proached
one of the gentlemen rose and went off to another Indian encampment.
The one who remained with the chief had every indication in dress,
manners, and language of being a Frenchman. When Eleazar came near,
this gentleman advanced several steps to meet him, embraced him most
tenderly, and when he sat down again on the log made him stand between
his legs. In the meantime he shed abundance of tears, said "Pauvre
garcon!" and continued to embrace him. The chief was soon afterwards
called to a neighbouring wigwam, and Eleazar and the Frenchman were
left alone. The latter continued to kiss him and weep, and spoke a
good deal, seeming anxious that he should understand him, which he was
unable to do. When Thomas Williams returned to them he asked Eleazar
whether he knew what the gentleman had said to him, and he replied,
"No." They both left him, and walked off in the direction in which the
other gentleman had gone. The two gentlemen came again the next day,
and the Frenchman remained several hours. The chief took him out in a
canoe on the lake; and the last which Eleazar remembered was them all
sitting together on a log, when the Frenchman took hold of his bare
feet and dusty legs, and examined his knees and ankles closely. Again
the Frenchman shed tears, but young Eleazar was quite indifferent, not
knowing what to make of it. Before the gentleman left he gave him a
piece of gold.

A few evenings later, when the younger members of the household were
in bed, and were supposed to be asleep, Eleazar, who was lying broad
awake, overheard a conversation between the Indian chief and his squaw
which interested him mightily. The chief was urging compliance with a
request which had been made to them to allow two of their children to
go away for education; but his wife objected on religious grounds.
When he persisted in his demand she said, "If you will do it you may
send away this strange boy. Means have been put into your hands for
his education; but John I cannot part with." Her willingness to
sacrifice him, and the whole tone of the conversation, excited
suspicions in the mind of the listener as to his parentage, but they
soon passed away. Mrs. Williams at last agreed that John, one of her
own children, and Lazar, according to this story, her adopted child,
should be sent to Long Meadow, a village in Massachusetts, to be
brought up under the care of a deacon called Nathaniel Ely. It is said
that when the supposed brothers en