The Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics) - James Fenimore Cooper [133]
“My mother did, often,” she said, “my father, never. I thought it made my mother sorrowful to speak of our prayers and duties, but my father has never opened his mouth on such matters before or since her death.”
“That I can believe—that I can believe. He has no God—no such God as it becomes a man of white skin to worship, or even a redskin. Them things are idols!”
Judith started, and for a moment she seemed seriously hurt. Then she reflected, and in the end she laughed.
“And you think, Deerslayer, that these ivory toys are my father’s gods? I have heard of idols, and know what they are.”
“Them are idols!” repeated the other positively. “Why should your father keep ‘em if he doesn’t worship ’em?”
“Would he keep his gods in a bag, and locked up in a chest? No, no, Deerslayer; my poor father carries his god with him wherever he goes, and that is in his own cravings. These things may really be idols—I think they are, myself, from what I have heard and read of idolatry, but they have come from some distant country, like all the other articles, and have fallen into Thomas Hutter’s hands when he was a sailor.”
“I’m glad of it—I am downright glad to hear it, Judith, for I do not think I could have mustered the resolution to strive to help a white idolater out of his difficulties. The old man is of my color and nation, and I wish to sarve him; but as one who denied all his gifts in the way of religion, it would have come hard to do so. That animal seems to give you great satisfaction, Sarpent, though it’s an idolatrous head, at the best.”
“It is an elephant,” interrupted Judith, “I’ve often seen pictures of such animals at the garrisons; and mother had a book in which there was a printed account of the creature. Father burnt that, with all the other books, for he said mother loved reading too well. This was not long before mother died, and I’ve sometimes thought that the loss hastened her end.”
This was said equally without levity and without any deep feeling. It was said without levity, for Judith was saddened by her recollections, and yet she had been too much accustomed to live for self, and for the indulgence of her own vanities, to feel her mother’s wrongs very heavily. It required extraordinary circumstances to awaken a proper sense of her situation, and to stimulate the better feelings of this beautiful, but misguided girl; and these circumstances had not yet occurred in her brief existence.
“Elephant, or no elephant, ’tis an idol,” returned the hunter, “and not fit to remain in Christian keeping.”
“Good for Iroquois!” said Chingachgook, parting with one of the castles with reluctance, as his friend took it from him to replace it in the bag. “Elephon buy whole tribe—buy Delaware, almost!”
“Ay, that it would, as any one who comprehends redskin natur’ must know,” answered Deerslayer; “but the man that passes false money, Sarpent, is as bad as he who makes it. Did you ever know a just Injin that wouldn’t scorn to sell a coonskin for the true marten, or to pass off a mink for a beaver. I know that a few of these idols, perhaps one of them elephants, would go far towards buying Thomas Hutter’s liberty, but it goes ag’in conscience to pass such counterfeit money Perhaps no Injin tribe, hereaway, is downright idolaters, but there’s some that come so near it, that white gifts ought to be particular about encouraging them in their mistake.”
“If idolatry is a gift, Deerslayer, and gifts are what you seem to think them, idolatry in such people can hardly be a sin,” said Judith, with more smartness than discrimination.
“God grants no such gifts to any of his creatur‘s, Judith,” returned the hunter seriously. “He must be adored, under some name or other, and not creatur’s of brass or ivory. It matters not whether the Father of all is called God or Manitou, Deity or Great Spirit, He is none the less our common Maker and Master;