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THE DAUGHTER OF THE CHIEFTAIN
THE DAUGHTER OF THE CHIEFTAIN EDWARD S. ELLIS CHAPTER ONE: OMAS ALICE AND LINNA
I don't suppose there is any use in trying to find out when the game
of "Jack Stones" was first played. No one can tell. It certainly
is a good many hundred years old.
All boys and girls know how to play it. There is the little rubber
ball which you toss in the air catch up one of the odd iron prongs
without touching another and while the ball is aloft; then you do
the same with another and again with another until none is left.
After that you seize a couple at a time until all have been used;
then three and four and so on with other variations to the end
of the game.
Doubtless your fathers and mothers if they watch you during the
progress of the play will think it easy and simple. If they do
persuade them to try it. You will soon laugh at their failure.
Now when we older folks were young like you we did not have the
regular scraggly bits of iron and dainty rubber ball. We played
with pieces of stones. I suspect more deftness was needed in handling
them than in using the new fashioned pieces. Certainly in trials
than I can remember I never played the game through without a
break; but then I was never half so handy as you are at such things:
that no doubt accounts for it.
Well a good many years ago before any of your fathers or mothers
were born a little girl named Alice Ripley sat near her home
playing "Jack Stones." It was the first of July 1778 and although
her house was made of logs had no carpets or stove but a big
fireplace where all the food was made ready for eating yet no
sweeter or happier girl can be found today if you spend weeks in
searching for her. Nor can you come upon a more lovely spot in which
to build a home for it was the famed Wyoming Valley in Western
Pennsylvania.
Now since some of my young friends may not be acquainted with this
place you will allow me to tell you that the Wyoming Valley lies
between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains and that the
beautiful Susquehanna River runs through it.
The valley runs northeast and southwest and is twenty-one miles
long with an average breadth of three miles. The bottom lands--
that is those in the lowest portion--are sometimes overflowed
when there is an unusual quantity of water in the river. In some
places the plains are level and in others rolling. The soil is
very fertile.
Two mountain ranges hem in the valley. The one on the east has an
average height of a thousand feet and the other two hundred feet
less. The eastern range is steep mostly barren and abounds with
caverns clefts ravines and forests. The western is not nearly
so wild and is mostly cultivated.
The meaning of the Indian word for Wyoming is "Large Plains" which
like most of the Indian names fits very well indeed.
The first white man who visited Wyoming was a good Moravian missionary
Count Zinzendorf--in 1742. He toiled among the Delaware Indians
who lived there and those of his faith who followed him were the
means of the conversion of a great many red men.
The fierce warriors became humble Christians who set the best
example to wild brethren and often to the wicked white men.
More than twenty years before the Revolution settlers began making
their way into the Wyoming Valley. You would think their only
trouble would be with the Indians who always look with anger upon
intruders of that kind but really their chief difficulty was with
white people.
Most of these pioneers came from Connecticut. The successors of
William Penn who had bought Pennsylvania from his king and then
again from the Indians did not fancy having settlers from other
colonies take possession of one of the garden spots of his grant.
I cannot tell you about the quarrels between the settlers from
Connecticut and those that were already living in Pennsylvania.
Forty of the invaders as they may be called put up a fort which
was named on that account Forty Fort. This was in the winter of
1769 and two hundred more pioneers followed them in the spring.
The fort stood on the western bank of the river.
The Pennsylvanians however had prepared for them and the trouble
began. During the few years following the New Englanders were three
times driven out of the valley and the men women and children
were obliged to tramp for two hundred miles through the unbroken
wilderness to their old homes. But they rallied and came back
again and at last were strong enough to hold their ground. About
this time the mutterings of the American Revolution began to be
heard and the Pennsylvanians and New Englanders forgot their enmity
and became brothers in their struggle for independence.
Among the pioneers from Connecticut who put up their old fashioned
log houses in Wyoming were George Ripley and his wife Ruth. They
were young frugal industrious and worthy people. They had but
one child--a boy named Benjamin; but after awhile Alice was added
to the family and at the date of which I am telling you she was
six years and her brother thirteen years old.
