It seemed a very long time before Father came back. His face was grave, but outwardly he was as calm as usual.
“What is it, Johnny? What is it?” cried Mrs. Woodlawn, unable to bear the suspense any longer.
“Nothing serious, I hope,” said her husband, laying his hand absently along Caddie’s shoulder as he spoke. “A man from the country west of here came into the tavern tonight and told the men that the Indians are gathering for an uprising against us.”
“Massacre!” breathed Mother, laying her hands against her heart. Her face had gone quite white.
“No, Harriet, not that word,” said Father quietly. “Not yet. I hope that this is only a tavern rumor and nothing more. Many a fool who has had too much to drink will start a rumor. I am willing to stake my farm, and a good deal that I hold dear besides, on the honor and friendliness of the Indians hereabouts. Still, we must keep clear heads and be ready for emergencies. Whatever happens, the white settlers must stand together. I have told Kent that the neighbors may gather here.”
“Yes, yes!” said Mrs. Woodlawn. “We can house them better than anyone. How soon will they come?”
“They’ll begin to arrive by daybreak, I imagine.” The white look left Mrs. Woodlawn’s face. Now there was something to be done! “Daybreak!” she said. She looked at the clock. It was ten minutes past eleven.
“I’ll call Katie Conroy and we’ll begin to bake,” she cried. “No telling how long they’ll be here, and they’ll be hungry. We can shake down pallet beds in the parlor for the women and children. The men can bunk in the hay, if those wicked redskins don’t fire it before they have a chance to bunk. Fetch me six strings of dried apples from the storeroom, Johnny, and a bucket of water from the spring. I know! We can use up some of the turkeys on the neighbors! I am sure ’twill be a great treat to them as are not accustomed to excellent fowls, excellently cooked. Besides, if this thaw continues, my beautiful birds will be lost, and, Heaven knows, if the savages come, I wouldn’t have them eat my turkeys! What, Caddie! Are you still here? Get to bed as fast as you can, child. I’ll call you at daybreak.”
11. Massacree!
In those days the word massacre filled the white settlers with terror. Only two years before, the Indians of Minnesota had killed a thousand white people, burning their houses and destroying their crops. The town of New Ulm had been almost entirely destroyed. Other smaller uprisings throughout the Northwest flared up from time to time, and only a breath of rumor was needed to throw the settlers of Wisconsin into a panic of apprehension.
“The Indians are coming! The Indians are coming!” Without waiting to hear more, people packed what belongings they could carry and started the long journey back East. Others armed themselves as best they could for the attack and gathered together in groups, knowing that there was strength in numbers. Sometimes, leaving the women and children at home, the men went out to attack the Indians, preferring to strike first rather than be scalped in their beds later. The fear spread like a disease, nourished on rumors and race hatred. For many years now the whites had lived at peace with the Indians of western Wisconsin, but so great was this disease of fear that even a tavern rumor could spread it like an epidemic throughout the country.
By daybreak the next morning people began arriving at the Woodlawn farm from all directions. They came bringing what food and bedding they could carry. They did not know how soon they would dare return to their homes, nor whether they would find anything but a heap of charred sticks when they did return. Of course, school was not to be thought of, and, in spite of the general fear, the children were delighted with the unexpected holiday.
With shouts of joy the young Woodlawns greeted Maggie and Silas Bunn, Jane and Sam Flusher, and Lida Silbernagle. Katie and her mother came, too. Katie’s eyes were round with alarm, and she kept close in the shadow of her mother’s hoop skirt. Both of them were quiet, asking nothing but protection. The other children played I Spy around the barn and farmyard, their pleasure keenly edged by the nearness of danger. An exciting game became much more exciting when, on coming out of hiding, one felt that he might find himself face to face with a redskin instead of towheaded Maggie or gentle Sam.
Mrs. Woodlawn was in her element. She loved a gathering of people, and one of her great griefs in Wisconsin was that she saw so few outside her own family. Now she had all the neighbors here, and could herself serve them beans such as none but she, outside of Boston, knew how to bake, and slices of turkey which had their proper due of praise at last. Happy in the necessity of the moment, she did not let her mind dwell on the danger from the Indians.
