Read Ebook: Brother Billy by Fox Frances Margaret Barry Etheldred B Etheldred Breeze Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 609 lines and 26553 words, and 13 pages

"No, Betty, I never read it all; I simply know about the massacre here. Have you read it?"

"She knows it by heart," said Billy. "She can say bushels of Indian speeches. Tell her one, Betty. Tell her that one where the Indian said to Alexander Henry, 'The rattlesnake is our grandfather.'"

"Yes, do, Betty, only tell me first who Alexander Henry was."

"Why, auntie, don't you know? He was the English fur-trader whose life was saved by the Indian chief Wawatam. I like him best of any fur-trader I ever knew."

"Do tell me his story, Betty."

"Oh, I can't tell it, it is too long. Do you want to know what happened to him in the spring of 1761, two years before the massacre?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Well, of course, you know all about the French and Indian War, auntie?"

"Yes, I know something about it."

"Then, auntie, you know that the French liked the Indians, and the Indians liked them, but the English despised the Indians, and treated them so badly the Indians hated all Englishmen. That was why the Indians helped the French in their war. They wanted to drive the English out of the country. Well, when the war was over, the Indians didn't know that the English came out ahead, and that the French soldiers would have to march out of every fort and that the English soldiers would march in. Even my Pontiac didn't know it."

"He'd have known all about his own war and where he died if he'd had you for a sister," mocked Billy.

"Don't talk quite so loud, Billy dear," cautioned Aunt Florence.

"'Fraid?" questioned Billy.

"Oh, not exactly; go on, Betty, we're listening. How much longer is this Indian trail, anyway?"

"Only half a mile, auntie. Billy, you'll punch a hole through your pocket if you aren't careful."

"Go on with your story, Bet, and don't turn around so much."

"Well," continued Betty, giving Billy a look that meant "Don't you dare lose those beads," "well, auntie, in the spring of that year, 1761, the French soldiers had left this fort, and only Canadian families were living in it. The English soldiers hadn't come yet, but they were on the way. The fort was over a hundred years old then. Only think of it!

"Alexander Henry, my Englishman, wasn't afraid of anything, that's why I like him. He came up here with canoes full of beads and things to trade with the Indians for furs. On the way he was warned again and again to go back if he didn't want to be killed. He probably would have been killed long before he got here if he hadn't put on the clothes of a Canadian voyageur."

"They're the ones," interrupted Billy, "that used to paddle the canoes and sing 'Row, brothers, row,' and--"

"She knows that," sniffed Betty; "even our baby knows that much. Well, auntie, when Alexander Henry got here, the Canadians were bad to him and tried to scare him. They wanted him to go away before anything happened. He hadn't been here but a short time when Minnavavana, a Chippewa Indian chief, came with sixty warriors to call on him. They marched to his house single file, auntie. Their faces were painted with grease and charcoal, and they had feathers through their noses and feathers in their hair. Their bodies were painted with white clay. That isn't the worst of it. Every warrior carried a tomahawk in one hand and a scalping-knife in the other. I suppose they came along this very trail.

"Alexander Henry says they walked into the house without a sound. The chief made a sign and they all sat on the floor. Minnavavana asked one of the interpreters how long it was since Mr. Henry left Montreal, and then he said it seemed that the English were brave men and not afraid to die, or they wouldn't come as he had, alone, among their enemies. Then all the Indians smoked their pipes, and let Alexander Henry think about things while it was nice and quiet. Just think of it, auntie!

"When the Indians were through smoking, Minnavavana made a speech. I don't know it by heart, but it was something like this:

"'Englishman, it is to you that I speak. Englishman, you know that the French king promised to be our father. We promised to be his children. We have kept this promise. Englishman, it is you that have made war with our father. You are his enemy. How could you have the boldness to venture among us, his children? You know his enemies are ours.

"'Englishman, our father, the King of France, is old and infirm. Being tired of war, he has fallen asleep. But his nap is almost at an end. I think I hear him stirring and asking for his children, the Indians, and, when he does awake, what must become of you? He will destroy you utterly.'"

Betty, becoming much in earnest, was walking backward.

"'Englishman, we have no father, no friend among the white men but the King of France,'" the child went on. "'But for you, we have taken into consideration that you have ventured your life among us in the expectation that we should not molest you. You do not come to make war; you come in peace to trade with us. We shall regard you, therefore, as a brother, and you may sleep tranquilly, without fear of the Chippewas. As a token of friendship, we present you this pipe to smoke.'"

Whereupon, Betty, making a serious bow, offered her little shovel to Aunt Florence. For the moment, she actually believed herself Minnavavana, the Indian chief, though Billy's face quickly brought her back to the present.

"I am thankful to say," resumed Betty, joining in the laugh following the presentation of the shovel, "that after three hundred warriors of another tribe came and were going to make trouble, the English soldiers arrived, and the red flag of England soon floated above the fort. Then, for two years, nothing much happened, but I'm glad I wasn't here then. I wouldn't have slept a wink, I know."

"Neither should I, Betty," Aunt Florence agreed.

"Frenchy'd have been all right, though," remarked Billy. "There's the fort, Aunt Florence, straight ahead; the trail ends here. Now we will find an old cellar-hole and hunt for beads. Let me go first, Betty."

"The fort," repeated Aunt Florence, "where is it?" She saw nothing but a wilderness of wild-rose blooms.

"Oh," laughed Betty, "there's nothing left of the fort but part of the old palisades. Most of the buildings were burned the day of the massacre."

"It's unspeakably dreary, in spite of the sunshine and the roses," commented Aunt Florence, "but I do want some beads."

"Come on, come on," cried Billy. "Oh, hurry up, Aunt Florence, I'm finding beads by the bushel."

"Where is the child? can you see him, Betty?"

"'Way over there, auntie, in that cellar-hole near the old apple-tree. We think that is where one of the storehouses used to be, because all around it is where most of the beads have been found."

For awhile Aunt Florence forgot the surrounding woods, in her eager search for beads. Had she known Betty and Billy as their mother knew them, she might have understood that there was more of mischief than pure joy in their smiles.

"Never found so many beads in one place in my life," declared Billy.

"Nor anybody else in the last hundred years," added Betty. "Fun, isn't it?"

"Fun!" echoed Aunt Florence, "why, children, I won't want to go home until dark."

Betty stared, and Billy made faces. This was an unexpected blow. At last the beads that Betty had collected, after working hours and hours through many a day, were all found.

"Now we'll look for another place," announced Aunt Florence.

"I guess we are alone out here," suggested Betty, glancing about, as though she felt uneasy.

"Oh, no," was the cheerful reply, "down there nearer the lake I saw two sunbonnets not three minutes ago. We're all right, children; I'm not the least bit timid."

Patiently Aunt Florence continued her search for beads, encouraged by the hope of finding another place equal to the first.

"It seems strange that there should have been so many beads in one spot of earth, and so few everywhere else," she said, "but I'm not going to give up now, after such luck in the beginning."

"You'll just have to scare her to death, I guess," grumbled Billy. "Lost your beads for nothing, too."

"Trouble is," confessed Betty, moving nearer Billy and farther from her aunt, "this isn't a good place to tell Indian stories."

"Why not?"

"Because, Billy, I get scared myself. Honest and truth, I don't even like to think of such horrible things right here where they happened."

"Don't make any difference, you've got to," protested Billy. "Don't you know she said she'd stay here till dark?"

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet