Timid Hare by Mary Hazelton Wade
M >>
Mary Hazelton Wade >> Timid Hare
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original lovely illustrations.
See 14784-h.htm or 14784-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/7/8/14784/14784-h/14784-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/7/8/14784/14784-h.zip)
TIMID HARE
The Little Captive
by
MARY H. WADE
Author of "Little Cousin Series", etc.
Illustrated by Louis Betts
Whitman Publishing Co.
Racine -- Chicago
1916
[Illustration: Cover Art]
[Frontispiece: Buffalo Rib was a Handsome Youth.]
CONTENTS
CAPTURED
BEFORE THE CHIEF
THE NEW HOME
HARD WORK
THE CHANGE
THE VISIT
THE MISCHIEF MAKER
THE HAPPY DAY
THE DOG FEAST
THE FESTIVAL
MOVING DAY
THE JOURNEY
THE MEDICINE MAN
THE WINTER HUNT
List of Color Plates
Buffalo Rib Was a Handsome Youth
The Stone and Her Son Black Bull Were Hurrying Home
"Sweet Grass, Listen to Me" [Missing from book]
"I Soon Had a Fire Started"
Black Bull Was Helpless
Bent Horn's Mind Was Made Up
They Looked With Wonder at the Medicine Man
"Help Me, Great Spirit" [Missing from book]
CAPTURED
Swift Fawn sat motionless on the river-bank.
"Lap, lap," sang the tiny waves as they struck the shore. "Lap, lap,"
they kept repeating, but the little girl did not heed the soft music.
Her mind was too busy with the story White Mink had told her that
morning.
After the men had started off on a buffalo hunt Swift Fawn had left the
other children to their games in the village and stolen away to the
favorite bathing place of the women-folk.
"No one will disturb me there," she had said to herself, "and I want to
be all by myself to think it over."
After she had been there for sometime. Swift Fawn drew out from the
folds of her deerskin jacket a baby's sock, and turned it over and over
in her hands curiously. Never had she seen the like of it before. How
pretty it was! Who could have had the skill to weave the threads of
scarlet silk in and out of the soft wool in such a dainty pattern? Was
it--the child whispered the word--could it have been her mother?
White Mink had always been so good to her, Surely no real mother could
have been more loving than the Indian woman who had watched over her
and tended her, and taught her from the time when Three Bears had
brought her, a year-old baby, to his wife. Where he found the little
one, he had never told.
And so she was a white child. How strange it was! Yet she had grown
up into a big girl, loving the ways of the red people more and more
deeply for eight happy years.
"Surely," thought the child, "I could not have loved my own parents
more than I do White Mink and Three Bears."
"I wish--oh, so hard!" she added with a lump in her throat, "that White
Mink had not told me. I don't want to remember there ever
was--something different."
With these last words Swift Fawn lifted the little sock and was about
to hurl it into the water, when she suddenly stopped as she remembered
White Mink's last words.
"I give this shoe into your keeping," the woman had said solemnly. "I
have spoken because of my dream last night, and because of its warning
I bid you keep the shoe always."
With a little sigh, Swift Fawn drew back from the edge of the stream
and replaced the shoe in the bosom of her jacket. Then she stretched
herself out on the grassy bank and lay looking up into the blue sky
overhead. How beautiful it was! How gracefully the clouds floated by!
One took on the shape of a buffalo with big horns and head bent down as
if to charge. But it was so far away and dreamlike it was not fearful
to the child. And now it changed; the horns disappeared; the body
became smaller, and folded wings appeared at the sides; it was now, in
Swift Fawn's thoughts, a graceful swan sailing, onward, onward, in the
sky-world overhead.
The little girl's eyes winked and blinked and at last closed tightly.
She had left the prairie behind her and entered the Land of Nod.
She must have slept a long time, for when she awoke the sun had set,
and in the gathering darkness, she was aware of a man's face with
fierce dark eyes bent over her own.
"Ugh! Ugh!" the man was muttering. "It is a daughter of the Mandans.
A good prize!"
As he spoke he rose to his feet and Swift Fawn, shaking with fear, knew
that he was beckoning to others to draw near. A moment afterwards she
was surrounded by a party of warriors. They were taller than the men
of her own tribe, and were straight and noble in shape, but their faces
were very stern.
"They must belong to the 'Dahcotas,'" thought the child. "And they are
our enemies."
Many a tale had Swift Fawn heard of the fierce Dahcotas, lovers of war
and greatly to be feared. It was a terrible thought that she was alone
and in their power, with the night coming on.
