The Log School-House on the Columbia

by Hezekiah Butterworth

  CHAPTER VII.

  THE SMOKE-TALK.

  One day in September Mrs. Woods was at work in her cabin, and Gretchen wasat school. Mrs. Woods was trying to sing. She had a hard, harsh voicealways, and the tune was a battle-cry. The hymn on which she wasexercising her limited gifts was not one of the happy tunes of Methodism,which early settlers on the Columbia loved to sing. It was a verycensorious rhyme and took a very despondent view of the human heart:

  "The pure testimony poured forth from the Spirit Cuts like a two-edged sword; And hypocrites now are most sorely tormented Because they're condemned by the Word."

  She made the word "hypocrites" ring through the solitary log-cabin--sheseemed to have the view that a large population of the world were of thisclass of people. She paused in her singing and looked out of the door.

  "There's one honest woman alive," she remarked to herself. "Thank Heaven,_I_ never yet feared the face of clay!"

  A tall, dark form met her eye--a great shadow in the scintillant sunlight.It was an aged Indian, walking with a staff. He was coming toward thecabin.

  "Umatilla!" she said. "What can he want of me?"

  The old chief approached, and bowed and sat down on a log that answeredfor a door-step.

  "I walk with a staff now," he said. "My bow has drifted away on the tideof years--it will never come back again. I am old."

  "You have been a good man," said Mrs. Woods, yielding to an impulse of herbetter nature. She presently added, as though she had been too generous,"And there aren't many good Injuns--nor white folks either for thatmatter."

  "I have come to have a smoke-talk with you," said the old chief, takingout his pipe and asking Mrs. Woods to light it. "Listen! I want to gohome. When a child is weary, I take him by the hand and point him to thesmoke of his wigwam. He goes home and sleeps. I am weary. The Great Spirithas taken me by the hand; he points to the smoke of the wigwam. Therecomes a time when all want to go home. I want to go home. Umatilla isgoing home. I have _not_ spoken."

  The smoke from his pipe curled over his white head in the pure, clearSeptember air. He was eighty or more years of age. He had heard thetraditions of Juan de Fuca, the Greek pilot, who left his name on thestraits of the Puget Sea. He had heard of the coming of Vancouver in hisboyhood, the English explorer who named the seas and mountains for hislieutenants and friends, Puget, Baker, Ranier, and Townsend. He had knownthe forest lords of the Hudson Bay Company, and of Astoria; had seen thesail of Gray as it entered the Columbia, and had heard the preaching ofJason Lee. The murder of Whitman had caused him real sorrow. Umatilla wasa man of peace. He had loved to travel up and down the Columbia, and visitthe great bluffs of the Puget Sea. He lived for a generation at peace withall the tribes, and now that he was old he was venerated by them all.

  "You are a good old Injun," said Mrs. Woods, yielding to her better selfagain. "I don't say it about many people. I do think you have done yourbest--considering."

  "I am not what I want to be," said Umatilla. "It is what we want to bethat we shall be one day; don't you think so? The Great Spirit is going tomake me what I want to be--he will make us all what we want to be. Mydesires are better than I--I will be my desires by and by. My staff is inmy hand, and I am going home. The old warriors have gone home. They werethick as the flowers of the field, thick as the stars of the night. Myboys are gone home--they were swift as the hawks in the air. Benjamin isleft to the Umatillas. He is no butcher-bird; no forked tongue--he willremember the shade of his father. My heart is in his heart. I am goinghome. I have _not_ spoken."

  He puffed his pipe again, and watched an eagle skimming along on the greatover-sea of September gold. The Indian language is always picturesque, anddeals in symbols and figures of speech. It is picture-speaking. TheIndians are all poets in their imaginations, like children. This habit ofpersonification grows in the Indian mind with advancing years. Every oldIndian speaks in poetic figures. Umatilla had not yet "spoken," as hesaid; he had been talking in figures, and merely approaching his subject.

  There was a long pause. He then laid down his pipe. He was about to speak:

  "Woman, open your ears. The Great Spirit lives in women, and old people,and little children. He loves the smoke of the wigwam, and the greenfields of the flowers, and the blue gardens of stars. And he lovesmusic--it is his voice, the whisper of the soul.

  "He spoke in the pine-tops, on the lips of the seas, in the shell, in thereed and the war-drum. Then _she_ came. He speaks through _her_. I want_her_ to speak for me. My people are angry. There are butcher-birds amongthem. They hate you--they hate the cabin of the white man. The white mentake away their room, overthrow their forests, kill their deer. There isdanger in the air.

