CHAPTER II
JEAN PAHUSCA
In even savage bosoms There are longings, yearnings, strivings For the good they comprehend not.
--LONGFELLOW.
The frontier broke all lines of caste. There was no aristocrat,autocrat, nor plutocrat in Springvale; but the purest democracy wasamong the children. Life was before us; we loved companionship, and thesame dangers threatened us all. The first time I saw Marjie she asked,"Are you afraid of Indians?" They were the terror of her life. Evento-day the mere press despatch of an Indian uprising in Oklahoma orArizona will set the blood bounding through my veins and my firstthought is of her.
I shall never forget the day my self-appointed guardianship of herbegan. Before we had a schoolhouse, Aunt Candace taught the children ofthe community in our big living-room. One rainy afternoon, late in theFall, the darkness seemed to drop down suddenly. We could not see tostudy, and we were playing boisterously about the benches of ourimprovised schoolroom, Marjie, Mary Gentry, Lettie and Jim Conlow, TellMapleson,--old Tell's boy,--O'mie, both the Mead boys, and the fourAnderson children. Suddenly Marjie, who was watching the rain beatingagainst the west window, called, "Phil, come here! What is that long,narrow, red light down by the creek?"
Marjie had the softest voice. Amid the harsh jangle of the Andersons andBill Mead's big whooping shouts it always seemed like music to me. Istared hard at the sullen block of flame in the evening shadows.
"I don't know what it is," I said.
She slipped her fingers into the pocket of my coat as I turned away, andher eyes looked anxiously into mine. "Could it be an Indian camp-fire?"she queried.
I looked again, flattening my nose against the window pane. "I don'tknow, Marjie, but I'll find out. Maybe it's somebody's kitchen fire downwest. I'll ask O'mie."
In truth, that light had often troubled me. It did not look like thetwinkling candle-flare I could see in so many windows of the village. Iturned to O'mie, who, with his face to the wall, waited in a game ofhide-and-seek. Before I could call him Marjie gave a low cry of terror.We all turned to her in an instant, and I saw outside a dark face closeagainst the window. It was gone so quickly that only O'mie and I caughtsight of it.
"What was it, Marjie?" the children cried.
"An Indian boy," gasped Marjie. "He was right against the window."
"I'll bet it was a spook," shouted Bill Mead.
"I'll bet it wasn't nothin' at all," grinned Jim Conlow. "Possum Conlow"we called him for that secretive grin on his shallow face.
"I'll bet it wath a whole gang of Thiennes," lisped tow-headed BudAnderson.
"They ain't no Injuns nearer than the reserve down the river, and ain'tbeen no Injuns in Springvale for a long time, 'cept annuity days,"declared Tell Mapleson.
"Well, let's foind out," shouted O'mie, "I ain't afraid av no Injun."
"Neither am I," I cried, starting after O'mie, who was out of the doorat the word.
But Marjie caught my arm, and held it.
"Let O'mie go. Don't go, Phil, please don't."
I can see her yet, her brown eyes full of pleading, her soft brown hairin rippling waves about her white temples. Did my love for her springinto being at that instant? I cannot tell. But I do know that it was acrucial moment for me. Sixty years have I seen, and my life has grownpractical and barren of sentiment. But I know that the boy, PhilBaronet, who stood that evening with Marjie and the firelight and safetyon one side, and darkness and uncertainty on the other, had come to oneof those turning-points in a life, unrecognized for the time, whosedecision controls all the years that follow. For suddenly came the query"How can I best take care of her? Shall I stay with her in the light, orgo into the dark and strike the danger out of it?" I didn't frame allthis into words. It was all only an intense feeling, but the mentaljudgment was very real. I turned from her and cleared the doorstep at aleap, and in a moment was by O'mie's side, chasing down the hill-slopetoward town.
We never thought to run to the bluff's edge and clamber down theshelving, precipitous sides. Here was the only natural hiding-place, butlike children we all ran the other way. When we had come in again withthe report of "No enemy in sight," and had shut the door against therain, I happened to glance out of the east window. Climbing up to thestreet from the cliff I saw the lithe form of a young Indian. He camestraight to the house and stood by the east window where he could seeinside. Then with quick, springing step he walked down the slope. Icrossed to the west window and watched him shutting out that red bar oflight now and then, till he melted into the shadows.
Meanwhile the children were chattering like sparrows and had not noticedme.
"Would you know it, Marjie, if you thaw it again?" lisped Bud Anderson.
"Oh, yes! His hair was straight across like this." Marjie drew one handacross her curl-shaded forehead, to show how square the black hair grewabout the face she had seen.
"That's nothin'," said Bill Mead. "They change scalps every time theycatch a white man,--just take their own off an' put his on, an' itgrows. There's lots of men in Kansas look like white men's just Injunsgrowed a white scalp on 'em."
