Great
icicles hung from the dark fissures of the crags; frosty scintillations
tipped the fibres of the pines; wolves were a-prowl--sometimes their
blood-curdling howls from afar penetrated to the hut where the
ill-assorted companions sat together in the red glow of the fire, and
roasted their sweet potatoes and apples on the hearth, and cracked nuts
to pound into the rich paste affected by the Cherokees, and drank the
bland "hominy-water," and gazed happily into each other's eyes, despite
their distance apart at the two termini of life, the beginning and the
end.
As she could speak no English, yet they must needs find a medium of
exchange for their valuable views, she tried to teach him to speak
Cherokee. He was a bird, her little bird, she told him by signs, and his
name was _Tsiskwa_. This she repeated again and again in the velvet-soft
fluting of her voice. But no! he revolted. His name was Archie Royston,
he declaimed proudly. He soon became the monarch of this poor hearth, and
he deported himself in royal fashion.
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