CHAPTER VII
IN THE NEW HOME
The next morning when Lissa awoke the sun was shining brightly in through one of the small windows of her adobe house and she had leisure to look about her, and to survey this new, and to her, novel style of architecture.
The house was built of sod and mud, the roof being formed of poles of cotton-wood covered with sod, and brightly green with the upspringing grass. The inside of the house was lined by a strong paper, firmly stretched and fastened at the corners, and presented a smooth and cleanly looking wall. Through the windows Lissa could see the vast prairies level gray, dotted with small houses, similar in construction to this one to which her husband had brought her.
There were but two large rooms in the house, and one bed-room. No second story, as the roof was low. A large cupboard stood in one corner of the kitchen and another in the bed-room.
“That shall be my dressing-case,” said Lissa to herself; “in this other I will put up some hooks and a curtain, for a wardrobe.”
Just back of the house was a symmetrical little grove of cotton-wood trees of perhaps three or four years’ growth. Some ponies corralled near, together with herds of cattle grazing at a distance, gave life to the scene; the sunlit grass sparkled and waved invitingly, and the halo of the early morning enveloped all, presenting a landscape of pleasing attractiveness.
All this Lissa noted with the eye of an artist as, while dressing, she peered from the door and window, wondering what had become of Nathan, for he had risen while she slept.
She was interrupted in her musing by the arrival of Alice, who came in, bright and cloud-dispelling, bearing a basket which she placed on the table, while she laughed at the wonder in Lissa’s large eyes.
“I’ve come to take you over to breakfast with me,” she said. “Ah, I see you haven’t even thought of breakfast yet. What a lazy girl! We get up early here in the West. The sun doesn’t have to climb any mountains or tall tree-tops before he reaches us. Why, how bewildered you look! I’ve been to the post this morning, pony and I. Nate sent by me to get a few things which are in the basket.”
“You don’t mean to say you carried that big basket on the back of that diminutive pony?” Lissa exclaimed.
“To be sure I did, and another one like it. But come now, we’ll walk over. It will give you an appetite for breakfast.”
When Lissa had once more returned to her own home, which, humble as it was, had an irresistible attraction for her, she found plenty of employment in unpacking and arranging the contents of the large trunks which had been brought out from C—— the previous day. Although at first it seemed impossible to find places for so many things, there was pleasure in devising ways and means. Lissa found that the trunks could be utilized as packing-cases and window-seats, the dry-goods boxes converted into cupboards and wardrobes, and before many hours, with Nathan’s assistance, she had succeeded in arranging everything to her satisfaction.
As they were seated at their little table for an early tea, Lissa suddenly gave a faint scream and overturned a cup of the scalding fluid which she was handing to her husband, soiling the snowy whiteness of the table-cloth.
“Why, Lissa, what is the matter?” cried Nathan, in alarm; but following the direction of her eyes, he saw the face of an Indian flattened against the pane of glass of their small window, and his alarm changed to mirth.
The redman, seeing he was noticed, presented himself at the door, and drawing in his chest, and assuming a most woe-be-gone expression, said “te-cawpox,” accompanying his words by a gesture indicating that he desired something to eat.
“He says he is hungry,” said Nathan. “What can we give him?”
Lissa lifted the plate of warm biscuits from the table, but Nathan interposed.
“He’ll take them all without any compunction if you offer them,” he said, and selecting a couple, he handed them to the Indian, who dropped them into a dirty-looking sack he carried, then spoke again in his harsh guttural words, which Nathan interpreted as a request for water-melon.
“He knows I have them growing out here and has probably helped himself as fast as they have ripened, in my absence. Now he will beg the remainder. Well, I must give him one, I suppose.” And going to the little garden at the side of the house he plucked one from the vines and gave it to the Indian, who returned a grunt of satisfaction and departed.
Then Nathan related anecdotes of their savage neighbors until Lissa, her fright over, laughed merrily.
