CHAPTER VIII

LITTLE METACOMET VISITS THE WHITE-WINGED BLACKBIRD

"I know a bird," said Little Metacomet to Roger one day. "Let's go and visit him." Sassamon was with him. They traveled down to the Assowomset Lakes.

It was June. The wild roses were in bloom. Little Metacomet with Sassamon led Roger, or "Bob-White," to a great pond surrounded by black alders. It was nearly noon and the sun seemed to hang over the middle of the pond. The Indian boy found a birch canoe on the border of the pond.

They went out on the water, under the shadows of some great trees, Sassamon paddling. Small animals ran hither and thither as they passed along. Suddenly Little Metacomet said--

"Hold, I see my baby brother."

He pointed. A white rabbit was standing up on his haunches, like a little child, or a baby made of white wool.

"I no draw the bow," said he. "Good-morning, little brother of the wood."

[Illustration: "GOOD-MORNING, LITTLE BROTHER."]

The white rabbit said nothing. The paddle struck a branch of a tree under water which caused the boat to curve. They all turned their eyes on the snag, and when they lifted them again "little brother" was gone. He understood his opportunity.

They glided along. The ospreys were wheeling and screaming overhead in the blue sky, and the red robins flamed in a colonnade of tall trees, which were bearded with green moss.

They came to a covert of dark alders and leadlike hazels. Here seemed to be a colony of blackbirds. They rose from the bushes into the sun. The male birds had red spots on their wings.

Sassamon ceased paddling that Roger might see the red wings which were in alarm, and fluttered here and there in the sun.

"That is not he," said Little Metacomet. "Wait and see my bird. I know the nest. My bird is a wonder-wonder."

He stepped on shore, and made his way through some tall grasses where were clusters of the yellow lady's-slippers, the most beautiful flower of the New England woods. He plucked one in full bloom, and cried--

"Ho, ho!"

He shook a tall black alder. There was a nest in it, from which rose a bird in great alarm.

"Ho, ho--see the wonder-wonder!"

The bird cried as if to nature for help.

It was not a red-winged blackbird--the downy spots on its wings were white.

"Bob-White--here is a brother bird of the wood. I bring you to see a brother bird of the wood. Shall I bring him down, Bob-White?"

Roger admired the beautiful white-winged blackbird, and pitied his distress.

"Has he a nest?"

"Yes, yes; come and see your brother bird, Bob-White."

But the bird flew down to the lake, its wings quivering.

"I see," said Roger. "No, you need not bring him down if he has a nest."

"You have a heart," said Little Metacomet, returning. "Never I strike a bird with a nest. Niquentum. See, he is going home."

What did he mean by "Niquentum"?

It was a law among the Indians that no one should stop or delay a traveler who uttered that word, which spoke to the heart--"I am going home." As a rule, when a traveler said that, he was going to his family who needed him: home to a wedding; home to one sick or in distress; home to help some one in misfortune; home to a funeral, to dig a grave, or to bury the dead,--it was a sacred word.

The Indian boy saw the white-winged blackbird going back to his nest.

He showed Roger, or "Bob-White," his brother with the white sign on his wing.

They pushed on to a great pond,--there were three hundred and sixty-five ponds in all this place, called the Assowomset Country,--and sailed free into the lake. Here were many geese, and among them some white geese which the Indian boy thought would delight Roger. Purple water-lilies lined the shore. The berry bushes were in bloom, and they landed and rested on some great shelves of rock under an osprey's nest, which contained possibly a half cord of wood.

While resting here and eating some powdered parched corn, they saw a fat rattlesnake on a flat shelf of rock near by.

Little Metacomet took up his bow.

"I will show you something," said Sassamon. "Wait."

He took from his pouch a pinch of tobacco, cut down a tall alder, put the tobacco on the top end of it and reached it slowly towards the reptile.

The snake coiled, rattled, lifted its head in fiery anger, and displayed its fangs.

Sassamon with a steady arm dropped the tobacco into the serpent's open mouth. The reptile uncoiled, rolled over, quivered, and was soon dead.

Little Metacomet leaped up, and sang something that sounded odd to Roger, and then began to dance.

Late in the day the great pond seemed to turn to gold in the declining light. Then they journeyed home.

It was a time of superstitions. People believed in signs and wonders. Roger found his father, the wood-chopper, very much depressed at home.

"Don't tell her," he said, referring to Susan. "But what do you think the Plymouth people have seen?"

Roger could not answer.

"An Indian scalp in the sky."

"Where?"

"On the moon."

"I am afraid you have heard some bad news," said Susan, later. But the wood-chopper did not reply. He only spread out his hands before the fire.