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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish"

She knows how to hate a hungry and craving race. But she sees one
that the wives of the Narragansetts do not see. She sees a woman with a
white skin; her eye looks softly on her child in her dreams; it is not an
eye, it is a tongue! It says, what does the wife of Conanchet wish?--is
she cold? here are furs--is she hungry? here is venison--is she tired? the
arms of the pale woman open, that an Indian girl may sleep. When there is
silence in the lodges, when Conanchet and his young men lie down, then
does this pale woman speak. Sachem, she does not talk of the battles of
her people, nor of the scalps that her warriors have taken, nor of the
manner in which the Pequots and Mohicans fear her tribe. She does not tell
how a young Narragansett should obey her husband, nor how the women must
keep food in the lodges for the hunters that are wearied; her tongue useth
strange words. It names a Mighty and Just Spirit it telleth of peace, and
not of war; it soundeth as one talking from the clouds; it is like the
falling of the water among rocks. Narra-mattah loves to listen, for the
words seem to her like the Wish-Ton-Wish, when he whistles in the woods.


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