Nattie Nesmith/Chapter 20

by Sophia Homespun

 

Chapter XX.

Home Again.

HEN little Mrs. Robert Nesmith stepped quietly into the sick girl's room next morning, she heard a low voice, often quite broken by tears, thanking God for his great goodness to such a wicked girl as she had been,—for having preserved her from a fearful death,—for guiding her to a friendly door,—for giving her the past night's grateful rest and sweet dreams of lost home, also for one who had been kind to her, and spoken pleasant words when she was among strange, wild people.

Mrs. Nesmith remained quiet while the little girl was engaged in her simple, earnest prayer. When it was ended, she approached and asked her how she found herself this morning?

"I had a very pleasant night's rest," was the answer, "and my head is much clearer than it was yesterday."

"I am glad to hear it," said the kind woman, "and hope that you will not work too hard to-day."

"Oh, no, I don't intend to do so," said Nattie. "I have a very little job that I wish to do; the rest of the time I shall be quiet, or play with baby. When I get well, I hope that I can work for you, to pay you, in part, for all your kindness to me."

"We shall be glad to have you stay with us as long as you can," was the answer, "but perhaps you may be called to go elsewhere."

Nattie looked rather alarmed at these words. She feared the old Indian chief had returned and was about to claim her. Perhaps the dreaded Torch Eye was with him, and she would soon be plunged into decper troubles than she had thus far experienced. Yet a voice in her heart seemed to say: "Cast thy burden on the Lord, and He will sustain thee:" and she answered, quietly:

"It is not likely that anybody that has any right to me will come to claim me, so I hope I shall be allowed to stay with you."

"Will any person who has no right be likely to lay claim to you?" asked Mrs. Nesmith.

Nattie stopped a moment, and said:

"They might."

She then drew forth her beads, and other articles, from under the pillow, and commenced work.

"I hope that you will let me see your embroidery when it is finished," said Mrs. Nesmith.

"It is not much," was the response, "only the name of a friend, which I am working in beads."

"But you will let me see it, won't you?"

"Oh, yes, if you wish," said Nattie, threading the beads rapidly on the long horse-hairs.

"You seem to be well skilled in your work," remarked the little woman.

"Yes, I have done much of it,—too much. That is what ails my head sometimes, when I see things double, or see beads everywhere; so I can do but little of it now."

Robert Nesmith and Augustus Reid went out to the saw-mill, directly after breakfast. The husband and wife had not yet decided in what way they would tell Nattie that she was already among near relatives, and soon to meet her father. As she was still quite weak and feeble, they dreaded to give her too much of a shock.

The two men came in at noon. When Mrs. Nesmith carried Nattie's dinner to her room, the name on which she had been at work was finished, and lay on the spread before her.

"Ah," said the little woman, "you have been very expeditious. I see that your task is done. It is pretty, indeed, and a style of work which we do not often see; but I have a friend who has some very similar to it,—in truth, so very much like it that it would almost seem that one hand must have done it all. After a while, if you would like, I will bring it in and show it to you."

Nattie said that she would like to see it very much; so, when dinner was over, Mrs. Nesmith asked Augustus Reid for the name on the strip of cloth, which had so singularly, on the night previous, revealed to them Nattie's identity, and also for the metal box containing those other names, which he had already shown to them. They were placed inher hand, and, attended by her husband, she returned to Nattie's room. Approaching the bed, she placed beneath the purple strip containing the name "Augustus Reid," the scarlet one, bearing the name "Nathalie Norton."

Nattie's eyes grew wild, and flashed from one face to the other as she read these two names,

"Mine, for instance," he answered. Page 261.

both wrought by her own hand, in the days which were now so interesting in memory.

"Do you know anybody by this name?" asked Mrs. Nesmith, touching the lower of the two on the coverlet.

Nattie nodded slightly.

"Is it your own?" asked the little woman.

"It is part of it," was the rather unwilling answer.

"Will you let me add another to it?" said Robert, with a merry twinkle in his black eye.

"What one?" asked Nattie, with a quick glance.

"Mine, for instance," he answered, taking from his notebook a card bearing his name in large print.

This he proceeded to shove under the beaded strip till only the name "Nesmith" remained visible. Nattie's color came and went rapidly, as she now saw before her cyes, her own name, full and complete, "Nathalie Norton Nesmith." She burst into tears. Robert laid his hand on her head and said, kindly:

"Don't cry, Nattie; I am your own brother Bobby; though I was a great boy when you were scarcely more than a baby, and left home before you can remember. It was not till last night that we knew this, for you were so feeble we did not like to trouble you with too many questions about your past experiences. Dimple, who will be a good sister, shall tell you how it all came about. She is better than I am at such things. But don't cry, and make yourself sick, because there will be some more surprises for you before long, and you must get ready for them by getting well as fast as you can."

