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By Root 1218 0

I’ve passed, pleasantly enough too, in what is tarmed conterplation by my people. On such occasions the mind is actyve, though the body seems lazy and listless. An open spot on a mountain side, where a wide look can be had at the heavens and the ’arth, is a most judicious place for a man to get a just idee of the power of the Manitou, and of his own littleness. At such times there isn’t any great disposition to find fault with little difficulties in the way of comprehension, as there are so many big ones to hide them. Believin’ comes easy enough to me, at such times; and if the Lord made man first, out of ‘arth, as they tell me it is written in the Bible, then turns him into dust at death, I see no great difficulty in the way to bringin’ him back in the body, though ashes be the only substance left. These things lie beyond our understandin’, though they may and do lie so close to our feelin’s. But of all the doctrines, Sarpent, that which disturbs me, and disconsarts my mind the most, is the one which teaches us to think that a paleface goes to one heaven and a redskin to another; it may separate in death them which lived much together, and loved each other well in life!”

“Do the missionaries teach their white brethren to think it is so!” demanded the Indian, with serious earnestness. “The Delawares believe that good men and brave warriors will hunt together in the same pleasant woods, let them belong to whatever tribe they may; that all the unjust Indians, and cowards, will have to sneak in with the dogs and the wolves, to get venison for their lodges.”

“ ’Tis wonderful how many consaits mankind have consarnin’ happiness and misery, hereafter!” exclaimed the hunter, borne away by the power of his own thoughts. “Some believe in burnin’s and flames, and some think punishment is to eat with the wolves and dogs. Then, ag’in, some fancy heaven to be only the carryin’ out of their own ‘arthly longin’s; while others fancy it all gold and shinin’ lights! Well, I’ve an idee of my own, in that matter, which is just this, Sarpent. Whenever I’ve done wrong, I’ve gin’rally found ‘twas owin’ to some blindness of the mind, which hid the right from view, and when sight has returned, then has come sorrow and repentance. Now, I consait that, after death, when the body is laid aside, or, if used at all, is purified and without its longin’s, the spirit sees all things in their ra’al light, and never becomes blind to truth and justice. Such bein’ the case, all that has been done in life, is beheld as plainly as the sun is seen at noon; the good brings joy, while the evil brings sorrow. There’s nothin’ onreasonable in that, but it’s agreeable to every man’s experience.”

“I thought the palefaces believed all men were wicked; who then could ever find the white man’s heaven?”

“That’s ingen‘ous, but it falls short of the missionary teachin’s. You’ll be Christianized one day,1 I make no doubt, and then ’twill all come plain enough. You must know, Sarpent, that there’s been a great deed of salvation done, that, by God’s help, enables all men to find a pardon for their wickedness, and that is the essence of the white man’s religion. I can’t stop to talk this matter over with you any longer, for Hetty’s in the canoe, and the furlough takes me away; but the time will come, I hope, when you’ll feel these things; for, after all, they must be felt, rather than reasoned about. Ah’s me! well, Delaware, there’s my hand, you know it’s that of a fri’nd, and will shake it as such, though it never has done you one half the good its owner wishes it had.”

The Indian took the offered hand, and returned its pressure warmly. Then falling back on his acquired stoicism of manner, which so many mistake for constitutional indifference, he drew up in reserve, and prepared to part from his friend with dignity. Deerslayer, however, was more natural; nor would he have at all cared about giving way to his feelings, had not the recent conduct and language of Judith given him some secret, though ill-defined apprehensions of a scene. He was too humble to imagine the truth