Part 2
“Nonsense!” interrupted Granny, briskly. “None of that, my girl! No silly thoughts. You’re peaked, to be sure; but tain’t as if you coughed, nor run a low fever, nor looked to be sickening up for something. You’ll live to see the little tad followin’ at your heels like a puppy, and another of him lying in the cradle. That’s right!” she went on, as Polly dropped to her knees beside the baby, and bent low over him, her face hidden. “That’s the place to forget what’s troubling you, there with him at your breast. No more foolish fancies! And no more wandering for wife and mother of men like ours, Polly, my darling. They’ll do the wandering--with us to come back to in their own good time. ’Tis a fine, thrilling life out there in the wilderness--but ’tis a happier one, here under our own apple trees at home, eh?”
The room was growing quite dark.
“Better put a fagot on,” added the old woman. “Never neglect your fire, child, ’tis bad housekeeping. And then come here. I want to talk to you.” Polly crouched obediently at her knee, turning up a face full of trust and love.
“No, not like that!” said the other sharply. “Sit like a civilized body, do, not squatting on your haunches like one of them squaw critters. There, that’s better! Sometimes you give me a turn, with your savage ways. Polly, do ’e know why I’ve come out to live with you and young Ezra here, me that’s got a good home of her own, and had thought to be done forever with the border life? You see, I kind of lost my courage, that time the savages got your pa and ma, and took you captive--not that I hadn’t plenty of other children left, but Johnny, your father, was my first--Dan’l’s boy; and nobody has their first but once.
“It went sort of hard with me, dearie. I heard it all, you see, though I wa’n’t in it, Johnny having put me under the floor at the first yell--always taking such care of his mother, that boy! I heard poor Annie shrieking as they killed the other children--she was always sort of pore-sperrited; I heard your father strugglin’ and cussin’ every foot of the way as they drug him out to the bonfire in the yard--a very cussin’ man was John, and he wanted to make them mad enough to kill him and be done with it. But they wouldn’t. And then, at the last, I heard him singing.”
* * * * *
The old woman was trembling violently, and Polly stared at her.
“_Singing?_” she repeated.
“Ay, can’t you remember? Can’t you remember even that? I’d like you to remember that! But maybe they’d carried you out of hearing. I couldn’t stand it any more, I had to see what they were doing to my boy. So I crept along under the floor till I found a chink in the logs I could peep out of. They had him marching round and round a stake, with the fire licking at him already; and this was the song he sang”--Granny’s face was lifted, with eyes closed, like some old sibyl’s, and she raised a quavering voice to the tune of “Wearing of the Green”--
“Oh, you who are in hiding, Lie low just where you be, And don’t you stir or whisper No matter what befalls.”
“He was warning me, you see,” she whispered. “Still taking care of his mammy; and him with the flames licking his body, and them he loved lying dead at his feet----”
Her voice died away, and Polly reached up a hand to stroke her cheek, her breast.
“My father,” she murmured proudly, “that was my father! But”--quickly--“Gray Eagle was not there, he was not chief then. He never tortures--only kills,” she added quickly.
“Killin’s bad enough,” said Granny grimly, “when it happens to them you love. Wait and see!” She paused suddenly, her face tense. “Queer, to hear turkeys gobbling in the corn this time of year. I must have imagined it, talking about Indians. They used to make sounds like that; or like whippoorwills--”
At that moment the note of a whippoorwill sounded, distinct and clear. Granny pulled herself together, with a short laugh.
* * * * *
“I declare I’m getting as timid and notional as town folks, scaring myself with my own tales! Well, Polly, I started to tell you why I’ve come out again to the sort of place I never expected to see more. ’Twa’n’t to help you when the baby borned--plenty of neighbor women to do that, nowadays. ’Twas because--I didn’t like what I was hearin’ about my granddaughter, Johnny’s girl. It didn’t seem to me you was doin’ us credit. Always mopin’ and pindlin’ around, humoring yourself!
“Why, Polly, my child, don’t you know ’tis a wife’s first duty to go cheerful about her house, even if she don’t feel to be cheerful inside? And why you shouldn’t feel to be cheerful beats me!”
Polly laid her cheek against her grandmother’s knee, a caressing, disarming gesture that was very sweet.
