Part 1 — THE SPOTTED DEER.

The sun was growing large toward the setting, and the light, more red than golden, shining more and more faintly along a great mass of woods that reached backward and upward along the slope, till their tops seemed to touch the sky, almost, and the red and scarlet and yellow of the foliage—for it was autumn—to be giving their colors to the clouds, when an adventurer made fast his boat on the shore of the Ohio immediately opposite Little Sandy Creek; and, having given some directions to his men, proceeded, accompanied only by his dog, to climb the ascent along which the village of Lewisburgh was sprinkled.

The villagers, as the stranger soon found, were but recent settlers on the land,—a tract of twenty thousand acres, extending along the river, and granted them by Congress in consideration of the frauds and impositions practised upon them in their earlier settlement of the neighboring town of Galliopolis.

They were mostly French, or the descendants of French emigrants,—a gay, primitive sort of people, half thrifty, half negligent in their habits, and in some sort refined in their rudeness, and cultivated in their ignorance.

They were generally farmers in a small way, each having a few acres of ground attached to his cottage, upon which he raised vegetables, grapes, and corn.

Almost every house had its flower-garden, its bird-cages at the window, and its pet animals about the door, and here and there in the outskirts of the village stood a tent or a wigwam where Indians, to whom this people were very friendly, carried on their trades,—making baskets of birch bark, bags of bead-work, and other articles of a trifling and ornamental character. The cottages were generally painted or whitewashed, and together with the tents and wigwams gave the town a romantic and picturesque appearance.

The sunset light, falling upon and brightening the mists of the river, gave a charming effect to the beauty which the landscape would have possessed at any time; and the numberless children engaged in careless sports, together with a great variety of pets, sporting with and among them, completed the enchantment of the scene.

We have said the grounds about the houses were devoted chiefly to corn and vegetables; but the peach-orchards with which the surrounding hills were planted afforded the chief source of income, yielding as they do without much cultivation. They procured them coffee, delf-ware, cutlery, and such simple articles of finery as the women desired, leaving abundant time for those pleasurable and healthful activities of which they were so fond.

It was September, with one of those mild, cloudy atmospheres that have the balminess of spring, and with the shadows came the young people out into the gardens,—the youths wearing blue jackets and trousers, which their mothers had spun and woven for them, and the maidens, party-colored dresses made in the gayest fashions which memory or invention could suggest.

Some of the more sober matrons brought out their wheels, or needle-work, and, under the trees, continued sewing and spinning till the last light faded from the hill-tops, and the bright stripes that variegated the woods were lost in one general and sombre hue.

The older men gathered near these industrious housewives, and, as they chatted of days gone by, polished their guns or mended their fishing-tackle; while the smaller children instructed the pet animals, of which we have spoken, in various ingenious tricks, until, wearied out, they sunk on the grass among them, and fearlessly fell asleep; so primitive and simple were the habits of these people.

The strange gentleman, as he leisurely strolled from one part of the village to another, found himself the object of much respectful admiration and attention: the old women smiled, for he was handsome, and when do women cease to give such recognition to handsome faces? the old men lifted their caps with an exceeding elegance of manner, and smiled, too, a little less graciously perhaps, while the children ran up to him and made overtures toward acquaintance by presents of flowers and grapes. On the shoulder of one little creature a tame blue-jay would be fluttering, and give its noisy welcome, and on the head of another the paroquet, making such signs of gladness as it had been taught to make, and the summer duck and the peacock, meantime, would walk before him, spreading out their brilliant plumage as if in contribution to his pleasure.

This sociability and friendship on the part of the children and their pets begot in the heart of the stranger a sympathetic and kindly interest almost at once, and his address so won upon these unsophisticated people that they extended to him an invitation to sup with them under the trees, and afterward join in the dance of the evening.

