d. Permit me to wipe the tears from the dark cheek of the mother,
and to take a crumb of bread from your plenteous store to put in the
mouth of the famished child."

The father could deny nothing to his beloved daughter, and, besides,
the little boy pleaded for the famished Pequods also, and he yielded.
With a light and bounding step the two children pursued the fainting
Indians and brought them back. Food was set before them till their
hunger was appeased; the little girl laid the little Indian babe on
her own knee and fed it with her own hand, nor were they permitted to
depart till refreshed by a rest of two days. They then returned to
their own homes in the wilderness, and their little benefactors
attended them to the skirts of the forest, two miles from the cruel
father's dwelling.

* * * * *

Several seasons had passed away; the little girl, who had so kindly
interposed to feed the miserable Indians, had grown to womanhood, and
had become the wife of that boy and a mother. Her husband was a
cultivator of the soil, and with the disposition to seek new lands,
and try untried regions, which every where belongs to white men, he
had built himself a cabin very far from the spot where he and his wife
drew their breath. On the banks of a distant river, on a pleasantly
situated little hill, which enjoyed the bright morning sun, he erected
his cabin and sowed his wheat. He went not, however, to the wilderness
alone: many other white men went with him, and, for protection against
the red men of the forest, whose wrongs had stirred them to bitter
hatred and revenge, they built a fort, to which they might retreat in
case of danger. The cabin of the benefactors of the starving Indian
family was at a distance of a mile from the fort--the husband being
the first who had ventured to reside at such a distance from a
garrison or fortified house.

"I shall return before dark," said he one day to his affectionate
wife, as he was preparing to go down to the fort on some business.
"There is no danger, my beloved," continued he, as he took up his
little son, and, kissing him, laid him in his fond mother's arms.

"But my dreams, my husband--my frightful dreams of tall savages and
shrill war-whoops!" said she.

"Oh! that should not frighten you," he replied. "Remember, you had
been listening all the evening to dark and terrific stories of what
had been done by the native warrior when he raised his arm i