"Ugh! What shall we do with her?" the brave who had discovered her
said to the others.
"She is fair to look upon," replied one.
"But she is a Mandan," was the quick answer of another. As he spoke he
looked proudly at the scalp lock hanging from his shoulder, for he and
his companions has just been out on the war path.
"Let our Chief decide," said the first speaker. "It is best that Bent
Horn should settle the question."
"Ugh! Ugh!" grunted the others, not quite pleased at the idea.
However, they said nothing more, and turned away, moving softly with
their moccasined feet to the place where their horses were restlessly
waiting to go on with the journey.
Swift Fawn's captor now seized her hand, saying gruffly, "Get up."
Dragging her to his horse's side, he lifted her up, bound her to the
animal's back, leaped up after her and a moment afterwards the whole
party were galloping faster and faster into the night.
Hour after hour they traveled with never a stop. At last, by the light
of the stars. Swift Fawn knew that she was nearing a large camp, made
up of many tent-homes.
BEFORE THE CHIEF
As the party entered the camp the dogs came
out to meet them, barking in delight at
their masters' return. Swift Fawn's captor rode
up with her to the largest of the tents, or tepees
as the Dahcotas called them. Springing from
his horse, he unbound the little girl, and again
seizing her hand, drew the scared child into the
lodge.
A bright fire was blazing in the fireplace, for
the night was cold.
Beside it squatted a noble-looking brave,
wrapped in a bear-skin robe, and with eagles'
feathers waving from the top of his head. Chains
of wampum hung around his neck and his face
was painted in long, bright lines.
Not far from him sat a beautiful and richly-dressed
young girl, his daughter. She looked
kindly at Swift Fawn as if to say: "Do not fear,
little girl."
"Behold, a child of the Mandans. I give her
into your hands, great Chief," said Swift Fawn's
captor to the brave by the fireside.
Bent Horn seemed in no hurry to speak, as
he looked keenly at the child who could not lift
her eyes for fear.
"Is the girl of the weak Mandans to live, or to
be a slave among our people?" asked the warrior.
Bent Horn was about to answer, as his
daughter broke in: "Father, let her live. I wish
it."
The Chief turned toward the young girl with
love in his eyes. He smiled as he said, "Sweet
Grass shall have her wish."
His face became stern, however, as he added:
"That shrinking creature must be trained. Give
her into the keeping of The Stone, and let this
girl henceforth be known as Timid Hare."
As Bent Horn spoke he motioned to Swift
Fawn's captor to take her away, and the man at
once led her out of the lodge and through the
camp to a small tepee on the outskirts, where
the old woman, The Stone, lived with her
deformed son, Black Bull.
THE NEW HOME
Drawing aside the heavy buffalo-skin curtain which covered the doorway,
the man shoved his little captive inside and followed close behind her.
"Ugh, Timid Hare," he said scornfully. "This is your new home. Does
it please you?"
The child shuddered without answering, as she mustered courage to look
about her. The fire on the hearth in the middle of the tepee was
smouldering. With the help of its dim light the little girl could see
piles of dirty buffalo robes on either side; the walls of the tent,
also made of buffalo skins, were blackened by smoke. Long shadows
stretching across the floor, seemed to take on fearful shapes in the
child's fancy as the low fire, now and then, gave a sudden leap upward.
Furthermore, the tepee was empty,--no face looked out from any corner;
no voice spoke to the new-comers.
"Ugh!" The man shrugged his shoulders as he grunted in displeasure.
He was in haste to get to his own lodge where a supper of bear steak
was no doubt awaiting him.
"Where can The Stone be that she is not here, now that darkness covers
the earth?" he muttered. "And the crooked boy away too!"
The sentence was barely ended when the sound of quick, soft footsteps
could be heard outside. The Stone and her son, Black Bull, were
hurrying home. They had been gone all day, having gone to a clay pit
miles away from the village to get a certain clay for making red dye
with which The Stone wished to color some reeds for basket weaving.
Night had taken then by surprise, and wolves howling in the distance
made them travel as fast as the poor deformed youth could go.
[Illustration: The Stone and her son Black Bull were hurrying home.]
The Stone was the first of the two to enter the lodge. She was bent
and wrinkled, and her cunning, cruel eyes opened wide with surprise as
she saw her visitors.
"Ugh! what does this mean?" she asked sharply, as she looked from the
brave to the cowering child still held in his strong grip. "Are you
bringing a daughter of the pale-faces into my keeping?" She ended with
a wicked laugh.