From the novelty of the suggestion, our adventurer entered into it with great heartiness, and a vivacity scarcely exceeded by his demonstrative entertainers. Almost every house contributed its quota of milk, wine, and peaches to the little festival, while he himself furnished his share in white biscuits, which he caused to be brought from the boat,—a donation than which nothing could have proven more acceptable, the settlers having subsisted for several months continuously on bread composed chiefly of maize.

Never was supper more cheerful, never was gayety more harmless; and as for the stranger, it was rather as if some dear friend had come back to his home, than as though an adventurer were by chance amongst them for an hour.

Three youths were in readiness with flutes and violins, to strike up after the viands had received due honor, the lads and lasses, not without effort, having restrained their impatience for more congenial merriment till the rural repast was concluded.

By and by the moon came up in full-orbed glory. Hundreds of candles fixed in the trees contributed to the illumination; and such a picture of rustic enjoyment as was presented we can only hope to outline imperfectly. The women put away their wheels, the men their guns and fishing-tackle; young mothers sung their babes to sleep, and, laying them on the grass, covered them with their shawls, and leaving the faithful dogs to tend them, ran to join the dance with hearts as light as their footsteps. All seemed young alike. Old Frenchmen, lively as their grandchildren, were capering about in crimson caps; while their wives, in dresses of the fashion of the time of Louis XIV., gossiped with one another with still more animated volubility; and the young people of both sexes, habited in holiday costumes, lit up the shady places with their bright blushes as they “tript it to and fro on the light fantastic toe.” Numbers of the domestic animals I have mentioned followed their masters confidently among the graceful and merry circles, contributing to the picturesque and inartificial beauty of the scene.

Among these animals were raccoons and opossums, both as tame as young pigs; also a curious little animal called the ground-hog, which could never be so far tamed by any amount of kindness as not to snap at the hand that offered it food; but the most remarkable and perhaps interesting of all the animals was a huge cub-bear, that was as full of playful tricks as a monkey, taking from time to time some one of the children between its paws, and rolling and tumbling on the ground with it as though it were going to tear it to pieces, and may be devour it into the bargain.

Some of the Indian women and children drew near and gazed on the scene with a strange mixture of the grave and the mirthful in their faces; and it was remarkable to observe with what fondness the wild creatures—birds and beasts—gathered about them. Here a youth might be seen with a wolf or ground-hog, and perhaps one or two other animals, between his legs, and there a young squaw, with all her black hair hidden by the splendors of the wings that were fluttering on her shoulders.

The Indian men kept mostly at a distance, but one rawboned hunter was persuaded at last to perform the war-funeral and the marriage-dance, both of which he gave in grand style; and so the festivities, or the more mirthful of them, came to an end. The old people, who had been sitting on the benches ranged along the walks, arose and went home, chattering and gesticulating as they went. The mothers took up their babies, and the dulcet symphonies fell to a lower and lower key, till by and by they faded down to silence, and quiet took up her melancholy reign.

The heart of the stranger was sad as he took his separate way to the boat that, curtained with mists, lay hugging the shore; for there is a power sometimes in the intercourse of a few hours that holds us like the friendship of years, and makes us feel poor and lonesome as we let go some hand whose single pressure has given us the assurance of a kindness that shall assert itself in eternity, if not in time.

He was half way down the slope, and could already see the yellow-capped heads of the river-waves, and hear the whistling and talking of the distant raftsmen as they paddled their slow way to the music of the whippoorwills, when suddenly a sound unlike what his ear was tuned to struck upon his attention and jangled to discord all his sweet imaginings.

It was not a sobbing nor crying, but a helpless, hopeless moaning that was more sorrowful to hear than either, for it indicated a heart, not so much crushed by sudden misfortune as wearied out by long suffering.

Standing still to listen, our adventurer perceived a rude habitation by the roadside, from the windows of which streamed no light, and about which grew no flowers. Indeed there was not so much as a tree or a patch of green grass between the doorsill and the highway.

