preserved them in the waters of a salt spring which she discovered about a league off from her home. She laid away great store of dried fruits and berries, and pleasant herbs and flowers, and sassafras and birch, and sweet barks. In one moon before the hoar frosts had whitened the ground, her store-house was so well furnished that she could have no dread of famine, and might even entertain a pilgrim in distress. The furniture of her abode accorded also with her wants: a bed made of dry husks, with a covering of the same, a chair woven of the wild willow, and a slight table of the same; for cups, gourds and snail-shells, and vessels of rude pottery made by her own hands. At morning, noon, and night, she offered prayers to God, and invoked the Virgin.
Gentle Dove seemed to live within a charmed circle. Wild beasts and venomous serpents did not find their way therein, and the more dreaded foot of man intruded not; but myriads of birds flew into the inclosures, both those of gorgeous plumage and of dulcet song—the bobolink and the oriole, and the pure white doves. The hummingbirds came in quest of honeysuckles and the Missouri rose-buds, which clustered around the poor child's door. Moreover, the fawns skipped on the grass before the hollow tree, but she could not find it in her heart to pierce them with her arrows. They were the delight of her eyes, and at last approached and ate out of her hand. While her child slumbered on the bed of husks, Gentle Dove sat without, singing in a low sweet voice the hymns Marquette had taught her; nor were these moments spent in idleness: she wove willow baskets, or made sandals from the bark of trees, blankets, and garments for her little one. Oh! how sweetly it slumbered!—it seemed to thrive more and more every day, and in features more and more resembled its mother. "Morning-Glory" was its name, and every morning Nito-me-ma took it to the spring, and poured the cold crystal waters upon it, so that it became hardy, and its olive complexion glowed with health. She had already baptized it, but not in the waves of the fountain. When she first came into the wilderness, perceiving that the child's face was wet with tears which had dropped from her own eyes, she signed the cross upon its forehead, and in those holy drops which welled up from a broken heart, christened it in the name of the
