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[33]

He said he did for a long, time refuse to dig up his hatchet, and make war upon the whites, but that he could not sit idle in his wigwam, while his young men were gone upon their war-path. The spirit of his dead child did moreover speak to him from the land of souls, and chide him for not seeking revenge. Once, he told me, he had in a dream seen the child crying and moaning bitterly, and that when he inquired the cause of its grief, he was told that the Great Spirit was angry with its father, and would destroy him and his people unless he did join with the Eastern Indians to cut off the English.

‘I remember,’ said Rebecca, ‘of hearing my father speak of this Squando's kindness to a young maid taken captive some years ago at Presumpscot.’

‘I saw her at Cocheco,’ said the sick man. ‘Squando found her in a sad plight, and scarcely alive, took her to his wigwam, where his squaw did lovingly nurse and comfort her; and when she was able to travel, he brought her to Major Waldron's, asking no ransom for her. He might have been made the fast friend of the English at that time, but he scarcely got civil treatment.’

‘My father says that many friendly Indians, by the ill conduct of the traders, have been made our worst enemies,’ said Rebecca. ‘He thought the bringing in of the Mohawks to help us a sin comparable to that of the Jews, who looked for deliverance from the King of Babylon at the hands of the Egyptians.’

‘They did nothing but mischief,’ said Elnathan


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