“Last summer,” began Alice one evening when the children came to Grandma’s room, “when we were in the country we went to the valley where the last Indians in this county were seen—the last wild Indians, I mean.”
“Were there any wild Indians around when you were a little girl, Grandma?” asked Bobby eagerly.
“Well, no,” said Grandma thoughtfully. “But my Father remembered very well when bands of Indians went through the country on hunting expeditions. They were thought to be of the Delaware tribe, but were called Cornplanter Indians, probably because they cultivated large fields of corn as well as hunted and fished for their living. It was customary, during the winter, for bands of these Indians to hunt deer and other game in the forests. They would follow the chase for weeks at a time. Father said that as each deer was killed it was carefully dressed and hung high in some near-by tree, beyond the reach of wolves and dogs. At the close of the hunting season the carcasses were gathered together and taken to the Indian camp.
“But though the Indians were gone when I was a little girl, there were many things left to remind us of them. Old trees, blazed to mark Indian trails, still stood, and arrowheads and darts were often ploughed up in the fields. My brothers had quite a collection of them, and they also had a tomahawk that looked very much like a hatchet.
“And there was one Indian left, too. I almost forgot about him—old John Cornplanter. He was supposed to have belonged to the Cornplanter Indians, but no one knew much about him. He lived alone on an unsurveyed piece of land and was seldom seen except when he brought his skins to sell or came to the store for occasional supplies. He lived as his forbears had lived, by hunting and fishing, and, like them, he had a cornfield.
“He made few friends because he was gruff and short of speech and surly in manner. He had a quick temper which flared up at the least thing, and some of the men and boys teased him on purpose to make him angry. Father said it wasn’t right.
“One day when Father and my brother Stanley were coming through our woods they heard a noise like that of some one groaning. Hunting around, they presently found the Indian, John Cornplanter, helpless and unconscious, with what turned out to be a broken leg. They carried him into the cabin in the sugar grove and Stanley went for the doctor. The doctor set his leg. For a time they thought he would die, for he had been exposed to the weather for hours before Father found him. But he got better, though slowly, and for weeks he lay on one of the bunks in the cabin, and Father took care of him and Mother sent him things he liked to eat.
“At first I was afraid to go near the cabin, but after a while I got brave enough to venture in with Father. Then it wasn’t long till Charlie and I were visiting Cornplanter every day, carrying him food and cool drinks.
“When he got better, he wove pretty baskets and carved things out of wood and made Charlie a bow and arrow. After he got well and went home, he often came back to see us, bringing presents of fish or game, or maybe a basket of wild strawberries or early greens. Charlie and I liked to walk back with him through the woods as far as the edge of our farm, and sometimes he would build a fire and we would have a meal of some kind of game, cornbread baked on a stone heated in the fire, and wild honey.
“He taught Charlie new ways to set traps and cure skins, and he showed me where the first trailing arbutus was to be found, hiding, fragrant and pink, under the brown leaves. He knew where the mistletoe grew and where the cardinal built her nest, and he could mimic any kind of a bird or animal.
“But no one knew John as we did. As he grew older his manner became gruffer and his temper shorter. People were afraid of him, and there was some talk of making him leave the country.
“In the winter he would go for miles and miles hunting and trapping, for even then game was not so plentiful as it had been. One winter Cornplanter brought a deer he had shot and dressed to Orbison’s woods and hung it in a tree, just as his people before him had done, until he should be ready to take it the rest of the way home.
“That night there was a light fall of snow. The next morning some boys on their way to school spied the deer hanging in the tree and, thinking to tease John, they moved the deer to the very top of the tree and fastened it there. Then they went on to school, not thinking but that the Indian would immediately discover the deer.
“But Cornplanter was old and his sight was poor. When he came along a little later, he saw only that the deer was not where he had left it, and, thinking that it had been stolen, he set out to follow the tracks the boys had made in the snow.
“Mr. Carson, on his way to the store, saw John stalking along, head down, in the direction of the schoolhouse, but thought nothing of it. When he got to the store he would not have mentioned the fact had he not found the men there gravely shaking their heads over the joke the boys had played on John Cornplanter. It wasn’t safe to joke with John, they said. Bud McGill, who had helped move the deer, had gone around to the store and told about it. So when Mr. Carson said he had seen John going in the direction of the schoolhouse, they were all greatly disturbed. Several men started immediately for the schoolhouse. No telling what John might do!
Mr. Carson saw John going in the direction of the schoolhouse
“In the meantime John had arrived at the schoolhouse and opening the door without knocking, stepped inside, closed the door, and leaned against it. He was a forbidding figure, dressed in furs from head to foot, a gun at his side, a dark frown on his face. He looked at the teacher.
“‘Where deer?’ he demanded. ‘Where deer?’
“He thought his deer had been stolen. He had followed the tracks to the schoolhouse and now he wanted the deer.
“We all knew what the boys had done. We looked at each other, waiting for some one to speak.
“John Cornplanter waited, too, his back to the door.
“I thought about Charlie, at home sick. If he had been there, he might have straightened things out. I was the only other person who knew John Cornplanter well and did not fear him. I went over to him and explained as well as I could about the deer just being moved and not stolen, and that the boys were only in fun and meant no harm. When I finished, it was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Cornplanter did not like to be teased. Would he think it a joke on himself that he had not seen the deer, or would he be furious?
“Suddenly he smiled, and the teacher with a sigh of relief announced morning intermission.
“A few minutes later when a group of anxious men came in sight of the schoolhouse they stopped to listen in amazement to a series of unusual sounds—a bull frog croaking hoarsely, an owl calling to its mate, a cardinal singing sweetly, the long-drawn-out wail of the whip-poor-will, the joyful note of the lark, the sharp barking of a squirrel.
“And what they saw surprised them even more, for there was the Indian, surrounded by children, as he mimicked for their amusement one after another of the animals and birds he knew so well.
“It’s bedtime now, so run along and we’ll have another story soon.”