"Not much better--it is a child of the Mandans who fell into my hands.
Better to kill her at once--a goodly scalp that!" With the words the
man pointed to his captive's long and beautiful hair.
He continued: "But Bent Horn says, No. Let The Stone take her into her
keeping. So it is then--Timid Hare, shall draw water for you and wait
upon you and your son."
Black Bull, who had followed close upon his mother, stood staring at
the captive with wild eyes. The poor fellow was small-witted, as well
as deformed. He was eighteen years old, yet he had no more
understanding than a small child. His face was not cruel like his
mother's, however. His eyes were sad and spoke of a longing for
something--but what that something was even Black Bull himself did not
understand.
As the little girl looked at him a tiny hope leaped up in her heart.
"He will not be unkind to me, at any rate," she decided. "And I am
sorry for him that he has such a mother."
Following close upon this thought came another. It was of White
Mink--dear, kind White Mink who was perhaps at this very moment weeping
over the loss of her little Swift Fawn.
"But there is no Swift Fawn--she is dead, dead, dead. There is now
only Timid Hare, the slave of a wicked woman."--The child shuddered at
the thought. She came to herself to hear The Stone saying,
"Leave her to me and I will train her in the good ways of the
Dahcotas." The man smiled grimly and went his way, and the woman
turning to her charge said: "Come, don't stand there cowering and
useless. Busy yourself. Pile wood upon the fire and put water in that
kettle. My son and I are hungry and would eat, and the meat must yet
be cooked."
With The Stone's words came a blow on Timid Hare's shoulder. It was
the first one the child had ever felt, and though it did not strike
hard upon the body, it fell with heavy weight upon her aching heart.
Stumbling about, she tried to do the old squaw's bidding, and the two
soon had the supper ready. The Stone now served her son on his side of
the fireplace, after which she herself began to eat her fill while
Swift Fawn sat huddled in a dark comer, hungrily watching.
"Take that," the woman said as she finished her meal, and she threw a
half-picked bone to the little girl. Then she got up, put away
whatever food was left from the supper, and began to spread out some
buffalo skins, first for her son's bed on his side of the tepee, then
on her own side for herself to sleep on.
"You can lie where you are," she told Timid Hare, pointing to the pile
of skins on which the child was crouching.
Soon afterwards The Stone and Black Bull were quietly sleeping, while
the little captive, with tears rolling down her cheeks, lay thinking of
the kind friends far away and of the dreadful things that might happen
on the morrow. All at once she remembered the baby's sock hidden in
her dress, and of White Mink's words. Perhaps--perhaps--the sock would
help her. But how? She must guard it, at any rate; not even The Stone
should discover it. Kind sleep was already drawing near. The tired
eyes no longer shed tears. Till morning should come, Timid Hare was
free from trouble.
HARD WORK
The sun, shining into the tepee through the opening over the fireplace,
roused The Stone to her day's work. She lost no time in setting a task
for her little slave. Handing her a needle carved from the bone of a
deer and thread made of a deer's sinew, she hade her sew up a rent in
the skin curtain of the doorway.
Poor Timid Hare! she had learned to embroider and to weave baskets in
the old home, but sewing on heavy skins had never yet fallen to her
share of the daily duties. "There will be time enough," White Mink had
thought, "when the little fingers have grown bigger and the tender back
is stronger."
So now the hands were clumsy, and the stitches were not as even as they
should be. The Stone watched her with a scowl and frequent scoldings;
often an uplifted arm seemed ready to strike. But seeing that the
child was trying to do her best, the expected beating did not come.
After she and Black Bull had eaten their own breakfast of bread made
out of wild rice, together with some buffalo fat, she gave a small
portion to Timid Hare. Then she and Black Bull went out of the lodge,
leaving the little girl alone at her work.
How different--how very different--this home was from the one among the
Mandans! The old one was so big and comfortable, and there was such a
jolly household of parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts, and
children of all ages gathered together under one roof. Then, too, the
floor was so smooth and shiny, and the bedsteads, each one shut off by
a curtain and made pretty with fringe and pictures, seemed almost like
tiny sleeping rooms. Moreover, the banking of earth over the framework
of the lodge kept out the chill winds and biting cold of winter.
But here, in The Stoned tepee, where the skin covering was old and
torn, one must often suffer. At least so thought Timid Hare as she
looked up now and then from her work to get acquainted with her new
home.
