The Coming of the White Men: Stories of How Our Country Was DiscoveredWade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
History
The Coming of the White Men: Stories of How Our Country Was Discovered
Wade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
America -- Discovery and exploration -- Juvenile fiction; Discoveries in geography -- Juvenile fiction
"Everyone was pleased and the white people settled themselves in the
huts of the Indians. All lived together in happiness till the season
came to an end. Then the Indians moved away, but they showed themselves
kind neighbors ever after.
"The white men built houses and planted gardens. They were more happy
and comfortable than they had ever been before in their lives.
"They went back and forth among their savage neighbors without fear.
Their priests taught the red children and baptized many of them. One
of the Indian chiefs trusted the white people so much that he sent his
little daughter to live with them. He said:
"'When I am dead she will rule over my people. She will be a wiser
ruler if she is brought up by the white men. They will teach her many
things she cannot learn in our village.'
"So it happened one bright morning that the little Indian maiden left
her home in the forest. She sprang into her light canoe and paddled
down the river. She soon came to the English village.
"The white people were very kind. Yet how strange their ways must have
seemed to her!
"She took off the soft moccasins in which she could run so easily. She
put on leather shoes such as the English children wore. They must have
seemed very stiff and uncomfortable at first.
"Her dress of beaver-skin and the pretty feather mantle, of which she
was so proud, were laid aside. She must now wear skirts and waists,
like the other girls around her.
"Now, too, she must spend a large part of each day in the house, for
she had to study lessons in books. She must also learn to cook and sew
and knit.
"Poor little Indian girl! How different all this was from her old free
life in the forest. Then the birds and bees, the rabbits and squirrels,
were around her from morning until night. No hat of any kind kept the
soft breezes from blowing through her hair."
"She must have been very homesick," said Lucy, when Uncle Sam reached
this part of the story. "I shouldn't wonder if she cried herself to
sleep every night."
"It is not Indian fashion to cry," replied Uncle Sam. "The Red Men are
ashamed to let tears come to their eyes. Even the little children are
taught not to show in their faces what they feel.
"This little girl may have been very unhappy at first. I really don't
know about that. At any rate, she lived among the white people till she
grew up. Then she married a white man, just as Pocahontas did."
Uncle Sam stopped for a moment and began to stroke his chin. That was
the sign that he was thinking.
Lucy began to pet Buzz, who had just waked up from a nap at her feet.
She was thinking, too. It seemed as though she could see that little
Indian girl of long ago. The child was in a birch canoe and gliding
down the river. Her bright black eyes were turned longingly toward her
home in the forest. Those eyes seemed to say:
"Good-bye, dear, happy days of freedom. Good-bye."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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