Indian Captive

by Lois Lenski

  One day Molly was surprised to find Little Turtle looking down at her. But it couldn’t be Little Turtle—he was far, far away in Seneca Town on the River Ohio. She brushed her eyes to make sure she was not dreaming. The dream grew more real when Shagbark appeared. Then she knew she was back in Seneca Town. The long journey was the dream. She had never taken it. It was only a dream about Fort Duquesne and the white people there. They had not wanted her at all. There was no place now to go but home.

  It grew more and more difficult to tell what was real and what was a dream. Molly could not think things out, her head was so hot; and Earth Woman’s medicines were sharp on her tongue.

  One day the air was suddenly filled with shouting, the beating of drums and the shaking of rattles. In through the lodge door rushed a number of queer-looking figures, their faces covered with grotesque masks, to represent woodland goblins or sprites. They plunged their bare hands into the fire, scattered the white ashes of the hearth and kindled a new fire.

  It was like a queer nightmare to Molly. With a curious dream-like detachment, unmixed with fear, she saw one of the figures take ashes in his hands and sprinkle them on hers and Earth Woman’s heads. Filled with wonder she watched the figures prancing and dancing in the firelight and listened to the strange noises they made. When they left the lodge and all was quiet again, Earth Woman explained that the ceremony was a purification rite; that the False Face Company had put on masks to drive evil spirits from all the lodges in the village.

  “The demons responsible for your sickness have been driven off,” said Earth Woman, confidently. “Soon now, your strength will return.”

  Even Earth Woman’s words seemed part of the dream. Molly looked at her with glassy, feverish eyes and wondered what they meant. If only she would speak in English—then she might hope to understand.

  Through everything, inside her mind only one thought remained clear—she must get away from the Indians. She must find her way home again. Only at home could she be happy. But each time she asked Earth Woman if she could go, she was told she was not strong enough; and so she waited.

  Shining Star came sometimes and talked. Shining Star spoke of Red Bird and said she lived in Red Bird’s lodge. Was it true that Red Bird and Swift Water had made the long journey? Yes, Shining Star explained. It was true. And so had Little Turtle and the members of his mother’s family, as well as Shagbark. They had all come to the great Falling Waters and never meant to go back to Seneca Town again.

  Then Molly understood why they had followed her to Genesee Town. They meant to keep her from going home. They were not her friends at all. They were Indians and meant to make her an Indian, too. But she would get away just the same.

  One day Earth Woman sat by her bed, surrounded by dried corn-husks. The little white dog made a nest in them and slept. Earth Woman said that corn harvest on the Genesee was long over. All the ears in the great piles had been stripped down, the husks braided in bunches, about twenty ears in each. Now the fresh harvested corn hung high in the roofs of all the lodges, ready for winter use. From the scattering, loose husks left over, Earth Woman said that many useful things could be fashioned—moccasins, mats, masks, bowls and bottles. None of the husks would be wasted.

  Earth Woman’s fingers flew fast and beneath them the dry husks made a gentle rustling. Molly watched to see what would emerge. A few moments later, the woman handed her a corn-husk doll.

  Molly stared at it dully. “A corn-husk baby,” she said, slowly. “A baby made of corn-husks. But why has it no face?”

  “If it had a face,” explained Earth Woman, “that would complete the effigy and invite a spirit to come and inhabit it. You could not tell the spirit was hiding inside, because the corn-husk is so unlike flesh. If you dropped the doll or hurt it in any way, you would be hurting the spirit. That we must never do—so we put no faces on our dolls.

  “Besides,” Earth Woman went on, after a pause, “if it had a face with a set expression, the face would never change. With no face at all, the corn-husk baby can laugh, cry or sleep at will. Corn Tassel can see in its face whatever she wishes it to feel.” Under the woman’s strong fingers, the corn-husks began to rattle again.

  Molly looked at the doll as it lay in the palm of her hand. It was not like a real baby at all, not like Blue Jay or baby Robert at home. It was like a miniature grown-up—a tiny, small-boned woman. Its arms were braided corn-husks, its clothes were strips of dried corn leaves. A handful of dried-up corn-silk was fastened to the corn-husk head.