  "The October moon will come. It will grow. It will turn into a sun on theborder of the night. Then come Potlatch. My people ask for the Dance ofthe Evil One. I no consent--it means graves.

  "Let me have _her_ a moon--she play on the air. She play at the Potlatchfor me. She stand by my side. The Great Spirit speak through her. Indianslisten. They will think of little ones, they will think of departed ones,they will think of the hunt--they will see graves. Then the night willpass. Then the smoke will rise again from white man's cabin. Then I diein peace, and go home to the Great Spirit and rest. Will you let me haveher? I _have_ spoken."

  Mrs. Woods comprehended the figurative speech. The old chief wished totake Gretchen to his wigwam for a month, and have her play the violin onthe great night of the Potlatch. He hoped that the influence of the musicwould aid him in preventing the Dance of the Evil Spirits, and a massacreof the white settlers. What should she say?

  "I will talk with Gretchen," she said. "You mean well. I can trust you. Wewill see."

  He rose slowly, leaning on his staff, and emptied his pipe. It required aresolute will now to cause his withered limbs to move. But his stepsbecame free after a little walking, and he moved slowly away. Poor oldchief of the Cascades! It was something like another Sermon on the Mountthat he had spoken, but he knew not how closely his heart had caught thespirit of the Divine Teacher.

  When Gretchen came home from school, Mrs. Woods told her what hadhappened, and what the old chief had asked.

  Mr. Woods had returned from the block-houses. He said: "Gretchen, go!Your _Traumerei_ will save the colony. Go!"

  Gretchen sat in silence for a moment. She then said: "I can trustUmatilla. I will go. I want to go. Something unseen is leading me--I feelit. I do not know the way, but I can trust my guide. I have only onedesire, if I am young, and that is to do right. But is it right to leaveyou, mother?"

  "Mother!" how sweet that word sounded to poor Mrs. Woods! She had neverbeen a mother. Tears filled her eyes--she forced them back.

  "Yes, Gretchen--go. I've always had to fight my way through the world, andI can continue to do so. I've had some things to harden my heart; but, nomatter what you may do, Gretchen, I'll always be a mother to _you_. You'llalways find the latch-string on the outside. You ain't the wust girl thatever was, if I did have a hand in bringing you up. Yes--go."

  "Your heart is right now," said Gretchen; "and I want to speak to youabout Benjamin. He told me a few days ago that he hated you, but that noone should ever harm you, because he loved the Master."

  "He did, did he?" said Mrs. Woods, starting up. "Well, I hate him, andI'll never forgive him for tellin' you such a thing as that."

  "But, mother, don't you love _the_ Master, and won't you be friendly andforgiving to Benjamin, for _his_ sake? I wish you would. It would give youpower; I want you to do so."

  "I'll think about it, Gretchen. I don't feel quite right about thesethings, and I'm goin' to have a good talk with Father Lee. The boy hassome good in him."

  "I wish you would tell him that."

  "Why?"

  "Sympathy makes one grow so."

  "That's so, Gretchen. Only praise a dog for his one good quality, and itwill make a good dog of him. I 'spect 'tis the same with folks. But mynature don't break up easy. I shall
come out right some time. I tell youI'm goin' to have a talk with Father Lee. It is his preachin' that hasmade me what I am, and may be I'll be better by and by."

  Mrs. Woods, with all her affected courage, had good reason to fear anIndian outbreak, and to use every influence to prevent it. The verymention of the Potlatch filled her with recent terror. She well knew thestory of the destruction of Whitman and a part of his missionary colony.

  _That_ was a terrible event, and it was a scene like that that the newsettlers feared, at the approaching Potlatch; and the thought of thatdreadful day almost weakened the faith of Mr. Mann in the Indians.

  We must tell you the old-time history of the tragedy which was now revivedin the new settlement.

  _THE CONJURED MELONS._

  Most people who like history are familiar with the national story ofMarcus Whitman's "Ride for Oregon"[A]--that daring horseback trip acrossthe continent, from the Columbia to the Missouri, which enabled him toconvince the United States Government not only that Oregon could bereached, but that it was worth possessing. Exact history has robbed thisstory of some of its romance, but it is still one of the noblestwonder-tales of our own or any nation. Monuments and poetry and art mustforever perpetuate it, for it is full of spiritual meaning.

  Lovers of missionary lore have read with delight the ideal romance of thetwo brides who agreed to cross the Rocky Mountains with their husbands,Whitman and Spaulding; how one of them sang, in the little country churchon departing, the whole of the hymn--

  "Yes, my native land, I love thee,"

  when the voices of others failed from emotion. They have read how thewhole party knelt down on the Great Divide, beside the open Bible andunder the American flag, and took possession of the great empire of theNorthwest in faith and in imagination, and how history fulfilled thedream.