“I am afraid I shall be constrained to keep the curtains down in your absence if there is any danger of being frequently startled by such apparitions,” she said, with a shake of her curly head.
“You’ll mind nothing about it in a short time. I must take you out to the reservation, and show you the noble redman in his home. But, come to the door, I have a present for you. I see Mark has driven over the ponies.”
They stepped into the open doorway, and as Nathan whistled a call, a beautiful white pony started up from the group grazing near, and came cantering toward them.
“I have had this horse in training for a long time, and she is as docile and gentle as a kitten. Puss,” he said, stroking the pony’s smooth neck, “this is your new mistress. No one shall ever drive or ride you from this day, but this little lady.”
Lissa flushed with pleasure and put out her hand to caress the pretty creature, which seemed to understand, and acknowledged her acquaintance by dropping its head and rubbing its pink nose in her palm.
“Come, jump on her back. She requires no bridle, but will move in any direction you may indicate by the motion of your hand.”
Lissa permitted Nathan to seat her, and at the word the gentle little creature lifted her ears and stared across the prairie at an easy lope, most delightful to the rider. Lissa was charmed.
“How delightful! How intelligent! How easy!” she cried, as the pony, obeying the wave of her hand, turned back toward the house. “As easy as a rocking-chair. How I shall enjoy going about with her.”
“She is perfectly safe, and never scares at anything except farming implements. She usually prefers to make a detour whenever she sees a drag or plow. We tried to hitch her to a mower when we first brought her here, but she utterly refused to be coerced into service and tried to get away by vaulting into the air, lying down in the harness, and performing other gymnastic feats. In fact, she behaved in such an utterly demoralized manner, even kicking and biting, that we concluded we would not subject her to such a trial again.”
“The poor thing! She felt it to be a degradation and would not submit to it. I do not blame her.” And Lissa caressed her pityingly.
A few days subsequent to this Nathan announced his intention of going to the trading post and Indian village, inviting Lissa to accompany him.
Accordingly, one bright morning they mounted their horses, and after a refreshing canter of several miles came in sight of the reservation.
They overtook on the way a number of Indians, bestriding scrubby little mustangs, which they managed with rope reins tied to the under jaws of the ponies. At the post Nathan was greeted by a shout of “Ho, ho, ho, Cheiks-ta-ka-la-sha!” which Nathan interpreted as a greeting to the “white-man-chief” from the approaching brave.
The lazy aboriginal then begged the privilege of sharing Nathan’s pony. He was weary and would ride. But Nathan declined to grant the request, telling him the pony was not strong enough to carry double.
Several other Indians welcomed him in the same manner, each one asking about the chuppet who accompanied him.
Soon they were at the village, a collection of Indian huts covering quite an area of ground, built of sod or mud and most of them circular in form, with but two openings, one at the top for the escape of smoke, and a low passageway through which one must stoop to enter.
At this season of the year the huts were but little occupied, being infested with fleas, and small tents, made of poles covered by blankets or bison skin, afforded more inviting shelter from sun and rain.
Little nude children ran about here and there, or ducked in the waters of the river, like so many young goslings. Stalwart Indian-braves sauntered to and fro lazily about the wigwams or squatted on the ground under cover of their tents. The Indian industries seemed to be confined to the women, who were laboriously employed roasting corn in holes in the ground or scraping and rubbing the bison skins which had been recently brought in from the plains; for the braves were just home from their summer hunt, and preparations were going forward for their great green-corn festival.
In vain our Eastern woman looked for the beautiful Indian maiden of poesy and song. She concluded no poet could find inspiration to write of these dirty humans, with unpleasant faces and tangled locks.
Presently they rode to the tent of the chief of the tribe, who invited them to dismount and enter.
