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He then bade me remember the bad sailors who upset the canoe of a squaw, and wellnigh drowned her little child, and that I had threatened and beat them for it; and also how I gave the squaw a warm coat to wrap up the poor wet papoose.
He pulled one dish after another to him, and scraped each one clean, spreading all the butter on the bread, and piled up buffalo steak, ham, potatoes, peas in fact, every crumb that had been left making one disgusting mess, and then tapping it with his finger said, "Papoose! Papoose!"
"'An' I've got dust into the thousands, remarks Billy, 'which says he's the prize papoose of the reservation, an' says it ten to one. This yere offspring is a credit to you, 'Doby, an' I marvels you-all is that modest over it. "'You can bet it ain't no Siwash, says 'Doby. 'It's clean strain, that infant is, if I does say it.
So, giving my horse in charge, I ventured in to her, speaking as kindly as I could, and asking to see her child. She understood me, and with a smile held up her little papoose, as she called him, who, to say truth, I could not call very pretty. He seemed to have a wild, shy look, like the offspring of an untamed, animal.
He visited a "praying" Indian's home wherein lay a sick papoose over whom a "pow-wow" was being held by a medicine-man at the request of the squaw-mother, who was still a heathen.
"I saw the blow had taken him in his sleep, but the wantonness, the misery of it, turned me cold. Then, you are right, I was seized with a panic to get away. I laid the papoose back in the place where I had found him and left my string of fish, a poor tribute, with what money I had about me, and hurried down into the bed of the brook.
Margaret pulled the hair-pins out of her hair, letting it down and combing it with one of her side combs; twisted it up again in its soft, fluffy waves; straightened her collar, set on her hat, and was ready for the day. The squaw looked at her with both awe and contempt for a moment, then turned and stalked back to her papoose and began preparing it for the journey.
When she came to herself both the bear and the papoose were gone. She returned to her wigwam and gave the alarm, but as the men were away hunting several days passed ere they could begin the search. When at length they discovered the bear's den they found the child was there alive.
They had cut down an oak tree that, judging from its rings, must have been an acorn when Powhatan was a papoose, seventy years before. They had burned out a portion of the outer and inner bark and were now hacking at the heart of the wood with sharp obsidian axes.
She threw her arms around the poor woman and drew her, papoose and all, comfortingly toward her, patting her shoulder and saying gentle, soothing words as she would to a little child. And by and by the woman lifted her head again, the tears coursing down her face, and tried to explain, muttering her queer gutturals and making eloquent gestures until Margaret felt she understood.
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