Lydia of the Pines Part 31

Charlie undertook to show to Lydia the reservation as the Indians knew it. If Lydia was a little puzzled by his eagerness to make her understand conditions on the reservation, she gave little thought to the riddle. This adventure was affecting her deeply. There was the sudden freedom and relaxation from home responsibilities. There was the daily and intimate companions.h.i.+p with young people, than whom none were better dressed than she!--and there were the pines.

She knew and loved the woods at home. But they were second growth hardwood and birch, and had little in common with the splendor of the pines. Waking early in the morning, she would creep from the tent and steal beyond sound and sight of the camp. There in the cathedral beauty of the pines she would stand drawing deep breaths and staring as if her eyes must pierce through the outward solemn loneliness of the forest, to its deeper meaning. She often wondered if in his search for G.o.d, John Levine had ever stood so.

Tramping through the woods with Charlie, she did not talk much, nor did he. They visited one or two neat Indian farms, but for the most part Charlie led her from one wick-i-up to the other, deep set in recesses of the wood, where the only whites to intrude on the Indians were the occasional government wood cruisers. These wick-i-ups were hovels, usually in the last stages of poverty and desolation. A squaw, braiding reed mats, a buck returning with a string of fish, a baby burrowing in the moss--all of them thin, ragged and dirty, and about them the hallowed beauty and silence of the primeval pines; this was the picture Lydia carried of most of the dwellers in these huts.

Sometimes the wick-i-up was occupied by a solitary Indian, nearly always sick and always old.

Once they came upon a white haired squaw crawling feebly from her doorway toward a fish that lay at the foot of a tree. Charlie picked up the fish and he and Lydia helped the old woman back to her hut. In the hut was an iron pot and a pile of reed mats. That was all.

"She says," explained Charlie, "that she's been sick all winter and she'd have starved to death only one of her neighbors drops a fish for her there, every day or so."

"Let's get some food for her at the camp," said Lydia eagerly.

Charlie shook his head. "What's the use! It would just prolong her agony. She's nearly dead now. The old can go. It's the young ones'

starving that hurts me."

He led Lydia out and again they tramped through the long green aisles.

It was later in the day that they came upon a wick-i-up where there were three children, besides the father and mother. Two of the children were half blind with eye trouble. The whole family was sitting in the sun, about a pot of fish. The grown-ups chatted eagerly with Charlie, and he translated for Lydia.

"They say it's been a fearful winter. They only had ten dollars this year out of their Government allowance and they couldn't get work.

They lived on fish and potatoes. The Catholic priest gave them some wild rice. The baby froze to death or starved, or both. We'll bring some food over to these folks, Lydia, because there are kids--eh?"

"But, Charlie, what's the Government allowance?"

"Oh, didn't you know?--and you're one of the white lords of creation too! The Government set aside this land for the Indians in solemn treaty with them, for ever and ever. Then it deliberately sold off a big block of it and deposited the money at Was.h.i.+ngton. The income from this was to be given to the Indians. There's over two million dollars there. But by the time it's filtered from Was.h.i.+ngton to the Indians, this is the result." He nodded at the half-starved group about the fish pot. "d.a.m.n the dirty, thieving whites," he said, quietly.

Lydia had had four days of this. As they made their way back to the camp for supper, she said to him, in an unsteady voice, "Charlie, I can't stand it! Think of that baby that froze to death. And all these beautiful woods are full of half-starved Indians! Charlie, I can't stand it!" And Lydia bowed her head on her arm and leaned against a tree trunk.

"Good Lord, Lydia!" exclaimed Charlie, "I didn't want you to feel that bad! I just wanted you to see, because you're Levine's friend and because I like you so much. Please, don't cry!"

"I'm not crying," Lydia lifted reddened eyes to his, "I was just thinking. What can I do about it, Charlie?"

"You can't do anything. It's too late. But I wanted you to see. I don't care what girl understands as long as you do. I think an awful lot of you, Lydia."