As Lissa followed Nathan into the small tent she confessed to an instinctive desire to flee in the opposite direction, for as she sat down upon the cushion her host placed for her, six Indian warriors entered and squatted down in a circle around her husband and herself. A timid look at Nathan, however, met assurance, and she tried to banish fear, but the thought of the white man flayed on the banks of the river would force itself upon her, and she found herself looking at their hands with a feeling of horror, which with an effort she sought to keep from appearing in her face.
Two women were laboring assiduously at a large bison skin at the door of the tent, scraping, pounding, and rubbing it, until it was white as a piece of cotton, but paying little attention to her, save now and then a stolen glance up from their work.
Then Lissa was attracted to the movements of the chief, who took a long-handled, red-clay pipe and filled it from several bone cups, filled apparently with a variety of herbs, then lighted it, and after taking two or three whiffs passed it to the Indian at his right, and thus it was handed around the circle. The herbs gave out a pungent odor as they burned, which to Lissa was sickening, and she was thankful that she was passed by and only Nathan invited to smoke with them their calumet.
The chief then took another of the odd-looking cups, and filling it with a kind of chowdered, dried meat gave it to Lissa.
She was embarrassed, for she dared not refuse it, yet shuddered at the thought of tasting it. Nathan answered her imploring looks by laughing and explaining to the donor that the white squaw was from the land of the rising sun and had not learned to appreciate such a treat. The chief, too, smiled, a little contemptuously Lissa thought, at her ignorance of this dainty, and called to one of the squaws to bring her corn.
Lissa was glad to accept the shining ear of maize, roasted within its husk to an appetizing brown, and she ate it with a relish, much to the satisfaction of the Indians and the woman who brought it.
In the mean time, Nathan, his eyes twinkling with amusement, was carrying on an animated conversation with one of the Indians in their dialect, and gesticulating toward Lissa, as if she might be furnishing the topic of discussion. She felt relieved when her husband arose and proposed their departure.
When they were again in their saddles and careening over the flower-strewn sward Nathan explained that the Indian was attempting to bargain for the “white chuppet,” offering for her his three squaws, two ponies, a wagon, some wampum—in fact, all of his possessions.
“And you were really bartering me before my face, and I ignorant of it?” said Lissa. “Well, I like that!”
“Yes, and the fellow was terribly in earnest too. He thought you would make a good wife to hoe his corn and work for him,” laughed Nathan.
“Oh, the horrid creature! How my ideal of the ‘noble redman’ has fallen since coming here.” And she quoted:
“O Nate, where are they, those beautiful children of the forest, whom Longfellow and other poets dreamed of? The squaws are positively ugly with their tangled hair, narrow eyes, high cheek bones, nakedness and dirt. The men are not bad. They are at least straight and symmetrical,” she added.
“The women are bowed down and deformed by hard labor and heavy burdens,” Nathan replied. “Be thankful for what civilization has done for women.”
“Oh, it is dreadful! Those great lazy fellows lying about and doing nothing. ‘Noble redmen’ indeed! Ignoble, rather.”
“Well, the Quakers are at work among them. We may expect an improvement in the next generation, if not in this. But here we are at the post. Come, we will go in and look about.”
In addition to the stores and trinkets of Indian manufacture for sale, Lissa was interested in the girls of the Quaker school, who, though dressed in the calico dresses of civilized America, were yet far from the ideal maiden she thought. They were shy, hiding their faces if she looked at or attempted to speak to them. And these were the real American girls, the product of the soil.
“Lissa,” said Nathan, when they were again in their saddles, “Major Andrews, who has charge of the government stores here, offers me a position as bookkeeper in his office this fall and winter, and I think I had perhaps better take it, as I can do little on the farm until spring. What do you think?”
Lissa’s heart sank at the thought of his being away from home, but she answered bravely: “By all means accept it if it will be for the best. It will keep us through the long winter, and we can start fairly upon the farm when the spring comes.”
So it was arranged, and in the years that followed, when crops were blighted from the drought or hot winds, and other accidents impoverished them, Nathan could earn a livelihood at the office desk, and fared better than his neighbors.