“Listen,” said Granny, more gently. “I got to confess something. When Simon Kenton come and told me he was making up a party of our boys to go and rescue a blue-eyed child he’d seen in a tepee over in the Ohio country, Polly, I prayed--it wa’n’t you. I did so! Many’s the hour I’d spent on my knees, asking God to see that you was dead, thanking Him for taking your parents before they knew what had come to you--you so pretty and tender, just coming into womanhood. And when runners come in ahead to say it really was you they’d found and were fetching back, I says to myself: To what? What is there in life for a girl who’s been the--the plaything of savage brutes? What decent man would marry her after this, and let her mother his children? Ah, I’d seen captives brought back before, and I knew what it meant!
“But Simon Kenton made me ashamed of those black thoughts. He told me that out here in the wild places men had come to realize that purity is something which comes from within, not without; that a woman’s honor couldn’t possibly be harmed by anybody or anything, except herself. And then he told me that one of the finest young men in his company had already bespoke your hand. Eh, that was a wonderful hearing, a brave and beautiful hearing!”
Polly sprang erect, and spoke proudly.
“But I did not wish to be married to one of his young men!”
“No, poor child,” said the other, with great gentleness. “’Twas a feeling that did you credit, as all thought. But since Ezra Todd was willing to take the chance--you see the importance of getting you married, and quickly, too! A fine, upstanding fellow, Ezra! Look what he’s done already: cleared his land, planted it to corn and orchard, bought you a good stout nigger to do the work many a housewife has to do for herself, built this comfortable cabin, given you clothes such as any town lady might envy. Ah, Polly, have you no gratitude?”
“Yes,” said the girl.
“Well, I should hope so! And what a wedding it was! The liveliest I ever saw, though I’ve seen a-plenty of gay ones, had a few myself, for that matter. Neighbors riding in from miles about, Simon Kenton and all his hunters to help with the roof-raising, Master Boone himself come to do honor to my grandchild--for Dan Boone knows well what it is to lose a girl to the savages, and get her again. Such dancing and eating and drinking--and courting! I vow there wasn’t a sober man in our neighborhood for the whole week. And even some of the women.”
She chuckled reminiscently. “’Twas more than just a wedding, you see, ’twas a public rejoicing, a real triumph--for everyone, it seemed like, except the bride. Not that people didn’t understand, my dearie! More than one said to me, ‘Poor maid, she’s mazed yet with her own good fortune, thinking on the horrors she’s escaped.’ But now”--the old voice grew stern--“they don’t understand. Ezra himself, your husband, don’t understand---- Polly! Are you listening to me?”
* * * * *
The girl was alert, rigid, her eyes fixed on the window. She lifted a cautious hand.
“Ssh! There! Something moves outside.”
Granny rose vigorously, though with the aid of her cane, and went to the window.
“Who’s there?” she demanded. “Oh--you, black Ben! What are you doing tiptoeing around, startling people? Didn’t the master tell you to stay in the lean-to after dark, until he gets back?”
A voice spoke from without.
“Yais’m, ole miss. I ’lowed I’d better slip down to de pound to see whaffor de cattle makin’ such a to-do. Ack like dey skeert o’ suthin.”
“Dearie me,” said Granny, “I hope it isn’t a wildcat! I doubt if I could kill one of the critters nowadays.” She laughed. “Did I ever tell you about the time I killed a wildcat, Polly, a real painter?”
She paused as she passed the chimney shelf, noticing something on it which she picked up to examine.
“Why, ’tis an eagle’s feather, a gray one. It’s some time since I’ve seen an eagle near the settlements. They seem to be passing with the Indians. Where’d it come from, do you reckon?”
“I found it,” replied the girl, slowly. “On our doorstep. Two days ago.”
* * * * *
“On our step? Well, well! After the chickens, of course. But it comes close. I must tell Ben to watch for it--he’s a good shot, for a nigger. Well, about my wildcat, child. Get your knitting; a good housewife never sits idle. We won’t need lights for that. I don’t hold with this newfangled way of lighting a dip as soon as you’d say jack-robinson. Rank wastefulness, I call it. Get you a stool and sit beside me--no, closer. I like to be able to touch your pretty hair now and then, just to be sure you’re here. For so long--you weren’t.”
