All of us had been brought up on that story,but we were crazy to hear it,and mother loved to tell it,so she dropped on a chair and began:"We were alone in a cabin in the backwoods of Ohio.Elizabeth was only nine months old,and father always said a mite the prettiest of any baby we ever had.Many of the others have looked quite as well to me,but she was the first,and he was so proud of her he always wanted me to wait in the wagon until he hitched the horses,so he would get to take and to carry her himself.Well,she was in the cradle,cooing and laughing,and I had my work all done,and cabin shining.I was heating a big poker red-hot,and burning holes into the four corners of a board so father could put legs in it to make me a bench.A greasy old squaw came to the door with her papoose on her back.She wanted to trade berries for bread.There were berries everywhere for the picking;I had more dried than I could use in two years.We planted only a little patch of wheat and father had to ride three days to carry to mill what he could take on a horse.I baked in an outoven and when it was done,a loaf of white bread was by far the most precious thing we had to eat.Sometimes I was caught,and forced to let it go.Often I baked during the night and hid the bread in the wheat at the barn.There was none in the cabin that day and I said so.She didn't believe me.She set her papoose on the floor beside the fireplace,and went to the cupboard.There wasn't a crumb there except cornbread,and she didn't want that.She said:`Brod!Brod!'
"She learned that from the Germans in the settlement.I shook my head.Then she pulled out a big steel hunting knife,such as the whites traded to the Indians so they would have no trouble in scalping us neatly,and walked to the cradle.She took that knife loosely between her thumb and second finger and holding it directly above my baby's face,she swung it lightly back and forth and demanded:`Brod!Brod!'
"If the knife fell,it would go straight through my baby's head,and Elizabeth was reaching her little hands and laughing.There was only one thing to do,and I did it.I caught that red-hot poker from the fire,and stuck it so close her baby's face,that the papoose drew back and whimpered.I scarcely saw how she snatched it up and left.When your father came,I told him,and we didn't know what to do.We knew she would come back and bring her band.If we were not there,they would burn the cabin,ruin our crops,kill our stock,take everything we had,and we couldn't travel so far,or so fast,that on their ponies they couldn't overtake us.We endangered any one with whom we sought refuge,so we gripped hands,knelt down and told the Lord all about it,and we felt the answer was to stay.Father cleaned the gun,and hours and hours we waited.
"About ten o'clock the next day they came,forty braves in war paint and feathers.I counted until I was too sick to see,then I took the baby in my arms and climbed to the loft,with our big steel knife in one hand.If your father fell,I was to use it,first on Elizabeth,then on myself.The Indians stopped at the woodyard,and the chief of the band came to the door,alone.
Your father met him with his gun in reach,and for a whole eternity they stood searching each other's eyes.I was at the trapdoor where I could see both of them.
"To the depths of my soul I enjoyed seeing Leon take the fence and creek:but what was that,child,to compare with the timber that stood your father like a stone wall between me and forty half-naked,paint besmeared,maddened Indians?Don't let any showing the men of to-day can make set you to thinking that father isn't a king among men.Not once,but again and again in earlier days,he fended danger from me like that.I can shut my eyes and see his waving hair,his white brow,his steel blue eyes,his unfaltering hand.I don't remember that I had time or even thought to pray.I gripped the baby,and the knife,and waited for the thing I must do if an arrow or a shot sailed past the chief and felled father.They stood second after second,like two wooden men,and then slowly and deliberately the chief lighted his big pipe,drew a few puffs and handed it to father.
He set down his gun,took the pipe and quite as slowly and deliberately he looked at the waiting band,at the chief,and then raised it to his lips.
"`White squaw brave!Heap much brave!'said the chief.
"`In the strength of the Lord.Amen!'said father.
"Then he reached his hand and the chief took it,so I came down the ladder and stood beside father,as the Indians began to file in the front door and out the back.As they passed,every man of them made the peace sign and piled in a heap,venison,fish,and game,while each squaw played with the baby and gave me a gift of beads,a metal trinket,or a blanket she had woven.After that they came often,and brought gifts,and if prowling Gypsies were pilfering,I could look to see a big Indian loom up and seat himself at my fireside until any danger was past.I really got so I liked and depended on them,and father left me in their care when he went to mill,and I was safe as with him.You have heard the story over and over,but to-day is the time to impress on you that an exhibition like THIS is the veriest child's play compared with what I have seen your father do repeatedly!""But it was you,the chief said was brave!"
Mother laughed.
"I had to be,baby,"she said."Mother had no choice.There's only one way to deal with an Indian.I had lived among them all my life,and I knew what must be done.""I think both of you were brave,"I said,"you,the bravest!""Quite the contrary,"laughed mother."I shall have to confess that what I did happened so quickly I'd no time to think.I only realized the coal red iron was menacing the papoose when it drew back and whimpered.Father had all night to face what was coming to him,and it was not one to one,but one to forty,with as many more squaws,as good fighters as the braves,to back them.It was a terror but I never have been sorry we went through it together.I have rested so securely in your father ever since.""And he is as safe in you,"I insisted.
