The Indian Drum by William MacHarg (classic english novels txt) 📕

Alan made no comment for a moment. Constance had seen the blood flush to his face and then leave it, and her own pulse had beat as swiftly as she rehearsed the superstition. As he gazed at her and then away, it was plain that he had heard something additional about the Miwaka—something which he was trying to fit into what she told him.

"That's all anybody knows?" His gaze came back to her at last.

"Yes; why did you ask about it—the Miwaka? I mean, how did you hear about it so you wanted to know?"

He considered an instant before replying. "I encountered a reference to the Miwaka—I supposed it must be a ship—in my father's house last night."

His manner, as he looked down at his coffee cup, toying with it, prevented her then from asking more; he seemed to know that she wished to press it, and he looked up quickly.

"I met my servant—my father's servant—this morning," he said.

"Yes; he got back this morning. He came here early to report to father that he had no news of Uncle Benny; and father told him you were at the house and sent him over."

Alan was studying the coffee cup again, a queer expression on his face which she could not read.

"He was there when I woke up this morning, Miss Sherrill. I hadn't heard anybody in the house, but I saw a little table on wheels standing in the hall outside my door and a spirit lamp and a little coffee pot on it, and a man bending over it, warming the cup. His back was toward me, and he had straight black hair, so that at first I thought he was a Jap; but when he turned around, I saw he was an American Indian."

"Yes; that was Wassaquam."

"Is that his name? He told me it was Judah."

"Yes—Judah Wassaquam. He's a Chippewa from the north end of the lake. They're very religious there, most of the Indians at the foot of the lake; and many of them have a Biblical name which they use for a first name and use their Indian name for a last one."

"He called me 'Alan' and my father 'Ben.'"

"The Indians almost always call people by their first names."

"He said that he had always served 'Ben' his coffee that way before he got up, and so he had supposed he was to do the same by me; and also that, long ago, he used to be a deck hand on one of my father's ships."

"Yes; when Uncle Benny began to operate ships of his own, many of the ships on the lakes had Indians among the deck hands; some had all Indians for crews and white men only for officers. Wassaquam was on the first freighter Uncle Benny ever owned a share in; afterwards he came here to Chicago with Uncle Benny. He's been looking after Uncle Benny all alone now for more than ten years—and he's very much devoted to him, and fully trustworthy; and besides that, he's a wonderful cook; but I've wondered sometimes whether Uncle Benny wasn't the only city man in the world who had an Indian body servant."

"You know a good deal about Indians."

"A little about the lake Indians, the Chippewas and Pottawatomies in northern Michigan."

"Recollection's a funny thing," Alan said, after considering a moment. "This morning, after seeing Judah and talking to him—or rather hearing him talk—somehow a story got running in my head. I can't make out exactly what it was—about a lot of animals on a raft; and there was some one with them—I don't know who; I can't fit any name to him; but he had a name."

Constance bent forward quickly. "Was the name Michabou?" she asked.

He returned her look, surprised. "That's it; how did you know?"

"I think I know the story; and Wassaquam would have known it too, I think, if you'd ask him; but probably he would have thought it impious to tell it, because he and his people are great Christians now. Michabou is one of the Indian names for Manitou. What else do you remember of the story?"

"Not much, I'm afraid—just sort of scenes here and there; but I can remember the beginning now that you have given me the name: 'In the beginning of all things there was only water and Michabou was floating on the raft with all the animals.' Michabou, it seemed, wanted the land brought up so that men and animals could live on it, and he asked one of the animals to go down and bring it up—"

"The beaver," Constance supplied.

"Was the beaver the first one? The beaver dived and stayed down a long time, so long that when he came up he was breathless and completely exhausted, but he had not been able to reach the bottom. Then Michabou sent down—"

"The otter."

"And he stayed down much longer than the beaver, and when he came up at last, they dragged him on to the raft quite senseless; but he hadn't been able to reach the bottom either. So the animals and Michabou himself were ready to give it up; but then the little muskrat spoke up—am I right? Was this the muskrat?"

"Yes."

"Then you can finish it for me?"

"He dived and he stayed down, the little muskrat," Constance continued, "longer than the beaver and the otter both together. Michabou and the animals waited all day for him to come up, and they watched all through the night; so then they knew he must be dead. And, sure enough, they came after a while across the body floating on the water and apparently lifeless. They dragged him onto the raft and found that his little paws were all tight shut. They forced open three of the paws and found nothing in them, but when they opened the last one, they found one grain of sand tightly clutched in it. The little muskrat had done it; he'd reached the bottom! And out of that one grain of sand, Michabou made the world."