The girl seated herself between Granny and the cradle, facing the window, toward which the other’s shoulder was turned.
“’Tis a long story,” began the old woman, “but then all of mine are that. You’re patient with a garrulous old tongue, dearie. It happened afore we come over the mountains, Dan’l and me--your real grandfather, you know, the first of my husbands. He was away at the time--he was mostly away, being that sort--and I had your father Johnny in the cradle, and another coming, as usual; when one evening toward dusk, like now, I heard a commotion in the hen yard. I seized my musket and run out. And there in the midst of the fowl crouched a wildcat! I outs with a screech and ups with my gun, not having time to take aim; and then I started to the cabin at a run, the critter after me. It was a race for life, and I reckon the painter’d have won it--his first leap landed so close that his claws tore my petticoat. But out of the door comes our old hound Jinny, rampaging, she having a litter of pups under my bed at the time and fierce as a lion with it--and the painter got her instead of me, laying her wide open with one rip. I was so mad about poor old Jinny that I forgot how scared I was, and turned and busted that cat’s head in with the butt of the gun--I did so!”
Polly seemed to be listening, tensely.
“You do well to hearken to me brag,” said Granny, with a placid chuckle. “For I was certainly as brave as you make ’em, those days! Like Jinny with her litter of pups. When Dan’l come back he was proud of me, said it wa’n’t no use wasting a gun on a woman of my ability, all I needed was a broom handle.”
Slowly, while she spoke, a head had appeared above the window ledge--an Indian head, crowned with feathers. Polly stared at it as if paralyzed. The Indian returned her gaze, gave a swift glance about the room, made a slight movement of the head backward, and disappeared. Polly’s hand reached back to clutch convulsively at the cradle. She spoke breathlessly, haltingly:
“And now--the time my Daniel grandfather disappeared--tell about that!”
Granny sighed deeply. “What, another tale? Eh, well, it is your story, too! Dan’l had always the wanderfoot; he was a great one for wanting to see the far side of things. He’d urge and beg me to go along--but how could I, me with small children? We quarreled about it a good deal. But I always said to him--for that sort must never be apron-tied--I said, ‘You go first, and if it’s so grand over there as you think, come back one of these days in your coach-and-four and fetch your family.’ Again and again he’d get so mad he’d take me at my word--only to come slipping meekly home after a week or a month, or maybe two of them. Because he loved me, you see, for all my quarrelin’ ways.”
“Yes. And you him?” queried the girl, softly.
“Eh, child, better than you know! Better than I knew myself, perhaps.”
“Better than--your children?” whispered Polly.
* * * * *
Granny’s head drooped. “I’m afraid so. Women can’t help their feelings, even when they do their duty--or what seems to them such. Once, he was gone so long that folks said he wa’n’t coming back. A hunter told me he was dead, that he’d seen Dan’l’s curly red scalp drying at the door of an Indian tepee. And so he had! Only some folks are tough enough to outlive even a scalping. They pestered me to be marrying again; they would not let me be. A woman has no chance to mourn her dead in peace in this country--we’re too skeerce. So I promised at last to marry the man that wanted me worst. But on the day set for the wedding, what should I hear but a musket shot, in the woods beyond my clearing--a musket whose voice I knew well! It was my Dan’l’s Betsey-gun.”
“Ah-h!” Polly took the corner of her apron, and wiped the old woman’s eyes.
“Eh, was I crying? I didn’t know. Well, the time come when Dan’l really was gone, for good and all. I couldn’t believe it at first, though since he’d lost his scalp he was always off hunting for it, had got sort of queer-like. Two, three years I waited, the men pestering me nigh out of my wits, for I was a comely wench then, and a good cook, too. And at last I married the poor soul I’d had to disappoint before. After his death--he died in his bed, for a wonder--I took me another, and come on over the mountains with him; hunting for Dan’l, I do believe, though I wouldn’t have told it to myself. And when the Indians got that one, I wedded my fourth--all good men and true, they were, who gave me their love, and my children, and something to do for, you know. But still”--the old voice sank to a whisper--“many’s the night I lay awake beside the man I was married to at the time, with his baby asleep in the crook of my arm, listening, listening for the sound of Dan’l’s Betsey-gun--”
“And if you had heard it?” demanded the girl, with strange eagerness.
