Gaut Gurley

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"No matter that, when he carry you well," replied the Indian, whose
language was a little idiomatic, notwithstanding his education.

"Perhaps not; but I should think he would be a hard trotter for most
riders."

"Moose don't care for that: he say, he carry you ten miles an hour, you not
the one to complain: if you no like, you no ride."

"How did you tame him to be so manageable?"

"Caught him a little calf, four years ago; trained him young to mind
halter; then ox-work, horse-work. This year ride him. No trouble, you let
him enough to eat."

"Where did you catch him?"

"Over the mountain. Live there. My name John Tomah. Been here to hunt some,
but not see you before. Another man live in this house last spring."

"Yes, I am a new-comer. But I have heard some of the settlers speak of you,
I think. You are the Indian that has been to college?"

"Yes, been there some, but in the woods more. Love to hunt, catch beaver,
sable, and such things. Come here to hunt now, soon as time. But must have
moose kept when off hunting: thought the man lived here do that. May be you
keep him, while I come back. Pay you, all right."

"Yes, if I could; but where could I keep him? He would jump any pasture or
yard fence there is here, and then run away, would he not?"

"No. Stay, after week or two, and get wonted, same as horse or cow. I go to
work, make yard, keep him in a while, and feed him with grass or browse. I
tend him first. You keep him,--you keep me, till go hunting; then get boy.
Pay well, much as you suit."

Gaut Gurley never acted without a strong secret motive. He had been
intently studying the young Indian during the conversation just detailed,
with a view of forming an opinion how far his subservience could be
secured; and, appearing to become satisfied on this point, and believing
the first great step for making him what was desired would be accomplished
by yielding to his request gracefully, however much family inconvenience it
might occasion, Gaut now turned cordially to him, and said:

"Yes, Tomah, I will do it. I like your looks, and I will do it for
_you_, but wouldn't for anybody else. We can get along with your animal,
somehow; and you shall stay, too, till our company start on our hunt, and
then you shall go with us. I will see that you have fair play. I will be
your friend; and perhaps I may want a good turn of you some time."

"Like that; go with you; show you how catch beaver. Do all I can."

"Very well; and perhaps I can help you in some way. You have an affair that
you feel a peculiar interest in, with somebody on the upper lake, and--"

"You know that?" interrupted the startled but evidently not displeased
Indian.

"Yes, I have heard something about it."

"But how you help there?"

"O, I can contrive a way for you to make the matter work as you wish, if
you will only persevere."

"Persevere? Ah, means keep trying. Yes, do that; but she don't talk right,
now; perhaps, will, you help, then we be great friends, sure."

The treaty being thus concluded, the gratified young Indian dismounted,
with his rifle and pack, containing his blanket, hunting-suit, etc., which
he carried before him, laid across the shoulder of his novel steed; and,
under the guidance of Gaut, he led the animal into the cow-yard, where he
was tied and fed, and the fence, already made high to exclude the wolves,
as usual among first settlers, was topped out by laying on a few additional
poles, so as to prevent the possibility of his escape. This being done,
Gaut conducted his new-found friend into the house, and introduced him, to
his wife and also to his daughter, who had by this time returned, as the
young Indian that had been to college, but still had a liking for the
woods.

"I have often thought I should feel interested in seeing an educated native
of the forest," remarked Avis, after the civilities of the introduction had
been exchanged. "Books, when you became able to read and understand them,"
she continued, turning to the Indian, "books must have opened a new world
to you, and the many new and curious things you found in them must have
been exceedingly gratifying to you, Mr. Tomah."

"Yes, many curious things in books," replied Tomah, indifferently.

"And also much valuable knowledge?" rejoined Avis, interrogatively.

"Valuable enough to some folks, suppose," replied the other, with the air
of one speaking on a subject in which he felt no particular interest.
"Lawyers make money; preachers get good pay for talking what they learn in
books; so doctors."

"But surely," persisted the former, who, though disappointed in his
replies, yet still expected to see, if she could draw him out, the
naturally shrewd mind of the native made brilliant by the light of science,
"surely you consider an education a good thing for all, giving those who
receive it a great advantage over those who do not?"

