Part 8

Deeply shocked and pained by this lamentable catastrophe, Captain Hughes caused his men to cut litters with their axes and carry the bodies to the fort. No one felt regret for the just punishment of the Chippewa; but the fate of the unhappy lovers created a deep sympathy in the hearts of all—the more so from the surpassing personal beauty of both. Two graves were dug—one inside and the other on the outside of the stockade. In the first was placed a rude coffin, lined with a buffalo skin, which Captain Hughes had substituted for that of the grizzly bear, were placed the bodies of Wawandah and the Sunflower. A sort of mound was then raised over it, and at the head was stuck a short pole, the top of which, for about twelve inches, was painted red. The Chippewa was thrown unceremoniously, and without coffin, into the grave that had been dug for him outside.

Some time afterward Captain Hughes, having occasion to visit the encampment of the Shawnees, on a subject connected with the differences then existing between them and the North-West Company, took the opportunity of communicating to the White Bear all that he knew relating to the flight and death of the unfortunate Sunflower and Wawandah; adding to the detail the account of the sepulchral rites he had caused to be accorded to them.

The chief, a good deal emaciated and of much sterner look than when last introduced to the reader, at first heard him with grave and imperturbable silence. But when he came to that part of his narrative which described the remorse of Wawandah for the injury he had done him, a tear, vainly sought to be hidden by a sudden motion of the head, stole down his cheek.

“Will my brother smoke?” he said abruptly, handing him his pipe, while he, with the disengaged hand, pressed that of Captain Hughes with the utmost cordiality.

“Listen, my brother,” he said, after a pause. “You have done well to the White Bear. His wigwam is empty without the Sunflower, who used to shed light upon his hearth. Joy no more can enter it. The White Bear is alone among the rest of his tribe, like a blasted pine in the midst of a green forest; but it does good to his heart to hear the son of his friend—the broken-hearted one that he took into his lodge to soothe and to heal—was sorry that he stole the flower of his heart, and left but a thorn in its place. The White Bear is sorry for them both; but they were young and foolish, and dearly have they been punished. I forgive them, brother,” again extending his hand, “and I love the white chief, who did not leave their bodies to be devoured by the wolves, but buried them as the White Bear would have them buried. I am glad too that you treated the Chippewa as a dog, without any sign to mark where he lays. I feel that many moons will not pass over me; but while they do, I will live less unhappy at my loss, and ever love the white chief.”

Thus terminated their interview; and Captain Hughes heard, not one month later, of the death of the White Bear.

* * * * *

THE WIFE’S LAST GIFT.

BY MRS. JULIA C. R. DORR.

In the late Hungarian struggle, Count Batthyany was taken prisoner by the Austrians. He was sentenced to be hung, and his wife sent him a dagger, that, by taking his own life, he might escape the ignominy of such a death.

I send a precious gift to thee, My own, my honored love— A gift that well I know thou’lt prize, All gifts of earth above. ’Tis meet and right that it should be The rarest—’tis the last! Alas! how o’er me rushes now The memory of the past!

Do you remember, love, the time When first within mine ear Thy deep voice breathed the earnest words My soul rejoiced to hear? I gave thee then my heart’s first love, Its wealth of tenderness; But ah! the gift I send thee now Hath greater power to bless.

And when, with claspéd hands, we stood Before the altar-stone, And tremblingly I vowed to be Forever thine alone; Then by the flushing of thy cheek, And by thy kindling eye— By the low tones that thrilled my heart, And by thy bearing high—

I knew, I knew the little hand So fondly pressed in thine, Not all the treasures of a world Would tempt thee to resign. But, love, upon Affection’s shrine I lay an offering now, Can weave a spell more potent far Than even wifely vow!

Now lift it from the sheltering folds That hide it from thy sight— Nay, dearest, start not to behold This dagger sharp and bright! Look thou upon it tranquilly— Without one hurried breath— ’Tis the last token of a love That cannot yield to death.