"That's it," he said. "Now what is it?"

"The Indian story of creation—or one of them."

"Not a story of the plain Indians surely."

"No; of the Indians who live about the lakes and so got the idea that everything was water in the first place—the Indians who live on the islands and peninsulas. That's how I came to know it."

"I thought that must be it," Alan said. His hand trembled a little as he lifted his coffee cup to his lips.

Constance too flushed a little with excitement; it was a surprisingly close and intimate thing to have explored with another back into the concealments of his first child consciousness, to have aided another in the sensitive task of revealing himself to himself. This which she had helped to bring back to him must have been one of the first stories told him; he had been a very little boy, when he had been taken to Kansas, away from where he must have heard this story—the lakes. She was a little nervous also from watching the time as told by the tiny watch on her wrist. Henry's train from Duluth must be in now; and he had not yet called her, as had been his custom recently, as soon as he returned to town after a trip. But, in a minute, a servant entered to inform her that Mr. Spearman wished to speak to her. She excused herself to Alan and hurried out. Henry was calling her from the railroad station and, he said, from a most particularly stuffy booth and, besides having a poor connection, there was any amount of noise about him; but he was very anxious to see Constance as soon as possible. Could she be in town that morning and have luncheon with him? Yes; she was going down-town very soon and, after luncheon, he could come home with her if he wished. He certainly did wish, but he couldn't tell yet what he might have to do in the afternoon, but please would she save the evening for him. She promised and started to tell him about Alan, then recollected that Henry was going to see her father immediately at the office.

Alan was standing, waiting for her, when she returned to the breakfast room.

"Ready to go down-town?" she asked.

"Whenever you are."

"I'll be ready in a minute. I'm planning to drive; are you afraid?"

He smiled in his pleasant way as he glanced over her; she had become conscious of saying that sort of thing to tempt the smile. "Oh, I'll take the risk."

Her little gasoline-driven car—delicate as though a jeweler had made it—was waiting for them under the canopy beside the house, when they went out. She delayed a moment to ask Alan to let down the windows; the sky was still clear, and the sunshine had become almost warm, though the breeze was sharp and cold. As the car rolled down the drive, and he turned for a long look past her toward the lake, she watched his expression.

"It's like a great shuttle, the ice there," she commented, "a monster shuttle nearly three hundred miles long. All winter it moves back and forth across the lake, from east to west and from west to east as the winds change, blocking each shore half the time and forcing the winter boats to fight it always."

"The gulls go opposite to it, I suppose, sticking to open water."

"The gulls? That depends upon the weather. 'Sea-gull, sea-gull,'" she quoted, "'sit on the sand; It's never fair weather when you're on the land.'"

Alan started a little. "What was that?" he asked.

"That rhyme? One which the wives of the lake men teach their children. Did you remember that too?"

"After you said it."

"Can you remember the rest of it?"

"'Green to Green—Red to Red,'" Alan repeated to himself. "'Green to green' and then something about—how is it, 'Back her—back and stopper.'"

"That's from a lake rhyme too, but another one!" she cried. "And that's quite a good one. It's one of the pilot rules that every lake person knows. Some skipper and wheelsman set them to rhyme years ago, and the lake men teach the rhymes to their children so that they'll never go wrong with a ship. It keeps them clearer in their heads than any amount of government printing. Uncle Benny used to say they've saved any number of collisions.

"Meeting steamers do not dread,"

she recited,

"When you see three lights ahead!
Port your helm and show your red.
For passing steamers you should try
To keep this maxim in your eye,
Green to Green—or Red to Red—
Perfect safety—go ahead.
Both in safety and in doubt,
Always keep a good lookout;
Should there be no room to turn,
Stop your ship and go astern."

"Now we're coming to your 'back and stopper':

"If to starboard Red appear,
'Tis your duty to keep clear;
Act as judgment says is proper.
Port or starboard—back or stop her!
But when on your port is seen
A steamer with a light of Green,
There's not much for you to do—
The Green light must look out for you."

She had driven the car swiftly on the boulevard to the turn where the motorway makes west to Rush Street, then it turned south again toward the bridge. As they reached the approach to the bridge and the cars congested there, Constance was required to give all her attention to the steering; not until they were crossing the bridge was she able to glance at her companion's face.

To westward, on both sides of the river, summer boats were laid up, their decks covered with snow. On the other side, still nearer to the bridge, were some of the winter vessels; and, while the motor was on the span, the bells began ringing the alarm to clear the bridge so it could turn to let through a great steamer just in from the lake, the sun glistening on the ice covering its bows and sides back as far as Alan could see.

Forward of the big, black, red-banded funnel, a cloud