Mr. Ripley was absent with the continental army under General
Washington fighting the battles of his country. Benjamin on
this spring day was visiting some of his friends further down the
valley; so that when Alice came forth to play "Jack Stones" alone
no one was in sight though her next neighbor lived hardly two
hundred yards away.
I wish you could have seen her as she looked on that summer afternoon.
She had been helping so far as she was able her mother in the
house until the parent told her to go outdoors and amuse herself.
She was chubby plump healthy with round pink cheeks yellow hair
tied in a coil at the back of her head and her big eyes were as
blue and clear and bright as they could be.
She wore a brown homespun dress--that is to say the materials
had been woven by the deft fingers of her mother with the aid of
the old spinning wheel which in those days formed a part of every
household. The dark stockings were knitted by the same busy fingers
with the help of the flashing needles; and the shoes put together
by Peleg Quintin the humpbacked shoemaker were heavy and coarse
and did not fit any too well.
The few simple articles of underwear were all homemade clean
and comfortable and the same could be said of the clothing of the
brother and of the mother herself.
Alice came running out of the open front door bounding off the big
flat stone which served as a step with a single leap and running
to a spot of green grass a few yards away where there was not a
bit of dirt or a speck of dust she sat down and began the game of
which I told you at the opening of this story.
Alice was left handed. So when she took position she leaned over
to the right supporting her body with that arm while with the
other hand she tossed the little jagged pieces of stone aloft
snatching up the others and letting the one that was going up and
down in the air drop into her chubby palm.
She had been playing perhaps ten minutes when she found someone
was watching her.
She did not see him at first but heard a low deep "Huh!" partly
at one side and partly behind her.
Instead of glancing around she finished the turn of the game on
which she was engaged just then. That done she clasped all the
Jack Stones in her hand assumed the upright posture and looked
behind her.
"I thought it was you Omas" she said with a merry laugh; "do you
want to play Jack Stones with me?"
If you could have seen the person whom she thus addressed you
would have thought it a strange way of speaking.
He was an Indian warrior belonging to the tribe of Delawares.
Those who knew about him said he was one of the fiercest red men
that ever went on the warpath. A few years before there had been
a massacre of the settlers and Omas was foremost among the Indians
who swung the tomahawk and fired his rifle at the white people.
He was tall sinewy active and powerful. Three stained eagle
feathers were fastened on his crown in the long black hair and his
hunting shirt leggings and moccasins were bright with different
colored beads and fringes. In the red sash which passed around
his waist were thrust a hunting knife and tomahawk while one hand
clasped a cumbersome rifle which like all firearms of those times
was used with ramrod and flintlock.
Omas would have had a rather pleasing face had he let it alone;
but his people love bright colors and he was never seen without
a lot of paint daubed over it. This was made up of black white
and yellow circles lines and streaks that made him look frightful.
But Alice was not scared at all. She and Omas were old friends.
Nearly a year before he stopped at their cabin one stormy night and
asked for something to eat. Mrs. Ripley gave him plenty of coarse
brown well baked bread and cold meat and allowed him to sleep on
the floor until morning.
Benjamin was rather shy of the fierce looking Delaware but Alice
took to him at first. She brought him a basin of water and asked
him to please wash his face.
The startled mother gently reproved her; but Omas did that which
an Indian rarely does--smiled. He spoke English unusually well
and knew why the child had proposed to him to use the water.
He told her that he had a little girl that he called Linna about
the same age as Alice. Upon hearing this what did Alice do but
climb upon the warrior's knee and ask him to tell her all about
Linna. Well the result was that an affection was formed between
this wild warrior and the gentle little girl.
Omas promised to bring his child to see Alice who with her mother's
permission said she would return the visit. There can be no doubt
that the Delaware often went a long way out of his course for no
other reason than to spend an hour or less with Alice Ripley. The
brother and mother always made him feel welcome and to the good
parent the influence of her child upon the savage red man had
a peculiar interest which nothing else in the world could possess
for her. So you understand why it was that Alice did not start and
show any fear when she looked around and saw the warrior standing
less than ten feet off and attentively watching her.
"You can't play Jack Stones as well as I" she said looking saucily
up at him.
"I beat you" was his reply as he strode forward and sat down
cross legged on the grass.
"I'd like to see you do it! You think you're very smart don't
you?"
A shadowy smile played around the stern mouth and the Delaware
who had studied the simple game long enough to understand it began
the sport under the observant eyes of his little mistress.
While both were intent on the amusement Mrs. Ripley came to the
door and stood wonderingly looking at them.
"It does seem as if Indians are human beings like the rest of us"
was her thought; "but who could resist her gentle ways?"
Up went the single stone in the air and Omas grabbed the batch
that were lying on the ground and then caught the first as it came
down.
"That won't do!" called Alice seizing the brawny hand which--
sad to say--had been stained with blood as innocent as hers; "you
didn't do that fair!"
"What de matter?" he asked looking reproachfully into the round
face almost against his own.
"I'll show you how. Now I lay those three on the ground like
that. Then I toss up this pick up one without touching any of the
others keep it in my hand and pick up the next--see?"
She illustrated her instruction by her work while her pupil listened
and stared.
"I know--I know" he said quickly. "I show you." Then the wag of
a Delaware tossed the first stone fully twenty feet aloft caught
up the others and took that on the fly.
"I never saw anybody as dumb as you" was the comment. "What is
the use of your trying? You couldn't learn to play Jack Stones in
ever so long."
She was about to try him again when childlike she darted off upon
a widely different subject for it had just come into her little
head.
"Omas when you were here the other day you promised that the next
time you came to see me you would bring Linna."
"Dat so--Omas promise."
"Then why haven't you done as you said?"
"Omas never speak with double tongue; he bring Linna with him."
"You did?--where is she?" asked Alice springing to her feet
clasping her hands and looking expectantly around.
The Delaware emitted a shrill tremulous whistle and immediately
from the wood several rods behind them came running the oddest
looking little girl anyone could have met in a long time.
Her face was as round as that of Alice her long black hair hung
loosely over her shoulders her small eyes were as black as jet
her nose a pug her teeth as white and regular as were ever seen
while her dress was a rude imitation of her father's except the
skirt came below her knees. Her feet were as small as a doll's
and encased in the beaded little moccasins were as pretty as they
could be.
"That is Linna" said the proud father as she came obediently
forward.
CHAPTER TWO: DANGER IN THE AIR
Little Linna daughter of Omas the Delaware warrior was of the
same age as Alice Ripley. The weather was warm although she wore
tiny moccasins to protect her feet she scorned the superfluous
stockings and undergarments that formed a part of the other's
apparel.
Her hair was as black abundant and almost as long as her father's;
but her face was clean and perhaps in honor of the occasion she
too sported a gaudy eagle feather in her hair.
She bounded out of the green wood like a fawn but as she drew near
her parent and Alice her footsteps became slower and she halted
a few paces away hung her head with her forefinger between her
pretty white teeth--for all the world like any white girl of her
years.
But Alice did not allow her to remain embarrassed. She had been
begging for this visit and now when she saw her friend she ran
forward took her little plump hand and said--"Linna I am real
glad you have come!"
Omas had risen to his feet and watched the girls with an affection
and interest which found no expression on his painted face. His
child looked timidly up to him and walked slowly forward her hand
clasped in that of Alice. She did not speak but when her escort
sat down on the grass she did the same.
"Linna do you know how to play Jack Stones?" asked Alice picking
up the pebbles.
Linna shook her head quickly several times but her lips remained
mute.
"Your father thought he knew how but he don't; he doesn't play fair
either. Let me show you so you can beat him when you go home."
Alice set to work while the bright black eyes watched every
movement.
"Now do you want to try it?" she asked after going through the
game several times.
Linna nodded her head with the same birdlike quickness and reached
out her chubby hand.
Her father and Alice watched her closely. She made several failures
at first all of which were patiently explained by her tutor; by and
by she went through the performance from beginning to end without
a break.
