The first night was the strangest. All day Sarah had played with the children. They did not speak in the same words but somehow they understood each other. When they couldn’t understand it did not seem to matter. Friends have ways of speaking without words.
But darkness came early, and Sarah found herself in the house with Tall John and his family. How she longed for her own family! The evening meal was not what Sarah was used to. The Indians ate with their hands and they had no plates. Still, the meat tasted good, and Tall John’s wife had cooked it. Sarah liked cooking, but there were times when she tired of it. So she ate the food and enjoyed it.
When bedtime came, Sarah opened the bag she had packed so neatly—the bag that had come all the way from home on the willing back of Thomas. The children watched eagerly. What magic was Sarah going to take out of the bag? But there was no magic, only a long warm nightgown and a comb. The children watched, interested but puzzled, as Sarah put on the nightgown. Their eyes never left her as she combed out her long hair. That long, brown hair of Sarah’s—it was like the silk on the corn in late summer. The children came near and touched it.
Then Sarah knelt by the side of the low bed covered with furs, to say her prayers as she always did. She said them aloud as she had done when her father was there to listen. The tears came again, for it was a lonely business.
“God bless my father and my mother and my brothers and sisters. Make the baby strong and well. Keep—keep my father—safe—and bring him back to me. . .”
She stopped for a minute, partly because her voice was choked, but partly because she did not know if it was right to pray for a horse. Then she went on:
“And keep Thomas safe on the way. And keep me safe . . . and . . .”
Now she really had to stop and think. Was it right to pray for Indians? Did the Lord take care of Indians? She could only ask Him and see. . .
“Please, God, if you take care of the Indians, too, bless Tall John, and his wife and Small John and Mary. For ever and ever. Amen.”
The children heard their names and looked at their father with a question in their eyes.
“She speaks with her Great Spirit,” their father said. “As we speak with our Great Spirit.”
“Good,” said Small John, who was like his father in not wasting words.