Is’t not a precious gift, beloved?— ’Twill break thy heavy chain; And prison-bolts, and dungeon-walls, Shall bar thy way in vain! The felon’s doom thou need’st not fear, This talisman is thine: “Freedom” and “Honor” on the blade— In glowing letters shine!

Oh! would that I might kneel, mine own, By thy dear side once more, And hold thy head upon my breast Till life’s last pang were o’er! I would not shrink nor falter, When I saw thy life-blood flow; But deathless love should give me strength Calmly to let thee go!

It may not be! A shadow lies Darkly upon our way; I may not hear thy last, low sigh, Nor o’er thy still form pray. Oh, God of love, and might, and power! Shall blood be shed in vain?— Upon our mountains and our vales It hath been poured like rain;

Our streams are darkened by its flow— It taints the very air; What marvel if our spirits sink In anguish and despair? Look Thou upon us! Thou, whose word Can set the prisoner free!— So shall the tyrant’s sword no more Hang over Hungary!

* * * * *

I DREAMED.

BY WM. M. BRIGGS.

I had a dream of sunny hours, That glided fast away; I had a dream of starry flowers, Unwet with tears of falling showers, Untouched by dark decay; I foolish dreamt of sunset skies That slept unchanged amid their gorgeous dies.

I dreamt me of a little boat Went sailing down a stream, With stray bright leaves and flowers afloat, And many a sunbeam’s dusty mote And painted pebble’s gleam— I dreamt the barque’s bright goal was won And still the drifting flowers, the stream flowed on.

I dreamed still that I sad awoke Upon a desert shore; The cold, gray morning slowly broke, An unseen sighing came—it spoke— “Thus is it evermore, Thus is it with thy hopes and fears— Flowers fade, skies darken, and the goal is tears!”

* * * * *

MINNIE DE LA CROIX:

OR THE CROWN OF JEWELS.

BY ANGELE DE V. HULL.

In a large, old-fashioned house, at the pleasant country place of ——, dwelt a happy and united family, consisting of a father and five daughters. Through the wide, long hall merry voices were ever heard, and round and round twinkling feet went dancing on the pleasant gallery that ran on all sides, that there might be nothing to stop these light-hearted creatures in their course. Each had her neat, sweet-looking chamber, wherein, at times, she might retire to while away leisure hours with some cherished book, or with rapid pen convey to paper her pure and fresh thoughts—thoughts that were too sacred to be spoken—that wove themselves into dreams of delight, that were never, never to be realized. Happy, happy days! when they could weave these bright fancies, and dared to turn away from reality. The past had but its pleasures—the present its more rational yet constant enjoyment, and the future was hid by the rose-colored cloud that floated over its blessed anticipations.

Mr. de la Croix looked upon his daughters as his crown of jewels, and the homestead as the humble and unworthy casket that contained it. They were a host within themselves to drive away dull care, and left him by the most exemplary of wives to perpetuate her fondly cherished memory. Dearly loved they to dwell upon her virtues, her unfailing benevolence, her undying love for them all, and that holy piety that burned like a precious light throughout her life. Sacred to them were the paths her footsteps trod, the flowers she loved, and the trees her hand had planted; and they strove with all their might of youth and inexperience to supply her place to the husband she had loved and taught them to love.

“Where are you all—Blanche, Lisa, Kate, Rose and Minnie,” cried Mr. de la Croix, one morning, coming out of his room. “Who is ready to sew on a button for me?”

“I, papa,” “and I,” answered the five, hurrying on their dressing-gowns and opening their doors.

“I am first,” said Rose, coming forward with her thimble and needle. “Go back, every one of you!” and she pushed them playfully away.

“And what a shame that papa has to call us up for such a thing. Minnie, this is your week—naughty girl! and you must be scolded for negligence,” said Lisa, shaking her dignified head at the culprit.

Minnie ran behind her father, peeped into his face as she poked hers under his arm, and raised her saucy eyes to his. She was the youngest, and consequently a privileged imp, depending upon every one else to mend and darn when her turn came.