"Besides, it is so small," she said to herself, "and only two people in
the whole household before I came. How strange it is!"
It was quite true that the ways of the Dahcotas were unlike those of
the Mandans. Each family lived by itself and thus the home did not
need to be so large. Timid Hare did not know this, nor that the
people, as a rule, lived in great comfort. They preferred tents,
rather than houses like those of the Mandans, of frame-work covered
with earth because they liked to move from place to place and they
could thus carry their homes with them. Yet their tepees were warm and
comfortable because the covering of strong, thick buffalo skins was
generally double. Fires were kept burning on their hearths in winter
and supplies of food and clothing were easy to obtain from the wild
creatures of the woods and prairies. What more could any red people
wish?
Timid Hare had heard her foster father tell much of the powerful
Dahcotas and that they were rich, as Indians count riches.
"Why are they so powerful?" she now asked herself. "Ugh! it was
because of their fierce war spirit. It was this that made them drive
other tribes before them, so that they became free to roam over the
prairies and enjoy the richest hunting grounds."
"I cannot help myself," now thought the child. "If I should run away,
the braves would either find and kill me, or I should be devoured by
the hungry wolves that go forth at nightfall."
But might not Three Bears make up a war party and go forth to seek her?
"Alas! that may not be," Timid Hare told herself. "My dear father
would himself meet death at the hands of these cruel warriors."
The rent in the curtain was nearly sewed up when Black Bull stole into
the lodge. He wanted to talk to the little stranger with eyes sad like
his own, and he did not wish his mother to know it.
Behind Black Bull came his dog, wolfish-looking like most of his breed,
but as Black Bull squatted in his corner, the animal crouched close at
his master's side as though he loved him.
"Poor fellow, he has a pet to follow him about just as I had at home,"
thought Timid Hare. "Perhaps by-and-by the dog may learn to love me
too." There was a big lump in the little girl's throat, and she
coughed as she tried to choke it back.
"Hard work," said Black Bull as he watched her pulling the coarse
thread through the buffalo skin and trying not to tear it. "Hard
work," he repeated. "Too bad."
Timid Hare nodded. "Good dog," she ventured after a while, looking at
the dog with a sad little smile. "I had a dog; I loved him," she added.
"Very good dog. He is my friend," replied the youth. "He goes with me
everywhere--everywhere. He makes me--not lonely. I call him Smoke."
Black Bull put his arm lovingly around Smoke's neck and the dog whined
softly. It was the only way in which he could say, "I love you, poor
master, if no one else does."
"My people are great people," Black Bull went on. "They are very
strong." Timid Hare nodded. "The Dahcotas are brave above all men.
Their bands are so many I could not count them." The very thought of
counting a large number made the simple-minded youth look puzzled.
"And they are tall and strong of body beyond the red men of all tribes."
Again Timid Hare nodded. But she also shuddered as she thought that
she was in their power, a helpless captive. Then, as her eyes turned
towards Black Bull, they filled with pity. Here was one of the
Dahcotas, at least, who was not strong and tall and well-shaped. Nor
would he do her harm, she felt sure.
Black Bull had turned to his lute which lay on the floor behind him and
begun to play a low, sweet tune when The Stone entered the lodge. She
looked sharply at Timid Hare, and then at the work which the little
girl had just finished.
"Ugh! Ugh!" grunted the squaw. "You must learn to sew better than
that, you little cringing coward. Ah, ha! I know something that may
help you." The Stone cut the air with a switch that she held in her
hand. "Something else may also help you to gain the spirit of a red
woman. Of that, by-and-by. And now you shall fetch me fresh water
from the spring. Black Bull, put yourself to some use. Show the girl
where the water may be drawn."
Handing an earthen crock to Timid Hare, she turned to her own
work--that of making dye out of the clay she had got the day before.
Timid Hare, holding the big crock as carefully as possible on her
shoulder, followed Black Bull out of the tepee. It seemed good to be
outdoors, even in a village of the Dahcotas. In the doorway of the
next lodge stood a young woman with pleasant eyes and beautiful glossy
hair. She looked curiously at the little girl, for she had just heard
of her capture. She must have pitied the child, for she smiled kindly
at her. Black Bull, catching the smile, said, "The Fountain, this is
Timid Hare. Is she not strange to look upon--so fair? She must be
like the pale-faces I have never seen."
The Fountain had no chance to answer, for Black Bull now turned to his
companion. "Hurry, Timid Hare, hurry, lest my mother be angry and beat
you."