As soon as her brother had withdrawn, Nattie turned toward his wife, her sister, and, lifting the name of "Augustus Reid" from its place, said:

"Did he tell you of me?"

The little woman bowed in assent.

"Where is he?" asked Nattie.

"He is here," was the answer. "I have, also, some other names, in a box which he gave me. You will recognize them, I think."

She produced it, blackened, scarred and partially melted, as it had been taken from the ruins of the fire. Nattie shuddered at the sight of it.

"I hope the dreadful fire has not burned him," she said.

"No."

"He must have been there if he found this box, I should think."

"Yes. Would you like to have hime come in and tell you about it?"

"I would," was the quick answer.

Mrs. Nesmith went into the sitting room, and informed the young man of Nattie's wish. He rose at once and followed her to the little room. The poor girl seemed far gladder at the sight of him than she had been when her brother disclosed himself to her; for his had been the one bright face which had beamed on her captivity, while the face of her brother was almost as that of a stranger. But the young man was much moved now that he saw her safe in the arms of her friends, svon to be fully restored to those who had, for nearly a year, mourned for her more deeply than they might have sorrowed for the dead. He felt that a vast distance was opening between them; that, perhaps, after to-day, he must not expect to see her more. And the past helplessness of her condition, a little, lone, white girl, stolen from her pleasant home and set among savages in a wilderness, had, from the first, drawn him strangely toward her. For him, in a sense, she suffered her hardships and wrongs. His father would not have laid a hand upon her had he not coveted for his son by a white woman, a partner from the same race. Thus, while he rejoiced over Nattie's restoration to her own people, he could scarcely help sorrowing for himself. Some thing of this showed in his eyes while he gazed on her. She noticed his manner and said:

"Why I thought you would be glad to see me."

"So I am," he answered, seeking to disperse the gathering gloom from his countenance; "but the last few days have been very trying, and perhaps their shadow is still on me."

"I would like to have you tell me about them, unless it would make you too sorry," said Nattie.

"It is a hard tale," he answered; "but it is better to know the truth than to have the mind left a prey to suspense and fearful imaginations."

Then Augustus Reid rehearsed briefly the events of the past week, touching as lightly as possible those incidents calculated to awaken grief and horror in the heart of his listener.

"Well," said Nattie, drawing a deep sigh when he had finished, "so they are all dead and gone,—those poor creatures to whom I was so hard and unkind. I shall never forgive myself because I did not let the poor old man have his mat by day, and his blanket to wrap around his cold, aching limbs. But I would have all those things piled up till night came, so as to have the cabin look nice, and how much water I made the squaws bring, to scald the wooden bowls and wash the succotash kettle. How I made them work on baskets, too, to buy me finery. But the baskets were all burned, and the bowls, the mats and blankets. I only escaped, and I wonder that God didn't let me burn, for my bad deeds."

"I don't think," said Augustus Reid, "that it was anything very bad for you to make those fat, lazy squaws do the work which they were so much better able to do than yourself; and as to the old man's sitting in his blanket all day, it hardly seems to me that it could have been necessary, when he was so close to a fire always."

"The spirit which led me to do those things was bad," said Nattie; "for I drove the squaws about and vexed the old man, to show my power; and the more I could afflict them the better I enjoyed myself. Oh, this was awfully wicked! and I shudder to think what a bad girl I have always been, and how I have thought it was so much for me to be hurt a very little, but nothing for others to endure ever so great pain. I don't believe I shall be so any more, for I think how great is God's goodness in sparing so guilty a wretch, and I pray to Him to forgive my sins, and keep me from doing wrong again."

Augustus Reid looked surprised to hear such words from the little girl, and thought that sickness and calamity had preyed deeply upon her mind.

"Do not think too meanly of yourself," he said. "You have suffered much wrong, but will soon be restored to all your friends."

"What has become of the Frenchmen that burned our home?" Nattie asked, quickly.

"They have fled," was the answer; "probably because they feared that their crime would be discovered, and they be brought to justice."

"When the old chief, North Wind, gets back and finds his cabin destroyed, what will he do?"

"He will be sad," answered Augustus, turning his eyes away, "and go with his family farther into the forest, to seek a new hunting ground."

