Part 14 (1/2)
She was taller, by a head, than any woman of the tribe; she could charm the wild birds, and draw the feathers from their tails to make head-dresses for the old chief and ornaments for herself; she could dance war-dances like one of the braves, only with more grace; and when she told the stories which the fishes in the river whispered to her, the old chieftain nodded his head wisely and patted the girl on the shoulder. She should find a husband in good time; but he must be as much taller and stronger than the other men of the tribe, as she was fairer and wiser than her sisters.
”When the missionary priests came, with their white faces and strange garments fas.h.i.+oned neither from the skin of any animal nor from the feathers of any bird, and made friendly overtures to the old chief, the Smile of the Morning fell upon her face in terror. The Indians would have wors.h.i.+pped the men with the white faces and strange tongue; but to prove to them that they too were men and adored a G.o.d, the priests held their services and kneeled to the Great Spirit whom they reverenced.
When the new-comers had learned the language of the Indians, and had built themselves a house and a greater house to their G.o.d, the daughter of the chief grew to be no longer afraid of the black-robed figures.
She eagerly learned the simple lessons which they set for the people; and it was because of the wonderful learning that they gave her that she studied so industriously, and not, like her brothers and sisters, to gain the daily rations of corn. When the early bell called the Indians to the church of the San Rosario Mission, the Smile of the Morning was the first to answer the summons; and when the other Indians were squabbling over their breakfast of maize, she lingered in the sanctuary, trying to fathom the strange rites which were so much holier than those of her people, looking into the painted faces in the pictures over the rude altar, and feeling curiously behind them to ascertain whether the backs also were painted.
”The soldiers who upheld the authority of the priests were encouraged by large bounties and grants of land to marry the converted squaws; and in the course of time several such unions were solemnized at the Mission.
Among the stern old pioneer priests was one young man dear to the Father Junipero, whose pupil he had been, and who had followed the famous man on his great mission of converting the heathen Indians. His name was Fra Antonio. His voice was soft and low, and his eyes open and sad, with shadows in them, which the Indian maiden had never seen in other eyes,--shadows like those cast by the white clouds floating before the sun's face on hot summer afternoons. Fra Antonio was very kind to the tall beauty of the tribe, and with a never-failing patience strove to make the doctrines of his religion clear to her simple understanding.
Strange were the means by which the fathers learned to expound their religion to the savages. To express the great hope of the resurrection, they put a number of insects in a vessel of water, leaving them there till they were apparently quite dead. Then the creatures were placed in a bank of hot ashes, which warmed their frozen, half-dead bodies back to life. When the gauzy wings were spread, carrying the insects up into the suns.h.i.+ne again, the fathers marked the words e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed by the Indians, and by that term they called the resurrection.
”New and beautiful were the thoughts which now possessed the mind of the Indian girl. She learned that to forgive was n.o.bler than to avenge,--strangest of all doctrines taught by the priests to the red men. She learned that the stars, pale and fiery, were great worlds like the one in which she lived, and not the hearts of the brave chiefs placed in the heavens after death as she had always been taught. Only the simplest of the great truths which lie like jewels in the tawdry setting of the Mother Church, did Fra Antonio instil into her childish mind, which with an unquestioning faith accepted all the young priest taught. Few among the tribe--perhaps, indeed, no one of the Indians beside the Smile of the Morning--understood or believed the new doctrines taught by the priests. These were satisfied that the rites of baptism and of extreme unction were administered, and that the daily services were attended, quite conscious that their most potent weapon of conversion was the ration of _atole_, or prepared corn, which they served out to the lazy braves. As soon as he became a member of the church, every redskin was cared for, and a gentle slavery was the result, in which the priests exacted a certain amount of labor from the Indian, in turn feeding him and caring for his wants. The art of weaving was taught, together with civilized agriculture; and the fruit of the vines was fermented into strong, rough wine, this being reserved for the service of the altar and the table of the priests. In the eyes of the zealous missionaries the Indian was the rightful owner of the soil; and there was no thought of disputing his claim to it. It was that he might better and more wisely enjoy the fruits of his own land, and in the next life enter the happier home prepared for all true followers of the Church of Rome, that the Father Junipero and his band of soldiers and priests lived and died in the wilderness of California.