"Yes, education good thing," responded Tomah, his stolid countenance
beginning to lighten up at the idea which now struck him as involving the
chief if not the sole benefit of his scientific acquirements; "yes,
education good, very good, sometime. Instance: I go to Boston with my moose
next winter; show him for pay, one, two days; then reckon up money--add;
then reckon up expenses--subtract; tell how much I make. Make much, stay;
make little, go to other place. Yes, education good thing."

"But I should think you might do better with your education than you could
by following the usual employments of your kind of people," resumed the
other, still unwilling to see the subject of her scrutiny fall so much
below her preconception of an educated Indian. "You say, lawyers,
preachers, and doctors make money from the superiority which their
education has given them; now, why don't you profit by _your_ education,
and go into a profession like one of theirs, and obtain by it the same
wealth and position which you see them enjoying?"

"Did try," replied Tomah, with an evident effort to elevate his language,
and meet the question candidly. "When I came home from the school, people
all say, Now you go and live like white folks, in village, and study to be
doctor, make money, be great man. So went; study one year; try hard to
like; but no use. Uneasy all the time; could not keep down the Indian in
me; he always rising up, more every day, all the time drawing me away to
the woods,--pull, pull, pull. I fight against him; put him down little some
time; but he soon up again, stronger than ever. Found could not make myself
over again; must be as first made; so gave up; left study for the woods;
and said, Now let Indian be Indian as long as he like."

Satisfied, or rather silenced, by Tomah's reasons, Avis turned the
conversation by asking him to relate to her how he caught and tamed his
moose. She found him completely at home in this and other of his adventures
in the forest, which he was thus encouraged to relate, and in which he
often became a graphic and interesting narrator, and displayed the keen
observation of the objects of nature, together with the other peculiar
qualities of his race, to so much advantage that she soon relinquished her
favorite idea of ever finding a philosopher in an educated Indian.

In presenting the above picture, drawn from one of the many living
prototypes that have fallen within our personal observation, or come within
our knowledge derived from reliable sources, we had no wish to disparage
the praiseworthy acts and motives of those spirited and patriotic men who,
like Moore, in establishing his well-known charity school, in connection
with Dartmouth college, may have, in times past, founded and endowed
schools for the education of the natives of the forest; nor would we dampen
the faith and hopes of those philanthropists who still believe in the
redemption of that dwindling race by the aids of science and civilization;
but we confess our inability to perceive any general results, flowing from
the attempts of that character, at all adequate to the pains and outlay
bestowed on the experiment. And we think we cannot be alone in this
opinion. We believe that those results, when gathered up so that all their
meagreness could be seen, have sadly disappointed public expectations; that
this once favorite object and theory, of elevating and benefiting the red
man by taking him from his native woods and immuring him in the schoolroom,
has been, in the great majority of the cases, a futile one; and that whole
system, indeed, can now be regarded as but little less than a magnificent
failure.

There have been, it is true, some brilliant exceptions to the application
of our remarks, such as may be found in the pious and comparatively learned
Samson Occom, the noted Indian preacher of the times of the Pilgrims; in
the eloquent Ojibway chief of our own times, and a few others; as well as
in the person we have already introduced into this work, the intelligent
and beautiful Fluella. But _only_ as exceptions to the general rule, we
fear, can we fairly regard them,--for, where there is one Occom, there are
probably ten Tomahs.

Education, or so much of it as he has the patience and ability to acquire,
seems often to unsettle and confuse the mind of the red man; for, while his
old notions and traditions are disturbed or swept away by it, he fails of
grasping and digesting the new ones which science and civilization present
to his mind; and he falters and gropes, like an owl in the too strong light
of the unaccustomed sun. In his natural condition, he can _at least_
realize the happy picture which the poet has drawn of him:

"Lo the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind:
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven,
Some safer world in depth of wood embraced;
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christian thirsts for gold.
To be content's his natural desire;
He asks no angel's wings, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company."