  At the time of the coming of the missionaries the Cayuse Indians andNez-Perces occupied the elbow of the Columbia, and the region of themusical names of the Wallula, the Walla Walla, and Wauelaptu. They were asuperstitious, fierce, and revengful race. They fully believed inwitchcraft or conjuring, and in the power to work evil through familiarspirits. Everything to them and the neighboring tribes had its good orevil spirit, or both--the mountains, the rivers, the forest, the sighingcedars, and the whispering firs.

  The great plague of the tribes on the middle Columbia was the measles. Thedisease was commonly fatal among them, owing largely to the manner oftreatment. When an Indian began to show the fever which is characteristicof the disease, he was put into and inclosed in a hot clay oven. As soonas he was covered with a profuse perspiration he was let out, to leap intothe cold waters of the Columbia. Usually the plunge was followed by death.

  There was a rule among these Indians, in early times, that if the"medicine-man" undertook a case and failed to cure, he forfeited his ownlife. The killing of the medicine-man was one of the dramatic and fearfulepisodes of the Columbia.

  Returning from the East after his famous ride, Whitman built up a noblemission station at Wauelaptu. He was a man of strong character, and of finetastes and ideals. The mission-house was an imposing structure for theplace and time. It had beautiful trees and gardens, and inspiringsurroundings.

  Mrs. Whitman was a remarkable woman, as intelligent and sympathetic as shewas heroic. The colony became a prosperous one, and for a time occupiedthe happy valley of the West.

  One of the vices of the Cayuse Indians and their neighbors was stealing.The mission station may have overawed them for a time into seeminghonesty, but they began to rob its gardens at last, and out of thiscircumstance comes a story, related to me by an old Territorial officer,which may be new to most readers. I do not vouch for it, but only say thatthe narrator of the principal incidents is an old Territorial judge wholives near the place of the Whitman tragedy, and who knew many of thesurvivors, and has a large knowledge of the Indian races of the Columbia.To his statements I add some incidents of another pioneer:

  "The thieving Cayuses have made 'way with our melons again," said a youngfarmer one morning, returning from the gardens of the station. "One theftwill be followed by another. I know the Cayuses. Is there no way to stopthem?"

  One of the missionary fraternity was sitting quietly among the trees. Itwas an August morning. The air was a living splendor, clear and warm, withnow and then a breeze that rippled the leaves like the waves of the sea.

  He looked up from his book, and considered the question half-seriously,half-humorously.

  "I know how we used to prevent boys from stealing melons in the East,"said he.

  "How?"

  "Put some tartar emetic in the biggest one. In the morning it would begone, but the boys would never come after any more melons."

  The young farmer understood the remedy, and laughed.

  "And," added he, "the boys didn't have much to say about melons after theyhad eaten _that_ one. The subject no longer interested them. I guess theIndians would not care for more than one melon of that kind."

  "I would like to see a wah-wah of Indian thieves over a melon like that!"said the gardener. "I declare, I and the boys will do it!"

  He went to his work, laughing. That day he obtained some of the emeticfrom the medical stores of the station, and plugged it into three or fourof the finest melons. Next morning he found that these melons were gone.

  The following evening a tall Indian came slowly and solemnly to thestation. His face had a troubled look, and there was an air of mysteryabout his gait and attitude. He stopped before one of the assistantmissionaries, drew together his blanket, and said:

  "Some one here no goot. You keep a conjurer in the camp. Indian killconjurer. Conjurer ought die; him danger, him no goot."

  The laborers gathered round the stately Indian. They all knew about thenauseating melons, and guessed why he had come. All laughed as they heardhis solemn words. The ridicule incensed him.

  "You one conjurer," he said, "he conjure melons. One moon, two moons, heshall die."

  The laborers laughed again.

  "Half moon, more moons, he shall suffer--half moon, more moons," that is,sooner or later.

  The missionary's face grew serious. The tall Indian saw the change ofexpression.

  "Braves sick." He spread out his blanket and folded it again like wings."Braves double up _so_"--he bent over, opening and folding his blanket."Braves conjured; melon conjured--white man conjure. Indian kill him."

  There was a puzzled look on all faces.

  "Braves get well again," said the missionary, incautiously.

  "Then you _know_," said the Indian. "You know--you conjure. Makesick--make well!"

  He drew his blanket again around him and strode away with an injured lookin his face, and vanished into the forests.