  She pressed it suddenly to her lips, then looked at it again. She was glad now it had no face—no dark brown eyes, no brown Indian skin, no shining black hair. She saw instead a fair white face with eyes of blue beneath the yellow corn-silk hair. A spirit had come to inhabit it. Her corn-husk baby was a white woman.

  Then she thought of the white woman in shining silk at Fort Duquesne and her eyes filled with tears. “I see only sadness in its face,” she said.

  “By and by the corn-husk baby will smile for you,” said the Indian woman. “She will smile to make you strong and well again.”

  “Will I ever be well again?” asked Molly. She knew in that moment that there are two kinds of sickness—sickness of the heart as well as the body.

  A day came when Earth Woman lifted Molly from her bed and led her out in the sun in front of the lodge. The little white dog came, too. Molly took a few uncertain steps and stared at what she saw.

  An Indian girl sat on the ground beside a pile of wet, smooth clay. She was the same size as Molly, but very brown. She wore garments of bright-colored broadcloth, embroidered with beads. Two long black braids hung down beside her cheeks. She did not raise her eyes. She took wet clay between her palms and rolled it into a long; slender rope.

  “What is she doing?” asked Molly, sitting down beside her.

  “She is making a cooking-pot,” replied Earth Woman.

  “What is her name?”

  “Beaver Girl,” answered Earth Woman. “Well has she earned it. She is industrious like the beaver. She is always busy.”

  Earth Woman sat down on the ground and began to pound a pile of rougher clay with sticks and after a time, knead it with her hands. Molly kept her eyes on Beaver Girl. Round and round she twisted the slender rope of clay in even coils upon a flat stone. Gradually each coil overlapped itself and the clay began to form the crude shape of a pot.

  “Why does she not speak?” asked Molly.

  “She is shy before the new white girl captive,” said Earth Woman, “but she is anxious to be your friend.”

  “I saw no one make pots in Seneca Town by the River Ohio,” said Molly. “Do all the Indian girls here make cooking-pots?”

  “Alas, no!” replied Earth Woman sadly. “Only Beaver Girl because I have taught her. Most of the women, even, have forgotten how. It is an old, old art, rapidly becoming lost. It is so easy now to buy brass kettles from the white traders. When I was young, we knew nothing of brass kettles. All the women made pots—beautiful pots to be proud of. As my grandmother taught me, so have I taught Beaver Girl.”

  Earth Woman paused in her work to watch the coils build up under the Indian girl’s fingers. “So coils the forked-tongue,” she said softly, “whose bite is like the sting of bad arrows. So coils the rattle-snake, ready to spring; but if a man be wise, he will heed the snake’s loud warning. The sting of the forked-tongue is deep and the eyes of the heedless man will close in sleep, unless quickly he obtains help of our brother, the ash tree. A brew from the ash tree’s bark will check the poison; a poultice from its bruised leaves will heal the wound.”

  Although Molly scarcely seemed to hear then, long afterwards the woman’s soft words were to come back to her, plainly, yet unmistakably.

  Silently she watched Beaver Girl’s dark fingers work the clay coils together and smooth unevenness away. She saw her scrape the sides smooth with a piece of broken gourd. The shape of the pot grew more beautiful as she watched.

  “Plea
se, Earth Woman,” she asked, suddenly, “could I not make a cooking-pot?”

  “Ohè! You!” cried Earth Woman, astonished. “An ear of corn not half filled out?” She frowned, then with all the appearance of anger, broke out: “Do you not know then that it is hard work to make a cooking-pot? That the fingers which shape it must be trained to skill? That only Earth Woman, of all the women in the village, has the skill to make a perfect cooking-pot? No! A fledgling that lingers in the warmth of the nest has not yet the strength to fly. By and by, perhaps…”

  “But if Beaver Girl can make one…She’s no bigger than I!” cried Molly.

  “Ah, but Beaver Girl has dipped her hands in clay ever since she stepped out of her baby frame!” laughed Earth Woman. “And Beaver Girl is as strong as a beaver.”

  “But I grow stronger day by day,” protested Molly. “See!” She held out her arm and doubled her elbow.

