Good Indian by B. M. Bower (best book club books .TXT) 📕

she spoke of him, dear as her own first-born. “Jack bueno, mebbyso Gene bueno, mebbyso Clark, mebbyso Donny all time bueno.” Doubt was in her voice when she praised those last two, however, because of their continual teasing. She stopped short to emphasize the damning contrast. “Good Injun all same mebbyso yo' boy Grant, hee-ee-eap kay bueno. Good Injun Grant all time DEBBIL!”

It was at this point that Donny slipped away to report that “Mamma and old Hagar are scrappin' over Good Injun again,” and told with glee the tale of his misdeeds as recounted by the squaw.

Phoebe in her earnestness forgot to keep within the limitations of their dialect.

“Grant's a good boy, and a smart boy. There isn't a better-hearted fellow in the country, if I have got five boys of my own. You think I like him better than I like Wally, is all ails you, Hagar. You're jealous of Grant, and you always have been, ever since his father left him with me. I hope my heart's big enough to hold them all.” She remembered then that they could not understand half she was saying, and appealed to Viney. Viney liked Grant.

“Viney, you tell me. Grant no come Hartley, no drunk, no yell, no catchum you dog, no ride in Hagar's wikiup? You tell me, Viney.”

Viney and Lucy bobbed their heads rapidly up and down. Viney, with a sidelong glance at Hagar, spoke softly.

“Good Injun Grant, mebbyso home Hartley,” she admitted reluctantly, as if she would have been pleased to prove Hagar a liar in all things. “Me thinkum no drunk. Mebbyso ketchum dog—dog kay bueno, mebbyso me killing. Good Injun Grant no heap yell, no shoot all time—mebbyso no drunk. No breakum wikiup. Horse all time kay bueno, Hagar—”

“Shont-isham!” (big lie) Hagar interrupted shrilly then, and Viney relapsed into silence, her thin face growing sullen under the upbraiding she received in her native tongue. Phoebe, looking at her attentively, despaired of getting any nearer the truth from any of them.

There was a sudden check to Hagar's shrewish clamor. The squaws stiffened to immobility and listened stolidly, their eyes alone betraying the curiosity they felt. Off somewhere at the head of the tiny pond, hidden away in the jungle of green, a voice was singing; a girl's voice, and a strange voice—for the squaws knew well the few women voices along the Snake.

“That my girl,” Phoebe explained, stopping the soft pat—pat of her butter-ladle.

“Where ketchum yo' girl?” Hagar forgot her petulance, and became curious as any white woman.

“Me ketchum 'way off, where sun come up. In time me have heap boys—mebbyso want girl all time. My mother's sister's boy have one girl, 'way off where sun come up. My mother's sister's boy die, his wife all same die, that girl mebbyso heap sad; no got father, no got mother—all time got nobody. Kay bueno. That girl send one letter, say all time got nobody. Me want one girl. Me send one letter, tell that girl come, be all time my girl. Five days ago, that girl come. Her heap glad; boys all time heap glad, my man heap glad. Bueno. Mebbyso you glad me have one girl.” Not that their approval was necessary, or even of much importance; but Phoebe was accustomed to treat them like spoiled children.

Hagar's lip was out-thrust again. “Yo' ketchum one girl, mebbyso yo' no more likum my boy Wally. Kay bueno.”

“Heap like all my boys jus' same,” Phoebe hastened to assure her, and added with a hint of malice, “Heap like my boy Grant all same.”

“Huh!” Hagar chose to remain unconvinced and antagonistic. “Good Injun kay bueno. Yo' girl, mebbyso kay bueno.”

“What name yo' girl?” Viney interposed hastily.

“Name Evadna Ramsey.” In spite of herself, Phoebe felt a trifle chilled by their lack of enthusiasm. She went back to her butter-making in dignified silence.

The squaws blinked at her stolidly. Always they were inclined toward suspicion of strangers, and perhaps to a measure of jealousy as well. Not many whites received them with frank friendship as did the Hart family, and they felt far more upon the subject than they might put into words, even the words of their own language.

Many of the white race looked upon them as beggars, which was bad enough, or as thieves, which was worse; and in a general way they could not deny the truth of it. But they never stole from the Harts, and they never openly begged from the Harts. The friends of the Harts, however, must prove their friendship before they could hope for better than an imperturbable neutrality. So they would not pretend to be glad. Hagar was right—perhaps the girl was no good. They would wait until they could pass judgment upon this girl who had come to live in the wikiup of the Harts. Then Lucy, she who longed always for children and had been denied by fate, stirred slightly, her nostrils aquiver.

“Mebbyso bueno yo' girl,” she yielded, speaking softly. “Mebbyso see yo' girl.”

Phoebe's face cleared, and she called, in mellow crescendo: “Oh, Va-ad-NIEE?” Immediately the singing stopped.

“Coming, Aunt Phoebe,” answered the voice.

The squaws wrapped themselves afresh in their blankets, passed brown palms smoothingly down their hair from the part in the middle, settled their braids upon their bosoms with true feminine instinct, and waited. They heard her feet crunching softly in the gravel that bordered the pond, but not a head turned that way; for all the sign of life they gave, the three might have been mere effigies of women. They heard a faint scream when she caught sight of them sitting there, and their faces settled into more stolid indifference, adding a hint of antagonism even to the soft eyes of Lucy, the tender, childless one.

“Vadnie, here are some new neighbors I want you to get acquainted with.” Phoebe's eyes besought the girl to be calm. “They're all old friends of mine. Come here and let me introduce you—and don't look so horrified, honey!”

Those incorrigibles, her cousins, would have whooped with joy at her unmistakable terror when she held out a trembling hand and gasped faintly: “H-how do you—do?”

“This Hagar,” Phoebe announced cheerfully; and the old squaw caught the girl's hand and gripped it tightly for a moment in malicious enjoyment of her too evident fear and repulsion.

“This Viney.”

Viney, reading Evadna's face in one keen, upward glance, kept her hands hidden in the folds of her blanket, and only nodded twice reassuringly.

“This Lucy.”

Lucy read also the girl's face; but she reached up, pressed her hand gently, and her glance was soft and friendly. So the ordeal was over.

“Bring some of that cake you baked to-day, honey—and do brace up!” Phoebe patted her upon the shoulder.

Hagar forestalled the hospitable intent by getting slowly upon her fat legs, shaking her hair out of her eyes, and grunting a command to the others. With visible reluctance Lucy and Viney rose also, hitched their