Clara worked beside her mother, her thin cheeks red with excitement, her capable hands doing as much as a woman’s. Caddie helped, too, but, after she had broken a dish and spilled applesauce over the kitchen floor, her mother told her that she had better run and play, and Caddie ran. Flinging her arms over her head, she let out an Indian war whoop that set the whole farm in an uproar for a moment. Women screamed. Men ran for guns.
“Aw, it’s only Caddie,” said Tom, “letting off steam.”
“Put a clothespin on her mouth,” suggested Warren.
But Caddie did not need a clothespin now. The men with their guns looked too grim to risk another war whoop on them.
The day wore slowly on, and nothing unusual happened. The children tired of their games and sat together in the barn, huddled in the hay for warmth, talking together in low voices.
“You ’member the time the sun got dark, eclipse Father called it, and we were so scared? We thought the world had come to an end, and we fell down on our faces. You ’member?”
“Yah. We saw a bear in a tree that day, too. Remember?”
“Golly! Do you think the Indians’ll come tonight?”
“Maybe they will.”
“I don’t dast to go to sleep.”
Their voices trailed off, lower and lower, almost to whispers.
The night came, gray and quiet, slipping uneventfully into darkness. The February air had a hint of spring in it. Would the promise of spring ever be fulfilled for them? Or would the Indians come?
Mr. Woodlawn’s calm voice sounded among the excited people. “I believe that we are safe,” he said. “I trust our Indians.”
Caddie’s heart felt warm and secure again when she heard him speak. Tom and Robert Ireton went among the people, too, repeating Father’s words. But others were not so easily reassured.
“It’s well enough for you to talk, Robert Ireton,” cried one of the women who was holding a baby wrapped in her shawl. “If the Indians come, you young men can get away in a hurry. You haven’t any children or stock or goods to hold you back.”
“Lady,” said Robert in his rich Irish voice, “if the Indians come, sure, we young men will not be getting away in a hurry. We’ll be here by your sides and fighting to the finish.”
Caddie heard him say it, and straightened her shoulders like his. She could be as proud of Robert Ireton as she was of Father.
After dark, sentries were stationed about the farmhouse to keep watch during the night, and the women and children made their beds on the floor of the parlor, after the bedrooms were filled. No one undressed that night, and fires were kept burning in the kitchen and dining room for the men to warm by when they changed their sentry duty. Windows were shuttered and lanterns covered or shaded when carried outside. A deep silence settled over the farm. They did not wish to draw the Indians’ attention by needless noise or light.
But the night passed as the day had passed and nothing fearful happened. The children awoke stiff and aching and rubbed the sleep out of their eyes, surprised to find themselves lying in such queer places. Caddie had given her bed to old Grandma Culver, and she was as stiff and tired as any of them. But the good cows had not been frightened out of giving their milk, and Robert Ireton, humming a tune, brought in two foaming buckets of it for the children to eat with the big bowls of meal mush which Mother and Mrs. Conroy ladled out of a great iron pot. The stiffness and
queerness vanished like magic with the comfort of hot mush and milk—even if one did have to stand up to eat it.
But the second day was worse than the first. People were restless and undecided. Should they go home or should they stay on? The food supplies they had brought with them were giving out. They could not let the Woodlawns exhaust all their supplies in feeding them. Yet the redskins might only be awaiting the moment when they should scatter again to their homes to begin the attack. It was a gray, dark day, not designed to lift anybody’s spirits. A fine mist, almost but not quite like rain, hung in the air and curtained all horizons in obscurity.
The women and little children, crowded into the farmhouse, were restless and tired of confinement. The men paced back and forth in the farmyard, or stopped in groups beneath the four pine trees that sheltered the front of the house, and which Father had named for Clara, Tom, Caddie, and Warren. The men polished and cleaned and oiled their guns, smoked their pipes, and spat into the mud which their boots had churned in the tidy dooryard. Everyone felt that the strain of waiting had become almost unbearable.
