“‘Brother, you _wah-wah_ over there. You came a stranger to me in my
cabin. I say, “You have half; you may stay one week, you may stay one
moon, you may stay one year, you may stay one life. I hunt and give
you half my venison.” I come to your cabin. You say, “How long
you stay?” You say, “You go work!”’
“‘You _wah-wah_ over there. You heap _wah-wah_, but you no good!’
“He drew his blanket closer around him, and majestically strode out
of the house, and I never saw Mountain Pine again.”
The favorite chiefs of the early settlers were Seattle and Pat
Keanim, of the Snoqualmees. Seattle was appointed chief by a
territorial governor, but Pat Keanim had the heart of his people. He
espoused the cause of the pioneers and fought for them, and though
often distrusted, was true in the dark days of the war. He had a
poetic and really beautiful face.
The hop harvest in the Puyallup valley yearly gathers the Indians
there, as they used to meet, according to the old legend, in the
happy valley of the Olympic mountains. The harvest begins in August,
and lasts a month.
The days are bright, and at night the moon hangs clear over the
waters. Working people, young and old, Indians, Chinese, white
people, black people, every one desiring much money for light work,
congregate here.
All is gay and happy. The nights are festivals. Hither the Indians
come on Cayuse horses and in canoes. Their boats fill the harbors.
And here the dying races renew their primitive life.
THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER
A few miles from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet
winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles
Bay, and terminating in a thickly wooded swamp, or morass. On one
side of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove; on the opposite side
the land rises abruptly from the water’s edge, into a high ridge,
on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense size.
It was under one of these gigantic trees, according to old stories,
that Kidd, the pirate, buried his treasure. The inlet allowed a
facility to bring the money in a boat secretly, and at night, to the
very foot of the hill. The elevation of the place permitted a good
look-out to be kept, that no one was at hand; while the remarkable
trees formed good landmarks by which the place might easily be found
again. The old stories add, moreover, that the devil presided at the
hiding of the money, and took it under his guardianship; but this, it
is well known, he always does with buried treasure, particularly when
it has been ill gotten. Be that as it may, Kidd never returned to
recover his wealth,—being shortly after seized at Boston, sent out to
England, and there hanged for a pirate.
[Illustration: CHINESE THEATRE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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