But now, in his new and anomalous position, even this happiness and this
content is taken away, while he is unable to embrace an adequate
substitute. His old faith is shaken, but no new one is established. Before,
he could see God in clouds or hear him in the wind; but now he can scarcely
see God in any thing. His physical system, in the mean while, deprived as
it is of the forest atmosphere, in which it was alone fitted to exist and
reach its greatest perfection, suffers even more than his mental one. And
his whole man, both mental and physical, begins to degenerate, and soon
dwindles into insignificance. Yes, it is only in his native forests that
the Indian appears in his wild and peculiar dignity of character. There
only can he become a being of romance, and there only a hero. And there, in
conclusion, we would say, in view of the unsatisfactory results of the
experiments made to elevate him by any of the methods yet adopted,--there
we would let him remain.

But we must now on with our tale, the main incidents of which we have only
foreshadowed, not touched.

CHAPTER XI.

"Hearts will be prophets still."

The week succeeding the logging bee was an extremely busy one with the
Elwoods, who still had a heavy task to perform on their new field, before
it could be considered properly cleared or fitted for seeding and
harrowing. Sixty days before, that field was covered with a heavy growth of
primitive forest, standing in its native majesty, a mountain mass of green
vigor and sturdy life, and as seemingly invincible against the assaults of
man as it had been against those of the elements whose fury it had so long
withstood. But the busy and fatal axe had done its work. That towering
forest had been laid prostrate with the earth, and the first process of the
Herculean task of converting the forest into the field had been completed.
The second and third process, also, in the burning of the slash and the
gathering the trunks of the trees into log-heaps, as we have seen, had been
in turn successfully accomplished. But the fourth and last process still
remained to be performed. Those unseemly log-heaps, cumbering no
inconsiderable portion of the field, must be disposed of, to complete the
work. This was now the first task of the Elwoods, and time pressed for its
speedy execution. Accordingly, the next morning after the bee, they sallied
out, each with a blazing brand in his hand, and commenced the work of
firing the piles,--a work which, unlike that of firing a combustible and
readily catching slash, required not only considerable time, but often the
exercise of much skill and patience. But they steadily persevered, and,
before sunset, had the gratification of beholding every one of those many
scores of huge log-piles, that thickly dotted the ground, clearly within
the grasp of the devouring element; and afterwards of seeing that grasp
grow stronger and stronger on the solid material on which it had securely
fastened, till, to the eye of fancy, the dark old forest seemed by day to
be reproduced in the numerous, thickly-set columns of smoke that shot
upward and spread out into over-arching canopies above, while, with the
gathering darkness of the night, that forest seemed gradually to take the
form of a distant burning city in the manifold tapering pillars of fire
which everywhere rose from the field, fiercely illuminating the dark and
sombre wood-wall of the surrounding forest, and dimly glimmering over the
sleeping waters of river and lake beyond.

They had now made the fire their servant, and got it safely at work for
them; but that servant, to insure its continued and profitable action, must
be constantly fed and fostered. The logs, becoming by the action of the
fire partially consumed, and, by thus losing their contact with each other,
ceasing to burn, required, every few hours, to be rolled together,
adjusted, and repacked; when, being already thoroughly heated and still
partly on fire, they would soon burst out again into a brisk blaze. This
tending and re-packing of the piles demanded, for many of the succeeding
days, the constant attention of the Elwoods; who, going out early each
morning, and keeping up their rounds at short intervals through the day and
to a late hour at night, assiduously pursued their object, till they had
seen every log-heap disappear from the field, and the last step of their
severe task fully accomplished.

