6

Now what my mother told me one day as we sat at dinner together,
Of when she was a nearly grown girl living home with her

parents on the old homestead.

A red squaw came one breakfast-time to the old homestead,
On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for rush-bottoming chairs,
Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse, half-envelop’d her face,
Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded exquisitely as she spoke.

My mother look’d in delight and amazement at the stranger,
She look’d at the freshness of her tall-borne face and full and pliant limbs,
The more she look’d upon her she loved her,
Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and purity,
She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fireplace, she cook’d food for her,
She had no work to give her, but she gave her remembrance and fondness.

The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the middle of the afternoon she went away,
O my mother was loth to have her go away,
All the week she thought of her, she watch’d for her many a month,
She remember’d her many a winter and many a summer,
But the red squaw never came nor was heard of there again.

~