 | CHAPTER VII. The wigwam and the cabin |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
The flitch was brought, boiled, and laid before the squatters.
It was accompanied by a wholesome supply of corn bread; and
this liberality, which had, for its sanction, in part, the expressed
determination of the master, had for its effect, the restoration of
Mingo to that favour in the mind of the savage, which his imprudent
opinions had forfeited. Even a jealous Indian, when so very
hungry as our Catawba, and so utterly wanting in resources of
his own, cannot remain insensible to that generosity, however
suspicious, which fills his larder with good cheer in the happy
moment. He relaxed accordingly, Mingo was invited into the
hovel, and made to partake of the viands which he had provided.
A moderate supply of whiskey accompanied the gift, enough to
give a flavour to the meal, yet not enough to produce intoxication.
Mingo was resolved henceforth, to do nothing which would keep
himself and Knuckles from an uninterrupted pursuit of their several
game. But while the meal lasted, he saw but few results,
beyond the thawing of Knuckles, which promised him success in
his object. Caloya was, if possible, more freezing than ever.
She never deigned him the slightest acknowledgment for his numerous
civilities, which were not merely profitless, but which
had the additional disadvantage of attracting the eyes, and finally
re-awakening the jealous apprehensions of Knuckles; still, the
good cheer was so good, and the facility with which it had been
procured, so very agreeable to a lazy Indian, that he swallowed
his dissatisfaction with his pottage, and the meal passed over
without any special outbreak. Mingo, so near the object of his
desire, was by no means disposed to disputation with her husband,
and contented himself with only an occasional burst of declamation,
which was intended rather for her ears than for those of her
lord. But he strove to make amends for their forbearance, by addressing
the most excruciating glances across the table to the fair
did not often seem to see.
Mingo was in hopes, when dinner was over, that Knuckles
would take up his bow and arrows, and set forth on the hunt.
To this he endeavoured, in an indirect manner, to urge the savage.
He told him that game was plenty in the neighbouring
woods and swamps—that deer might be found at all hours, and
even proceeded to relate several marvellous stories of his own
success, which failed as well to persuade as to deceive the hunter.
The whiskey being exhausted by this time, and his hunger being
pacified, the jealous fit of the latter returned upon him with all the
vigour of an ague. “Why,” he asked himself, “should this negro
steal his master's bacon to provide Richard Knuckles with a dinner?
Because Richard Knuckles has a young wife, the youngest
and handsomest of the whole tribe. Why should he urge me
to go hunting, and take such pains to show me where the buck
stalks, and the doe sleeps, but that he knows I must leave my
doe behind me? Why should he come and sit with me half a
dozen times a day, but that he may see and sit with my young
wife also?” An Indian reasons very much like every body else,
and jumps very rationally to like conclusions. The reserve of
Knuckles grew with his reflections, and Mingo had sense enough
to perceive that he could hope for no successful operations that
day. The woman was sent from the presence, and her husband
began to exhibit very decided symptoms of returning sulks. He
barely answered the civilities of the driver, and a savage grin
displayed his white teeth, closely clenched, whenever his thin
lips parted to reply. The parting speech of the negro was not
precisely the D. I. O. of the rattle-dandy of fashionable life, but
was very much like it. If he did not swear like a trooper at bidding
adieu, he marked every step on his way homewards with a
most bitter oath.
But success is no ripe fruit to drop at the first opening of the
mouth of the solicitous. Mingo was not the person to forego his
efforts, and he well knew from old experience, that a woman is
never so near won, as when she seems least willing. He was
not easily given to despair, however he might droop, and the next
day, and the next, and the next, found him still a frequent visitor
and the whiskey, and still he found the Catawba a patient recipient
of his favours. The latter saw no reason to leave home
to hunt venison when his larder was so easily provided, and the
former could not, but at some discredit, discontinue the liberal
practices which he had so improvidently begun.
But if Knuckles was not unwilling to be fed after this fashion,
he was not altogether insensible to some of the conditions
which it implied. He could not but perceive that the negro had
his objects, and those objects his jealous blood had led him
long before to conjecture with sufficient exactness. He raged inwardly
with the conviction that the gallant, good looking, and always
well dressed Driver sought to compass his dishonour; and
he was not without the natural fears of age and brutality that,
but for his own eminent watchfulness, he might be successful.
As there was no equality in the conditions of himself and wife,
there was but little confidence between them—certainly none on
his part;—and his suspicions—schooled into silence in the presence
of Mingo, as well because of the food which he brought, as
of the caution which the great physical superiority of the latter
was calculated to inspire—broke out with unqualified violence
when the two were alone together. The night of the first day
when Mingo provided the table of the squatters so bountifully,
was distinguished by a concussion of jealousy, on the part of
Knuckles, which almost led the poor woman to apprehend for her
life. The effects of the good cheer and the whiskey had subsided
and the departure of Mingo was the signal for the domestic
storm.
“Hah! hah! nigger is come for see Ingin wife. Ingin wife
is look 'pon nigger—hah?”
It was thus that he begun the warfare. We have endeavoured
to put into the Indian-English, as more suitable to the subject, and
more accessible to the reader, that dialogue which was spoken in
the most musical Catawba. The reply of the woman, though
meekly expressed, was not without its sting.
“Ingin man eats from nigger hand, drinks from nigger bottle,
and sits down by nigger side in the sunshine. Is Caloya to say,
nigger go to the cornfield—Ingin man go look for meat?”
The husband glared at the speaker with fiery eyes, while his
teeth gleamed maliciously upon her, and were suddenly gnashed
in violence, as he replied:
“Hah! Ingin man must not look pon his wife! Hah! Ingin
woman says—`go hunt, man, go—that no eyes may follow nigger
when he crawls through the bush. Hah!' ”
“Caloya is blind when the nigger comes to the camp. Caloya
looks not where he lies in the sunshine with the husband of Caloya.
Is Enefisto (the Indian name for Knuckles) afraid of nigger?—is
he afraid of Caloya?—let us go: Caloya would go to
her people where they camp by the Edisto.”
“Hah! What said Chickawa, to Caloya? Did he say, come
to our people where they camp by the Edisto? Wherefore should
Caloya go beside the Edisto—Hah?”
This question declared another object of the husband's jealousy.
The woman's reply was as wild as it was immediate.
“Caloya sees not Chickawa—she sees not the nigger—she sees
the clay and she sees the pans—and she sees Enefisto—Enefisto
has said, and her eyes are shut to other men.”
“Caloya lies!”
“Ah!”
“Caloya lies!”
The woman turned away without another word, and re-entering
the miserable wigwam, slunk out of sight in the darkest corner
of it. Thither she was pursued by the inveterate old man,
and there, for some weary hours, she suffered like language of
distrust and abuse without uttering a sentence either of denial or
deprecation. She shed no tears, she uttered no complaints, nor
did her tormentor hear a single sigh escape from her bosom; yet,
without question, her poor heart suffered quite as much from his
cruelty and injustice, as if her lips had betrayed all the extravagant
manifestations known to the sorrows of the civilized.
| CHAPTER VII. The wigwam and the cabin | |