The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 44, June, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 44, June, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
It was given thus:--
"A long time ago, when the soundless tread of the moccason walked
fearlessly over the bed of echoes in this valley, two warriors, Wabausee
and Waubeeneemah, came one day upon the river, at its opposite sides.
Both were, weary with the march; both wore the glory of many scalps.
Their belts were heavy with wampum, their hearts were heavy with hate.
Wabausee was down amid the dark pines that grew beside the river's
brink. Waubeeneemah was upon the high land above the river. With folded
arms and unmoved faces they stood, whilst in successive flashes across
the stream their eyes met, until Wabausee slowly opened out his
arms, and, clasping a towering tree, cried out, 'I see sky!' and he
steadfastly fixed his gaze upon the crevices of brightness that urged
their way down amid the pines over his head.
"Waubeeneemah turned his eyes over the broad valley, and answered the
cry with, 'I see light!'
"Thus they stood, one with his eyes downward, the other with his intent
on the sky, and fast and furious ran the river, swollen with the
meltings of many snows, and fierce and quick rang the battle-cries of 'I
see sky!' 'I see light!'
"A white man was near; his cabin lay just below; he had climbed a tree
above Waubeeneemah and remained a silent witness of this wordy war,
until, looking up the river, he saw a canoe that had broken from its
fastenings and was rushing down to the rapids below. It contained the
families of the two warriors, who were helplessly striving against the
swift flow of waters.
"The white man spoke, and the warriors listened. He cried, 'Look to your
canoe! and see Skylight!'
"Through the pines rushed Wabausee, and down the river-bank
Waubeeneemah, and into the tide, until they met the coming canoe, across
whose birchen bow they gave the grasp of peace, and ever since that time
Indian and white man have called this place Skylight."
"Where are the Indians now?" I could not help asking,--and yet with no
purpose, beyond expression of the thought question.
The shadows were gathering, the eyelids of the day were closing. Saul
caught me up again through the shadows into those eyes of his, and
answered,--
"Here, Lucy! I am a pale form of Waubeeneemah! I know it! I feel it now!
I sometimes ache for foemen and the wilds."
Why do I think of that time to-night on the Big Blue, far away from
Skylight, and imagine that the prairie airs are ringing with the echoes
of the great cries that are heard in my native land, "I see North!" and
"I see South!" and there is no white man of them all high enough to see
the United States?
I've wandered! Let me think,--yes, I have it! My thought began with
trying to fancy Saul's mother taking him to baptism.
She was dead, when I went to Skylight, her son's wife.
She went into the higher life at thirty-three of the threescore-and-ten
cycle of the human period. How young to die!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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