A little way from this dreary habitation, seated on a mossy log, and mournfully caressing two beautiful deer that stood on either side of her, was a young girl, apparently in deep distress. One of these deer was as white as milk, with the exception of a few red freckles on the breast and one of the flanks; the other, was as spotted as a leopard. Both seemed exceedingly fond of her; and while the one was rubbing its graceful head against her bare shoulder,—jangling a bell which was attached to a shining collar it wore on its neck,—the other licked the hands which lay idly folded in the girl’s lap.

Her feet had just touched that marvellously beautiful, but also sadly uncertain ground where childhood and womanhood meet, and perhaps the time and the situation lent their charm; at any rate, she had that about her which drew and fixed the eyes of the stranger. He could not, perhaps, have himself expressed the peculiar nature of the interest awakened in him, as the sorrowful face looked out from its cloudy tresses with an expression of gentle appeal. He at once approached, and, under pretence of the greatest admiration for the spotted deer, made a proposal for their purchase.

Was there anything under the sun that would induce the fairy-like keeper of these singularly beautiful creatures to part with them for good and all? How came she by them? O, he was enchanted, especially with the more spotted of the two.

“Tell me, will you part with them for any price?” And bending low, the stranger waited in silence for her answer.

“O no, sir,” replied the young girl, speaking English with an accent that betrayed her French origin. “I would not part with them for a whole lapful of gold; they are my only friends!” and she caught back her heavy hair and bent her great dark eyes upon the stranger as she spoke, with an earnestness that drew him almost to her feet.

“Your only friends! how can that be, my pretty one? Surely you are deserving a kinder fate,” he said.

She did not let fall the gathered-up tresses to conceal the blushes tangling redly along her cheeks. She was too ingenuous, and too unaffectedly friendless to receive from the stranger’s words any meaning, save that of genuine kindness. On the contrary, she told him all her little story with a confiding artlessness and simplicity that must have touched the best feelings of his manhood, and made him friendly if he had not previously been so.

When she was no higher than her spotted deer, she said, her good mother died and was carried away and left on the hill that stood up so dark and so high between the yellow woods and the river,—their few cows and simple furniture were sold to defray the expenses of a long illness, and procure something a little better than charitable support for herself.

So slender a fortune was soon exhausted, of course, and our story-teller, whose name was Eveline, was elbowed and jostled about, now here, now there,—now in the way, and now out of the way,—now in the village, and now perhaps in the wigwam of some Indian hunter,—drudging with the squaws part of the time, and shooting with the bow and arrow the other part. In the spring-time she spun flax, in the summer she carded wool, in the time of the grape harvest she gleaned, and, in short, did what she could find to do; for it is the misfortune of poverty, that it has not a choice even of its work.

At length she fell into the hands of the penurious old woman with whom she still lived, and for whom she spun all day, and far into the night sometimes.

“And where did you find these friends?” asked the stranger, seating himself on the mossy log a little way from her, and doing his best to win her favor through the praises he bestowed upon her beautiful pets.

Then he told the two deer in a most playful way, what blessed fortune had befallen them when they fell into the hands of the little maid who was their mistress, and asked them if they loved her as so gentle and good a maiden deserved to be loved.

“O yes!” answered Eveline for them, not in the least embarrassed by the implied compliment. “O yes, they love me with all their two little hearts!”

Then, as she knitted up her long hair on her fingers, and ravelled it out again, she told him, with a generous eagerness to oblige, how she had been used to bring home the cows from the meadow away beyond the orchard, and farther off than he could see, and how tired her feet would grow in the lonesome path for the want of company, and how, happening one night to meet an old man who was peddling fawns, she gave her ear-rings in exchange for two of them, hoping by her spinning she should soon be able to replace the rings. “But I never have been,” she concluded, with a sigh that betrayed her fondness for ornaments and the sacrifice she had made in behalf of her beautiful favorites.

“Suppose I should give you the prettiest pair of ear-rings in the world,—coral drops, with gold setting,”—said the adventurer, unknitting her black hair from her hand and folding it within his own as he spoke, “what would you give me in exchange,—the two deer?”

