FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145  
146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>  
orm, and lay motionless as marble. Ascashe again called, "Why do you not come and eat, Skoke?" Having no answer, she called out, "Wa-ain, come and eat;" and then tired of this useless teasing, she arose, and shaking the white girl by the arm, cried, "Bridget Vines, I bid you eat." "I will, Ascashe," answered the other, taking corn and dried fish, which the other presented. "The spider caught a bad snake when she wove a net for Bridget Vines," muttered the tall woman. The other covered her face with her hands, and the veins of her forehead swelled above her fingers; yet when she uncovered her eyes they were red, not with tears, but the effort to suppress their flow. "It is a long, long time, that I have been here, Ascashe," answered Bridget, sorrowfully. "Have you never been out since Samoret left you here?" asked the net-weaver; and she fixed her eyes searchingly upon the face of the girl, who never quailed nor changed color beneath her gaze, but replied in the same tone, "How should little Hope escape--where should she go?" Hope being the name by which Mistress Vines had called her child in moments of tenderness, as suggesting a mother's yearning hope that she would at some time be less capricious, for Bridget had always been a wayward, incoherent, and diminutive creature, and treated with great gentleness by the family. "Do you remember what I once told you?" continued the other. "You had a friend--you have an enemy." This time Bridget Vines started, and gave utterance to a long, low, plaintive cry, as if her soul wailed, as it flitted from its frail tenement, for she fell back as if dead upon the skins. The woman muttered, "The white boy and girl shouldn't have scorned the red woman," and she took her to the verge of the water and awaited her recovery; when she opened her eyes, she continued, "Ascashe is content--she has been very, very wretched, but so has been her enemy. Look, my hair is black; Wa-ain's is like the white frost." "I knew it would be so," answered the other, gently, "but it is nothing. Tell me where you have been, Ascashe, and how came you here? O-ya-ah died the other day." She alluded to an old squaw, who had been her keeper in the cave. At this moment a shadow darkened the room, another, and another, and three stalwart savages stood before the two women. Each, as he passed, patted the head of Bridget, who shook them off with moody impatience. They gathered about the coal
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145  
146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>  



Top keywords:
Bridget
 

Ascashe

 

called

 

answered

 

muttered

 
continued
 
awaited
 

recovery

 
shouldn
 

scorned


content

 

wretched

 
marble
 

motionless

 
opened
 

utterance

 
plaintive
 
started
 

friend

 

tenement


wailed

 

flitted

 

stalwart

 

savages

 

passed

 

patted

 

gathered

 

impatience

 

darkened

 

gently


moment

 
shadow
 

keeper

 

alluded

 

remember

 
shaking
 

suppress

 
teasing
 

useless

 
weaver

searchingly
 

Samoret

 
sorrowfully
 
effort
 

taking

 

presented

 
covered
 

spider

 
caught
 

forehead