“Go away, you wild girl,” said her father, smiling. “Rose is the most industrious of you all, for she is dressed before any of you.”

“Rose is housekeeper, and had to be up, papa; don’t inflate her with praise she does not deserve. I have been up an hour.”

“An hour! and what were you doing, Miss?”

“_Je flanais_—there’s French for you, in good earnest; and I heard the first bird that sang this morning,” answered Minnie, with a gay laugh. “I was making reflections of the most profound nature when you disturbed me—and thus the world has lost a lesson.”

“And I have been reading La Bruyère before my dressing glass,” said Blanche, complacently, as soon as the mirth that followed Minnie’s speech had subsided.

“Well, I have been at work already,” added Lisa, as she drew herself up. Lisa was the tall one, and had the air of a princess.

“Oh, Lisa! _you_ remind one of the old lady who sat in her rocking chair and did nothing,

‘From morning till night, But darn, darn, darn;’”

and Kate’s merry black eyes danced about from one to the other. “Now, _I_ have been writing verses.”

“Yes, be an authoress—scribbler, and have a mania for dirt, disorder and ink-stands. Pshaw! look at your fingers,” said Lisa, pointing to them.

“I’ll wash them—I’ll wash them!” cried Kate, “without mumbling over ugly spots, like Lady Macbeth. My little nail brush will do more than all her perfumes.”

And running to her room she went to work to verify her word.

Soon they all met at breakfast, and Lisa presided at the cheerful board, like the mother bird, while the rest chatted around her. She was not the eldest but the most thoughtful, and to her all came for assistance and advice. Her long fingers could fashion dresses, collars, ruffs, bonnets, if necessary, and her ingenuity trampled upon impossibilities with every new pattern that appeared. So, while Blanche busied her fine head with metaphysics, piano, harp and guitar, the three others learned from both to be agreeable and useful members of society.

Society they cared little for. Blanche had been a belle par excellence until she became tired and disgusted with admiration and lovers, whose name was legion. Lisa never liked one or the other. She contemplated balls and beaux at a distance, and called them absurdities, though nothing pleased her like dressing her sister, and seeing her courted and flattered, night after night and day after day.

As for Kate, she had a touch of the romantic; she liked to sing and dance at home, loved to laugh and be merry with those of her own age, but thought that home the fairest and best place in the world. So, after a winter of dissipation, she foreswore the beaumonde, and vowed its votaries a heartless set.

Rose’s large, soft, dark eyes never wandered farther than the fences that bounded her father’s enclosures. With something of eccentricity she loved to steal off and enjoy a lonely hour at the close of each day, and her piety became a proverb. Nothing could move her out of the reach of the household gods, and at eighteen she was a child at heart and in manner.

Minnie was the imp! Minnie loved the world, and longed for a debut, as the minor “pants for twenty-one.” For her all hands must work—for her all hands must stop; and thus they were all at home, a bird’s nest of different nestlings, ready to take wing and fly when the parent bird has ceased to control their movements.

“Come, daughters, sing and play,” said Mr. de la Croix, as he sat in his arm chair, at the wide hall door. “What are you all about, eternally sewing and reading? Give the old house some life, will you?”

Blanche rose and seated herself at the piano, running her little white hands skillfully over the keys. Kate pulled the harp out of the corner, and soon a loud, clear voice swelled melodiously through the air. Then came a chorus of fresh young notes, and the soft strains of the piano, with the harp’s wild, sweeping music, mingled together, while the father sat listening to his crown of jewels, full of rapture and pride.

“Give us that trio in Guillaume Tell, sister,” said Rose, when they had finished, and little Minnie glided into Blanche’s seat, while the three grouped around her to comply. Then the chairs were drawn together, and the five tongues rattled like magpies to the half bewildered Mr. de la Croix, until he called for his candle and went to his apartment, followed by Kate, singing,

He called for his fife, he called for his wife, And he called for his fiddlers three—e-e.