In the afternoon a few of the men went to get more supplies. Tom, Warren, and Father went with them. The others watched them go, fearful and yet somehow relieved to see any stir of life along the road.
Caddie felt the strain of waiting, too, and she was impatient with the people who had no faith in the Indians. The Indians had not yet come to kill. Why should they come at all? Indian John had never been anything but a friend. Why should he turn against them now? Why should his people wish to kill hers? It was against all reason. Good John, who had brought her so many gifts! Why should not everyone go home now and forget this ugly rumor which had started in the tavern?
“Caddie,” said Mrs. Woodlawn, “go fetch me a basket of turnips from the cellar, please.” Caddie slipped on her coat, took up the basket and went outside where the cellar door sloped back against the ground at the side of the house. She had to brush by a group of men to get into the cellar. They were talking earnestly together, their faces dark with anger and excitement.
“It is plagued irksome to wait,” one of them was saying as Caddie brushed past.
She went into the cellar and filled her basket. “Yes, it’s irksome to wait,” she said to herself, “but I don’t know what they mean to do about it. They’d be sorry enough if the Indians came.”
But what they meant to do about it was suddenly plain to her as she came up the stairs again with the turnips.
“The thing to do is to attack the Indians first,” one man was saying. It was the man Kent, who had ridden out on the first night to spread the alarm. Caddie stopped still in her tracks, listening unashamed.
“Yes,” said a second man. “Before they come for us, let us strike hard. I know where John and his Indians are camped up the river. Let’s wipe them out. The country would be better without them, and then we could sleep peacefully in our beds at night.”
“But the rumor came from farther West. Killing John’s tribe would not destroy the danger,” objected a third man.
“It would be a beginning. If we kill or drive these Indians out, it will be a warning to the others that we deal hard with redskins here.”
Caddie set her basket down upon the stair. It suddenly seemed too heavy for her to hold. Massacre! Were the whites to massacre the Indians then? A sick feeling swept across her heart. Surely this was worse than the other. As if her thought had occurred to the first speaker, but in a more agreeable light, he said: “Let them say the men of Dunnville massacree the Indians, instead of waiting to be massacreed!”
“Woodlawn will be against it,” said the more cautious third man.
“Woodlawn puts too much faith in the Indians. If we can get enough men to our way of thinking, we need not consult Woodlawn. I don’t believe in caution when our lives are in danger. Wipe the Indians out, is what I say. Don’t wait for them to come and scalp us. Are you with me?”
White and trembling, Caddie slipped past them. The men paid no attention to the little girl who had left her basket of turnips standing on the cellar steps. They went on talking angrily among themselves, enjoying the sound of their boastful words. Caddie went to the barn and into the stalls. There she hesitated a moment. Pete was faster than Betsy, but he was not so trustworthy. When he didn’t want to go, he would run
under a shed or low branch and scrape off his rider. Nothing must delay her today. Caddie slipped a bridle over Betsy’s head. She was trembling all over. There was something she must do now, and she was afraid. She must warn John and his Indians. She was certain in her heart that they meant the whites no harm, and the whites were going to kill them. Good John, who had given her the little calico and buckskin doll with its coarse horsehair braids!
Oh, for Tom and Warren now! But they were gone with the men for supplies. Oh, for Father, who was always so wise and brave! But she could not wait for him to come back to tell him what he would never believe about his neighbors, unless he had heard it himself. There was no use going to Mother or Clara. They would only cry out in alarm and forbid her to go, and, since Father and the boys were not here, she felt that she must go. She knew as well as Kent where Indian John and his tribe had built their winter huts of bark. Fortunately, for the moment the barn was deserted. She must go while there was still time and before anybody saw her. She led Betsy to the little back door that opened toward the river. There was only one field to cross there and then she would be in the woods. The barn would shut off the sight of her departure from the house and the road.
She had her hand on the latch of the door, when someone said: “Caddie!”
Caddie’s hazel eyes blazed black in her white face as she turned. But it was only Katie Hyman who had followed her into the barn. Katie’s delicate face, framed in its pale halo of hair, was full of alarm.
“Caddie, what are you doing? Where are you going?”
