or feeling. The Indians
all despised the white settlers, whom they thought stupid and cowardly,
and they expected to drive them beyond the sea. They despised them for
their impiety, and Tecaughretanego once said to Smith, "As you have
lived with the white people, you have not had the same advantage of
knowing that the Great Being above feeds his people and gives them their
meat in due season, as we Indians have, who are wonderfully supplied,
and that so frequently that it is evidently the hand of the Great
Owaneeyo that doeth this; whereas the white people have commonly large
flocks of tame cattle, that they can kill when they please, and also
their barns and cribs filled with grain, and therefore have not the same
opportunity of seeing and knowing that they are supported by the ruler
of Heaven and Earth."

At this time the Indians were suffering from the famine that their waste
and improvidence had brought upon them; and perhaps Smith might have
said something on the white man's side. But he had nothing to say when
rebuked for smiling at Tecaughretanego's sacrifice of the last leaf of
his tobacco to the Great Spirit "Brother, I have something to say to
you, and I hope you will not be offended when I tell you of your faults.
You know that when you were reading your books, I would not let the boys
or any one disturb you; but now when I was praying I saw you laughing.
I do not think you look upon praying as a foolish thing; I believe you
pray yourself. But perhaps you think my mode or manner of prayer
foolish; if so, you ought in a friendly manner to instruct me, and not
make sport of sacred things."

[Illustration: An Indian Prayer 059L]

The prayer which Tecaughretanego thought ought to have escaped Smith's
derision was one which he made after he began to get well from a long
sickness; and it was certainly very quaint; but if the Father of all
listens most kindly to those children of his who come to him simply
and humbly, he could not have been displeased with this old Indian's
petition.

"Oh, Great Being, I thank thee that I have obtained the use of my legs
again, that I am now able to walk about and kill turkeys without feeling
exquisite pain and misery: I know that thou art a hearer and a helper,
and therefore I will call upon thee. _Oh, ho, ho, ho!_ grant that my
ankles and knees may be right well, and that I may be able not only to
walk, but to run and to jump as I did last fall. _Oh, ho, ho, ho!_
grant that o