Margaret Smith's Journal - Part 1, from Volume V., the Works of Whittier: Tales and Sketches by John Greenleaf Whittier
page 22 of 171 (12%)
page 22 of 171 (12%)
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food. And one night, when I did marvel at this kindness on his part, he
told me that I had once done him a great service; asking me if I was not at Black Point, in a fishing vessel, the summer before? I told him I was. 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. It was his squaw and child that I had befriended; and he told me that be had often tried to speak to me, and make known his gratitude therefor; and that he came once to the garrison at Sheepscot, where he saw me; but being fired at, notwithstanding his signs of peace and friendship, he was obliged to flee into the woods. He said the child died a few days after its evil treatment, and the thought of it made his heart bitter; that he had tried to live peaceably with the white men, but they had driven him into the war. "On one occasion," said the sick soldier, "as we lay side by side in his hut, on the shore of the Sebago Lake, Squando, about midnight, began to pray to his God very earnestly. And on my querying with him about it, he said he was greatly in doubt what to do, and had prayed for some sign of the Great Spirit's will concerning him. He then told me that some years ago, near the place where we then lay, he left his wigwam at night, being unable to sleep, by reason of great heaviness and distemper of mind. It was a full moon, and as he did walk to and fro, he saw a fair, tall man in a long black dress, standing in the light on the lake's shore, who spake to him and called him by name. "'Squando,' he said, and his voice was deep and solemn, like the wind in the hill pines, 'the God of the white man is the God of the Indian, and He is angry with his red children. He alone is able to make the corn grow before the frost, and to lead the fish up the rivers in the spring, |
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