Few of those who live in cities, villages, or other places than those where
agricultural pursuits prevail; few of those, indeed, who have been tillers
only of the subdued and time-mellowed soils of the old States and
countries, have any adequate conception of the immense amount of hard labor
required to clear off the primitive forest, and prepare the land for the
first crop; nor have they, consequently, any just appreciation of the
degree of resolution, energy, and endurance necessary to insure continued
perseverance in subduing one piece of forest-land after another, till a
considerable opening is effected. It is the labor of one man's life to
clear up a new farm; and few there be, among the multitudes found making
the attempt, who have the sustaining will and resolution--even if the
pecuniary ability is not wanting--to accomplish that formidable
achievement. Probably not one in five of all the first pioneer settlers of
a new country ever remain to become its permanent settlers. The first set
of emigrants, or pioneers, are seen beginning with great resolution and
energy, and persevering unfalteringly till the usual ten-acre lot is
cleared, the log-house thrown up, and the settlement of the family
effected. Another piece of forest is the next year attacked, but with a far
less determined will, and the clearing prosecuted with a proportionate lack
of energy and resolution; and the job, after being suffered to linger along
for months beyond the usual period for completion, is finally finished.
But, in view of the hard labors and prolonged struggles they have
experienced in their two former trials for conquering the wilderness, they
too often now falter and hesitate at a third attempt. Perhaps the lack of
means to hire that help, which would make the toil more endurable, comes
also into the case; and the result is that no new clearing is begun. They
live along a while as they are; but, for want of the first crops of the
newly-cleared land and the usual accessions to their older fields, they
soon find themselves on the retrograde, and finally sell out to a new set
of incoming settlers, who in their turn begin with fresh vigor, and with
more means generally for prosecuting advantageously the work which had
discouraged or worn out their predecessors. But even of this second set a
large proportion fail to succeed, and, like the former, eventually yield
their places to more enterprising and able men, who, with those of the two
former sets of settlers that had succeeded in overcoming the difficulties
and retaining their places, now join in making up the permanent settlers of
the country.

Such is generally the history of the early settlement of every new country.
Those who have endured the most hardship, encountered the greatest
difficulties, and performed the hardest labor, do not generally reap the
reward which might eventually crown their toils, but leave that reward to
be enjoyed by those to whom such hardships and toils are comparatively
unknown. This seems hard and unjust; but, from the unequal conditions and
characters of men, it is doubtless a necessary state of things, and one
which, though it may occasionally be somewhat modified, will never,
probably, as a general thing, be very essentially altered.

The Elwoods, having now thus brought the labors of clearing to a successful
close, next proceeded to the lighter and more cleanly task of taking the
incipient step towards securing the ever-important first crop which was to
reward them, in a good part, for their arduous toils. Accordingly, the
previously engaged supply of winter wheat intended for seed was brought
home, the requisite help and ox-work enlisted, the seed sown, and the
harrows and hoes put in motion to insure its lodgment beneath the surface
of the broken soil. And, by the end of the second day from its
commencement, this task was also completed, leaving our two persevering
settlers only the work of gathering in the small crops of grain and
potatoes they had succeeded in raising on their older grounds, to be
performed before leaving home on the contemplated trapping and hunting
expedition; the appointed day for which was still sufficiently distant to
allow them abundant time to do this, and also to make all other of the
necessary arrangements and preparations for that, to them, novel and
interesting event.

But how, in the meanwhile, stood that domestic drama of love and its
entanglements, which was destined to be deeply interwoven with the other
principal incidents of this singular story? All on the surface seemed as
bright and unruffled as the halcyon waters of the sleeping ocean before the
days of storm have come to move and vex it. But how was it within the vail
of the heart and teeming mind, where the currents and counter-currents of
that subtle but powerful passion flow and clash unseen, often gaining their
full height and unmasterable strength before any event shall occur to
betray their existence to the public. How was it there? We shall see.

While the events we have described in the last foregoing chapters were
transpiring, Mrs. Elwood held her peace, studiously avoiding all allusion
to what still constituted the burden of her mind,--the thickening intimacy
between her family and the Gurleys; but, though she was silent on the
subject, yet her heart was not any the less sad, nor her thoughts any the
less busy. She had been made aware that a reconciliation had taken place
between her husband and Gaut Gurley; and she had seen how artfully the
latter had brought it about, and regained his old fatal influence over the
former. She believed she fully understood the motives which actuated Gaut
in all these movements. And she now looked on in helpless anguish of heart
to see the toils thus drawn tighter and tighter around the unconscious
victims, and those victims, too, her husband and son, with whose happiness
and welfare her own was indissolubly connected. She saw it with anguish,
because her feelings never for once were permitted even the alleviation of
a doubt that it could result in aught else than evil to her family. She
could not reason herself into any belief of Gaut's reformation. She felt
his black heart constantly throwing its shadow on to her own; she _felt_
this, but could not give to others, nor perhaps even to herself, what might
be deemed a satisfactory reason for her impressions and forebodings; for in
her was exemplified the words of the poet:

"The mind is capable to show
Thoughts of so dim a feature,
That consciousness can only know
Their presence and their nature."

