The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
History
The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
Children's literature
Three little children, besides myself, were left in the house
with my stepmother. To prevent me from going out, my stepmother
required me to take care of the little child, then not more than
a few months old; but as I soon became impatient of confinement
I began to pinch my little brother, to make him cry. My mother,
perceiving his uneasiness, told me to take him in my arms and walk
about the house; I did so, but continued to pinch him. My mother
at length took him from me to nurse him. I patched my opportunity
and escaped into the yard; thence through a small door in the large
gate of the wall into the open field. There was a walnut-tree at
some distance from the house, and near the side of the field where
I had been in the habit of finding some of last year's nuts. To gain
this tree without being seen by my father and those in the field,
I had to use some precaution. I remember perfectly well having seen
my father as I skulked toward the tree; he stood in the middle of
the field, with his gun in his hand, to watch for Indians, while
the others were sowing corn. As I came near the tree, I thought
to myself, "I wish I could see these Indians. "I had partly filled
with nuts a straw hat which I wore, when I heard a crackling noise
behind me; I looked round, and saw the Indians; almost at the same
instant, I was seized by both hands, and dragged off between two.
One of them took my straw hat, emptied the nuts on the ground,
and put it on my head. The Indians who seized me were an old and a
young one; these, as I learned subsequently, were Manito-o-geezhik,
and his son Kish-kau-ko.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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