University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

Wenona had not hoped in vain, for her lover was with
her, and Wanska seemed to be forgotten. The warrior's
flute would draw her out from her uncle's lodge while the

moon rose o'er the cold waters. Wrapped in her blanket,
she would hasten to meet him, and listen to his assurances
of affection, wondering the while that she had ever feared
he loved another.

She had been some months at the village of Markeda,
and she went to meet her lover with a heavy heart. Her
mother had noticed that her looks were sad and heavy,
and Wenona knew that it would not be long ere she should
be a happy wife, or a mark for the bitter scorn of her companions.

The Deer-killer had promised, day after day, that he
would make her his wife, but he ever found a ready excuse;
and now he was going on a long hunt, and she and
her parents were to return to their village. His quiver
was full of arrows, and his leggins were tightly girded upon
him. Wenona's full heart was nigh bursting as she heard
that the party were to leave to-morrow. Should he desert
her, her parents would kill her for disgracing them; and
her rival, Wanska, how would she triumph over her fall?

“You say that you love me,” said she to the Deer-killer,
“and yet you treat me cruelly. Why should you leave
me without saying that I am your wife? Who would
watch for your coming as I would? and you will disgrace
me when I have loved you so truly. Stay—tell them you
have made me your wife, and then will I wait for you at
the door of my teepee.”

The warrior could not stay from the chase, but he
promised her that he would soon return to their village,
and then she should be his wife.

Wenona wept when he left her; shadows had fallen
upon her heart, and yet she hoped on. Turning her weary

steps homeward, she arrived there when the maidens of
the village were preparing to celebrate the Virgin's Feast.

There was no time to deliberate—should she absent herself,
she would be suspected, and yet a little while ere the
Deer-killer would return, and her anxious heart would be
at rest.

The feast was prepared, and the crier called for all virgins
to enter the sacred ring.

Wenona went forward with a beating heart; she was not
a wife, and soon must be a mother. Wanska, the Merry
Heart, was there, and many others who wondered at the
pale looks of Wenona—she who had been on a journey,
and who ought to have returned with color bright as the
dying sun, whose light illumined earth, sky and water.

As they entered the ring a party of warriors approached
the circle. Wenona does not look towards them, and yet
the throbbings of her heart were not to be endured. Her
trembling limbs refused to sustain her, as the Deer-killer,
stalking towards the ring, calls aloud—“Take her from
the sacred feast; should she eat with the maidens?—she,
under whose bosom lies a warrior's child? She is unworthy.”

And as the unhappy girl, with features of stone and
glaring eyes, gazed upon him bewildered, he rudely led her
from the ring.

Wenona bowed her head and went—even as night came
on when the sun went down. Nor did the heart of the
Deer-killer reproach him, for how dare she offend the Great
Spirit! Were not the customs of his race holy and
sacred?

Little to Wenona were her father's reproaches, or her

mother's curse; that she was no more beloved was all she
remembered.

Again was the Deer-killer by the side of Wanska, and
she paid the penalty. Her husband brought other wives
to his wigwam, though Wanska was ever the favorite one.

With her own hand would she put the others out of the
wigwam, laughing when they threatened to tell their lord
when he returned, for Wanska managed to tell her own
story first, and, termagant as she was, she always had her
own way.

Wenona has ceased to weep, and far away in the country
of the Sissetons she toils and watches as all Indian
women toil and watch. Her young son follows her as she
seeks the suffering Dahcotah, and charms the disease to
leave his feeble frame.

She tells to the child and the aged woman her dreams;
she warns the warrior what he shall meet with when he
goes to battle; and ever, as the young girls assemble to pass
away the idle hours, she stops and whispers to them.

In vain do they ask of her husband: she only points
to her son and says, “My hair, which is now like snow,
was once black and braided like his, and my eyes as bright.
They have wept until tears come no more. Listen not to
the warrior who says he loves.” And she passes from
their sight as the morning mists.