The Log School-House on the Columbia
Page 4
CHAPTER III.
BOSTON TILICUM.
Marlowe Mann--"Boston tilicum," as the Siwashes called all themissionaries, teachers, and traders from the East--sat down upon a benchof split log and leaned upon his desk, which consisted of two split logsin a rough frame. A curious school confronted him. His pupils numberedfifteen, representing Germany, England, Sweden, New England, and theIndian race.
"The world will some day come to the Yankee schoolmaster," he used to sayto the bowery halls of old Cambridge; and this prophecy, which had come tohim on the banks of the Charles, seemed indeed to be beginning to befulfilled on the Columbia.
He opened the school in the same serene and scholarly manner as he wouldhave done in a school in Cambridge.
"He is not a true gentleman who is not one under all conditions andcircumstances," was one of his views of a well-clothed character; and thismorning he addressed the school with the courtesy of an old collegeprofessor.
"I have come here," he said, "with but one purpose, and that is to try toteach you things which will do you the most good in life. That is alwaysthe best which will do the most good; all else is inferior. I shall firstteach you to obey your sense of right in all things. This is the firstprinciple of a true education. You will always know the way of life if youhave this principle for your guide.
"Conscience is the first education. A man's spiritual nature is hishighest nature, and his spiritual concerns transcend all others. If a manis spiritually right, he is the master of all things. I would impressthese truths on your minds, and teach them at the beginning. I have becomewilling to be poor, and to walk life's ways alone. The pilot of the Argonever returned from Colchis, but the Argo itself returned with the GoldenFleece. It may be so with my work; if so, I will be content. I haveselected for our Scripture lesson the 'incorruptible seed.'"
He rose and spoke like one before an august assembly; and so it was tohim, with his views of the future of the great empire of the Northwest. Apart of the pupils could not comprehend all that he said any more thanthey had understood the allusion to the pilot of the Argo; but his mannerwas so gracious, so earnest, so inspired, that they all felt the spirit ofit, and some had come to regard themselves as the students of some greatdestiny.
"Older domes than the pyramids are looking down upon you," he said, "andyou are born to a higher destiny than were ever the children of thePharaohs."
"With the exception of Gretchen, not one of the pupils fully understoodthe picturesque allusion. Like the reference to the pilot of the Argo, itwas poetic mystery to them; and yet it filled them with a noble curiosityto know much and a desire to study hard, and to live hopefully andworthily. Like the outline of some unknown mountain range, it allured themto higher outlooks and wider distances.
"He talked to us so grandly," said Gretchen to Mrs. Woods one evening,"that I did not know half that he was saying; but it made me feel that Imight be somebody, and I do intend to be. It is a good thing to have ateacher with great expectations."
"Yes," said Mrs. Woods, "when there is so little to expect. People don'ttake a lot of nothing and make a heap of something in this world. It isall like a lot of feathers thrown against the wind. _Nevertheless_ itmakes one happier to have prospects, if they are far away. I used to; butthey never came to nothing, unless it was to bring me way out here."
The log school-house was a curious place. The children's benches consistedof split logs on pegs, without backs. The sides of the building were logsand sods, and the roof was constructed of logs and pine boughs. All of thechildren were barefooted, and several had but poor and scanty clothing.Yet the very simplicity of the place had a charm.
Benjamin sat alone, apart from the rest. It was plain to be seen that hewas brooding over the painful event of the morning. Gretchen had growncheerful again, but the bitter expression on the young Indian's faceseemed to deepen in intensity. Mr. Mann saw it. To quiet his agitation, hebegan his teaching by going to him and sitting down beside him on the rudebench and opening to him the primer.
"You understand English?" said Mr. Mann.
"A little. I can talk Chinook."
In the Chinook vocabulary, which was originally the trade language of allthe tribes employed by the Hudson Bay Company in collecting furs, most ofthe words resemble in sound the objects they represent. For example, awagon in Chinook is chick-chick, a clock is ding-ding, a crow is kaw-kaw,a duck, quack-quack, a laugh, tee-hee; the heart is tum-tum, and a talk orspeech or sermon, wah-wah. The language was of English invention; it tookits name from the Chinook tribes, and became common in the Northwest.Nearly all of the old English and American traders in the Northwestlearned to talk Chinook, and to teach Chinook was one of the purposes ofthe school.
"Can you tell me what that is?" asked Mr. Mann, pointing to the letter Ain the primer.