“Ah!” The old woman made a wide gesture of surrender. “If I had heard it, I should have risen up out of that bed, mother to many that I was--ay, and grandmother, too--and I should have gone to him, gone to the love of my youth, my Dan’l. For I knew by then that he was my man--he and no other. A woman belongs to the one mate only, no matter how many take her after----”
“Yes!” Polly had risen to her feet, her face alight. “‘A woman belongs to the one mate only,’” she repeated. “Now I will tell you, now you will understand. Grandmother! They took me from my mate. Only one moon we had together--and they took me away. I tried to tell them, but they would not listen; they thought me crazed. I tried to hide from them, but they found me. I tried to slip away and go to him, but they brought me back. And now they have given me to another, and tell me I must forget. How can I forget? What right have I to forget? You think that my man forgets? No! It would not be hard to love this other one, he is young, kind, handsome--but Indians do not mate often, like palefaces. To them that is shame. The moon looks at me sternly, so that I cannot sleep; the forest calls to me and I cannot go; when there is rain on this strange roof I close my eyes and think it is beating upon our tepee beyond the water. But I have not known where I shall find him again, nor how.”
Granny was gasping. “My girl, my girl! Light the candle, quick! I cannot see you. What are you telling me? A red man, a savage, the murderer of your own people? You would bring such disgrace as this on decent folk? But no, no, you are mad, my poor lamb! Ezra was right--the horror has turned your wits. There, there, my pretty! We will protect you. Ezra will not let them take you again. And the baby will comfort and heal----”
A sudden cry of terror from without drowned her speech, a savage yell, the negro’s voice panting as he neared the cabin:
“Injuns! Injuns! Lemme in, miss, open de do’! Fo’ Gawd’s sake, lemme _in_! Aie-e-e!” A shriek died into silence.
Again the savage yell, much closer.
Granny was already out of her chair, stick and rheumatism forgotten, and across the cabin with the agility of a cat.
“The bars--quick!” she panted, as she ran. “Get those bars across the door. I’ll take care of the window.” She slammed the shutter as she spoke. “Now the door to the lean-to--come, help me push the table against it. Now the settle--so!” She was everywhere at once, cap off, gray hair flying. “Don’t stand there, gaping! Here, take a shot through the shutter chink, even if you hit nothing. It’ll bring help.”
She herself was sighting carefully at one of the door portholes. There was a loud report, a choking grunt.
“There!” she said grimly. “I got him. They’re in the lean-to, they’ll be on the roof next. Um, I thought so!” She listened a moment, her eyes lifted, then darted to the bed, seized a pillow, slashed it open with the bread knife, and dumped the contents on the flames. A burst of smoke set them coughing. “Aha!” she muttered. “You would, would you? I’m onto your tricks, nasty devils! You’ll not get in the chimney way, so long as the feathers last. Shoot, girl, shoot, I tell you! Let ’em think we’ve men in here. We’ll stand them off till the neighbors come.”
* * * * *
She was reloading her flintlock with deft and steady hands. The girl, who had hitherto obeyed instructions like one dazed, stood irresolute in the center of the room, gazing from door to cradle, and back again. A tomahawk struck the door, came halfway through, and stuck, quivering.
“They’re too many of ’em, they’ll get in,” groaned Granny, shaking her fist at it. “But don’t give up, _whatever happens to me_--you hear? I can delay them awhile, maybe. You take the bread knife and fight for your life, Polly Todd--for more than your life, remember! Laugh, scream like one crazed--they spare mad folk sometimes. Fight ’em off tooth and nail, till help comes. Remember why! Your husband, the child----”
Step by step, Polly had moved toward the door. Over her shoulder she watched the old woman, who was at the window, her back turned, sighting for another shot. Her lip was drawn up so that the teeth showed. She shivered, slid the bars, and opened the door. Indians slipped past her and leaped upon the old woman. Polly screamed:
“No! Grandmother, _look out_! No!”
The last of the Indians to enter was a tall young chieftain, wearing a bonnet of gray eagle’s feathers. He lifted his hand with a gesture of quiet dignity, and spoke slowly and gravely:
“We know of old this white woman--her years and courage. Do not fear for her.”