He took Lydia's hand and patted it. Lydia looked up at him, thrilled by his bronze beauty and the note in his voice.

"If I were a white man," said Charlie, "I'd make you love me and marry me. But I'm an Indian and sooner or later I'll go back to my people.

I'm just making believe I can play the white man's game for a while."

He eyed Lydia wistfully. "But we'll be friends, eh, Lydia?--Always?

Even if I go back to the wick-i-up, you'll be my friend?"

"Oh, yes, Charlie, always," replied Lydia, earnestly, even while there flashed through her head the half whimsical thought, "Queer kinds of men want to be friends with me, Mr. Levine, Mr. Marshall, and Charlie.

And they all hate each other!"

After this episode, Charlie was less strenuous about showing Lydia Indian conditions. That night he resumed a mild flirtation with Olga that he had dropped when school closed and Olga met him more than half way.

"Wouldn't that come and get you!" growled Kent to Lydia as Charlie and Olga paddled away in the canoe, the next morning. "Have you and Charlie had a fight?"

"Nope," replied Lydia. "But I got sick of investigating the reservation. Are you and Olga mad at each other?"

"Not so very! Say, Lyd, let's kill time," Kent interrupted himself with a yawn, "with a tramp up to the settlement for some gum."

Lydia stifled an elaborate yawn, at which Kent grinned. "All right, I can stand it if you can," she said. "Will you come along, Miss Towne?"

Miss Towne, who had been highly edified by the morning's maneuvering shook her head and settled herself in her hammock. "No eight mile walk for me. I'm taking a rest cure. Better wear a hat, Lydia. You're getting dreadfully burned."

"That's right. Your nose is peeling something fierce," said Kent as they started off.

"Huh, yours looks like a pickled beet," returned Lydia. "Come on, pretend I'm Olga and be happy."

CHAPTER X

THE CAMP

"The humans I have known lack root hold. Perhaps that is why they die and leave no trace."--_The Murmuring Pine_.

There was no clear-cut trail between the camp and the settlement. The settlement lay four miles northeast and there were little-used, needle-covered roads to be found that led here, there and everywhere, over which the initiated could find the way to the store.

But Lydia and Kent did not want to use the roads. It was with the old familiar sense of make believe adventure that they started on what they called a Bee-line southwest. And it was mid-afternoon before, hungry and leg weary, they reached the store that backed up against the Indian school!

They bought sardines, crackers and cheese and ate them perched on a dry goods box near the hitching rack.

"There! I feel happier," said Kent as he threw away the empty sardine cans. "How are you, old lady?"

Lydia swung her feet contentedly. "Fine! Let's start back. We'll be there by supper time, I'm sure we know the way now."

Kent nodded, offered Lydia a stick of gum, took one himself, put a huge supply in his pocket and they were off.

But alas for the vanity of amateur woods-craftsmen! The late June dusk found them still threading the endless aisles of pine, their sense of direction completely obscured by the sinking of the sun.

"Scared, Lyd?" inquired Kent as they paused for a moment's rest on a log.

"No, but I'm awful hungry and I've chewed gum till I'll scream if I see another piece. We ought to come on another wick-i-up soon."

"We've come on a dozen of them," grumbled Kent. "If we could make the Indians understand where the camp is, it would be all right. And I don't know what Charlie's Indian name is, so that doesn't help."

Lydia drew a trifle closer on the log to Kent. "Supposing we have to stay out here all night!" She s.h.i.+vered a little.

"Well, I'd light a fire," said Kent in a matter of fact manner that Lydia suspected was a.s.sumed, "and fix you up on a bed of pine needles.

Then I'd stand guard all night, like a little tin hero."

"No, we'd guard in turns," corrected Lydia. "Kent, what's the use of starting on until the moon comes up?"

"None at all," returned the boy. "It's due about nine, isn't it! I hope the folks won't worry about us. In the meantime, you and I can have a good old talk, like the old days. Remember?"