"Fox-trap."
"No; that is the letter A."
"How do you know?"
Our digger of Greek roots from Cambridge was puzzled. He could not repeatthe story of Cadmus to this druid of the forest or make a learned talk onarbitrary signs. He answered happily, however, "Wise men said so."
"Me understand."
"That is the letter B."
"Yes, aha! Boston tilicum, you let her be. Old woman no good; me punishher. Knock-sheet--stick her" (club her).
Mr. Mann saw at once the strange turn that the young Indian's mind hadtaken. He was puzzled again.
"No, Benjamin; I will teach you what to do."
"Teach me how to club her? You are good! Boston tilicum, we will bebrothers--you and I. She wah-wah, but she is no good."
"That is C."
"Aha! _She_ heap wah-wah, but _she_ no good."
"Now, that is A, B, and that is C. Try to remember them, and I will comesoon and talk with you again."
"You wah-wah?"
"Yes," said Mr. Mann, doubtful of the Indian's thought.
"She wah-wah?"
"Yes."
"You heap wah-wah. You good. She heap wah-wah. She no good. Potlatch come;dance. She wah-wah no more. I wah-wah."
Mr. Mann was pained to see the revengeful trend of the Indian's thought.The hints of the evil intention of the Potlatch troubled him, but hisfaith in the old chief and the influence of his own integrity did notfalter.
Gretchen was the most advanced scholar in the school. Her real mother hadbeen an accomplished woman, and had taken great pains with her education.She was well instructed in the English branches, and had read five booksof Virgil in Latin. Her reading had not been extensive, but it hadembraced some of the best books in the English language. Her musicaleducation had been received from a German uncle, who had been instructedby Herr Wieck, the father of Clara Schumann. He had been a great lover ofSchumann's dreamy and spiritual music, and had taught her the youngcomposer's pieces for children, and among them Romance and the Traumerei.He had taught her to play the two tone poems together in changing keys,beginning with the Traumerei and returning again to its beautiful andhaunting strains. Gretchen interpreted these poems with all the color oftrue feeling, and under her bow they became enchantment to a musical earand a delight to even as unmusical a soul as Mrs. Woods.
Gretchen's chief literary pleasure had been the study of the Germanpoets. She had a poetic mind, and had learned to produce good rhymes. Thesongs of Uhland, Heine, and Schiller delighted her. She had loved to readthe strange stories of Hoffman, and the imaginative works of Baron Fouque.She used to aspire to be an author or poet, but these aspirations hadreceived no countenance from Mrs. Woods, and yet the latter seemed ratherproud to regard her ward as possessing a superior order of mind.
"If there is anything that I do despise," Mrs. Woods used to say, "it isbooks spun out of the air, all about nothin'! Dreams were made for sleep,and the day was made for work. I haven't much to be proud of in thisworld. I've always been a terror to lazy people and to Injuns, and if anyone were to write my life they'd have some pretty stirring stories totell. I have no doubt that I was made for something."
Although Mrs. Woods boasted that she was a terror to Indians, she had beenvery apprehensive of danger since the Whitman colony massacre. She talkedbravely and acted bravely according to her view of moral courage, but witha fearful heart. She dreaded the approaching Potlatch, and the frenzy thatcalls for dark deeds if the dance of the evil spirits should conclude theapproaching feast.
There was a sullen look in Benjamin's face as he silently took his seat inthe log school-house the next morning. Mr. Mann saw it, and instinctivelyfelt the dark and mysterious atmosphere of it. He went to him immediatelyafter the opening exercises, and said:
"You haven't spoken to me this morning; what troubles you?"
The boy's face met the sympathetic eye of the master, and he said:
"I was happy on the morning when I came--sun; _she_ hate Indian, talkagainst him to you; make me unhappy--shade; think I will have myrevenge--_pil-pil_; then music make me happy; you make me happy; nightcome, and I think of her--she hate Indian--shade. Me will have myrevenge--_pil-pil_. She say I have no right here; she have no right here;the land all belong to Umatilla; then to me; I no have her here. Look outfor the October moon--Potlatch--dance--_pil-pil_."
"I will be a friend to you, Benjamin."
"Yes, Boston tilicum, we will be friends."
"And I will teach you how to be noble--like a king. You felt good when Iwas kind to you?"
"Yes, Boston tilicum."
"And when the music played?"
"Yes, Boston tilicum."
