince of Peace.
O my country-women, I long to see you stand under the time and bear it up in your strong hearts, and not need to be borne up through it. I wish you to stimulate, and not crave stimulants from others. I wish you to be the consolers, the encouragers, the sustainers, and not tremble in perpetual need of consolation and encouragement. When men's brains are knotted and their brows corrugated with fearful looking for and hearing of financial crises, military disasters, and any and every form of national calamity consequent upon the war, come you out to meet them, serene and smiling and unafraid. And let your smile be no formal distortion of your lips, but a bright ray from the sunshine in your heart. Take not acquiescently, but joyfully, the spoiling of your goods. Not only look poverty in the face with high disdain, but embrace it with gladness and welcome. The loss is but for a moment; the gain is for all time. Go farther than this. Consecrate to a holy cause not only the incidentals of life, but life itself. Father, husband, child,—-I do not say, Give them up to toil, exposure, suffering, death, without a murmur;—that implies reluctance. I rather say, Urge them to the offering; fill them with sacred fury; fire them with irresistible desire; strengthen them to heroic will. Look not on details, the present, the trivial, the fleeting aspects of our conflict, but fix your ardent gaze on its eternal side. Be not resigned, but rejoicing. Be spontaneous and exultant. Be large and lofty. Count it all joy that you are reckoned worthy to suffer in a grand and righteous cause. Give thanks evermore that you were born in this time; andbecauseit is dark, be you the light of the world.
And follow the soldier to the battlefield with your spirit. The great army of letters that marches Southward with every morning sun is a powerful engine of war. Fill them with tears and sighs, lament separation and suffering, dwell on your loneliness and fears, mourn over the dishonesty of contractors and the incompetency of leaders, doubt if the South will ever be conquered, and foresee financial ruin, and you will damp the powder and dull the swords that ought to deal death upon the foe. Write as tenderly as you will. In camp, the roughest man idealizes his far-off home, and every word of love uplifts him to a lover. But let your tenderness unfold its sunny side, and keep the shadows for His pity who knows the end from the beginning, and whom no foreboding can dishearten. Glory in your tribulation. Show your soldier that his unflinching courage, his undying fortitude, are your crown of rejoicing. Incite him to enthusiasm by your inspiration. Make a mock of your discomforts. Be unwearying in details of the little interests of home. Fill your letters with kittens and Canaries, with baby's shoes, and Johnny's sled, and the old cloak which you have turned into a handsome gown. Keep him posted in all the village-gossip, the lectures, the courtings, the sleigh-rides, and the singing-schools. Bring out the good points of the world in strong relief. Tell every sweet and brave and pleasant and funny story you can think of. Show him that you clearly apprehend that all this warfare means peace, and that a dastardly peace would pave the way for speedy, incessant, and more appalling warfare. Help him to bear his burdens by showing him how elastic you are under yours. Hearten him, enliven him, tone him up to the true hero-pitch. Hush your plaintiveMiserere, accept the nation's pain for penance, and commission every Northern breeze to bear aTe Deum laudamus.
Under God, the only question, as to whether this war shall be conducted to a shameful or an honorable close, is not of men or money or material resource. In these our superiority is unquestioned. As Wellington phrased it, there is hard pounding; but we shall pound the longest, if only our hearts do not fail us. Women need not beat their pewter spoons into bullets, for there are plenty of bullets without them. It is not whether our soldiers shall fight a good fight; they have played the man on a hundred battle-fields. It is not whether officers are or are not competent; generals have blundered nations into victory since the world began. It is whether this people shall have virtue to endure to the end,—to endure, not starving, not cold, but the pangs of hope deferred, of disappointment and uncertainty, of commerce deranged and outward prosperity cheeked. Will our vigilance to detect treachery and our perseverance to punish it hold out? If we stand firm, we shall be saved, though so as by fire. If we do not, we shall fall, and shall richly deserve to fall; and may God sweep us off from the face of the earth, and plant in our stead a nation with the hearts of men, and not of chickens!
O women, stand here in the breach,—for here you may stand powerful, invincible, I had almost said omnipotent. Rise now to the heights of a sublime courage,—for the hour has need of you. When the first ball smote the rocky sides of Sumter, the rebound thrilled from shore to shore, and waked the slumbering hero in every human soul. Then every eye flamed, every lip was touched with a live coal from the sacred altar, every form dilated to the stature of the Golden Age. Then we felt in our veins the pulse of immortal youth. Then all the chivalry of the ancient days, all the heroism, all the self-sacrifice that shaped itself into noble living, came back to us, poured over us, swept away the dross of selfishness and deception and petty scheming, and Patriotism rose from the swelling wave stately as a goddess. Patriotism, that had been to us but a dingy and meaningless antiquity, took on a new form, a new mien, a countenance divinely fair and forever young, and received once more the homage of our hearts. Was that a childish outburst of excitement, or the glow of an aroused principle? Was it a puerile anger, or a manly indignation? Did we spring up startled pigmies, or girded giants? If the former, let us veil our faces, and march swiftly (and silently) to merciful forgetfulness. If the latter, shall we not lay aside every weight, and this besetting sin of despondency, and run with patience the race set before us?