Eveline looked bewildered for a moment, and then tears began filling up her beautiful eyes at the thought of parting from her only companions. “No, no,” she said at last, “I cannot give them up, for you must know, sir, they love me, and even the pretty ear-rings you promise me could not buy me that; besides, the old woman, who is my mistress, would steal them from me as she did my red ribbon to-night, keeping me away from the dance. O sir, it was breaking my heart when you came.”

And with a charming simplicity she went on asking questions about the evening gayeties, now bursting into tears at the remembrance of the sweet red ribbon with which her hard mistress had adorned her own ugly person, while herself was wrongfully compelled to mope at home; and now laughing and blushing at the stranger’s eloquently expressed regrets that he should not have had the pleasure of dancing with her.

“Ah, but you will come some other evening!” she cried, with the eager hopefulness of one who had never known a pleasure like that; and then she said, if it would really please him to dance with her, she would weave a bright garland of flowers for her head, and wear her blue bodice and scalloped petticoat!

What an honor and delight she would have, to be sure; and wouldn’t the young girls all envy her, and wouldn’t the old woman who was her mistress grow black in the face as a cloud, with angry irritation! And as long as she lived the memory of that night would be like a blessed candle burning away behind her in the dark! What evening might she expect to see him, and would he not come very, very soon? How lovely she appeared as she waited with eager uplifted face for his reply, her cheeks like two red roses, and the beating of her heart making the ruffled cape that was tied across her bosom flutter again.

The stranger was evidently touched by the simple sincerity of the fresh young beauty, and bent his admiring eyes very near the roselit cheek as he explained to her the little probability there was of their ever meeting again, even for a single evening.

“I am but a rude traveller, my pretty one,” he said, “in love with adventure, and liking the woods and the fields, the birds, the beasts, and the curious insects of the air, better than I like the homes of men and the tameness and commonness of civilized society.”

If life could be all one moonlit evening, and all a dance, and if he could dance with her, why it would be very nice and pleasant, but that could not be; his boat was waiting even then on the near river, just beyond the green fringe of willows that she could see so plain,—waiting to bear him, he knew not where, but somewhere far enough away from her, he was afraid.

“No, no, my child,”—and he sighed as he spoke,—“it is not likely we shall ever meet again in this world; but before long you will find a lover to dance with, and then you will forget you have ever seen the boatman who sits beside you now, I dare say.”

“O, how can you say so?” answered Eveline. “If I am not to dance with you, I shall never dance at all, but spin and spin till I spin me a shroud.” Then she hung her head and made no effort to conceal the tears that came to her innocent eyes; and her lately happy heart ceasing to flutter in her bosom, like a bird that is learning to fly, lay there as still and as heavy as lead. “If I had only the red ribbon to give you, so that sometimes when you happened to see it you might remember me!” she said, at last; “but the old woman has stolen my ribbon, and that is the only ornament I ever had, except the ear-rings, that I parted with as I told you. Ah, it is too bad that I have nothing to give you!”

Then the stranger told her not to fret because the old woman had stolen her ribbon. “And for that matter, you shall have another,” he said, “if you will only give me the deer. I can send it with the ear-rings, you know.” And then he told her, seeing that she was not quite satisfied, lightly touching her fair young head as he said it, that he would take, of choice, one of the long shining tresses that fell adown her shoulder. “And would you indeed prize a lock of my hair?” cries Eveline, in innocent surprise, “cut it off then!” And she leaned her head down to him, singling one long rippling curl from the rest.

Such simple confidence was not to be trifled with, and rising, the stranger said in an altered tone that he must not deprive her of the shining tress, much as he would prize it, but that he still hoped she would be persuaded to give him one of her beautiful pets,—the one with only the spotted flank, or the one with the skin like a leopard,—just as she chose. “I know how much you love them, but for my sake!” he went on,—and then he said, no, not for his sake, but for the sake of those coral ear-rings all set in gold that he was going to send back to her! And while she hesitated, he said, perhaps just to say something, that he would have the spotted deer; and he fell to coaxing and petting it with all his might. The deer, being very tame, responded to his kind words by going close to him and eating grass from his hand, and by a variety of fond and playful actions which it had been taught.

