bout the time of the old chief's death a child was born among the
Shawnee Indians who was to take up the cause of his people with equally
great courage and intelligence. This child was called Tecumseh, which
means shooting-star.

The tribe to which Tecumseh belonged had not yielded to the temptations
offered by the white man. Although many of the tribes north of the Ohio
River, through the influence of alms and whisky, were fast losing their
savage virtues and becoming spiritless beggars, idle, drunken,
quarrelsome, the Shawnees were still strong and warlike.

Several of the Shawnee tribes lived together in a large village on Mad
River, not far from the place where Springfield, Ohio, now stands. There
they had built for themselves rude huts made of sapling logs. Around
these lodges, on the fertile land along the river were corn fields,
where the Indian women worked while the men hunted or went to war.

In this village, on a bluff near the river, stood Tecumseh's first home.
His father was chief of a small tribe and was highly respected for his
courage and good sense. His mother, the daughter of a chief, was a woman
of strong character.

As Tecumseh was the son of such worthy parents, and as he was one of
three brothers born on the same day, he was regarded even in babyhood
with uncommon interest. The superstitious Indians believed that the
three little boys would become extraordinary men. Two of them, Tecumseh
and his brother, Laulewasikaw, fulfilled the largest expectations of
their friends.

The child, Tecumseh, was a bright-eyed, handsome little fellow, at once
winning and masterful in manner. His favorite pastime was playing war.
The boys he played with always made him chief and were as devoted to him
as ever Indians were to a real chief.

It is no wonder that at this time the Shawnee children played war; for
their elders were almost constantly fighting with the settlers.

Tecumseh's childhood was far from a peaceful, happy one. He learned
early the oppressive gloom and the wild excitement that accompany war.
He was called upon, now to take part in the fierce rejoicing that
followed an Indian victory; again, to join in the mournful wailing of
the women when the dead warriors were brought from the battlefield.

But his experience of war was not limited to celebrating and mourning
distant victories and defeats. The enemy did not spare the village in
which he lived. He knew that when the braves were on the warp