"Then you must be good to her; that will make her feel good toward you. Doyou see?"
There came a painful look into the young Indian's face.
"I good to her, make her good? She good to me make me good? She no good tome. She say I no right here. The land belong to Umatilla. She must go. Youstay. Look out for the October moon. She wah-wah no more."
"It is noble to be good; it makes others good."
"Then why isn't _she_ good? She make me ugly; you make me good. I think Iwill punish her--_pil-pil_; then you speak kind, and the music play, thenI think I will punish her not. Then dark thoughts come back again; cloudscome again; hawks fly. What me do? Me am two selves; one self when I thinkof you, one when I think of her. She say I have no right. She have noright. All right after Potlatch. I wah-wah; she wah-wah no more."
"Be good yourself, Benjamin. Be kind to her; make her kind. You do right."
The young Indian hesitated, then answered:
"I do as you say. You are friend. I'll do as I feel when the music play. Itry. So you say."
The cloud passed. The teacher paid the Indian boy special attention thatmorning. At noon Gretchen played Von Weber's Wild Hunt of Lutzow, whichdrove Napoleon over the Rhine. The rhythm of the music picturing theheroic cavalry enchanted Benjamin, and he said: "Play it over again."After the music came a foot-race among the boys, which Benjamin easilywon. The afternoon passed quietly, until in the cool, lengthening shadowsof the trail the resolute form of Mrs. Woods appeared.
Benjamin saw her, and his calm mood fled. He looked up at the master.
"I is come back again--my old self again. She say I no business here; sheno business here. She wah-wah."
The master laid his hand on the boy's shoulder kindly and bent his face onhis.
"I do as you say," the boy continued. "I will not speak till my good selfcome again. I be still. No wah-wah."
He dropped his eyes upon a page in the book, and sat immovable. He was anoble picture of a struggle for self-control in a savage and untutoredheart.
Mrs. Woods asked for Gretchen at the door, and the master excused thegirl, thanking her for the music that had delighted the school at thenoon-hour. As she was turning to go, Mrs. Woods cast a glance towardBenjamin, and said to the master in an undertone: "He's tame now--quiet asa purring cat. The cat don't lick cream when the folks are around. Buthe'll make trouble yet. An Injun is a Injun. I hate Injuns, though ParsonLee says I am all wrong. When you have seen as many of 'em as I have,you'll know more than you do now."
Benjamin did not comprehend the words, but he felt that the woman had saidsomething injurious to him. The suspicion cut him to the quick. His blackeye sparkled and his cheek burned. The scholars all seemed to be sorry atthe impression that Mrs. Woods's muttered words had left in his mind. Hehad struggled for two days to do his best--to follow his best self.
School closed. Benjamin rose like a statue. He stood silent for a time andlooked at the slanting sun and the dreamy afternoon glories of theglaciers, then moved silently out of the door. The old chief met him inthe opening, and saw the hurt and troubled look in his face.
"What have you been doing to my boy?" he said to the master. "Has he notbeen good?"
"Very good; I like him," said Mr. Mann. "He is trying to be good here,"pointing to his heart. "The good in him will grow. I will help him."
The old chief and the boy walked away slowly out of the shadows of thegreat trees and up the cool trail. The tall master followed them with hiseye. In the departing forms he saw a picture of the disappearing race. Heknew history well, and how it would repeat itself on the great plateau andamid the giant forests of the Oregon. He felt that the old man wasprobably one of the last great chiefs of the Umatillas.
On one of the peninsulas of the Oregon, the so-called Islands of the Dead,the old warriors of the tribes were being gathered by the plagues that hadcome to the territories and tribal regions ever since the Hudson BayCompany established its posts on the west of the mountains, and Astoriahad been planted on the great river, and settlers had gathered in themountain-domed valley of the Willamette. Wherever the white sail went inthe glorious rivers, pestilence came to the native tribes. The Indianrace was perceptibly vanishing. Only one son of seven was left toUmatilla. What would be the fate of this boy?
The master went home troubled over the event of the afternoon. He wasasking the Indian to be better than his opponent, and she was awell-meaning woman and nominally a Christian.
His first thought was to go to Mrs. Woods and ask her to wholly change herspirit and manners, and, in fact, preach to her the same simple doctrineof following only one's better self that he had taught to the youngprince. But he well knew that she had not a teachable mind. He resolved totry to reach the same result through Gretchen, whom she upbraided with hertongue but loved in her heart.
