Rewards and Fairies
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Rudyard Kipling >> Rewards and Fairies
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'"Good!" says Red Jacket, looking at the sun. "My brother
shall be there. I will ride with him and bring back the ponies.
'I went to pack the saddle-bags. Toby had cured me of asking
questions. He stopped my fiddling if I did. Besides, Indians don't
ask questions much and I wanted to be like 'em.
'When the horses were ready I jumped up.
'"Get off," says Toby. "Stay and mind the cottage till I come
back. The Lord has laid this on me, not on you. I wish He
hadn't."
'He powders off down the Lancaster road, and I sat on the
doorstep wondering after him. When I picked up the paper to
wrap his fiddle-strings in, I spelled out a piece about the yellow
fever being in Philadelphia so dreadful every one was running
away. I was scared, for I was fond of Toby. We never said much
to each other, but we fiddled together, and music's as good as
talking to them that understand.'
'Did Toby die of yellow fever?'Una asked.
'Not him! There's justice left in the world still. He went down
to the City and bled 'em well again in heaps. He sent back word
by Red Jacket that, if there was war or he died, I was to bring the
oils along to the City, but till then I was to go on working in the
garden and Red Jacket was to see me do it. Down at heart all
Indians reckon digging a squaw's business, and neither him nor
Cornplanter, when he relieved watch, was a hard task-Master.
We hired a nigger-boy to do our work, and a lazy grinning
runagate he was. When I found Toby didn't die the minute he
reached town, why, boylike, I took him off my mind and went
with my Indians again. Oh! those days up north at Canasedago,
running races and gambling with the Senecas, or bee-hunting 'in
the woods, or fishing in the lake.' Pharaoh sighed and looked
across the water. 'But it's best,' he went on suddenly, 'after the
first frosts. You roll out o' your blanket and find every leaf left
green over night turned red and yellow, not by trees at a time, but
hundreds and hundreds of miles of 'em, like sunsets splattered
upside down. On one of such days - the maples was flaming
scarlet and gold, and the sumach bushes were redder - Cornplanter
and Red Jacket came out in full war-dress, making the
very leaves look silly: feathered war-bonnets, yellow doeskin
leggings, fringed and tasselled, red horse-blankets, and their
bridles feathered and shelled and beaded no bounds. I thought it
was war against the British till I saw their faces weren't painted,
and they only carried wrist-whips. Then I hummed "Yankee
Doodle" at 'em. They told me they was going to visit Big Hand
and find out for sure whether he meant to join the French in
fighting the English or make a peace treaty with England. I
reckon those two would ha' gone out on the war-path at a nod
from Big Hand, but they knew well, if there was war 'twixt
England and the United States, their tribe 'ud catch it from both
parties same as in all the other wars. They asked me to come along
and hold the ponies. That puzzled me, because they always put
their ponies up at the "Buck" or Epply's when they went to see
General Washington in the city, and horse-holding is a nigger's
job. Besides, I wasn't exactly dressed for it.'
'D'you mean you were dressed like an Indian?'Dan demanded.
Pharaoh looked a little abashed. 'This didn't happen at
Lebanon,' he said, 'but a bit farther north, on the Reservation; and
at that particular moment of time, so far as blanket, hair-band,
moccasins, and sunburn went, there wasn't much odds 'twix' me
and a young Seneca buck. You may laugh'- he smoothed down
his long-skirted brown coat -'but I told you I took to their ways
all over. I said nothing, though I was bursting to let out the
war-whoop like the young men had taught me.'
'No, and you don't let out one here, either,' said Puck before
Dan could ask. 'Go on, Brother Square-toes.'
