Nattie Nesmith/Chapter 13

by Sophia Homespun

 

Chapter XIII.

Despotism.

T was rather dull for a while, after the aN old chief and his family left. Nattie was sullen and unsocial, not inclined to make the acquaintance of her new keepers.

The three squaws were stupid and idle. They smoked or slept nearly all the time. The old Indian,—Cat-head, was his name,—sat on his mat, fretting over his pains, and complaining because his children did not take better care of him in his age. The boy stayed in the forest, hunting weasels, or, when in the hut, roasted nuts in the coals, and ate them all himeelf.

It was not long before Nattie discovered that these new house-keepers were not as tidy as the old squaw had been. They did not scrape and scour the kettle after the succotash was boiled; and, at length, the broth cooked in it became bitter, and Nattie could not eat it. They did not wash the wooden bowls after using them, but merely rinsed them with cold water, so they became greasy and slimy with the thick broth.

These things stirred Nattie's wrath; and, one day, when the succotash was unsalted, burnt, and altogether unrelishable, she flamed out:

"You are nasty squaws, and you make such mean broth that I can't eat it."

"Then let the pale-face make the broth herself," said the youngest, with a sullen frown.

"I will," returned Nattie; "or, I will teach you to make it as the old chief's wife made hers."

"We can cook broth good enough for ourselves now," said the oldest; "let them that want better, make it, if they can."

"I know that I can make better," answered Nattie; "but you shall clean the kettle for me."

"Clean it, yourself," said the youngest.

"I won't clean it myself," retorted Nattie, with flashing eyes. "You have been burning the broth on it, day after day, without once scraping or scouring it, and the ones that fouled it shall clean it."

The squaws looked at each other, and the old man wheezed and coughed. Nattie turned to the oldest squaw, and said, with an air of authority:

"Pink Ear, scrape the dinner-pot; soak it, and wash it till it is as clean and smooth as glass; for that is as it was when you began your house work here."

The squaw gave an insolent grunt, and sat still. Nattie went to the table, and, from a small drawer, drew forth a sheet of paper, on which she began to write with a pencil made of coal. The squaws soon commenced to whisper together, and the youngest approached the place where Nattie was seated.

"What white squaw doing?" she asked.

"She is writing a letter," said Nattie, without looking up.

"Who she write letter to?"

"To the great chief, North Wind, her friend."

"What she say to the old chief?"

"She is telling him that the people whom he got to take care of his Tulip, are lazy, saucy, dirty creatures, who smoke and sleep, and burn the kettle, make bad broth, and foul the wigwam by their filthy habits."

The three squaws looked at each other, and whispered again. They were quite overawed by Nattie's determined air, while their stupidity and ignorance prevented them from considering the unlikelihood of Nattie's letter ever reaching the strolling company of Indians, and coming into the chieftain's hands; and soon the girl had the satisfaction of hearing an old fire-iron rasping away at the bottom of the dinner-pot.

Her plan succeeded, and she put by her writing for the time. Blue Top, the second squaw, now came, and asked quite humbly what it was in the keeping of the cabin that she complained of?

"You don't shake the mats, or air the blankets and fold them, or sweep the floor, or dust the table and place it; and you let cobwebs hang all around on the beams, which is a scandalous sight, and let the dinner bowls be as filthy as a pig's trough."

Nattie paused to take breath. The youngest squaw had now joined her sister, and both stood gazing with as much surprise as their stupid faces were capable of wearing.

"All these things I shall write down to send to the chief, North Wind; he will be very angry, for he likes to have good care taken of his cabin; and he also wished me to be spared from much work, because my head is yet bad."

Nattie paused again, and looked at her auditors. The old man was speaking in a low tone to Pink Ear, who still toiled at the huge dinner pot, on the ground, near the fire. His face and tones indicated his interest.

"You had better mind the white squaw," he said; "for the old chief thinks much of her. She may tell him a tale that will displease him, on his return; for I see that she hath a fiery spirit. If the old chief should get angered, he might do us much harm."

Pink Ear bowed her head in silence. Nattie now began to show Blue Top how to shake the mats, how to fold the blankets and arrange them in a pile, while Brown Wren, the youngest of the three, was set to scalding the begrimed water-buckets and wooden bowls.

It took several days to get things arranged to Nettie's mind. She sent the boy to the forest for hemlock twigs of which to make brooms; and even the poor old man was driven out to cut some long, smooth poles on which to tie the hemlock. With these, she set the squaws sweeping down the festoonery of cobwebs which over-spread the beams of the wigwam, and carrying out the litter and rubbish.

Nattie made herself reigning queen. She had been a humble subject for many months, and now the more keenly enjoyed bending others to her will. Her domineering disposition showed itself in full deformity. It was not dead or subdued, and only wanted opportunity to make itself felt.

Nattie now quite forgot her prayers. Had she prayed and been honest, she would have said:

"Thank God that I've got the upper hands of these lazy, stupid Indians, and that I have the power to make them do my bidding. May it be long continued to me."