Mrs. Woods had come to regard it as her appointed mission to abuse peoplefor their good. She thought it tended toward their spiritual progress anddevelopment. She often said that she felt "called to set things right, andnot let two or three people have their own way in everything"--a view oflife not uncommon among people of larger opportunities and bettereducation.
Benjamin came to school the next morning silent and sullen, and themaster went to him again in the same spirit as before.
"She say I no right here," he said. "She suffer for it. She wah-wah. Lookout for the October moon."
"No, you are a better Indian now."
"Yes; sometimes."
"The better Indian harms no one--one's good self never does evil. You areto be your good self, and please me."
The young Indian was silent for a time. He at last said, slowly:
"But me know who will."
"Do what, Benjamin?"
"Make her suffer--punish."
"Who?"
"I know a bad Indian who will. He say so."
"You must not let him. You are son of a chief."
"I will try. I no wah-wah now."
At noon Benjamin was light-hearted, and led the sports and games. He wasvery strong, and one of his lively feats was to let three or four childrenclimb upon his back and run away with them until they tumbled off. Heseemed perfectly happy when he was making the others happy, and nothingso delighted him as to be commended. He longed to be popular, not fromany selfish reason, but because to be liked by others was his atmosphereof contentment. He was kindly above most Indians, a trait for which hisfather was famous. He was even kindly above many of the white people.
"Kill it!" cried one of the boys, a recent emigrant, in the alarm. "Killit!"
"What harm it do?" said the Indian boy. "Me drive it away."
The young Indian started toward the door as at play, and shook his head atthe young bear, which was of the harmless kind so well known in theNorthwest, and the bear turned and ran, while the Indian followed ittoward the wood. The odd event was quite excusable on any ground of ruleand propriety in the primitive school.
"It no harm; let it go," said the boy on his return; and the spirit of theincident was good and educational in the hearts of the school.
The charm of his life was Gretchen's violin. It transfigured him; itchanged the world to him. His father was a forest philosopher; the boycaught a like spirit, and often said things that were a revelation to Mr.Mann.
"Why do you like the violin so much?" said the latter to him one day.
"It brings to me the thing longed for--the thing I long to know."
"Why, what is that?"
"I can't tell it--I feel it here--I sense it--I shall know--somethingbetter--yonder--the thing we long for, but do not know. Don't you long forit? Don't you feel it?"
The tall schoolmaster said "Yes," and was thoughtful. The poor Indian hadtried to express that something beyond his self of which he could only nowhave a dim conception, and about which even science is dumb. Mr. Mannunderstood it, but he could hardly have expressed it better.
The boy learned the alphabet quickly, and began to demand constantattention in his eagerness to learn. Mr. Mann found that he was givingmore than the allotted time to him. To meet the case, he appointed fromtime to time members of the school "monitors," as he called them, to sitbeside him and help him.
One day he asked Gretchen to do this work. The boy was delighted to beinstructed by the mistress of the violin, and she was as pleased with thehonor of such monitorial duties to the son of a chief. But an unexpectedepisode grew out of all this mutual good-will and helpful kindness.
Benjamin was so grateful to Gretchen for the pains that she took with hisstudies that he wished to repay her. He had a pretty little Cayuse ponywhich he used to ride; one day after school he caused it to be brought tothe school-house, and, setting Gretchen upon it, he led it by the mane upthe trail toward her home, a number of the pupils following them. On theway the merry-making party met Mrs. Woods. She was as astonished as thoughshe had encountered an elephant, and there came into her face a look ofdispleasure and anger.
"What kind of doings are these, I would like to know?" she exclaimed, in asharp tone, standing in the middle of the way and scanning every face."Riding out with an Injun, Gretchen, are you? That's what you are doing.Girl, get off that horse and come with me! That is the kind of proprietythat they teach out in these parts, is it? and the master came fromHarvard College, too! One would think that this world was just made toenjoy one's self in, just like a sheep pasture, where the lambs go hoppingand skipping, not knowing that they were born to be fleeced."
She hurried Gretchen away excitedly, and the school turned back. Benjaminwas disappointed, and looked more hurt than ever before. On the way he methis old father, who had come out to look for him, and the rest of thescholars dispersed to their homes.