'We went on.' Pharaoh's narrow dark eyes gleamed and
danced. 'We went on - forty, fifty miles a day, for days on end -
we three braves. And how a great tall Indian a-horse-back can
carry his war-bonnet at a canter through thick timber without
brushing a feather beats me! My silly head was banged often
enough by low branches, but they slipped through like running
elk. We had evening hymn-singing every night after they'd
blown their pipe-smoke to the quarters of heaven. Where did we
go? I'll tell you, but don't blame me if you're no wiser. We took
the old war-trail from the end of the Lake along the East
Susquehanna through the Nantego country, right down to Fort
Shamokin on the Senachse river. We crossed the Juniata by Fort
Granville, got into Shippensberg over the hills by the Ochwick
trail, and then to Williams Ferry (it's a bad one). From Williams
Ferry, across the Shanedore, over the Blue Mountains, through
Ashby's Gap, and so south-east by south from there, till we found
the President at the back of his own plantations. I'd hate to be
trailed by Indians in earnest. They caught him like a partridge on a
stump. After we'd left our ponies, we scouted forward through a
woody piece, and, creeping slower and slower, at last if my
moccasins even slipped Red Jacket 'ud turn and frown. I heard
voices - Monsieur Genet's for choice - long before I saw anything,
and we pulled up at the edge of a clearing where some
niggers in grey-and-red liveries were holding horses, and half-a-
dozen gentlemen - but one was Genet - were talking among felled
timber. I fancy they'd come to see Genet a piece on his road, for
his portmantle was with him. I hid in between two logs as near to
the company as I be to that old windlass there. I didn't need
anybody to show me Big Hand. He stood up, very still, his legs a
little apart, listening to Genet, that French Ambassador, which
never had more manners than a Bosham tinker. Genet was as
good as ordering him to declare war on England at once. I had
heard that clack before on the Embuscade. He said he'd stir up the
whole United States to have war with England, whether Big
Hand liked it or not.
'Big Hand heard him out to the last end. I looked behind me,
and my two chiefs had vanished like smoke. Says Big Hand,
"That is very forcibly put, Monsieur Genet -"
'"Citizen - citizen!" the fellow spits in. "I, at least, am
a Republican!"
"Citizen Genet," he says, "you may be sure it will receive my
fullest consideration." This seemed to take Citizen Genet back a
piece. He rode off grumbling, and never gave his nigger a penny.
No gentleman!
'The others all assembled round Big Hand then, and, in their
way, they said pretty much what Genet had said. They put it to
him, here was France and England at war, in a manner of speaking,
right across the United States' stomach, and paying no
regards to any one. The French was searching American ships on
pretence they was helping England, but really for to steal the
goods. The English was doing the same, only t'other way round,
and besides searching, they was pressing American citizens into
their Navy to help them fight France, on pretence that those
Americans was lawful British subjects. His gentlemen put this
very clear to Big Hand. It didn't look to them, they said, as though
the United States trying to keep out of the fight was any advantage
to her, because she only catched it from both French and
English. They said that nine out of ten good Americans was crazy
to fight the English then and there. They wouldn't say whether
that was right or wrong; they only wanted Big Hand to turn it
over in his mind. He did - for a while. I saw Red Jacket and
Cornplanter watching him from the far side of the clearing, and
how they had slipped round there was another mystery. Then Big
Hand drew himself up, and he let his gentlemen have it.'
'Hit 'em?' Dan asked.
'No, nor yet was it what you might call swearing. He - he
blasted 'em with his natural speech. He asked them half-a-dozen
times over whether the United States had enough armed ships for
any shape or sort of war with any one. He asked 'em, if they
thought she had those ships, to give him those ships, and they
looked on the ground, as if they expected to find 'em there. He put
it to 'em whether, setting ships aside, their country - I reckon he
gave 'em good reasons - whether the United States was ready or
able to face a new big war; she having but so few years back
wound up one against England, and being all holds full of her
own troubles. As I said, the strong way he laid it all before 'em
blasted 'em, and when he'd done it was like a still in the woods
after a storm. A little man - but they all looked little - pipes up like
a young rook in a blowed-down nest, "Nevertheless, General, it
seems you will be compelled to fight England." Quick Big Hand
wheeled on him, "And is there anything in my past which makes
you think I am averse to fighting Great Britain?"
'Everybody laughed except him. "Oh, General, you mistake
us entirely!" they says. "I trust so," he says. "But I know my
duty. We must have peace with England."
'"At any price?" says the man with the rook's voice.
'"At any price," says he, word by word. "Our ships will be
searched - our citizens will be pressed, but -"
'"Then what about the Declaration of Independence?" says one.
'"Deal with facts, not fancies," says Big Hand. "The United
States are in no position to fight England."
'"But think of public opinion," another one starts up. "The
feeling in Philadelphia alone is at fever heat."
