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Updated: June 4, 2025
The next day she cut it out into a slip and began to sew. Oostogah was at work all day cutting down dead trees. When he came in at night, Donee said: "If you sold the land for much money, could we have a home like the miller's?" Oostogah was as much astonished as if a chicken had asked him a question, but he said, "Yes." "Would I be like Jenny and Betty?"
In a year or two Oostogah would build a house like the miller's, and she should have a blue carpet on the floor, and a white bed, and wear red frocks every day, like Betty. Just then she heard voices talking. Oostogah had come back; he sat upon a log; and the trader, who came around once a year, stood beside him, a pack open at his feet. It was this peddler, Hawk, who was talking.
"Come, Donee," he said. But the miller's little Thad. and Jenny had found Donee behind the trough, and the three were making a nettle basket together, and were very well acquainted already. "Let the child stay till you come back from fishing, Oostogah," said the miller. So Donee staid all the afternoon.
"I tell you, Oostogy, the miller's a fool. There's no new settlers coming here, and nobody wants your land. There's hundreds and thousands of acres beyond better than this. You'd better take my offer. Look at that suit!" He held up short trousers of blue cloth worked with colored porcupine quills, and a scarlet mantle glittering with beads and gold fringe. "I don't want it," grunted Oostogah.
"That's neither here nor there," said the miller. "Dead chickens don't count for hatching. You go to work now and clear your land, and you can sell it for enough to give you and this little girl behind the trough an education. Enough to give you both a chance equal to any white children." Oostogah nodded again, but said nothing. He was shrewd enough, and could work, too, when he was in the humor.
A large part of the land was left, though; a long stretch of river bottom and forests, with but very little swamp. Oostogah and the little girl lived in a hut built of logs and mud, and, as the floor of it never had been scrubbed, the grass actually began to grow out of the dirt in the corners.
He began to take off his mantle. "There's a deputation from these Northern tribes going this winter to see the Great Father at Washington. If Oostogy had a proper dress he could go. But shall the son of Denomah come before the Great Father in a torn horse-blanket?" "Your words are too many," said Oostogah. "I have made up my mind. I will sell you the land for the clothes."
"You're a chief's daughter," grunted Oostogah. One day in the next week she went down to the river far in the woods, and took a bath, combing her long straight black hair down her shoulders. Then she put on her new dress, and went down to the miller's house. It was all very quiet, for the children were not there, but their mother came to the door.
I'd like to see you dressed like a chief for once." Oostogah, nothing loth, dropped his dirty blanket, and was soon rigged in the glittering finery, while Hawk nodded in rapt admiration. "There's not a man in the country, red-skin or pale-face, but would know you for the son of the great Denomah. Go look down in the creek, Oostogy." Oostogah went, and came back, walking more slowly.
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