* * * * *
He faced Polly in silence, a stately, splendid young creature in blanket and loin cloth, painted as to face and body, but not for war. His was the regalia of a bridegroom. The girl sat by the cradle in an attitude of complete submission, hands folded, head bowed.
Meanwhile Granny battled desperately with the Indians who held her, grinning. They bound her hands behind her, forced her down upon a stool, tying her feet to its legs, but never hurting her.
She did not cease for a moment her maledictions. “You vile devils! You thieves, you murderers! Wait til’ my grandson catches you! Steal what you can find--there’s food, gear, money--but let you lay so much as a finger on that girl or her child, and he’ll get you if he has to go to hell for you. Ezra!” she screamed suddenly. “Help! Help! Take your dirty hand out of my mouth, you fiend! You’ll not stop me yelling until you kill me. Ezra-ah-h!”
They gagged her with her own knitting, but still she strained at her thongs, spluttering, glaring, cursing them with her fierce eyes. The Indians laughed among themselves. One said: “Old Long-knife squaw heap big fighting brave--ugh!”
They began to run about rapidly, picking up everything in sight, always with a cautious eye on Gray Eagle, however. One tied an apron around his waist, so that it hung down behind; one spied the moccasins Polly had sewed for Ezra, and appropriated them with a grunt of satisfaction; another seized the bread knife, and made a pass with it at the old woman, who did not wince.
The chieftain spoke at last, gravely:
“The Moon-maid has waited for me?”
“Ah, too long,” whispered Polly.
He smiled. “That is well. The Eagle bides his time. He has no desire to strike, only to take in peace what is his. Come, then.”
He turned to the door, and the girl followed. Granny strained forward, glaring terribly, struggling to be heard; but the girl did not look at her. Then from the cradle came a faint, thin wail.
Polly started, like one waking from a trance, and rushed back to the cradle. The Indian followed. Hearing him, she turned at bay, both arms stretched backward over the cradle as if in protection. He put her aside, and leaned over to look, frowning.
“Ho!” he muttered. “A man-child. The Moonmaid’s son?”
She nodded, fearfully.
“A white child,” he said, still gazing. “And too young. It is not mine. The Moon-maid has lied!”
His hand went to the tomahawk at his belt.
Polly cried out, sank to her knees, her arms embracing his legs.
“No, _no_! Listen! The baby is mine, mine! But you did not come, they were my people, what was I to do? I but one and they so many! In my heart I waited. Granny! Granny, tell him----”
* * * * *
The Indian looked down at her, his face slowly relaxing. He turned to the door again, saying, “Come!”
Polly, with a gasp of relief, bent quickly to pick up the child, but he stopped her with a stern gesture.
“No. It is not my son. Gray Eagle is no thief.”
She moaned. “You mean, I am to leave him? But how can I, how can I? Not yet! He will be hungry.” Her two hands went with a piteous gesture to her breasts.
Gray Eagle said: “Choose.”
He stalked to the door and out. The other Indians followed. Polly stared after them, wringing her hands, whimpering like an animal. She met the intent gaze of her grandmother fixed upon her.
“What shall I do? What shall I _do_! You tell me! I knew it would be so. He will not come again--unless--to kill! And how shall I find him? How shall I ever go to him? Yet my baby, my little son--”
Slowly, stiffly, the old woman’s head turned until her eyes indicated the door through which the Indian had gone. Polly covered her face with her arms. “You mean, I am to go? You tell me that?” She went to the old woman, stroking the wrinkled cheeks, the hands, desperately. “It is good-by, then! Ezra--you will make him understand, remind him of what he said about the prior claim? Tell him--tell him I would have stayed, perhaps--if I could----”
Without another glance at the cradle, she ran out. The old woman’s eyes closed, as if in unbearable pain. Then they opened again, suddenly, for Polly was back.
“I cannot. I _cannot_!” she whimpered, running to the cradle. She lifted the baby, rolled it close in a blanket as if to hide it, and ran out, holding it close.
Granny strained forward, listening intently. Then after a moment came a wild wail:
“No, no, you shall not! Give him to me, _give_ him. He is mine! I beg, I _beg_ you not---- _Nenemoosha, Nenemoosha----_”