“Minnie!” said Lisa, holding up a dress with a wide rent in it, “is it ‘the weakness of my eyes that shapes this monstrous apparition,’ or is it a reality?”

“There, now!” cried the girl, snatching the dress from her, “you are on one of your poking expeditions. I didn’t intend you should see this, sister Lisa, for Rose promised to mend it for me.”

“And has Rose nothing to do for herself, that she is to waste time on your carelessness?” returned Lisa, gravely. “It is not two weeks since we made this for you, and now it is ruined.”

“Give it to me,” said Rose, quietly; “I did promise to mend it, and would have done so before, but had the house to attend to; and the keeping it and providing for it is any thing but a sinecure. Get me a piece out of the scrap basket, Minnie.”

“That is the way you all combine to spoil Minnie,” said Blanche, raising her head from her book. “She will never be fit for any thing.”

“Ay!” said the other, with an arch look and pointing to the volume, now closed, “and who makes pretty things for Miss Blanche, while she sits in her room poring over dull maxims and writing them off?”

“And how am I to teach you if I do not learn something myself?” asked Blanche, with a serious expression on her fair souvenir-like face.

“Don’t teach me any of your old cynic Rochefoucauld’s scandal. I hate him, for he never says a good thing of the human heart, and places my own motives so often before my eyes that I take him for a reflector of my inward-self, and blush.” And Minnie covered her face in mock confusion.

“So much the better, then,” said Rose; “for St. Paul tells us to know ourselves, and I vote that we treat you to a double dose of ‘les maximes’ every day.”

“Is Daniel come?” said Minnie, bending low and performing a salaam before her sister, who was seized with a fit of laughter that prevented her replying.

“I hope that you will keep your absurd ideas to yourself, Minnie,” observed Lisa, who now began to rip away at the torn skirt. “You are talking treason when you begin to abuse La Rochefoucauld.”

“Treason or no treason, then,” cried she springing out of her seat, “the whole world may come and listen to me, if my head were the penalty. So, I am off to the library. No, I wont go there, either, lest the old gentleman’s ghost jump at me; but I’ll go and practice the ‘Bamboula,’ and sister Blanche may dance a Congo polka to it.”

“Sister Blanche leaves polkas to giddy girls, but is, nevertheless, delighted to hear them speak of practicing. You were as lazy as a sloth over that ‘Sueia’ of Strakosch’s, and do not know it yet.”

“Pshaw! _ça viendra_, as papa says when you all talk gravely over Rose and me. I am a perfect pattern of industry with regard to my music, am I not, Lisa?”

“You certainly do pummel away unmercifully at the poor piano,” said Lisa; “but half the practicing consists of imitations of Mrs. this, or Miss that, in style, position or banging.”

“And don’t people go about and give imitations of different lions? I’m sure I only endeavor to carve out a distinguished name for myself.”

“Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?” quoted Lisa, turning with a smile from the willful thing that would never hear reason.

“Pray, what fame is to arise from your imitation of Mr. Gamut’s elbows? Or from Lucy Grey’s symphonies?” asked Kate.

“Kate! Kate! did you not laugh yesterday when I played for you until the tears rolled down your face? And didn’t you vow that Mr. Gamut himself sat at the piano?” said Minnie.

“Indeed I did. More shame for me!” exclaimed Kate, laughing anew. “But your imitations, as you call them, are more than human risibilities could resist. I call Rose to witness in this case!”

“Don’t call me to witness any more of Minnie’s pranks,” said Rose. “I cannot encourage them.”

“I’ll force you, then,” cried Minnie, seizing Kate around the waist. “Now look at Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs waltz together.” And round she spun, pulling Kate after her, until Lisa and Blanche were adding their peals of laughter to Rose’s hearty amusement. Away they went until Minnie whirled her sister out of the room, and soon after sat down to the Bamboula in sober earnest.