That evening, after a long, vivid twilight, such as throws its splendorover the mountain ranges in these northern latitudes, Mrs. Woods andGretchen were sitting in their log-house just within the open door. Mr.Woods was at the block-house at Walla Walla, and the cabin wasunprotected. The light was fading in the tall pines of the valleys, andthere was a deep silence everywhere, undisturbed by so much as a whisperof the Chinook winds. Mrs. Woods's thoughts seemed far away--doubtlessamong the old meadows, orchards, and farm-fields of New England. Gretchenwas playing the musical glasses.
Suddenly Mrs. Woods's thoughts came back from their far-away journeys. Shehad seen something that disturbed her. She sat peering into a tract oftrees which were some three hundred feet high--one of the great treecathedrals of the Northwestern forests. Suddenly she said:
"Gretchen, there are Injuns in the pines. Watch!"
Gretchen looked out, but saw nothing.
The shadows deepened.
"I have twice seen Injuns passing from tree to tree and hiding. Why arethey there? There--look!"
A sinewy form in the shadows of the pines appeared and disappeared.Gretchen saw it.
"They mean evil, or they would not hide. Gretchen, what shall we do?"
Mrs. Woods closed the door and barred it, took down the rifle from theside of the room, and looked out through a crevice in the split shutter.
There was a silence for a time; then Mrs. Woods moved and said: "They arecoming toward the house, passing from one tree to another. They meanrevenge--I feel it--revenge on me, and Benjamin--he is the leader of it."
The flitting of shadowy forms among the pines grew alarming. Nearer andnearer they came, and more and more excited became Mrs. Woods'sapprehensions. Gretchen began to cry, through nervous excitement, and withthe first rush of tears came to her, as usual, the thought of her violin.
She took up the instrument, tuned it with nervous fingers, and drew thebow across the strings, making them shriek as with pain, and then driftedinto the air the music of the Traumerei.
"Fiddling, Gretchen--fiddling in the shadow of death? I don't know butwhat you are right--that tune, too!"
The music trembled; the haunting strain quivered, rose and descended, andwas repeated over and over again.
"There is no movement in the pines," said Mrs. Woods. "It is growingdarker. Play on. It does seem as though that strain was stolen from heavento overcome evil with."
Gretchen played. An hour passed, and the moon rose. Then she laid down theviolin and listened.
"Oh, Gretchen, he is coming! I know that form. It is Benjamin. He iscoming alone. What shall we do? He is--right before the door!"
Gretchen's eye fell upon the musical glasses, which were among the fewthings that she had brought from the East and which had belonged to herold German home. She had tuned them early in the evening by pouring waterinto them, as she had been taught to do in her old German village, and shewet her fingers and touched them to the tender forest hymn:
"Now the woods are all sleeping."
"He has stopped," said Mrs. Woods. "He is listening--play."
The music filled the cabin. No tones can equal in sweetness the musicalglasses, and the trembling nerves of Gretchen's fingers gave a spirit ofpathetic pleading to the old German forest hymn. Over and over again sheplayed the air, waiting for the word of Mrs. Woods to cease.
"He is going," said Mrs. Woods, slowly. "He is moving back toward thepines. He has changed his mind, or has gone for his band. You may stopnow."
Mrs. Woods watched by the split shutter until past midnight. Then shelaid down on the bed, and Gretchen watched, and one listened while theother slept, by turns, during the night. But no footstep was heard. Themidsummer sun blazed over the pines in the early morning; birds sang gaylyin the dewy air, and Gretchen prepared the morning meal as usual, thenmade her way to the log school-house.
She found Benjamin there. He met her with a happy face.
"Bad Indian come to your cabin last night," said he. "He mean evil; hehate old woman. She wah-wah too much, and he hate. Bad Indian hearmusic--violin; he be pleased--evil hawks fly out of him. Good Indian comeback. One is tied to the other. One no let the other go. What was that lowmusic I hear? Baby music! Chinook wind in the bushes! Quail--mother-birdsinging to her nest! I love that music.
"Say, you play at Potlatch, frighten away the hawks; mother-birds sing. Nodevil dance. Say, I have been good; no harm old wah-wah. Will you--willyou play--play that t
in-tin at Potlatch under the big moon?"
A great thought had taken possession of the young Indian's mind, and agreat plan--one worthy of a leader of a peace congress. Gretchen saw theplan in part, but did not fully comprehend it. She could only see that hislife had become a struggle between good and evil, and that he was nowfollowing some good impulse of his better nature.