Nattie was an unlimited despot. She used her power in the most unscrupulous manner. Sha set unnecessary tasks, from the mere love of seeing them performed. She found her pleasure in the toil and disquietude of her subjects. She would not suffer the poor, old, sick Indian, Cat-head, to draw a mat or blanket from the pile, by day, but he must sit, or lie, on the ground, wrapping himself, as best he could, in his thread bare plaid. This was nothing short of cruelty; for the poor creature's rheumatism and pains were aggravated by the deprivation. It angered Nattie to hear him cough and wheeze as he often did, for hours together, but she would not suffer the squaws to brew herbs, which they said would heal him, because of the smoke and steam which it would occasion in the wigwam.

She set the boy sewing weasel skins together to make her a cap and muff; and the squaws she kept at basket-making, early and late, when they were not doing anything else, because she had heard that a French peddler was coming that way, to whom she hoped to sell the baskets, and obtain some finery to deck her own person.

Nattie was now so absorbed in her own selfishness that she thought of naught else. Her lost home was no longer mourned over as it had been; for there, she was subject to others; here, she was first. Power was very sweet to her little heart. If her subjects showed any signs of revolt, she applied the spur, by threatening to report their short comings to old North Wind, without delay.

The poor squaws had few opportunities to lounge, smoke and take their ease.

When Nattie had been reigning queen of the wigwam about two months, there came a visitor. It was Augustus Reid. He looked rather melancholy, and asked for the old chief. Nattie said that he had gone a journey with his family.

"And left you to the care of strangers?"

"I am very well provided for," said Nattie; "and they will all get home again, in the spring."

"I think that your head was troubled when I saw you last," said the youth, looking at her kindly; "has it now got well?"

"It is almost well," answered Nattie; "I do not see white beads now, nor hear a rushing like loud waters, as I did."

"Do you make pin-cushions now, or write letters on broadcloth, as you did when I first saw you?"

"No; but I work on willow a little. It has been a long time since you were here last. Have you been hunting ever since then?"

"The young man hesitated and smiled, but finally answered, Yes."

"Did you see any white folks where you went?"

"I saw many," he returned. "They used to be your people, I infer, from the color of your skin. Why are you living among Indians now?"

Nattie colored. She dared not tell her questioner that she had been stolen from her home and brought to the forest, so she said, evasively:

"I have been here what seems to me a long time, and am pretty well contented."

"That is strange," said the young man, thoughtfully.

"Why, you associate with red men, and enjoy it, though you are not of their race any more than I am," said Nattie.

"Ah, yes, I a man Indian," returned the youth, in a regretful tone; "that is, my father is a red man, and my mother was a pale-face."

"Is your mother dead?"

He bowed.

"And your father?"

"Is living, I suppose; though I may never behold his face again."

The young man looked around the wigwam, and drew a heavy sigh, as he spoke thus.

Nattie pitied him.

"Why may you not see your father?" she asked.

"He is angry with me," was the response.

"He may not always be so."

"Ah, the Indian is slow to forgive. He has laid his commands upon me. I am to obey them, or see him no more."

"Does he wish you to do any bad or wicked thing, then?" asked Nattie.

"He wishes me to do that which I think would be wrong," answered the youth, looking at the little girl with a steady gaze.

Nattie was silent. She did not like to ask the young man what it was that his father wished him to do, which he considered so wrong, though she hoped that he would tell her; but he did not seem thus inclined; so, after a while, she said:

"Surely, your father does not wish you to kill or steal?"

"Not exactly," was the response; "though, I believe, he wishes me to receive and retain as my own, stolen goods."

"That would certainly be wrong," said Nattie.

"So I think," said the young man, rising. "But we will not talk more of it now. You seem to be a nice house-keeper. I have not, in all my travels, seen so nice a cabin as this. Is it your work? It seems too much for your small hands."

"I have three squaws," answered Nattie, proudly. "They are in the woods now, gathering nuts. The old chief, North Wind, left them to help me, so I tell them how, and they do most of the work. That old man, complaining in the corner, is their father. He is a trying old creature, and I wish that I could be rid of him."

"He seems to be sick," said the youth.

"I suppose he is; but he is, also, very dirty and disagreeable."

Nattie said this with a proud toss of her head, and added: "But you will tarry and take a bowl of broth with us, for I have some on the fire, of my own making, which, I think, will be very good."

The youth assented, and Nattie laid mats on the clean ground, brought the smooth, white, wooden bowls, which the squaws' hands now scoured and scalded each day, and dished out the steaming contents of the soup kettle.

Augustus Reid ate with a hearty relish, and said that the succotash was the best that he ever tasted. Nattie was much gratified by this compliment, and insisted on filling his bowl a second time.

After dispatching this, he went to the table and examined the willow-work. Then he asked if she would not show him the names which he once saw lettered with white beads on broad-cloth."

She opened a drawer and drew them out. He looked them over and selected hers at once.

"I would like to keep this," he said.

She was silent.

"May I?" he added.

"It is but a trifle," she answered; "I don't suppose they will care."

"When you work in beads again," he said, "I hope that you will make my name."

"I think I shall," answered Nattie.

"He looked at her with a pleased smile, held out his hand, and said:

"Good-bye, Nathalie."

How strange, and yet how grateful that name sounded in her ears!