"Really, is there?" asked Mary Gentry credulously.
"Sure, I've seen 'em," went on Bill with a boy's love of that kind oflying.
"Wouldn't a Injun look funny with my thcalp?" Bud Anderson put in. "I'llbet I'm jutht a Injun mythelf."
"Then you've got some little baby girl's scalp," grinned Jim Conlow.
"'Tain't no 'pothum'th, anyhow," rejoined Bud; and we laughed our fearsaway.
That evening Aunt Candace sent me home with Marjie to take some freshdoughnuts to Mrs. Whately. I can see the little girl now as we splashedsturdily down Cliff Street through the wet gloom, her face like a whiteblossom in the shadowy twilight, her crimson jacket open at the throat,and the soft little worsted scarf about her damp fluffy curls making aglow of rich coloring in the dim light.
"You'll never let the Indians get you, will you, Phil?" she asked, whenwe stood a moment by the bushes just at the steepest bend of the street.
I stood up proudly. I was growing very fast in this gracious climate."The finest-built boy in Springvale," the men called me. "No, Marjie.The Indians won't get me, nor anybody else I don't want them to have."
She drew close to me, and I caught her hand in mine a moment. Then,boylike, I flipped her heavy braid of hair over her shoulder and shookthe wettest bushes till their drops scattered in a shower about her.Something, a dog we thought, suddenly slid out from the bush and downthe cliff-side. When I started home after delivering the cakes, Marjieheld the candle at the door to light my way. As I turned at the edge ofthe candle's rays to wave my hand, I saw her framed in the doorway.Would that some artist could paint that picture for me now!
"I'll whistle up by the bushes," I cried, and strode into the dark.
On the bend of the crest, where the street drops down almost too steepfor a team of horses to climb, I turned and saw Marjie's light in thewindow, and the shadow of her head on the pane. I gave a long, lowwhistle, the signal call we had for our own. It was not an echo, it wastoo near and clear, the very same low call in the bushes just over thecliff beside me as though some imitator were trying to catch the notes.A few feet farther on my path I came face to face with the same Indianwhom I had seen an hour before. He strode by me in silence.
Without once looking back I said to myself, "If you aren't afraid of me,I'm not afraid of you. But who gave that whistle, I wonder. That's mycall to Marjie."
"Marjie's awful 'fraid of Injuns," I said to Aunt Candace that night."Didn't want me to find who it was peeked, but I went after him, cleardown to Amos Judson's house, because I thought that was the best way, ifit was an Injun. She isn't afraid of anything else. She's the only girlthat can ride Tell Mapleson's pony, and only O'mie and Tell and I amongthe boys can ride him. And she killed the big rattlesnake that nearlyhad Jim Conlow, killed it with a hoe. And she can climb where no othergirl dares to, on the bluff below town toward the Hermit's C
ave. Butshe's just as 'fraid of an Injun! I went to hunt him, though."
"And you did just right, Phil. The only way to be safe is to go afterwhat makes you afraid. I guess, though, there really was nobody. It wasjust Marjie's imagination, wasn't it?"
"Yes, there was, Auntie; I saw him climb up from the cliff over thereand go off down the hill after we came in."
"Why didn't you say so?" asked my aunt.
"We couldn't get him, and it would have scared Marjie," I answered.
"That's right, Phil. You are a regular Kansas boy, you are. The best ofthem may claim to come from Massachusetts,"--with a touch ofpride,--"but no matter where they come from, they must learn how to bequick-witted and brave and manly here in Kansas. It's what all boys needto be here."
A few days later the door of our schoolroom opened and an Indian boystrode in and seated himself on the bench beside Tell Mapleson. He was alad of fifteen, possibly older. His dress was of the Osage fashion andround his neck he wore a string of elk teeth. His face was thoroughlyIndian, yet upon his features something else was written. His long blackhair was a shade too jetty and soft for an Indian's, and it grewsquarely across his forehead, suggesting the face of a French priest.We children sat open-mouthed. Even Aunt Candace forgot herself amoment. Bud Anderson first found his voice.
"Well, I'll thwan!" he exclaimed in sheer amazement.
Bill Mead giggled and that broke the spell.
"How do you do?" said my aunt kindly.
"How," replied the young brave.
"What is your name, and what do you want?" asked our teacher.
"Jean Pahusca. Want school. Want book--" He broke off and finished in ajargon of French and Indian.
"Where is your home, your tepee?" queried Aunt Candace.
The Indian only shook his head. Then taking from his beads a heavysilver cross, crudely shaped and wrought, he rose and placed it on thetable. Taking up a book at the same time he seated himself to study likethe rest of us.
"He has paid his tuition," said my aunt, smiling. "We'll let him stay."
So Jean Pahusca was established in our school.
The Price of the Prairie: A Story of Kansas Page 5
