Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
.
cc cd rh ean enemas nem nly
62. . MALAESKA. -
Malaeska listened with meck and gratcful'attention. No flower .
ever opened to the sunshine more sweetly than her soul received the
holy revelations of that good man, He had no time or place for
teaching, but seized any opportunity that arose where a duty could
be performed. Ilis mission lay always where human souls required
knowledge. So he never left the lonely woman till long after they
had passed the mouth of the Mohawk, and were. floating on the
Hudson. When they came in sight of the Catskill range, Malacsha -
was scized with an irresistible longing to see the graves of her husband
and father. -What other place in the wide, wide world had_she
to look for? Where could she go, driven ‘forth as she was by her
own people, and by the father of her husband ? .
Surely among tbe inhabitants of the village she could sell such
trifles as her inventive talent could create, and if any of the old
lodges stood near ‘‘ the Straka,’’ that would be shelter enough.
With these thoughts in her mind, Malaeska took leave of the
missionary with many a whispered blessing, and took her way to
“the Straka.?? There she found an old lodge, through whose crev-
_ ices the wind had whistled for years ; but she went diligently to work,
gathering moss and turf with which this old home, connected with
so many sweet and bitter associations, was rendered habitable again.
Then she took possession, and proceeded to invent many objects of
comfort and even taste, with which to beautify the spot she had con-
secrated with memorics of her passionate youth, and its early, only
love.
The woods were full of game, and wild fruits were abundant; so
that it was a long, long time before Malaeska’s residence in the
neighborhood was known. She shrank from approaching a people
who had treated her so cruelly, and so kept in utter loneliness so
long as solitude was possible. : .
In all her life Malaeska retained but one vague hope, and that
was for the return of her son from that far-off country to which the
crucl whites had sent him. She had questioned the missionary
carnestly about these lands, and had now a settled idea of their ex-
tent and distance ‘across the ocean.. ‘The great waters no longer
seemed like eternity to her, or absence so much like death. Some .
time she might sce her child again; till then she would wait and
pray to the white man’s God. :