Alice clapped her hands with delight and Omas--certain that no
grownup person saw him--smiled with pleasure.
"Doesn't she know how to talk?" asked Alice looking up at the
warrior. Omas spoke somewhat sharply to his child in the Delaware
tongue. She startled and looking at Alice asked--
"Do--yoo think me play well?"
Alice was delighted to find she could make herself understood so
easily. It was wonderful how she had learned to speak English so
early in life.
"I guess you can" was the ready reply of Alice; "your father can't
begin to play as well. When you go home you can show your mamma
how to play Jack Stones. Have you any brothers and sisters?"
"No; me have no brother--no sister."
"That's too bad! I've got a big brother Ben. He isn't home now
but he will be here to supper. He's a nice boy and you will like
him. Let's go in the house now to see mamma and you can teach me
how to talk Indian."
Both girls bounded to their feet and hand in hand walked to the
door with Omas gravely stalking after them.
Mrs. Ripley had learned of the visitor and stood on the threshold
to welcome her. She took her by the hand and led her inside. Omas
paused as if in doubt whether he should follow; but her invitation
to him was so cordial that he stepped within and seated himself
on a chair.
That afternoon and night could never be forgotten by Alice Ripley.
In a very little while she and her visitor were on the best of terms;
laughing romping and chasing each other in and out of doors just
as if they were twin sisters that had never been separated from
each other.
When Mrs. Ripley asked Omas for how long a time he could leave his
child with them he said he must take her back that evening. His
wigwam was a good many miles away in the woods and he would have
to travel all night to reach the village of his tribe.
Mrs. Ripley however pleaded so hard that he consented to let
his child stay until he came back the next day or soon thereafter
for her.
When he rose to go the long summer day was drawing to a close.
He spoke to Linna in their native tongue. She was sitting on the
floor just then playing with a wonderful rag baby but was up in
a flash and followed him outside.
"Wait a moment and she will come back" said Mrs. Ripley to her own
child. She knew what the movement meant: Omas did not wish anyone
to see him and Linna.
On the outside he moved to the left and glanced around to make
sure that no person was looking that way. Then he lifted the little
one from the ground; she threw her arms around his neck and he
pressed her to his breast and kissed her several times with great
warmth. Then he set her down and she ran laughing into the house
while he strode off to the woods.
But at the moment of entering them he stopped abruptly wheeled
about and walked slowly back toward the cabin.
Upon the return of Linna Mrs. Ripley stepped to the front door to
look for her son. He was not in sight but Omas had stopped again
hardly a rod distant. He stood a moment looking fixedly at her
and then beckoned with his free hand for her to approach.
Without hesitation she stepped off the broad flat stone and went
to him.
"What is it Omas?" she asked in an undertone pausing in front of
him and gazing up into the grim painted countenance.
The Delaware returned the look for a few seconds as if studying
how to say what was in his mind. Then in a voice lower even than
hers he said--"You--little girl--big boy--go way soon--
must not stay here."
"Why do you say that Omas?"
"Iroquois like leaves on trees--white men call Tories--soon
come down here--kill all white people--kill you--kill little
girl big boy--if you stay here."
The pioneer's wife had heard the same rumors for days past. She knew
there was cause for fear for nearly all the able bodied men in
Wyoming were absent with the patriot army fighting for independence.
The inhabitants in the valley had begged Congress to send some soldiers
to protect them and the relatives of the women and children had
asked again and again that they might go home to save their loved
ones from the Tories and Indians; but the prayer was refused. The
soldiers in the army were too few to be spared and no one away
from Wyoming believed the danger as great as it was.
But the people themselves knew the peril and did their best
to prepare for it. But who should know more about the Indians and
Tories than Omas the great Delaware warrior?
When therefore he said these words to Mrs. Ripley that woman's
heart beat faster. She heard the laughter and prattle of the children
in the house and she thought of that bright boy playing with his
young friends not far away.
"Where can we go?" she asked in the same guarded voice.
"With Omas" was the prompt reply; "hide in wigwam of Omas. Nobody
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