How their treatment of the original inhabitants of the soil differed from that adopted by the enlightened race which now claims the country, you have seen enough, or at any rate heard enough, of our Indian policy to appreciate. Instead of improving the land for its owners, as did the brave missionary priests, we have wrested it from them, driving the children of those who for centuries have owned the Pacific coast away from the choicest spots to rocky, desolate lands which have again been taken from them by the greedy gold-hunters. But all this has happened since the time when the Smile-of the Morning lived upon this pretty island, and decked her glossy hair with a coronet of blue-jays'
feathers, that she might be fair in the eyes of one whom she loved. But a year had pa.s.sed since the arrival of Fra Antonio, when the old chieftain noticed that his daughter's step had grown heavy and slow; that her great eyes danced no more; that her countenance no longer merited the name of the morning's smile. He was a wise old man for an Indian; and after thinking the matter over for a week, during which time he smoked an unusual number of pipes of tobacco, he came to the conclusion that the girl had been bewitched by one of the strange priests. Calling her to him, he questioned her as to the cause of her altered behavior; and from her downcast face and embarra.s.sed replies he quickly surmised her secret. The Smile of the Morning loved the fair young priest, and it was for his sake that her tears flowed. The old chief at first scoffed at her infatuation, and bade her take up with one of her dusky suitors. But the girl was obstinate; and finally yielding to her whim, the old chief himself offered his daughter's hand to Fra Antonio. The young priest, in holy horror, took counsel with his superiors; and it was explained to the chieftain that though the white soldiers were free to mate with the maidens of the tribe, the priests were vowed to celibacy. If the pious young priest had unwittingly mingled an unwise fervor in his exhortations to the Indian girl, he bitterly regretted his fault. As day by day he saw her elastic figure grow more feeble, and marked her hollow cheeks and her sad eyes fixed reproachfully on him whilst he served the ma.s.s or taught the new converts, a tenderness for her, which her savage health and perfections had failed to arouse, awoke in his breast. When he saw the young braves, each with his dusky partner, and the sisters of the Smile of the Morning with their children in their arms, he sometimes cursed the priestly habit which proclaimed him a thing apart from all other of G.o.d's creatures, doomed to live unmated and alone. Long vigils and heavy penances failed to ease the grief in his heart, or to set at rest its yearning toward the child who had been redeemed from barbarism, through his teaching, to live a Christian life and die in the hope of his faith.
”At last the battle between the spirit and the heart grew too terrible for him to bear; he was not strong enough; and he begged the fathers to send him to another Mission far to the northward. When the Smile of the Morning learned that Fra Antonio was to leave the Mission on the morrow, she decked herself in all her jewels, hung her long sh.e.l.l necklaces about her throat, wound her bead bracelets about her arms, and placed her coronet of blue-jays' feathers upon her brow. She was not to be found that night when the old chief lay down to rest; and when the sun rose on the day which should see Fra Antonio far on his long journey, her sisters found the maiden lying in the cool waters of the river which washes this island, with the little rosary the priest had given her locked in her cold fingers, and the smile upon her face that had been missing for so many weeks. They called the fathers to come and look upon her; and Fra Antonio prayed long beside her, with streaming eyes and broken voice. The kiss which his sad lips laid reverently on her brow was felt perhaps, for all those who stood near heard the sigh which came rustling through the trees near by. As she had wilfully taken her own life, the poor girl could not be buried with the ceremonies of the church to which she had been admitted; so she was interred by her people near the spot where they had found her, on this little island where we now sit. When the good fathers sat together of an evening and discussed questions spiritual and temporal touching the welfare of their little flock, Fra Antonio was often missing from their midst. Sometimes the faint sound was heard of the church bell softly struck by a tender hand, and the priests crossed themselves silently, knowing for whose soul it was that Fra Antonio solemnized the ma.s.s for the dead.”
A silence followed Galbraith's story, which was broken by Millicent, who said,--
”I have a sketch in an old Italian book of a beautiful young monk, Fra Antonio by name. Could it be the same, I wonder?”
”Who knows? Some of the priests were Italians. Would the dates agree?”
”The portrait was dated some time in the latter part of the last century.”
”It could not have been far from that time that the Smile of the Morning met her sad fate.”
”Sad,--do you call her fate sad?” queried Millicent.
”Who could think it otherwise?”
”I surely do. Was it sad to die for the man she loved?”
”It would have been happier if she could have lived for him.”
”Happiness! Who spoke of happiness? Why talk about a thing so mythical? I think her lot was an enviable one. To her simple mind the thought that suicide is sinful could never have occurred. She might not follow the man she loved; she believed that the soul now prisoned in her breast might always be near him; so she opened the cage and let the bird fly.”
”You speak as seriously as if you had known the Smile of the Morning and sympathized with her.”
”It is the privilege of those who have greatly suffered, that the grief of others can be felt and understood by them.” Millicent spoke absently, dreamily, checking her speech at the pained expression which her words brought to Galbraith's face.
Later in the afternoon the party left the island and wandered about the old bridge. Some of them climbed the high hill; others struck into the woods. By some chance Millicent found herself left alone near the mill with no one of the party near her save Ah Lam. Calling the faithful creature to her side, she made him prepare her a comfortable seat, and leaning back against the wall, she entered into a desultory conversation with her pupil. Ah Lam often told her stories in his broken English, descriptive of the power and character of the most august personages of the Chinese mythology. To-day he found an inattentive listener in his kind friend and teacher; but he had been bidden to speak, and so he talked on patiently, describing rites of death and feasts of marriages, recalling the great river _fete_ which he had witnessed shortly before sailing from his native city. As the Chinaman paused after this last tale, Millicent heard a step approaching the door of the old mill. She looked up carelessly, expecting to see one of the gentlemen. The man who stood before her was a stranger. His face was somewhat flushed, and he looked as if he had travelled some distance.
”Second time, my lady, I've see'd yer purty face to-day.”
Millicent bowed her head and turned away, looking anxiously toward the wood, where she had seen Hal disappear a few moments before.
”Sha'n't let yer off ser aisy this time. I've took a fancy to see the color of yer eyes.”
The look of angry indignation with which the gray orbs were turned upon the man was enough to have abashed any sensitive person, but to this cla.s.s the stranger did not belong. He was a rough-looking fellow of large stature, with a heavy animal face, crossed by a deep scar running from the chin to the forehead on the right side. In his belt he wore a pair of pistols, at which the Chinaman looked uneasily.