Malaeska: The Indian Wife of the White HunterStephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
General
Malaeska: The Indian Wife of the White Hunter
Stephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
Dime novels; Indian women -- Fiction
"I have no predeliction for savages as a race," said Sarah, after a
few moments' silence, gratified to find some shadow of reason for
her lover's violence; "but you make one exception, may I not also be
allowed a favorite? especially as she is a white in education, feeling
everything but color? You would not have me neglect one of the kindest,
best friends I ever had on earth, because the tint of her skin is a
shade darker than my own?"
Her voice was sweet and persuasive, a smile trembled on her lips, and
she laid a hand gently on his arm as she spoke. He must have been a
savage indeed, had he resisted her winning ways.
"I would have you forgive my violence and follow your own sweet
impulses," he said, putting back the curls from her uplifted forehead,
and drawing her to his bosom; "say you have forgiven me, dear, and then
go where you will."
These words could hardly be called a lovers' quarrel, and yet they
parted with all the sweet feelings of reconciliation, warm at the heart
of each.
CHAPTER XIII.
By the forest-grave she mournful stood,
While her soul went forth in prayer;
Her life was one long solitude,
Which she offer'd, meekly, there.
Sarah pursued the foot-path, which she had so often trod through the
forest, with a heart that beat quicker at the sight of each familiar
bush or forest-tree.
"Poor woman, she must have been very lonely," she murmured, more than
once, when the golden blossoms of a spice-bush, or the tendrils of a
vine trailing over the path, told how seldom it had been traveled of
late, and her heart imperceptibly became saddened by the thoughts of
her friend.
To her disappointment, she found the wigwam empty, but a path was
beaten along the edge of the woods, leading toward the Pond, which she
had never observed before. She turned into it with a sort of indefinite
expectation of meeting her friend; and after winding through the depth
of the forest for nearly a mile, the notes of a wild, plaintive song
rose and fell--a sad, sweet melody--on the still air.
A few steps onward brought the young girl to a small open space
surrounded by young saplings and flowering shrubs; tall grass swept
from a little mound which swelled up from the center, to the margin of
the inclosure, and a magnificent hemlock shadowed the whole space with
its drooping boughs.
A sensation of awe fell upon the heart of the young girl, for, as she
gazed, the mound took the form of a grave. A large rose-tree, heavy
with blossoms, drooped over the head, and the sheen of rippling waters
broke through a clump of sweet-brier, which hedged it in from the lake.
Sarah remembered that the Indian chief's grave was on the very brink of
the water, and that she had given a young rose-tree to Malaeska years
ago, which must have shot up into the solitary bush standing before
her, lavishing fragrance from its pure white flowers over the place of
the dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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