The Log School-House on the Columbia Part 15

"You seek to please me for your own good."

"Yes--but, Umatilla, I can trust your word."

"The word of Umatilla was never broken. Death will come to Umatilla for his mask, and will go away with an empty hand. I have tried to make my people better.--Brother Lee, you have come here to instruct me--I honor you. Listen to an old Indian's story. Sit down all. I have something that I would say to you."

The company sat down and listened to the old chief. They expected that he would speak in a parable, and he did. He told them in Chinook the story of

_THE WOLF BROTHER._

An old Indian hunter was dying in his lodge. The barks were lifted to admit the air. The winds of the seas came and revived him, and he called his three children to him and made his last bequests.

"My son," he said, "I am going out into the unknown life whence I came.

Give yourself to those who need you most, and always be true to your younger brother."

"My daughter," he said, "be a mother to your younger brother. Give him your love, or for want of it he may become lonely and as savage as the animals are."

The two older children promised, and the father died at sunset, and went into the unknown life whence he came.

The old Indian had lived apart from the villages of men for the sake of peace; but now, after his death, the oldest son sought the villages and he desired to live in them. "My sister," he said, "can look out for my little brother. I must look out for myself."

But the sister tired of solitude, and longed to go to the villages. So one day she said to her little brother: "I am going away to find our brother who has taken up his abode in the villages. I will come back in a few moons. Stay you here."

But she married in the villages, and did not return.

The little brother was left all alone, and lived on roots and berries. He one day found a den of young wolves and fed them, and the mother-wolf seemed so friendly that he visited her daily. So he made the acquaintance of the great wolf family, and came to like them, and roam about with them, and he no longer was lonesome or wished for the company of men.

One day the pack of wolves came near the villages, and the little boy saw his brother fis.h.i.+ng and his sister weaving under a tree. He drew near them, and they recognized him.

"Come to us, little brother," said they, sorry that they had left him to the animals.

"No--no!" said he. "I would rather be a wolf. The wolves have been kinder to me than you.

"My brother, My brother, I am turning-- am turning Into a wolf.

You made me so!

"My sister, My sister, I am turning-- I am turning Into a wolf.

You made me so!"

"O little brother, forgive me," said the sister; "forgive me!"

"It is too late now. See, I _am_ a wolf!"

He howled, and ran away with the pack of wolves, and they never saw him again.

"Jason Lee, be good to my people when I am gone, lest they become like the little brother.

"Victor Trevette, be good to my people when I am gone, lest they become like the little brother."

The tall form of Marlowe Mann now appeared before the open entrance of the lodge. The Yankee schoolmaster had been listening to the story. The old chief bent his eye upon him, and said, "And, Boston tilic.u.m, do you be good to Benjamin when I am gone, so that he shall not become like the little brother."

"You may play, Gretchen, now--it is a solemn hour; the voices of the G.o.ds should speak."

Gretchen took her violin. Standing near the door of the tent, she raised it to her arm, and the strains of some old German music rose in the glimmering air, and drifted over the Columbia.

"I think that there are worlds around this," said the old chief. "The Great Spirit is good."

The sun was going down. High in the air the wild fowls were flying, with the bright light yet on their wings. The glaciers of Mount Hood were flushed with crimson--a sea of gla.s.s mingled with fire. It was a pastoral scene; in it the old history of Oregon was coming to an end, after the mysteries of a thousand years, and the new history of civilization was beginning.

Evening came, and the company dispersed, but the old chief and Gretchen sat down outside of the tent, and listened to the murmuring music of the Dalles of the Columbia, and breathed the vital air. The Columbia is a mile wide in some places, but it narrows at the Dalles, or shelves and pours over the stone steps the gathered force of its many tides and streams.

Across the river a waterfall filled the air with misty beauty, and a castellated crag arose solitary and solemn--the remnant of some great upheaval in the volcanic ages.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A castellated crag arose solitary and solemn._]

The red ashes of the sunset lingered after the fires of the long day had gone down, and the stars came out slowly. The old chief was sad and thoughtful.

"Sit down by my feet, my child," he said to Gretchen, or in words of this meaning. "I have been thinking what it is that makes the music in the violin. Let us talk together, for something whispers in the leaves that my days are almost done."

"Let me get the violin and play to you, father; we are alone."

"Yes, yes; get the music, child, and you shall play, and we will talk. You shall sit down at my feet and play, and we will talk. Go, my little spirit."

Gretchen brought her violin, and sat down at his feet and tuned it. She then drew her bow, and threw on the air a haunting strain.

"Stop there, little spirit. It is beautiful. But what made it beautiful?"

"My bow--don't you see?"

Gretchen drew her bow, and again lifted the same haunting air.

"No--no--my girl--not the bow--something behind the bow."

"The strings?"

"No--no--something behind the strings."

"My fingers--so?"

"No--no--something behind the fingers."

"My head--_here_?"

"No--something behind that."

"My heart?"