  “Ohè!” Earth Woman laughed again. “Corn Tassel is as strong as a little humming-bird. Only a strong woman can do a strong woman’s work. The making of a pot is not easy. The clay must be gathered from the banks by the river bed. First Earth Woman prays to Mother Earth for permission to remove it. Then she digs it carefully and brings it home. She spreads it on the stone slab, she beats it with her hands and with stones; she treads it with her feet. When the clay-is soft and smooth, it must be mixed with ground clam shells or mica and be beaten smooth again. All this before the coils are rolled.”

  “When I am strong like Beaver Girl, then may I make one?” asked Molly.

  “Yes, little humming-bird, then you may try,” said Earth Woman, with a smile. “Meanwhile it is well to watch how a cooking-pot grows under hands of long experience. That is the best way to learn.”

  Beaver Girl carefully turned and shaped the collar of her pot, and made a scalloped design on the edge. Then she set the pot aside, with others, to dry:

  “When the water has been drawn out of the clay by the sun,” said Earth Woman, “the pots will be ready for firing. We will set them over a slow-burning fire and keep them there. The fire must not be too hot, because that would crack the pots. If it is too cool, it will smoke them. Oh, no—like all good things, a cooking-pot is not easy to make.”

  When Molly went back to bed, Earth Woman’s sharp eyes noticed that she did not pick up her cornhusk baby, her little white woman, and look at it with tears in her eyes. Earth Woman’s kind face beamed with satisfaction, for she knew that the white girl captive had forgotten, at least for the moment, her sorrow. She was thinking of the cooking-pot which one day she would make.

  Ah, a cooking-pot was good in more ways than one. A cooking-pot could make a white girl forget to be homesick. A cooking-pot could make a girl want to be well and strong again. Earth Woman was wise enough to know that a cooking-pot could do what all the herbs and medicines in the world could not. But there was no hurry—there were many moons to come. In time, in the fulness of time, the white girl would forget altogether.

  Molly’s body grew gradually stronger. Each day she lay on a blanket in the sun for hours. Then she began to walk about, taking longer and longer walks. A happy day came when she went as far as the banks of the Falling Waters, carrying her corn-husk baby with her and talking to it in English. There she rested on the leaf-covered bank and, as she watched the flying birds and the water’s swift movement, the beauty of the place gave her peace and eased the sharpness of her sorrow.

  Restored again to health and strength, Molly returned to Red Bird’s lodge, but still spent most of her days with Earth Woman. One day the Indian woman suggested a trip to the forest.

  “Now that the frost has loosened the nuts of the shag-bark hickory,” she said, “we must go out with the children and gather them before the squirrels carry them off. Some of the nuts we will store in pits for winter use; from some we will press out an oil to eat with bread or meat; some we will trade when the white trader comes. And before Hó-tho seals the ground up fast and hard, I must dig more roots for food and medicine. Beaver Girl will help me.”

  “Who is Hó-tho?” asked Molly.

  “Hó-tho is Cold Weather,” explained Earth Woman. “Every winter he takes his hatchet from his hip, waves it in the air and strikes the trees with it. That’s what makes them crack with such a loud noise. But man has learned to outwit Hó-tho. Man builds fires, drinks hot drinks and keeps warm under blankets and fur coverings.”

  Earth Woman called the children together and they all started off with baskets on their arms. It was the first time Molly had seen the children and she was sorry Little Turtle was not among them. As Earth Woman told her their names—Chipmunk, Star Flower, Woodchuck, Lazy Duck, Storm Cloud, and others—they stared at the white newcomer with frank curiosity. Then they ran on and forgot her.

  Most of the leaves had fallen and the trees were almost bare. The ground lay white beneath the straight shaggy hickory trunks, covered with nuts all free from their shells, nuts which had been showered down by the wind. The children ran off in all directions, but Molly stayed near Earth Woman and set to work to fill her basket. As they worked busily, Earth Woman talked and eagerly Molly drank in her words.

  Earth Woman was wiser than any Indian woman Molly had known before. She had all the wisdom of Red Bird, Bear Woman, Shining Star and far, far more. Her wisdom reached out through the endless forest, up to the changing skies and deep, deep down into the earth. She knew everything about the earth, its plants and its creatures. She knew about the unknown world as well—the world of dreams and spirits. Molly saved up her words and grew stronger in more ways than she knew.

