Him, that He has brought the white men among them; but if they will pray
like the white men, they will grow very great and strong, and their
children born in this moon will live to see the English sail back in
their great canoes, and leave the Indians all their fishing-places and
hunting-grounds.'
"When the strange man had thus spoken, Squando told me that he went
straightway up to him, but found where he had stood only the shadow of
a broken tree, which lay in the moon across the white sand of the shore.
Then he knew it was a spirit, and he trembled, but was glad. Ever
since, he told nee, he had prayed daily to the Great Spirit, had drank
no rum, nor hunted on the Sabbath.
"He said he did for a long time refuse to dig up his hatchet, and make
war upon the whites, but that he could not sit idle in his wigwam, while
his young men were gone upon their war-path. The spirit of his dead
child did moreover speak to him from the land of souls, and chide him
for not seeking revenge. Once, he told me, he had in a dream seen the
child crying and moaning bitterly, and that when he inquired the cause
of its grief, he was told that the Great Spirit was angry with its
father, and would destroy him and his people unless he did join with the
Eastern Indians to cut off the English."
"I remember," said Rebecca, "of hearing my father speak of this
Squando's kindness to a young maid taken captive some years ago at
Presumpscot."
"I saw her at Cocheco," said the sick man. "Squando found her in a sad
plight, and scarcely alive, took her to his wigwam, where his squaw did
lovingly nurse and comfort her; and when she was able to travel, he
brought her to Major Waldron's, asking no ransom for her. He might have
been made the fast friend of the English at that time, but he scarcely
got civil treatment."
"My father says that many friendly Indians, by the ill conduct of the
traders, have been made our worst enemies," said Rebecca. "He thought
the bringing in of the Mohawks to help us a sin comparable to that of
the Jews, who looked for deliverance from the King of Babylon at the
hands of the Egyptians."
"They did nothing but mischief," said Elnathan Stone; "they killed our
friends at Newichawannock, Blind Will and his family."
Rebecca here asked him if he ever heard the verses writ by Mr. Sewall
concerning the killing of Blind Will. And when he told her he had not,
and would like to have her repeat them, if she could remembe
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