“Oh, Katie,” said Caddie with a choking noise like a sob, “they’re going to kill John and his Indians because he hasn’t come to kill us. I’ve got to warn him.”
“You wouldn’t go to the Indians now!” said Katie. “Oh, Caddie, no! You couldn’t do that!”
“I’ve got to!” said Caddie grimly. “They must have a chance to get away. Don’t tell a soul where I’ve gone, Katie. Cross your heart!”
Katie hesitated, her eyes wide with terror. Caddie had always been the leader at school. It was impossible for gentle Katie to disobey her. Her fingers made a feeble crisscross in the direction of her heart.
“Cross my heart,” Katie whispered.
Caddie flung herself on Betsy’s back and dug heels into her flanks. She was away across the field and into the dripping wood. The gray mist was turning into fine rain. There was still snow in the wood and there would still be ice on the river.
Katie shivered. She closed the small barn door and stood still with both hands pressed against her heart. An old cat, who had kittens in the loft, came by on noiseless feet, a dead mouse hanging from her mouth. She stared back, her own eyes round with fear.
“I crossed my heart,” she whispered.
12. Ambassador to the Enemy
Clip-clop-clip sounded Betsy’s hoofs across the field. There was a treacherous slime of mud on the surface, but underneath it the clods were still frozen as hard as iron. Then the bare branches of the woods were all around them, and Caddie had to duck and dodge to save her eyes and her hair. Here the February thaw had not succeeded in clearing the snow. It stretched gray and dreary underfoot, treacherously rotted about the roots of big trees. Caddie slowed her mare’s pace and guided her carefully now. She did not want to lose precious time in floundering about in melting snow. Straight for the river she went. If the ice still held, she could get across here, and the going would be easier on the other side. Not a squirrel or a bird stirred in the woods. So silent! So silent! Only the clip-clop-clip of Betsy’s hoofs.
Then the river stretched out before her, a long expanse of blue-gray ice under the gray
sky.
“Carefully now, Betsy. Take it slowly, old girl.” Caddie held a tight rein with one hand and stroked the horse’s neck with the other. “That’s a good girl. Take it slowly.” Down the bank they went, delicately onto the ice. Betsy flung up her head, her nostrils distended. Her hind legs slipped on the ice and for a quivering instant she struggled for her balance. Then she found her pace. Slowly, cautiously, she went daintily forward, picking her way, but with a snort of disapproval for the wisdom of her young mistress. The ice creaked, but it was still sound enough to bear their weight. They reached the other side and scrambled up the bank. Well, so much done! Now for more woods.
There was no proper sunset that day, only a sudden, lemon-colored rift in the clouds in the west. Then the clouds closed together again and darkness began to fall. The ride was long, but at last it was over.
Blue with cold, Caddie rode into the clearing where the Indians had built their winter huts. Dogs ran at her, barking, and there was a warm smell of smoke in the air. A fire was blazing in the center of the clearing. Dark figures moved about it. Were they in war paint and feathers? Caddie’s heart pounded as she drew Betsy to a stop. But, no, surely they were only old women bending over cooking pots. The running figures were children, coming now to swarm about her. There was no war paint! no feathers! Surely she and Father had been right! Tears began to trickle down Caddie’s cold cheeks. Now the men were coming out of the bark huts. More and more Indians kept coming toward her. But they were not angry, only full of wonder.
“John,” said Caddie, in a strange little voice, which she hardly recognized as hers. “Where is John? I must see John.”
“John,” repeated the Indians, recognizing the name the white men had given to one of their braves. They spoke with strange sounds among themselves, then one of them went running. Caddie sat on her horse, half-dazed, cold to the bone, but happy inside. The Indians were not on the warpath, they were not preparing an attack. Whatever the tribes farther west might be plotting, these Indians, whom Father and she trusted, were going about their business peacefully. If they could only get away now in time, before the white men came to kill them! Or, perhaps she could get home again in time to stop the white men from making the attack. Would those men whom she had heard talking by the cellar door believe a little girl when she told them that Indian John’s tribe was at peace? She did not know. Savages were savages, but what could one expect of civilized men who plotted massacre?