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I listened more attentively to the many mingling love songs of the forest dwellers, and sure enough, away off along the shore, I could hear Little Pine singing to his sweetheart. It was charming. "My son," sighed Oo-koo-hoo, "it reminds me of the days when I, too, was a boy and when Ojistoh was a girl, away back among the many springs of long ago."
I will tell the women to prepare the feast. "Next morning Ojistoh sat waiting in her lodge for me to come. Already she wore the badge of womanhood, for not having a new dress she had simply reversed her old one and buttoned it up in front instead of the back. For it is the custom of Ojibway girls to button their dresses behind and for married women to button theirs in front.
They agreed with her, and Ojistoh's father said: 'It is well that Oo-koo-hoo and Ojistoh should be married according to the custom of our people, but it is also well that we should retain the friendship of the priest and the nuns.
Oo-koo-hoo's wife, Ojistoh, along with her second granddaughter and her two grandsons, occupied one of the three-and-a-half fathom canoes; Amik, and his wife, Naudin, with her baby and eldest daughter, occupied the other; and Oo-koo-hoo and I paddled together in the two-and-a-half fathom canoe.
Strong tea in plenty, fresh birch syrup, forest-made cranberry wine, a large chunk of dried Saskatoon berries served with bear's grease, frozen cranberries, and a little bannock made of flour, water, and grease, completed the fare. "Then, too, Ojistoh sat beside me and ate out of my dish. She even used my pipe for an after-dinner smoke.
Sunday was pleasantly spent, notwithstanding that so many different religious denominations were represented in camp: for while old Ojistoh counted her beads according to the Roman Catholic faith, Amik and Naudin were singing hymns, as the former was an English Churchman and his wife a Presbyterian; but Oo-koo-hoo would join in none of it as he had no faith whatever in the various religions of the white men and so he remained a pagan.
Furthermore, they said I would be given enough moose skins to make a lodge covering. "Ojistoh chewed meditatively upon the large piece of spruce gum in her mouth, while she listened with averted eyes and drooping head. But old Noo-koom, evidently supposing Ojistoh to be in doubt, interposed: 'You must sit upon the brush with him, because I have promised that you would.
At night we camped in the woods without any shelter save brush windbreaks over the heads of our beds, our couches being made of balsam-twigs laid shingle fashion in the snow. For the sake of warmth Ojistoh and Neykia slept together, while Oo-koo-hoo and I cuddled up close to one another and fitted together like spoons in a cutlery case, for the cold sometimes dipped to forty below.
"There Ojistoh and I were gazing in silent admiration at the scene before us, when without the slightest warning, and as though dropped from the sky another cock landed in the midst of the dancers. Immediately the cock of the dance rushed at the intruder and fiercely attacked him. "But the newcomer was ready. My son, you should have seen them. Bills and wings clashed together.
On our return to Fort Perseverance, therefore, the children must be married in the face of the Church; but I charge you all not to let any one at the Post know that Oo-koo-hoo and Ojistoh have already been married after the custom of our people. It is well that we should live according to the ways of our forefathers, and it is also well that we should seem to adopt the ways of the white man.
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