“Yes,” the speaker continued, “the sight o’ General Harrison calls
up things I wish I could fergit—it does, by cracky! Gol-fer-socks! I
can’t fergit ’em—not if I lived to be as old as Methusaler,—’r was it
Nebbycaneezer? I’m a little rusty on Scriptur’, an’ liable to git mixed,
somehow. But, pshaw! The past is gone—an’ gone ferever. The comrade we
both loved is dead. Didn’t we see him shot through the heart? No—come to
think of it—he wasn’t shot through the heart; ’cause he was shot in the
right side—an’ the heart’s on the _left_ side, in _most_ human critters.
But he was dead, anyhow—killed by the danged Winnebagoes!”
Again the speaker paused long enough to blow his nose and wipe his watery
eyes. Then he resumed in the same mournful, sing-song voice:
“Though I seen him dyin’ with my own eyes, Injin, sometimes I find myself
thinkin’ he’s still alive—I do, by Matildy Jane! I’ve dream’d o’ him
nights so much, it ’pears to me he _can’t_ be dead. But, of course, he
_is_. ’Cause why? We left him dyin’. Well, it don’t do no good to grieve.
But ther’s one thing I’d like to know right smart—an’ that’s what become
o’ the dog.”
“Ugh!” ejaculated the Indian, nodding. “Me heap like know where hound.
Much good dog—sight big brave.”
The white man went on:
“An’ dang-it-all-to-dingnation! Here we are—jest got back from eighteen
months o’ traipsin’ from one Winnebago town to another, all over God’s
creation, all over the Northwest—an’ we’re right plump into another
hornets’ nest. Talk ’bout jumpin’ out o’ the fryin’ pan into the fire!
We’ve jumped out o’ ice water into b’ilin’ oil. Here we’ve been drug
’round fer a year an’ a half, beat and starved an’ cuffed every day in
the week—an’ give a double dose on Sundays. My heart’s been in my mouth
so much, I’ve chawed off one end of it an’ spit it out with my tobacker—I
have, by my gran’father’s barn-door britches! An’ now we’ve made our
escape at last—got half-way back from p’rdition to glory—we’re in another
peck o’ trouble.
“As near as I can learn from the talk that’s goin’ on ’mong
the soldiers, Gener’l Proctor an’ Tecumseh’s comin’ to attack
this place—with not less’n three thousan’ white an’ red devils.
Three thousan’ to five hundred! A purty pickle—I swear! W’y,
hang-it-up-an’-take-it-down-an’-cook-it! They’ll eat us up without salt
’r pepper! ’Cause Ol’ Tippecanoe’ll never surrender—he don’t know _how_.
He’s jest like ol’ Mad Anthony—they say he trained under that ol’ war
hoss—an’ he’ll fight as long as he’s got an ounce of lead left, an’ a
flintlock to shoot it in. Look at him now, Bright Wing. He’s ev’ry inch a
soldier, ain’t he?”
“Ugh!” the imperturbable Wyandot assented. “Tippecanoe him heap sight
brave. Him kill many bad Shawnees, Winnebagoes, Pottawatomies. Him fight
till me, you—all dead.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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