The Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics) - James Fenimore Cooper [238]
“He told you he was a pirate—there is no need of mincing matters between friends. Read that, Deerslayer, and you will see that he told you no more than the truth. This Thomas Hovey was the Thomas Hutter you knew, as is seen by these letters.”
As Judith spoke, with a flushed cheek and eyes dazzling with the brilliancy of excitement, she held the newspaper towards her companion, pointing to the proclamation of a colonial governor, already mentioned.
“Bless you, Judith!” answered the other, laughing; “you might as well ask me to print that—or, for that matter, to write it. My edication has been altogether in the woods; the only book I read, or care about reading, is the one which God has opened afore all his creatur’s in the noble forest, broad lakes, rolling rivers, blue skies, and the winds, and tempests, and sunshine, and other glorious marvels of the land! This book I can read, and I find it full of wisdom and knowledge.”
“I crave your pardon, Deerslayer,” said Judith earnestly, more abashed than was her wont, in finding that she had inadvertently made an appeal that might wound her companion’s pride. “I had forgotten your manner of life, and least of all did I wish to hurt your feelings.”
“Hurt my feelin‘s!—why should it hurt my feelin’s to ask me to read, when I can’t read? I’m a hunter—and I may now begin to say a warrior, and no missionary; and, therefore, books and papers are of no account with such as I. No, no, Judith,” and here the young man laughed cordially; “not even for wads, seeing that your true deerkiller always uses the hide of a fa’an, if he’s got one, or some other bit of leather suitably prepared. There’s some that do say, all that stands in print is true; in which case, I’ll own an unl’arned man must be somewhat of a loser; nevertheless, it can’t be truer than that which God has printed with his own hand, in the sky, and the woods, and the rivers, and the springs.”
“Well, then, Hutter or Hovey, was a pirate; and being no father of mine, I cannot wish to call him one. His name shall no longer be my name.”
“If you dislike the name of that man, there’s the name of your mother, Judith. Her name may serve you just as good a turn.”
“I do not know it. I’ve looked through those papers, Deerslayer, in the hope of finding some hint by which I might discover who my mother was; but there is no more trace of the past in that respect, than the bird leaves in the air.”
“That’s both oncommon and onreasonable. Parents are bound to give their offspring a name, even though they give ‘em nothing else. Now, I come of a humble stock, though we have white gifts and a white natur’; but we are not so poorly off as to have no name. Bumppo we are called, and I’ve heard it said,” a touch of human vanity glowing on his cheek, “that the time has been when the Bumppos had more standing and note among mankind than they have just now.”
“They never deserved them more, Deerslayer, and the name is a good one; either Hetty or myself would a thousand times rather be called Hetty Bumppo or Judith Bumppo, than to be called Hetty or Judith Hutter.”
“That’s a moral impossible,” returned the hunter, goodhumoredly, “unless one of you should so far demean herself as to marry me.
Judith could not refrain from smiling, when she found how simply and naturally the conversation had come round to the very point at which she aimed to bring it. Although far from unfeminine or forward in her feelings or her habits, the girl was goaded by a sense of wrongs not altogether merited, incited by the helplessness of a future that seemed to contain no resting place, and still more influenced by feelings that were as novel to her as they proved to be active and engrossing. The opening was too good, therefore, to be neglected, though she came to the subject with much of the indirectness, and, perhaps, justifiable address of a