'He held up one of his big hands. "Gentlemen," he says - slow
he spoke, but his voice carried far - "I have to think of our
country. Let me assure you that the treaty with Great Britain will
be made though every city in the Union burn me in effigy."
'"At any price?" the actor-like chap keeps on croaking.
'"The treaty must be made on Great Britain's own terms.
What else can I do?"
'He turns his back on 'em and they looked at each other and
slinked off to the horses, leaving him alone: and then I saw he was
an old man. Then Red Jacket and Cornplanter rode down the
clearing from the far end as though they had just chanced along.
Back went Big Hand's shoulders, up went his head, and he
stepped forward one single pace with a great deep Hough! so
pleased he was. That was a statelified meeting to behold - three
big men, and two of 'em looking like jewelled images among the
spattle of gay-coloured leaves. I saw my chiefs' war-bonnets
sinking together, down and down. Then they made the sign
which no Indian makes outside of the Medicine Lodges - a sweep
of the right hand just clear of the dust and an inbend of the left
knee at the same time, and those proud eagle feathers almost
touched his boot-top.'
'What did it mean?' said Dan.
'Mean!' Pharaoh cried. 'Why it's what you - what we - it's the
Sachems' way of sprinkling the sacred corn-meal in front of - oh!
it's a piece of Indian compliment really, and it signifies that you
are a very big chief.
'Big Hand looked down on 'em. First he says quite softly, "My
brothers know it is not easy to be a chief." Then his voice grew.
"My children," says he, "what is in your minds?"
'Says Cornplanter, "We came to ask whether there will be war
with King George's men, but we have heard what our Father has
said to his chiefs. We will carry away that talk in our hearts to tell
to our people."
'"No," says Big Hand. "Leave all that talk behind - it was
between white men only - but take this message from me to your
people - 'There will be no war.'"
'His gentlemen were waiting, so they didn't delay him-, only
Cornplanter says, using his old side-name, "Big Hand, did you
see us among the timber just now?"
'"Surely," says he. "You taught me to look behind trees when
we were both young." And with that he cantered off.
'Neither of my chiefs spoke till we were back on our ponies
again and a half-hour along the home-trail. Then Cornplanter
says to Red Jacket, "We will have the Corn-dance this year. There
will be no war." And that was all there was to it.'
Pharaoh stood up as though he had finished.
'Yes,' said Puck, rising too. 'And what came out of it in the
long run?'
'Let me get at my story my own way,'was the answer. 'Look!
it's later than I thought. That Shoreham smack's thinking of her supper.'
The children looked across the darkening Channel. A smack
had hoisted a lantern and slowly moved west where Brighton pier
lights ran out in a twinkling line. When they turned round The
Gap was empty behind them.
'I expect they've packed our trunks by now,' said Dan. 'This
time tomorrow we'll be home.'
If -
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
'A PRIEST IN SPITE OF HIMSELF'
A St Helena Lullaby
How far is St Helena from a little child at play?
What makes you want to wander there with all the world between?
Oh, Mother, call your son again or else he'll run away.
(No one thinks of winter when the grass is green!)
How far is St Helena from a fight in Paris street?
I haven't time to answer now - the men are falling fast.
The guns begin to thunder, and the drums begin to beat
(If you take the first step you will take the last!)
How far is St Helena from the field at Austerlitz?
You couldn't hear me if I told - so loud the cannons roar.
But not so far for people who are living by their wits.
('Gay go up' means 'gay go down' the wide world o'er!)
How far is St Helena from an Emperor of France?
I cannot see - I cannot tell - the crowns they dazzle so.
The Kings sit down to dinner, and the Queens stand up to dance.
(After open weather you may look for snow!)
How far is St Helena from the Capes of Trafalgar?
A longish way - a longish way - with ten year more to run.
It's South across the water underneath a setting star.
(What you cannot finish you must leave undone!)
How far is St Helena from the Beresina ice?
An ill way - a chill way - the ice begins to crack.
But not so far for gentlemen who never took advice.
(When you can't go forward you must e'en come back!)
How far is St Helena from the field of Waterloo?
A near way - a clear way - the ship will take you soon.
A pleasant place for gentlemen with little left to do.
(Morning never tries you till the afternoon!)
How far from St Helena to the Gate of Heaven's Grace?
That no one knows - that no one knows - and no one ever will.
