The Oneida tapped his bald head.

"When I saw you first you were not the big fellow with speaking eyes
that you are to-day. You would sit from sunrise to sunset, looking
straight ahead of you and never moving except when food was put in your
hand. As you grew older the children dragged you among them to play. You
learned to fish, and hunt, and swim; and knew us, and began to talk our
language. Now at last you are fully roused, and are going to learn the
knowledge there is in books."

I asked Skenedonk how he himself had liked books, and he shook his head,
smiling. They were good for white men, very good. An Indian had little
use for them. He could read and write and cast accounts. When he made
his great journey to the far country, what interested him most was the
behavior of the people.

We did not go into the subject of his travels at that time, for I began
to wonder who was going to teach me books, and heard with surprise that
it was Doctor Chantry.

"But I struck him with the little knife that springs out of a box."

Skenedonk assured me that Doctor Chantry thought nothing of it, and
there was no wound but a scratch. He looked on me as his pupil. He knew
all kinds of books.

Evidently Doctor Chantry liked me from the moment I showed fight. His
Anglo-Saxon blood was stirred. He received me from Skenedonk, who shook
my hand and wished me well, before paddling away.