Such thoughts were hers,--dim and flitting, indeed; but she felt conscious
of their continued presence, of their general character, and deeply
conscious what they portended. They took one shape, moved in one course,
and all pointed one way, and that was to evil,--some great impending evil
to the two objects of her love and solicitude.

"But is there no hope?" she murmured aloud, in the fullness of her heart,
while deeply pondering the matter, one day, as she sat alone at her open
window, looking out on her husband and son engaged in their harvest, which
she knew they were hurrying on to a close, before leaving her on the
contemplated long, and perhaps perilous, expedition into the wilderness,--a
circumstance that doubtless caused the subject, in the thus awakened state
of her anxieties, to weigh at this time peculiarly heavy on her mind. "Is
there no hope," she repeated, with a sigh, "that this impending calamity
may in some part be averted? Must they both be sacrificed? Must the faults
of the erring father be visited on the innocent son, who had become the
last hope of the mother's heart? Kind Heaven! may not that son, _at least_,
be delivered from the web of toils into which he has so strangely fallen,
and yet be saved? Grant, O grant that hope--that one ray of hope--in this
my hour of darkness!"

But what sound was that which now fell upon her ear, as if responsive to
her ejaculation? It was a light tap or two on the door, which, after the
customary bidding of _walk in_ had been pronounced, was gently opened, when
a young female of extreme beauty and loveliness entered. Mrs. Elwood
involuntarily rose, and stood a moment, mute with surprise, in the
unexpected presence. Soon recovering, however, she invited the fair
stranger to a seat, still deeply wondering who she could be and what had
occasioned her visit.

"You are the good woman of the house?--the wife of the new settler?--the
mother of Mr. Claud Elwood?" asked the stranger girl, pausing between each
interrogatory, till she had received an affirmative nod from Mrs. Elwood.

"Yes," replied the latter kindly, but with an air of increasing curiosity,
"yes, I am Mrs. Elwood. Would you like to see my son, Claud?"

"No," rejoined the girl, in the same subdued and musical accents. "No, it
was not him, but you, I came to see and speak with," she added, carefully,
withdrawing a screening handkerchief from a light parcel she bore in her
hand, and displaying a small work-basket of exquisite make, which,
advancing with hesitating steps, she presented to the other, as she
resumed:

"I came with this, good lady, to see if you would be suited to have such an
article?"

"It is very pretty," said Mrs. Elwood, examining the workmanship with
admiration, "beautiful, indeed. Did you make it?"

"I did, lady," said the other modestly.

"Well, it certainly does great credit to your skill and taste," rejoined
the other. "I should, of course, be pleased to own it, but I have little
money to pay for such things. You ought to sell it for quite a sum."

"But I do not wish to sell it," responded the girl, looking up to Mrs.
Elwood with an expostulating and wounded expression. "I do not wish to take
money for it; but hoped you would like it well enough to accept it for a
gift,--a small token."

"O, I should," said Mrs. Elwood, "if I was entitled to any such present;
but what have I ever done to deserve it of you? I do not even know who you
are, kind stranger."

"They, call me Fluella," responded the other, the blood slightly suffusing
her fair, rounded cheek. "_You_ have not seen me, I know. You have not done
me the great favor that brings my gratitude. It is your brave son that has
done both."

"O, I understand now," exclaimed Mrs. Elwood. "You are the chief's
daughter, whom Claud and Mr. Phillips helped out of a difficulty and danger
on the rapids, some time since. But your token should be given to Claud,
should it not?"

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