But fold your hands across your heart and cover up your face,
And after all your trapesings, child, lie still!
'A Priest in Spite of Himself'
The day after they came home from the sea-side they set out on a
tour of inspection to make sure everything was as they had left it.
Soon they discovered that old Hobden had blocked their best
hedge-gaps with stakes and thorn-bundles, and had trimmed up
the hedges where the blackberries were setting.
'it can't be time for the gipsies to come along,' said Una. 'Why,
it was summer only the other day!'
'There's smoke in Low Shaw!' said Dan, sniffing. 'Let's make sure!'
They crossed the fields towards the thin line of blue smoke that
leaned above the hollow of Low Shaw which lies beside the
King's Hill road. It used to be an old quarry till somebody planted
it, and you can look straight down into it from the edge of Banky Meadow.
'I thought so,' Dan whispered, as they came up to the fence at
the edge of the larches. A gipsy-van - not the show-man's sort,
but the old black kind, with little windows high up and a baby-
gate across the door - was getting ready to leave. A man was
harnessing the horses; an old woman crouched over the ashes of a
fire made out of broken fence-rails; and a girl sat on the van-steps
singing to a baby on her lap. A wise-looking, thin dog snuffed at a
patch of fur on the ground till the old woman put it carefully in the
middle of the fire. The girl reached back inside the van and tossed
her a paper parcel. This was laid on the fire too, and they smelt
singed feathers.
'Chicken feathers!' said Dan. 'I wonder if they are old Hobden's.'
Una sneezed. The dog growled and crawled to the girl's feet,
the old woman fanned the fire with her hat, while the man led the
horses up to the shafts, They all moved as quickly and quietly as
snakes over moss.
'Ah!' said the girl. 'I'll teach you!' She beat the dog, who
seemed to expect it.
'Don't do that,' Una called down. 'It wasn't his fault.'
'How do you know what I'm beating him for?' she answered.
'For not seeing us,' said Dan. 'He was standing right in the
smoke, and the wind was wrong for his nose, anyhow.'
The girl stopped beating the dog, and the old woman fanned
faster than ever.
'You've fanned some of your feathers out of the fire,' said Una.
'There's a tail-feather by that chestnut-tot.'
'What of it?' said the old woman, as she grabbed it.
'Oh, nothing!' said Dan. 'Only I've heard say that tail-feathers
are as bad as the whole bird, sometimes.'
That was a saying of Hobden's about pheasants. Old Hobden
always burned all feather and fur before he sat down to eat.
'Come on, mother,' the man whispered. The old woman
climbed into the van, and the horses drew it out of the deep-rutted
shaw on to the hard road.
The girl waved her hands and shouted something they could
not catch.
'That was gipsy for "Thank you kindly, Brother and Sister,"'
said Pharaoh Lee.
He was standing behind them, his fiddle under his arm.
'Gracious, you startled me!' said Una.
'You startled old Priscilla Savile,' Puck called from below them.
'Come and sit by their fire. She ought to have put it out before
they left.'
They dropped down the ferny side of the shaw. Una raked the
ashes together, Dan found a dead wormy oak branch that burns
without flame, and they watched the smoke while Pharaoh
played a curious wavery air.
'That's what the girl was humming to the baby,' said Una.
'I know it,'he nodded, and went on:
'Ai Lumai, Lumai, Lumai! Luludia!
Ai Luludia!'
He passed from one odd tune to another, and quite forgot the
children. At last Puck asked him to go on with his adventures in
Philadelphia and among the Seneca Indians.
'I'm telling it,' he said, staring straight in front of him as he
played. 'Can't you hear?'
'Maybe, but they can't. Tell it aloud,' said Puck.
