"All chief have squaw--all chief have pappoose--" was the answer
that came at last. "What he good for, eh?"
"It is always good to have children, Peter; especially when the
children themselves are good."
"Good for pale-face, maybe--no good for Injin. Pale-face glad when
pappoose born--red-skin sorry."
"I hope this is not so. Why should an Injin be sorry to see the
laugh of his little son?"
"Laugh when he little--p'raps so; he little, and don't know what
happen. But Injin don't laugh any more when he grow up. Game gone;
land gone; corn-field gone. No more room for Injin--pale-face want
all. Pale-face young man laugh--red-skin young man cry. Dat how it
is."
"Oh! I hope not, Peter! I should be sorry to think it was so. The
red man has as good a right--nay, he has a BETTER right to this
country than we whites; and God forbid that he should not always
have his full share of the land!"
Margery probably owed her life to that honest, natural burst of
feeling, which was uttered with a warmth and sincerity that could
leave no doubt that the sentiment expressed came from the heart.
Thus singularly are we constructed! A minute before, and no
exemption was made in the mind of Peter, in behalf of this girl, in
the plan he had formed for cutting off the whites; on the contrary,
he had often be-thought him of the number of young pale-faces that
might be, as it were, strangled in their cradles, by including the
bee-hunter and his intended squaw in the contemplated sacrifice.
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