Boden labored the more cheerfully at this work,
for two especial reasons. One was the fact that the defences might
be useful to himself, hereafter, as much against bears as against
Indians; and the other, because Margery daily brought her sewing or
knitting, and sat on the fallen trees, laughing and chatting, as the
axe performed its duties. On three several occasions Peter was
present, also, accompanying Blossom, with a kindness of manner, and
an attention to her pretty little tastes in culling flowers, that
would have done credit to a man of a higher school of civilization.
The reader is not to suppose, however, because the Indian pays but
little outward attention to the squaws, that he is without natural
feeling, or manliness of character. In some respects his chivalrous
devotion to the sex is, perhaps, in no degree inferior to that of
the class which makes a parade of such sentiments, and this quite as
much from convention and ostentation, as from any other motive. The
red man is still a savage beyond all question, but he is a savage
with so many nobler and more manly qualities, when uncorrupted by
communion with the worst class of whites, and not degraded by
extreme poverty, as justly to render him a subject of our
admiration, in self-respect, in dignity, and in simplicity of
deportment.
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