Pharaoh shook himself, laid his fiddle beside him, and began:
'I'd left Red Jacket and Cornplanter riding home with me after
Big Hand had said that there wouldn't be any war. That's all there
was to it. We believed Big Hand and we went home again - we
three braves. When we reached Lebanon we found Toby at the
cottage with his waistcoat a foot too big for him - so hard he had
worked amongst the yellow-fever people. He beat me for running
off with the Indians, but 'twas worth it - I was glad to see
him, - and when we went back to Philadelphia for the winter, and
I was told how he'd sacrificed himself over sick people in the
yellow fever, I thought the world and all of him. No, I didn't
neither. I'd thought that all along. That yellow fever must have
been something dreadful. Even in December people had no more
than begun to trinkle back to town. Whole houses stood empty
and the niggers was robbing them out. But I can't call to mind
that any of the Moravian Brethren had died. It seemed like they
had just kept on with their own concerns, and the good Lord He'd
just looked after 'em. That was the winter - yes, winter of
'Ninety-three - the Brethren bought a stove for the church. Toby
spoke in favour of it because the cold spoiled his fiddle hand, but
many thought stove-heat not in the Bible, and there was yet a
third party which always brought hickory coal foot-warmers to
service and wouldn't speak either way. They ended by casting the
Lot for it, which is like pitch-and-toss. After my summer with the
Senecas, church-stoves didn't highly interest me, so I took to
haunting round among the French emigres which Philadelphia was
full of. My French and my fiddling helped me there, d'ye see.
They come over in shiploads from France, where, by what I made
out, every one was killing every one else by any means, and they
spread 'emselves about the city - mostly in Drinker's Alley and
Elfrith's Alley - and they did odd jobs till times should mend. But
whatever they stooped to, they were gentry and kept a cheerful
countenance, and after an evening's fiddling at one of their poor
little proud parties, the Brethren seemed old-fashioned. Pastor
Meder and Brother Adam Goos didn't like my fiddling for hire,
but Toby said it was lawful in me to earn my living by exercising
my talents. He never let me be put upon.
'In February of 'Ninety-four - No, March it must have been,
because a new Ambassador called Faucher had come from France,
with no more manners than Genet the old one - in March, Red
Jacket came in from the Reservation bringing news of all kind
friends there. I showed him round the city, and we saw General
Washington riding through a crowd of folk that shouted for war
with England. They gave him quite rough music, but he looked
'twixt his horse's ears and made out not to notice. His stirrup
brished Red Jacket's elbow, and Red Jacket whispered up, "My
brother knows it is not easy to be a chief." Big Hand shot just one
look at him and nodded. Then there was a scuffle behind us over
some one who wasn't hooting at Washington loud enough to
please the people. We went away to be out of the fight. Indians
won't risk being hit.'
'What do they do if they are?' Dan asked.
'Kill, of course. That's why they have such proper manners.
Well, then, coming home by Drinker's Alley to get a new shirt
which a French Vicomte's lady was washing to take the stiff out of
(I'm always choice in my body-linen) a lame Frenchman pushes a
paper of buttons at us. He hadn't long landed in the United States,
and please would we buy. He sure-ly was a pitiful scrattel - his
coat half torn off, his face cut, but his hands steady; so I knew
it wasn't drink. He said his name was Peringuey, and he'd been
knocked about in the crowd round the Stadt - Independence Hall.
One thing leading to another we took him up to Toby's rooms,
same as Red Jacket had taken me the year before. The compliments
he paid to Toby's Madeira wine fairly conquered the old
man, for he opened a second bottle and he told this Monsieur
Peringuey all about our great stove dispute in the church. I
remember Pastor Meder and Brother Adam Goos dropped 'in,
and although they and Toby were direct opposite sides regarding
stoves, yet this Monsieur Peringuey he made 'em feel as if he
thought each one was in the right of it. He said he had been a
clergyman before he had to leave France. He admired at Toby's
fiddling, and he asked if Red Jacket, sitting by the spinet, was a
simple Huron. Senecas aren't Hurons, they're Iroquois, of
course, and Toby told him so. Well, then, in due time he arose
and left in a style which made us feel he'd been favouring us,
instead of us feeding him. I've never seen that so strong before - in
a man. We all talked him over but couldn't make head or tail of
him, and Red Jacket come out to walk with me to the French
quarter where I was due to fiddle at a party. Passing Drinker's
Alley again we saw a naked window with a light in it, and there
sat our button-selling Monsieur Peringuey throwing dice all
alone, right hand against left.
'Says Red Jacket, keeping back in the dark, "Look at his face!"
'I was looking. I protest to you I wasn't frightened like I was
when Big Hand talked to his gentlemen. I - I only looked, and I
wondered that even those dead dumb dice 'ud dare to fall different
from what that face wished. It - it was a face!
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