Keela had come with the Mulberry Moon
to the home of her foster father, a presence of delicate gravity and
shyness which pervaded the lodge like the breath of some vivid wild
flower.
"Red-winged Blackbird," said Carl, one morning, laying aside the flute
which had been showering tranquil melody through the quiet beneath the
moss-hung oaks, "why are you so quiet?"
"I am ever quiet," said Red-winged Blackbird with dignity. "Mic-co
says it is better so."
"Why?"
"Mic-co only understands, and even to him I may not always talk." She
went sedately on with the modeling of clay, her slender hands swift,
graceful, unfaltering. Mic-co's lodge abounded in evidences of their
deftness.
"You have more grace," said Carl suddenly, "than any woman I have ever
known."
"Diane!" said Keela with charming and impartial acquiescence.
"Yes, Diane has it, too," assented Carl, and fell thoughtful, watching
Mic-co's snowy herons flap tamely about the lodge.
"Play!" said Keela shyly.
Carl drew the flute from his pocket again and obeyed.
"Like a brook of silver!" said the Indian girl with an abashed
revealment of the wild sylvan poetry with which her thoughts were rife.
"The one friend," said Carl, "to whom I have told all things. The one
friend, Red-winged Blackbird, who always understood!"
"I," said Keela with majesty, "I too am your friend and I understand.
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