“And would you really send me the ear-rings, and such lovely ones as you say?” inquired the girl, almost persuaded, as it seemed. Then her eyes fell, and in a changed voice she said: “But why, sir, do you choose the spotted, and not the white deer? I think, of the two, I would rather part with the white one.”

And putting her arms around the neck of the spotted deer, she drew it close to her bosom, and began prattling to it in the tenderest manner. No, no, she could not part with that! The white one was not so fond of her, and was surely not so pretty. Why, Spotty would follow her all day long. She almost thought he understood every word she spoke, and sometimes he would even come into the house and lie by the side of her little low bed all the night.

Then she made a confidant of her beautiful Spotty, and told him that his little mistress loved him better than anything else in all the world! Sell him for ear-rings, indeed! No, not though they were as big and as splendid as the new moon! Then she did actually kiss the forehead of the deer, and whispered something so close in his ear that the stranger could not hear what she said, but something that was doubtless very pretty, if the dumb thing could only have understood it.

“And so you like your spotted deer the best?” the stranger said, as soon as he could get the attention of the young girl.

“O yes, so much the best! Don’t you see how fond of me he is?”

“Very well, you may keep your Spotty. I think, on the whole, I prefer the hind. Come, my beauty!” and he took the ear of the white deer in his hand, as though he would lead it away.

Instantly the girl pushed off his hand and took the head of the white hind in her lap. “No, no! my poor Whity, your little mistress will not see you abused that way, not she!” Then to the stranger: “She is used to caresses, I assure you, and not to having her ears pulled.”

“But I thought you said she was not pretty, and you did not care for her,” answered the stranger; “and I thought, too, she was my property, and not yours! Did you not bargain her away for the ear-rings?”

“No, I did not bargain Whity away at all; it was Spotty I bargained away, and then I took Spotty back, so that neither one is yours.”

Then she began talking to Whity just as she had done to Spotty before. “Suppose you are not so very pretty,” she said; “is your little mistress going to sell you away for that! No indeed! her heart is not a lump of ice, and she could not be so cruel, not for all the ear-rings under the sun. Is it your fault that you are not beautiful? No, it is not your fault, but you are beautiful! O, so beautiful! there never was a deer in all the world so beautiful as my own little Whity!”

She could part with Spotty best; he was sturdy and independent, and did not need her half so much as poor timid Whity.

Then the stranger said she might choose between her deer, but one of them he must have. And then he drew a picture of Eveline in her blue bodice and scalloped petticoat, dancing on the green with the very handsomest of all the young fellows in the village. “And what would you not give, then, for the coral ear-rings?” he concluded.

Here was a dazzling temptation. Would the stranger be very good to poor Spotty, just as good and kind as was his own mistress? To be sure he would; never deer in the world fared half so royally as Spotty should fare.

After some further talk, it was concluded between them that he should take Spotty and send back to her the ear-rings from the next landing-point. Then he took from his finger a small gold ring; would Eveline wear that in token of his promise, and perhaps, too, as a reminder of himself? It was a poor trifle, but he had nothing better to offer.

Ah yes, Eveline would take the ring, and wear it,—not in token of his promise, and not to remind her of a stranger. He would never seem a stranger to her, and she would require nothing to remind her of him; but for all that, she would take the ring.

So he took her hand, and when he had put the ring on it, said it was now time to say good by.

But Eveline kept the hand, like the sweet, simple child that she was, saying she would walk with him to the river-side, and watch the vanishing boat till it was quite out of sight. “And then I will go back alone,” she said; “and then, and then,—why then I do not know what I shall do!”

