Timid Hare: The Little CaptiveWade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
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Timid Hare: The Little Captive
Wade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
Dakota Indians -- Juvenile fiction; Indian captivities -- Juvenile fiction; Indians of North America -- Juvenile fiction
Afterwards Timid Hare and her mistress talked with The Fountain, the
pretty bride who lived near The Stone. The Fountain smiled pleasantly
at the little girl. She said, "Sometime, Timid Hare, you shall come to
see me in the new home. I may have a surprise for you."
The sun had nearly set when word came down the line: "The chief has
chosen a place for the new camp. It is beside a stream of clear water
and the tracks of buffaloes are not far distant."
Timid Hare was glad to hear the news, because her feet and back ached.
She was not strong as an Indian girl of her own age should be and she
knew it. "But I look like one," she said to herself. She was glad now
that her body was stained. She had colored it afresh of her own accord
just before the journey, for she felt she would not be jeered at by the
children of the Dahcotas so long as her hair and body were of the same
color as their own.
When the new camping ground was reached, she was very tired. "But I
must not show it," she thought. "I must be bright and cheerful." So
she moved quickly, helping to set up the tepee and get supper for the
family. But her eyelids closed the moment she lay down to rest, and
she knew nothing more till the barking of the dogs roused her the next
morning. At the same time she heard Sweet Grass and her mother talking
together.
"The Fountain was last seen when we stopped at a spring to get water in
the late afternoon," one of them was saying.
"I hope she is safe," replied the other, "and that the gray wolf was
not abroad."
Timid Hare shuddered. "Where can The Fountain be?" she wondered. "She
is so good and so pretty, I hope she is unharmed."
The very next moment a neighbor appeared in the door. "The Fountain
has just reached us," she said. "She spent the night by the spring,
and she now brings with her a baby son. He is a lusty child. May he
grow up to be a noble warrior!"
"I will go to her and give her my best wishes," declared the chief's
wife. "It is a good sign for the new home that one more is added to
our people."
Soon afterwards Timid Hare and her young mistress were also on their
way to visit the young mother. She was very happy. So was her
husband. So was her baby; at least it seemed happy to Timid Hare as
she looked at it nestling quietly in its mother's arms. The little
girl longed for it to open its eyes.
"By and by," The Fountain told her with a smile, "my son will awake.
But now he must sleep, for he finds this world a strange one, and he is
tired."
"The Great Spirit has been kind to The Fountain," said Sweet Grass as
she walked homeward with her little maid.
"How powerful He must be," declared Timid Hare thoughtfully. "Whenever
He speaks to us in the thunder and lightning I tremble with fear. But
when I looked at the little baby just now I felt His love."
THE MEDICINE MAN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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