Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 5 | Page 3

hungry, and the supper
of warm Indian bread and sweet milk relished quite as well as any I

ever ate in the Old Country. The next day we went on over a rough
road to Wenham, through Salem, which is quite a pleasant town. Here
we stopped until this morning, when we again mounted our horses, and
reached this place, after a smart ride of three hours. The weather in the
morning was warm and soft as our summer days at home; and, as we
rode through the woods, where the young leaves were fluttering, and
the white blossoms of the wind-flowers, and the blue violets and the
yellow blooming of the cowslips in the low grounds, were seen on
either hand, and the birds all the time making a great and pleasing
melody in the branches, I was glad of heart as a child, and thought if
my beloved friends and Cousin Oliver were only with us, I could never
wish to leave so fair a country.
Just before we reached Agawam, as I was riding a little before my
companions, I was startled greatly by the sight of an Indian. He was
standing close to the bridle-path, his half-naked body partly hidden by a
clump of white birches, through which he looked out on me with eyes
like two live coals. I cried for my brother and turned my horse, when
Robert Pike came up and bid me be of cheer, for he knew the savage,
and that he was friendly. Whereupon, he bade him come out of the
bushes, which he did, after a little parley. He was a tall man, of very
fair and comely make, and wore a red woollen blanket with beads and
small clam-shells jingling about it. His skin was swarthy, not black like
a Moor or Guinea-man, but of a color not unlike that of tarnished
copper coin. He spake but little, and that in his own tongue, very harsh
and strange-sounding to my ear. Robert Pike tells me that he is Chief of
the Agawams, once a great nation in these parts, but now quite small
and broken. As we rode on, and from the top of a hill got a fair view of
the great sea off at the east, Robert Pike bade me notice a little bay,
around which I could see four or five small, peaked huts or tents,
standing just where the white sands of the beach met the green line of
grass and bushes of the uplands.
"There," said he, "are their summer-houses, which they build near unto
their fishing-grounds and corn-fields. In the winter they go far back
into the wilderness, where game is plenty of all kinds, and there build
their wigwams in warm valleys thick with trees, which do serve to

shelter them from the winds."
"Let us look into them," said I to Cousin Rebecca; "it seems but a
stone's throw from our way."
She tried to dissuade me, by calling them a dirty, foul people; but
seeing I was not to be put off, she at last consented, and we rode aside
down the hill, the rest following. On our way we had the misfortune to
ride over their corn-field; at the which, two or three women and as
many boys set up a yell very hideous to hear; whereat Robert Pike
came up, and appeased them by giving them some money and a drink
of Jamaica spirits, with which they seemed vastly pleased. I looked into
one of their huts; it was made of poles like unto a tent, only it was
covered with the silver-colored bark of the birch, instead of hempen
stuff. A bark mat, braided of many exceeding brilliant colors, covered a
goodly part of the space inside; and from the poles we saw fishes
hanging, and strips of dried meat. On a pile of skins in the corner sat a
young woman with a child a-nursing; they both looked sadly wild and
neglected; yet had she withal a pleasant face, and as she bent over her
little one, her long, straight, and black hair falling over him, and
murmuring a low and very plaintive melody, I forgot everything save
that she was a woman and a mother, and I felt my heart greatly drawn
towards her. So, giving my horse in charge, I ventured in to her,
speaking as kindly as I could, and asking to see her child. She
understood me, and with a smile held up her little papoose, as she
called him,--who, to say truth, I could not call very pretty. He seemed
to have a wild, shy look, like the offspring of an untamed, animal. The
woman wore a blanket, gaudily fringed, and she had a string of beads
on her neck. She took