As Bayne recalled the circumstances, he noted one of the Qualla Indians
loitering about the scene of the wreck. He put a question to him from out
the window of the coach, and discovered that he spoke English with some
facility. The old habit reasserted itself with inherent energy, and
presently Bayne was moved to leave the car and sit on a pile of wood near
the track, where, with his new acquaintance, he floundered over verbal
perversions of modern changes and lost significations of the language and
the contortions of Anglicized idioms, till at length he remarked that if
his interlocutor would act as interpreter he should like to converse on
the subject of these words with some old Cherokee who had never learned
English and had seldom heard it spoken.
The Qualla Boundary is sufficiently permeated with the spirit of the past
to feel that Time is the intimate possession of man. In that languid
environment there is no frenzy to utilize it lest it fly away. No man is
hurried into his grave within the reservation.
Pages:
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203