A true philosophy and a true religion make the way possible to us. The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will; and He never yet willed that a nation strong in means and battling for the right should be given over to a nation weak and battling for the wrong. Nations have their future—reward and penalty—in this world; and it is as certain as God lives that Providenceandthe heaviest battalions will prevail. We have had reverses, but no misfortune hath happened unto us but such as is common unto nations. Country has been sacrificed to partisanship. Early love has fallen away, and lukewarmness has taken its place. Unlimited enthusiasm has given place to limited stolidity. Disloyalty, overawed at first into quietude, has lifted its head among us, and waxes wroth and ravening. There are dissensions at home worse than the guns of our foes. Some that did run well have faltered; some signal-lights have gone shamefully out, and some are lurid with a baleful glare. But unto this end were we born, and for this cause came we into the world. When shall greatness of soul stand forth, if not in evil times? When the skies are fair and the seas smooth, all ships sail festively. But the clouds lower, the winds shriek, the waves boil, and immediately each craft shows its quality. The deep is strown with broken masts, parted keels, floating wrecks; but here and there a ship rides the raging sea, and flings defiance to the wind. She overlives the sea because she is sea-worthy. Not our eighty years of peace alone, but our two years of war are the touchstone of our character. We have rolled our Democracy as a sweet morsel under our tongue; we have gloried in the prosperity which it brought to the individual; but if the comforts of men minister to the degradation of man, if Democracy levels down and does not level up, if our era of peace and plenty leaves us so feeble and frivolous, so childish, so impatient, so deaf to all that calls to us from the past and entreats us in the future, that we faint and fail under the stress of our one short effort, then indeed is our Democracy our shame and curse. Let us show now what manner of people we are. Let us be clear-sighted and far-sighted to see how great is the issue that hangs upon the occasion. It is not a mere military reputation that is at stake, not the decay of a generation's commerce, not the determination of this or that party to power. It is the question of the world that we have been set to answer. In the great conflict of ages, the long strife between right and wrong, between progress and sluggardy, through the Providence of God we are placed in the van-guard. Three hundred years ago a world was unfolded for the battle-ground. Choice spirits came hither to level and intrench. Swords clashed and blood flowed, and the great reconnoissance was successfully made. Since then both sides have been gathering strength, marshalling forces, planting batteries, and to-day we stand in the thick of the fray. Shall we fail? Men and women of America, will you fail? Shall the cause go by default? When a great Idea, that has been uplifted on the shoulders of generations, comes now to its Thermopylae, its glory-gate, and needs only stout hearts for its strong hands,—when the eyes of a great multitude are turned upon you, and the fates of dumb millions in the silent future rest with you,—when the suffering and sorrowful, the lowly, whose immortal hunger for justice gnaws at their hearts, who blindly see, but keenly feel, by their God-given instincts, that somehow you are working out their salvation, and the high-born, monarchs in the domain of mind, who, standing far off, see with prophetic eye the two courses that lie before you, one to the Uplands of vindicated Right, one to the Valley of the Shadow of Death, alike fasten upon you their hopes, their prayers, their tears,—will you, for a moment's bodily comfort and rest and repose, grind all these expectations and hopes between the upper and nether millstone? Will you fail the world in this fateful hour by your faint-heartedness? Will you fail yourself, and put the knife to your own throat? For the peace which you so dearly buy shall bring to you neither ease nor rest. You will but have spread a bed of thorns. Failure will write disgrace upon the brow of this generation, and shame will outlast the age. It is not with us as with the South. She can surrender without dishonor. She is the weaker power, and her success will be against the nature of things. Her dishonor lay in her attempt, not in its relinquishment. But we shall fail, not because of mechanics and mathematics, but because our manhood and womanhood weighed in the balance are found wanting. There are few who will not share in the sin. There are none who will not share in the shame. Wives, would you hold back your husbands? Mothers, would you keep your sons? From what? for what? From the doing of the grandest duty that ever ennobled man, to the grief of the greatest infamy that ever crushed him down. You would hold him back from prizes before which Olympian laurels fade, for a fate before which a Helot slave might cower. His country in the agony of her death-struggle calls to him for succor. All the blood in all the ages, poured out for liberty, poured out for him, cries unto him from the ground. All that life has of noble, of heroic, beckons him forward. Death itself wears for him a golden crown. Ever since the world swung free from God's hand, men have died,—obeying the blind fiat of Nature; but only once in a generation comes the sacrificial year, the year of jubilee, when men march lovingly to meet their fate and die for a nation's life. Holding back, we transmit to those that shall come after us a blackened waste. The little one that lies in his cradle will be accursed for our sakes. Every child will be base-born, springing from ignoble blood. We inherited a fair fame, and bays from a glorious battle; but for him is no background, no stand-point. His country will be a burden on his shoulders, a blush upon his cheek, a chain about his feet. There is no career for the future, but a weary effort, a long, a painful, a heavy-hearted struggle to lift the land out of its slough of degradation and set it once more upon a dry place.
Therefore let us have done at once and forever with paltry considerations, with talk of despondency and darkness. Let compromise, submission, and every form of dishonorable peace be not so much as named among us. Tolerate no coward's voice or pen or eye. Wherever the serpent's head is raised, strike it down. Measure every man by the standard of manhood. Measure country's price by country's worth, and country's worth by country's integrity. Let a cold, clear breeze sweep down from the mountains of life, and drive out these miasmas that befog and beguile the unwary. Around every hearthstone let sunshine gleam. In every home let fatherland have its altar and its fortress. From every household let words of cheer and resolve and high-heartiness ring out, till the whole land is shining and resonant in the bloom of its awakening spring.