"I shall never see him again," said. Nattie.

"Would you wish to?" the youth asked, quickly.

"The old chief would not have been so bad, if it had not been for his dreadful boy, Torch Eye."

"Did you ever see him?"

"No; but I knew that I was kept for him. You told me once, that you knew Torch Eye. Do you think he will be likely to follow me, if I ever get back to my home?"

The young man did not answer at once, and Nattie added:

"I mean, to try and steal me away again? because his father once told him that the white girl should be his."

"I do not think that Torch Eye will ever do anything to cause you trouble, Nathalie," the young man now said, in a low, dejected tone, with his eyes bent on the floor.

He then opened the box which he had taken from the fire, and laid the names out before her. Nattie repeated one after another, and spoke of her joy whea she first found that she could be useful to her captors in a way more congenial to her tastes than was drawing water, making broth, and tending the young papooses.

"I shall want to see them all, sometimes," she said; "even old Red Rose, and bright Black-bird, though they did not like me much; but Fox Heart was real good, and little Sweet Fern, too. As you are a friend of the old chief, perhaps you may see them some time. Gtve them the kindest regards of the pale-face girl, or Tulip, as the chieftain named me, and bid them good-bye for her. If they should ever come to my native village, perhaps, with my father, I may go and call on them. If I had not been a bad girl, running away from home alone in the dark evening, because I was angry with my sick mother and my kind sister, who had reproved me for some of my disobedient conduct, I would never have been caught by the Indian and borne away to the wilderness. Perhaps God sent him on purpose to teach me the bitter fruits of sin."

When Nattie spoke in this strain, her listener seemed not to know what answer to make. She now picked up the bead-work and replaced it in the box.

"I would like to keep this, to remind me of the old wigwam," she said. "And see, I have made your name, too, since I came here."

She held the purple cloth before his eyes.

"I am much obliged to you for taking the trouble," he said.

"It was no trouble, but a pleasure," she answered. "Shall you live around in this country, always?"

"I don't know," he answered, evasively.

"Perhaps you will some time come where I live; if you do, you must call and see me."

"My race are not thus given to approaching the abodes of the whites," he said.

"But you are not much Indian," she returned; "and, indeed, you might easily become one of us. I hope you will."

At these words, the young man turned away, and retraced his steps to the sitting-room. He saw the young lumber merchant approaching the door in company with a gentleman of middle age. The two entered. Little Mrs. Nesmith, with the baby in her arms, hastened forward to greet the new corner. Both husband and wife seemed delighted at sight of their guest.

After tossing and complimenting the baby a few moments, the gentleman looked toward Augustus Reid, and going up to him with extended hand, said:

"Why, how do you do?"

The youth seemed embarrassed and falteringly returned the salutation. The husband and wife stared at each other. The mutual acquaintance of these two surprised them.

"Did you think you knew this young man, father?" asked Robert; "you must be mistaken."

"Mistaken? oh, no," was the answer; "not at all, although I confess that I was surprised to see him here."

Augustus Reid now expected to hear himself addressed as Torch Eye, in full hearing of Nattie, who was wide awake, just within the adjoining bedroom.

"Why, whom do you take him to be?" asked Robert.

"Augustus Reid, to be sure, the son of a worthy merchant in our town; but he must have traveled with dispatch, for I saw him at the depot on the morning I left home, and he did not then seem to have a journey in view."

"Truly, you have the name of the young man," said Robert; "but he was never a sojourner in your section of country."

"Is it possible?" said the father. "Yet he is an exact likeness of our Augustus Reid, only, as I notice now, a litle taller, perhaps. Certainly, young man, you must be connected with the Reids of Bernardville?"

Augustus colored, as he answered that he supposed he had connections by the name of Reid, somewhere, and it now struck him that he had heard his deceased mother speak of a place called Bernardville.

"It must be so," Mr. Nesmith, senior, answered. "And you never saw your relatives in that direction? Then you should go there and make them a visit. I am certain that you would have no difficulty in satisfying them that you are of their kindred."

Nattie had listened to every tone of this new voice till she now lay trembling like an aspen. In the flush of glad excitement, Robert stepped to the door of her room. Nattie turned her eager eyes on his face. Without waiting to give his father any preparation for so great a surprise, but thinking it best to get through the first meeting as soon as possible, he said:

"Come, father, and see if you can guess a little closer to the truth than you did just now, by telling us whom we have here, on this cot bed?"