As the two went on their way, the little girl saw other children like
herself, playing together and laughing happily. One of them had her
doll, and was carrying it in a baby-cradle on her back. She was
pretending it was too small to walk, and was singing a lullaby to make
it go to sleep.
All the children stopped to look at the little stranger.
"A Mandan! Oof!" cried one.
"Her hair is not black like ours," said another.
"Nor is her skin as dark. She is more like the pale-faces whom we
hate," remarked a third.
Then they turned to their play as if she were not worth noticing, and
poor little Timid Hare blushed for shame. It was hard indeed that even
the children should despise her.
A little farther on she noticed a group of men dancing together in the
sunlight. They were much taller than the Mandan braves, and noble to
look upon, as Black Bull had said. But to the little girl holding in
mind the capture of the day before, they seemed cruel and fearful even
now while they were dancing.
"The Dahcotas dance much--always," explained Black Bull, pointing to
the men. "We have many, many dances. For everything there is a dance.
When we feast, and before we hunt, when councils are held, when guests
come among us, we dance. It is a noble thing to dance. Sometimes," he
went on, "it is too make us laugh. Sometimes it is to make our faces
grow long--so!"
At this Black Bull's face took on a look of sadness as though he were
grieving.
Timid Hare was used to the dances of the Mandans, and she loved them.
But they were not so many as those of the Dahcotas, she felt sure.
Why, the night before, whenever she wakened, she heard the sound of
dancing in different lodges in the village.
"There is the spring. Now I go," said Black Bull, pointing it out
half-hidden in a hollow shaded by clumps of bushes. The youth, with
Smoke who had followed close at his heels ever since leaving the lodge,
turned back and Timid Hare stooped down to fill the crock.
As she did so her eyes met a pair of large black ones fastened upon her
own, and just above the water's edge. They belonged to the chief's
only son Young Antelope, who had come for a drink of cool water before
going off on a hunting trip. He was a handsome youth. As he lay
stretched out on the grassy bank above the spring he had heard the
sound of Timid Hare's steps as she drew near, and looked up to see who
it was.
"Oof! the stranger," he said, but he did not scowl like the little
girls whom the little captive had passed a few minutes before.
The next minute he had sprung to his pony's back and gone galloping
away. Timid Hare thought sadly of the dear foster-brother far away on
the wide prairie, as she trudged back with her load to the tepee where
The Stone awaited her.
THE CHANGE
"Bad," scolded the squaw as she looked into the crock and saw that some
of the water had been spilled on the way home.
She reached for her willow switch and used it twice on Timid Hare's
back.
"I have a nice little task for you," she said. "Do you see this?" She
pointed to a dish full of a dull red dye. "It is for you," she
continued. "No more pale-faces about us now. You are to take this dye
and paint yourself--every part of your body, mind you. Then, when you
have used this on your hair--" she pointed to a smaller dish containing
a black dye--"we may be able to make a Dahcota out of you after all."
"Waste no time," she commanded, as Timid Hare turned slowly to the
dishes of dye. "I leave you now for a little while and when I come
back--then I may like to look at you."
The Stone left the lodge and Timid Hare was left to change herself so
that even White Mink would not know her. Trained as she had been in
the ways of all Indians, her tears fell often as she covered her body
with the paint. She dare not leave one spot untouched, nor one tress
of the beautiful hair that had been White Mink's pride. When the work
was at last finished, there was no mirror in which to look at herself.
Once--just once, during her eight years of life among the Mandans, she
had seen a looking-glass. It was no larger than the palm of her small
hand, and belonged to the chief into whose hands it had come from a
white hunter years before. It was such a wonderful thing! Timid Hare
thought of it now and wished that she might see the picture that it
would of herself reflect.
"When I am next sent to the spring," she thought, "I will seek the
quiet little pool where some of the water lingers. Then, if the clouds
give a deep shadow, I can see the Timid Hare I now am."
"Good," muttered The Stone when she returned and examined her little
slave. But when Black Bull noticed the change, he said nothing--only
looked sad. Perhaps he felt that the little stranger had somehow lost
herself.
THE VISIT
One day, soon after Timid Hare's coming, she was sent to the chief's
tepee on an errand. The Stone and she had been gathering rushes for
the chief's daughter Sweet Grass who wished them for a mat she was
weaving. It was to be a surprise for her father; she meant it to be so
beautiful that he would wish to sit on it at feasts when entertaining
chiefs of other bands.