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A GENTLE INDIAN. 67
During the time which intervened between Sarah Jones sixteenth
and eighteenth «year, she was almost a daily visitor at the wigwam.
The little footpath which led from the village to ‘* the Straka,”’
though scarcely definable to others, became as familiar to her as the
grounds about her father’s house. Ifa day or two passed in which
illness or same other cause prevented her usual visit, she was sure to
receive some token of remembrance from the lone Indian woman.
Now, it reached her in the form of a basket of ripe fruit, or a bunch
of wild flowers, tied together with the taste of an artist; again, it
was a cluster of grapes, with the purple bloom lying fresh upon
them, or a young mocking-bird, with notes as sweet as the voice of
a fountain, would reach her by the hands of some village boy.
These affectionate gifts could always be traced to the inhabitant of
the wigwam, even though she did not, as was sometimes the case,
present them in person. . ;
There was something strange in the appearance of this Indian wo-
man, which at first excited the wonder, and at length secured the're-
spect of the settlers. Her language was pure and elegant, sofne-
times even poetical beyond their comprehension,- and her sentiments
were correct in principle, and full of simplicity. When she ap-
_ peared in the village with moccasins or pretty painted baskets for sale,
her manner was apprehensive and timid as that of achild. She
never sat down, and seldom entered any dwelling, preferring to scll
her merchandise in the open air, and using as few words as possible
in the transaction. She was never seen to be angry, and a sweet
patient smilie always hovered about her lips when she spoke. In her
face there was more than the remains of beauty; the poetry of in-
.tellect and of warm, deep feeling, shed a loveliness over it seldom
witnessed on the brow of a savage. In truth, Malacska was a
strange and incomprehensible being to the settlers. - But she was so
quiet, so timid and gentle, that they all loved her, bought her little
wares, and supplied her wants as if she had been one of themselves.
‘There was something beautiful in the companionship which sprang
up between the strange woman and Sarah Jones. ‘fhe young girl
was benefited by it in a manner which was little to be expected from
an intercourse so singular and, seemingly, so unnatural, ‘The moth-
er was a kind-hearted worldly woman, strongly attached to her fam-
ily, but utterly devoid of those fine susceptibilities which make at
once the happiness and the misery of so many human beings. But
all the elements of an intellectual, delicate, and high-soulded woman
slumbered in the bosom of her child. They beamed in the depths’
of her large blue eyes, broke over her pure white forehead, like per-
fume from the leaves of a lily, and made her small mouth eloquent
with smiles and the beauty of unpolished thoughts. ;
At sixteen the character of the young girl had scarcely begun to
develop itself; but when the time arrived when she was to be sent
away to'school, there remained little except mere accomplishments
for her to learn. ler mind had become vigorous by a constant in-