Mr. Nesmith hastened to the door of the bed-room, but had hardly glanced towards the couch, before two eager, imploring arms were stretched out toward him, while a voice, in a very agony of yearning and affection, cried:

"My father! my father!"

Then the little form began to crawl down from the bed, to reach his feet; but the father hastened toward her. If he could not, in a moment, recognize the thin, pale face, he knew the voice of his child, and the response which his own heart made to her anguished call. That call! It told of all her sufferings, her longings, her deep, deep joy and thankfulness for once more seeing his face.

"My heart is too full for words," said the father, brokenly, as he held his daughter to his breast; "and may I, henceforth, serve and adore the God who has so wonderfully restored my child to my arms."

"That is what I try to do," said Nattie, faintly; "for, indeed, my father, I have suffered much; and I think the good Lord let it be so, to heal me of sin; for when I had everything that heart could wish, I was a willful, bad girl; I did not thank God for a single blessing, but was angry because I had not more good things. But some way, though it is very strange, since I have lost everything, I have found so much to be thankful for."

There were not a few tears shed around the bed while Nattie told her little tale of sorrow and heard what her father had to relate in return. It caused her much grief to learn that her mother was no more, fur now she could never atone for past disobedience.

"Mother once told me," she said, "that I might live to be sorry for my conduct, and feel remorse. I know now what remorse means."

Nattie's father was not yet a Christian, so he could not soothe her with the soothing which she required. After a while, she said that Jesus would forgive her, she thought, because he had died for sinners.

Many questions were asked concerning sister Tiny and Irish Biddy. Tiny was well, only a cough, and this prevented her being the companion of the father in his journey. Biddy was married to a countryman of hers, and made a thrifty housekeeper.

"Then who takes care of you?" Nattie asked, looking wistfully in her father's face.

"Well, I don't have too much care, daughter," he answered. "I have got along with having a woman come twice a week to do some washing and cooking. I was expecting to sell, on my return, and take board for Tiny and me; but you seem to be pretty well grown; I almost think that I shall lay on you the responsibility of being my housekeeper. Do you really think you could be such a personage?"

"Oh, I want to be! that is, I'll try my best," said Nattie, gladly. "I can't do as well as a woman, but I will be learning every day, if you will only have patience. Mother was so very nice, always, and Biddy, too, that you will find a great difference, of course."

"I think I am not so particular, in many respects, as I was before my troubles," said Mr. Nesmith; "and if I can but have my daughter with me again, whom I had expected to see no more, I shall find abundant cause to be thankful and content."

After a week's tarrying with his son, Mr. Nesmith and Nattie set out for home. Augustus Reid was invited to bear them company, and make a visit to his mother's friends, who, it appeared evident, lived in the same village. But he excused himself, feeling too wild and untutored to go at once into the society of polished white people. He promised, however, at Nattie's urgent request, to go that way before a year should pass by. Mr. Nesmith, who learned the young man's parentage from his son, was anxious that he should be rescued from the Indian mode of life, and made a useful man in civilized society.

Nattie had some pretty clothes made for her journey. She was much surprised to find it, as she expressed it, "such a long way home." She found little Tiny much grown; and Irish Biddy was wild with delight when she found that Miss Nattie had returned home, all safe and sound.

"But shure, an' ye can niver kape this great house, an' be afther doin' all the work?" she cried in amaze.

"I am going to try," was Nattie's meek reply.

She did try. And don't you suppose she succeeded, children? Of course she did; for who ever said, "I'll try," with a brave, willing heart, and failed of accomplishing a high purpose? Truly, no one, if they also trusted in God, as did our Nattie. Such a spirit is sure of a noble victory.

It has been a number of years since the cvents herein chronicled, had their occurrence. The old Indian chief, North Wind, after many wanderings, and the loss of his second wife, with all the children, save Black-bird, haz now become quite reconciled to dwelling among the white man's race, and divides his time between the civilized home of his son and the wigwam of his daughter. His son is Augustus Reid; his wife's name was Nattie Nesmith, and there is a little Nattie, who is the delight both of her white and red grandpapa.

So, after all, Nattie did marry the dreaded Torch Eye; but he is not in the least "dreadful" to her now. On the contrary, she looks upon him as a model husband, and only hopes that her little Nattie may, without her hard experience, prove as fortunate in the choice of a companion, when her time shall come. She calls this little Nattie the "child of chastening," for she is a very meek, gentle thing, not a bit like her mother, who was once known as the "Bad Girl."

The End