So they walked together, the two deer following, through the mingling lights and shadows, and toward the misty borders of the river, which they reached at last, and could see through the swaying boughs of the willows the waiting boat.

A few moments they stood in silence on the shore, Eveline little guessing the charming picture she made,—the misty moonlight all round her, and the graceful head of her spotted deer beneath her hand, while the white one stood a little way off scarcely distinguishable from the surrounding mist.

“Be sure I will take the best care of your beautiful pet,” said the stranger, as he was about leaping into the boat, “for your sake, my dear child, if not for his; so you need not fear to trust him away from you.”

Eveline was sobbing now, sobbing so she could hardly speak; and all at once she threw her arms around the neck of her favorite, and, holding it fast, said she could not let it go; he might have the white one, but the spotted one she must keep, she really did love him best after all!

“Then Whity it shall be; come, Whity, my beauty, come!” And the stranger began to coax and pet the white hind; but she would not come, shying off and snuffing the air instead. Then calling two of his men, he told them to bring her aboard by main force.

“No!” cries the little mistress in an angry voice. “She shall go of her own free will, or she shall not go at all. I will never stand by and see her pulled and dragged from me as though she were the worst creature in the world, instead of the best.”

“Then persuade her yourself,” said the stranger; “you know how to coax her into anything, I dare say.”

“Yes, but I will not persuade her to leave me! I have not so much love that I can afford to do that. If she is a mind to follow you, I must part with her, that is all; but I will never coax her to do so,—never, never!”

“Then I suppose I must go alone, after all,” said the stranger, sadly. “And you, my pretty one, remember that you cannot have your white hind for an ornament when the day of dancing comes again.”

“I shall never want to dance,” answered Eveline, “not if I cannot dance with you!” And she lifted her face to him, all eloquent with its innocent sorrow.

Then he told her that her life could not be more lonely than his, going through the wide world,—in wilderness places, and in deserts, with only two or three rude men for companions.

By this time the white hind had come back to its mate and its mistress, and, drawing its head close to her, Eveline asked it in whispers if it would like to go with the stranger and sail away down the beautiful river, pointing as she did so to the boat. It was perhaps in answer to the motion of her hand that the hind immediately stepped nearer to the shore. “Ah, then, she is yours, sir,” said Eveline, every word a separate tremble; “but I don’t want the ear-rings. I can’t sell anything I love.” Then she gave him special charge about the feeding and general keeping and care,—indeed, a mother who was parting with her baby could hardly have been more tender in her entreaties and directions. “The poor thing is so used to me,” she said, “what will it do?”

“There is one thing that you can do,” answered the boatman, “since you love your pet so very much. You can go along and be its keeper.”

Eveline was smiling and blushing and trembling all at once now, and the boatman went on: “I see only one difficulty, I am afraid the pretty creature, being so fond of the mistress, will not care at all about the master!”

“But I will teach her to love you!” cries the little maiden, eagerly.

“And how, my lady of the woodland,” answered the boatman, “will you contrive to do this?”

“Just by loving you myself,” she said. “There is no teaching like example, you know.” And she looked up in his face with a sweet sincerity, that charmed the stranger more than he had ever been charmed by any beautiful bird or bright flower, or by anything lovely that he had ever seen.

She would go, to be sure she would go, “But O, sir, how are you to get me over this wet sand-bar that lies between the bank and the boat?” There was witchery in the trust and the timidity, alike.

“Why, this way, my pretty mistress of the fawns,” he answered; and putting his arm about her waist, sprung with her clear across the sand-bar and into the boat. Of course the deer followed, and directly all three were sailing away together toward the golden colors of the sunset, the master of the boat singing as they sailed,—

But there is no need to linger any longer; my young reader no doubt guesses the end of the story, and can make for himself a picture of the boat, as, dividing the silver waves below, and the yellow moonlight above, it bore away the artless and gentle keeper of the spotted and white deer, to the realization, let us hope, of brighter dreams than even the promised ear-rings suggested.⁠[A]⁠