  "I am sorry for this joke," said the missionary; "it bodes no good."

  November came. The nights were long, and there was a perceptible coolnessin the air, even in this climate of April days.

  Joe Stanfield, a half-breed Canadian and a member of Whitman's family, wasobserved to spend many of the lengthening evenings with the Cayuses intheir lodges. He had been given a home by Whitman, to whom he had seemedfor a time devoted.

  Joe Lewis, an Indian who had come to Whitman sick and half-clad, and hadreceived shelter and work from him, seems to have been on intimate termswith Stanfield, and the two became bitter enemies to the mission andsought to turn the Cayuses against it, contrary to all the traditions ofIndian gratitude.

  In these bright autumn days of 1847 a great calamity fell upon the Indiansof the Columbia. It was the plague. This disease was the terror of theNorthwestern tribes. The Cayuses caught the infection. Many sickened anddied, and Whitman was appealed to by the leading Indians to stay thedisease. He undertook the treatment of a number of cases, but his patientsdied.

  The hunter's moon was now burning low in the sky. The gathering of richharvests of furs had begun, and British and American fur-traders wereseeking these treasures on every hand. But at the beginning of theseha
rvests the Cayuses were sickening and dying, and the mission waspowerless to stay the pestilence.

  A secret council of Cayuses and half-breeds was held one night under thehunter's moon near Walla Walla, or else on the Umatilla. Five Crows, thewarrior, was there with Joe Lewis, of Whitman's household, and JoeStanfield, alike suspicious and treacherous, and old Mungo, theinterpreter. Sitkas, a leading Indian, may have been present, as the storyI am to give came in part from him.

  Joe Lewis was the principal speaker. Addressing the Cayuses, he said:

  "The moon brightens; your tents fill with furs. But Death, the robber, isamong you. Who sends Death among you? The White Chief (Whitman). And whydoes the White Chief send among you Death, the robber, with his poison?That he may possess your furs."

  "Then why do the white people themselves have the disease?" asked aCayuse.

  None could answer. The question had turned Joe Lewis's word against him,when a tall Indian arose and spread his blanket open like a wing. He stoodfor a time silent, statuesque, and thoughtful. The men waited seriouslyto hear what he would say.

  It was the same Indian who had appeared at the mission after the joke ofthe plugged melons.

  "Brothers, listen. The missionaries are conjurers. They conjured themelons at Wauelaptu. They made the melons sick. I went to missionary chief.He say, 'I make the melons well.' I leave the braves sick, with theirfaces turned white, when I go to the chief. I return, and they are wellagain. The missionaries conjure the melons, to save their gardens. Theyconjure you now, to get your furs."

  The evidence was conclusive to the Cayuse mind. The missionaries wereconjurers. The council resolved that all the medicine-men in the countryshould be put to death, and among the first to perish should be Whitman,the conjurer.

  Such in effect was the result of the secret council or councils heldaround Wauelaptu.

  Whitman felt the change that had come over the disposition of the tribes,but he did not know what was hidden behind the dark curtain. His greatsoul was full of patriotic fire, of love to all men, and zeal for thegospel.

  He was nothing to himself--the cause was everything. He rode hither andthither on the autumn days and bright nights, engaged in his great work.

  He went to Oregon City for supplies.

  "Mr. McKinley," he said to a friend, "a Cayuse chief has told me that theIndians are about to kill all the medicine-men, and myself among them. Ithink he was jesting."

  "Dr. Whitman," said McKinley, "a Cayuse chief never jests."

  He was right. The fateful days wore on. The splendid nights glimmered overMount Hood, and glistened on the serrated mountain tents of eternal snow.The Indians continued to sicken and die, and the universal suspicion ofthe tribes fell upon Whitman.

  Suddenly there was a war-cry! The mission ran with blood. Whitman and hiswife were the first to fall. Then horror succeeded horror, and many of theheroic pioneers of the Columbia River perished.

  "The Jesuits have been accused of causing the murder of Whitman," said onehistorian of Washington to me. "They indignantly deny it. I have studiedthe whole subject for years with this opinion, that the Indian outbreakand its tragedies had its origin, and largely gathered its force, fromthe terrible joke of the conjured melons.

  "That was the evidence that must have served greatly to turn the Indianmind against one of the bravest men that America has produced, and whosename will stand immortal among the heroes of Washington and Oregon."

  I give this account as a local story, and not as exact history; but thistradition was believed by the old people in Washington.

  When any one in the new settlement spoke of the Potlatch, this scene cameup like a shadow. Would it be repeated?

  FOOTNOTES:

  [Footnote A: See Historical Notes.]