seems to me,
goes with that more seein' kind of kindness. Our honesty with the
Indians was little to brag on.

GRANDMOTHER: You fret more about the Indians than anybody else does.

SILAS: To look out at that hill sometimes makes me ashamed.

GRANDMOTHER: Land sakes, you didn't do it. It was the government. And
what a government does is nothing for a person to be ashamed of.

SILAS: I don't know about that. Why is _he_ here? Why is Felix Fejevary
not rich and grand in Hungary to-day? 'Cause he was ashamed of what his
government was.

GRANDMOTHER: Well, that was a foreign government.

SILAS: A seeing how 'tis for the other person--_a bein'_ that other
person, kind of honesty. Joke of it, 'twould do something for _you_.
'Twould 'a' done something for us to have _been_ Indians a little more.
My father used to talk about Blackhawk--they was friends. I saw
Blackhawk once--when I was a boy. (_to_ FEJEVARY) Guess I told you. You
know what he looked like? He looked like the great of the earth. Noble.
Noble like the forests--and the Mississippi--and the stars. His face was
long and thin and you could see the bones, and the bones were beautiful.
Looked like something that's never been caught. He was something many
nights in his canoe had made him. Sometimes I feel that the land itself
has got a mind that the land would rather have had the Indians.

GRANDMOTHER: Well, don't let folks hear you say it. They'd think you was
plum crazy.

SILAS: I s'pose they would, (_turning to_ FEJEVARY) But after you've
walked a long time over the earth--and you all alone, didn't you ever
feel something coming up from it that's like thought?

FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I never did. But--I wish I had.

SILAS: I love land--this land. I suppose that's why I never have the
feeling that I own it.

GRANDMOTHER: If you don't own it--I want to know! What do you think we
come here for--your father and me? What do you think we left our folks
for--left the world of white folks--schools and stores and doctors, and
set out in a covered wagon for we didn't know what? We lost a horse.
Lost our way--weeks longer than we thought 'twould be. You were born in
that covered wagon. You know that. But what you don't know is what
_that's_ like--without your own roof--or fire--without--

(_She turns her face away._)

SILAS: No. No, mother, of course not. Now--now isn't this too bad? I
don't say things right. It's because I never went to school.

GRANDMOTHER: (_he