  “I will tell you,” said Earth Woman, “why there are so many trees in the forest. The squirrels plant them. Each time a squirrel buries a nut in the earth, he puts but one in a hole. If he should fail to return for his nut, it grows into a tree and then the forest has one tree more.”

  Then Earth Woman told how the chipmunk got its stripes and why the rabbit runs in circles. She had a story for everything.

  One of the Indian girls; small and chubby, came running up with a frown on her face.

  “What is the matter, Storm Cloud?” asked Earth Woman. “Why is it that you always pout?”

  “A big dog chased me,” replied the girl. “Or else it was a deer.”

  “Why, Storm Cloud!” cried Chipmunk, a boy somewhat older. “You are as stupid as a pale-face! The patter of a dog’s feet sounds nothing like the tread of a running deer.”

  “But I saw it!” insisted Storm Cloud. “Maybe it was a wolf, then.”

  “A wolf!” laughed Chipmunk. “Wolves always howl—you can hear them a long way off.”

  Molly turned to Earth Woman. “Can an Indian tell what animal it is from listening to its hoofbeats? How does he know?”

  “The Indian child goes to the forest to learn,” replied Earth Woman, “to learn to see with his eyes and hear with his ears. He watches the young of the bear at play. The fawns come to eat from his hand. He coaxes the squirrels and rabbits from their holes. He is their brother, their play-fellow. The forest is the Indian child’s home. He is more at home in the forest than in his own lodge.”

  Earth Woman paused, then she continued: “Every plant that grows in the forest was put there by the Great Spirit for some purpose. A girl who is soon to be a woman must learn their names and uses. Whenever you see a new plant whose name you do not know, bring it in to me and I will tell you about it.”

  “But I should have to bring my hands full every day!” laughed Molly. “I know so few. I know blood-root, trillium and jack-in-the-pulpit when they are in bloom. The pale-faces have no time to study all the plants in the forest.”

  “If you will bring in one plant each day during the summer, you will soon know a great deal,” said Earth Woman. “The Indians find time for everything useful. The Great Spirit placed his children in the forest so that they might learn to understand and love it.”

  With their digging sticks in hand, Earth Woman and Beaver Girl walked away to a boggy pl
ace beside a small creek, to dig lily roots and green arum. For a while after she was left alone, Molly worked busily. Not a breath of air was stirring in the quiet woods. Now and then bright-colored leaves dropped gently to the earth. The hickory nuts made a soft clatter as they fell into her basket. Then suddenly she felt tired. Her strength was not so great as she had supposed. She picked up a nut from the ground and its slight weight felt heavy in her hand.

  She sat down at the base of a large maple tree and leaned against the trunk to rest. Idly she watched a gray squirrel. It ran down the trunk of a tree, chattering noisily, picked up a nut and scampered back again. “Are you planting a tree, little squirrel?” asked Molly. Then she saw that he was burying his nuts, not in the ground, but in a hollow of the tree. He worked fast, putting aside his winter’s food supply. “Take them, little squirrel,” said Molly, softly. “I give them to you, so you will not be hungry when winter comes.”

  Molly thought of Earth Woman’s story. It was pleasant to know that the squirrels had planted the beautiful forest. The Indians lived closer to growing things and to the animals than the white people did. They knew and understood them better. They accepted them as friends to be cherished, not enemies to be destroyed or conquered.

  As she sat there, Molly could almost imagine she was back at Marsh Creek Hollow again. On the trail that led to Neighbor Dixon’s there was just such a huge maple tree as the one under which she was sitting. Earth Woman’s stories faded away. Molly liked them but they never quite filled up her mind. Always behind them and behind everything she did, lay her longing for home, unchanged—the homesickness that would not be blotted out. Sometimes she did not hear Earth Woman’s words at all. She was living in two places at once, her body with the Indians, but her spirit where she wanted to be—at home with the white people. Once she and Betsey had sat down to rest under the maple tree on the trail to the Dixons’ and had seen a deer run by so close they could have touched it…