Thus ended all attempts at controlling Minnie, and her task seemed that of creating merriment wherever she went and turning all reproof into a mockery. Indeed, she laughed too constantly, and there were times when Lisa shook her head gravely at this perpetual merriment. A woman’s duties begin so sternly and so positively from the hour she marries—the bridal wreath so quickly withers into one of cares and fears, that the sight of a creature like Minnie, full of thoughtlessness and glee, saddened the heart that knew something of them all; and poor Lisa, with her responsibilities, vainly warned her young sister to laugh less and reflect more.

“I wish that you were married, Blanche,” said she one day, as they sat together. “We see so few strangers at home, and seem so much like equals, that Minnie will fly into the face of every thing and every body without ever being curbed into tranquillity.”

“And what good would my marrying do, in the name of wonder?” said Blanche with a stare.

“A vast deal, particularly if you were to bestow yourself upon a man like Mr. Stuart, for instance.”

Lisa went on with her work, and the deep blush that suffused her sister’s fair face was unperceived.

“Lisa!” said Blanche, after a pause, and her voice faltered; “Lisa! would you wish me marry?”

“Not unless you are confident of being happy, dear Blanche,” was her reply, and she looked up.

Once more the bright color mounted over the cheeks of her companion, and the tears stood in her eyes. She held out her hand, and Lisa pressed it affectionately as she remarked her unusual emotion.

“My dear sister! what is it that affects you thus?”

“Because, Lisa—I _have_ had thoughts of marrying, not for Minnie’s sake—but—for my own.” She covered her face and burst into tears. Lisa rose and clasped her in her arms, soothing her with pet names and kind words.

“Dear Blanche—sweet dove! tell me all about it? Is it really so? and have you promised—”

“I have promised nothing, Lisa,” replied Blanche, raising her head and leading her to a _causeuse_. “Sit down; and now that I can speak, listen and advise me.” Lisa obeyed, and turned her earnest sympathizing eyes upon her sister with a look that invited confidence, such as Blanche was about to give,—a pure and unrestrained avowal of her feelings.

“You know, Lisa, that I met Mr. Stuart frequently at my aunt’s last winter. He is a great favorite with her, and the only one among her young men acquaintances whose actual intimacy she solicits. Whenever he came we were left together, naturally enough, while my aunt and uncle busied themselves, one with her housekeeping and the other with his papers. There was always a congeniality of tastes between us that led to an absence of any thing like ceremony, and something like confidence arose in our intercourse. There were books discussed that both had read, and many that I had never seen, which I was to like because he did. Wherever we went in the evenings he went. He was always there to draw my arm through his, and offer me the conventional attentions that became so delightful at length. We never spoke of love, Lisa; we never talked sentiment _at_ one another, but it was impossible to deny that—that—”

“You loved one another,” said Lisa, seriously. She put on no arch looks, affected no jests—this was a grave subject to her.

“But we never said so, Lisa,” said Blanche, quickly. “We never said so; it was enough for us to be together. One morning I received a note from Helen Clarke, begging me go to her as she was very ill. My aunt’s carriage took me to Evergreen, and I remained a week absent. On my return I found that _he_ had been summoned to his mother’s dying bed, and had hurried off an hour after the letter came, taking time only to see my aunt and bid her adieu. ‘He asked earnestly after you, Blanche,’ said she, smiling; ‘and your absence grieved him deeply, my love. But he left a message expressive of it all, and ended it with, Tell her, my dear Mrs. Bliss, that I will return as soon as I can, and she must not forget me.’ I could not forget him, Lisa; but I despise a love-sick girl as I do the plague; so I came home, determined to be happy again among you all. I would have been ungrateful, indeed, to mope at home where we all love one another—to pine for a stranger, while I had still all that made life so dear. Of course, he never wrote to me—my aunt heard occasionally from him, and the letter announcing his return, affected me deeply. Would he still be the same, or was there a change?”

“And there was none,” said Lisa, in a low voice. “I know that now, Blanche, though I did not dream of this before. Blind creature that I was, not to have felt that we must part after all!”