VOL. LIV.

DECEMBER, 1922

METALAK.

A TRUE STORY.

By Gertrude Weeks Marshall.

No. 12

Through the brilliant autumn wilderness, magnificently gay in coloring,
Grand with mighty trees, but within its depths deadly lurking dangers,
Once travelled a band of Indians, small remnant of a tribe once numerous.
Their bronze and sinewy bodies swayed with the forest shadows,
Their paint and feathery ornaments blended with the forest hues;
To the cold north had they been driven by the encroaching Whites,
But were seeking new homes by the sweet waters of the Umbagog.
Long and arduous, over hills and across lakes, had been their journey,
To avoid, in the valleys, settlements of watchful, fearless pioneers
And still reach the Notch, where the mountains were cleft in twain,
Giving easy passage to the region beyond, rich in game and fish.
Metalak, once chief and bravest warrior, now with age feeble,
But in counsel wise and able, walked in the rear with aged braves,
Squaws and various Indian luggage queer, borne by the stoutest.
As they neared the basin before the Notch, surrounded by mountains high,
Where towers old Table-rock, like an altar reared by giant hands
Nigh to Heaven, Metalak, fatgiued by the day's long, tiresome journey,
Stumbled and fell over a broken branch, that across the trail had fallen
In such a way that the sharp end pierced his eye, its vision destroying.
Silently he endured the agony while the squaws ran to aid him
And with primitive but skilful surgery the torturing branch removed,
Silent, while to a cooling spring they swiftly and smoothly carried him.
And cleansed the wound and bound it with healing herbs known to them.
Then the tribe made night encampment and a circle of blazing fires built
Which protected from prowling beasts, and also cooked their game;
Afterward in council gathered, to decide if best by morning's light
To bear Metalak with them onward, only on the way to die,
Or tarry awhile for his death, then with loud and savage ceremony
Bury him in the shadow of Table-rock. Then said Metalak faintly:
"My people, delay not your journey for me; near are winter's frosts.
You must hasten wigwams, food and clothing to prepare by the Umbagog.
Like the tree by lightning blasted, soon will I be, stark and lifeless.
Like a wild beast, with a deadly wound, I would die alone."

So, at sunrise, with the stoicism of their race, alone in the wilderness,
They left him. All day suffering he lay by the grateful spring water.
Night came, cold and pale. Over Table-rock the silver moon rose.
Her clear light brought into relief the black vastness of the unbroken
forest.

Pityingly her beams seemed to shine upon the brave old warrior
Prostrate on the frosty ground. At last, his mind by pain disordered,
He rose, and wandered down the old trail, often in other days pursued,

Down the Mohawk Valley to the base of Mount Monadnock (Spirit
Mountain),

Thence up the Connecticut. He passed, unheeded, the homes of settlers,
Until at last, starved and exhausted, against a cabin door he fell,
The settler's wife, just lighting candles in the early autumn twilight,
Heard the noise at the door; there she found the poor old Indian.
In her strong young arms she carried him to the settle by the fire,
And of broth and liquor made him drink, which, with the warmth, revived
him.

There among those strange white people, once enemies, now his friends,
Metalak was nursed back to life, sightless, but new and pleasant.
Many Indian ways he taught them, life in the wilds to ease,
Indian methods of clearing land, clever snares for birds and beasts,
Sugar to obtain from maple sap, to make the useful snowshoe,
And the soft fringed moccasin, also the graceful swift canoe.
Many years he lived among them, striving their kindness to repay,
Peaceful and contented, until, gently, Manitou called him to the "Happy
Hunting Ground."

Copyright, 1922, by Gertrude Weeks Marshall.

[Note: Mrs. Marshall furnishes a memorandum regarding the story of Metalak which may interest the reader unfamiliar with the local setting. The Mohawk Valley of New Hampshire extends from East Colebrook to Colebrook Village. Monadnock Mountain is across the Connecticut in Vermont. Metalak, after the accident related in the story, found his way unaided to Stewartstown, where he was found at the door of Mrs. Samuel Weeks. Later the town of Stewartstown cared for him.]

THE ALIEN

By Lilian Sue Keech

I know a lane where the sweetbrier blows,
Clinging to the old stone wall.

Where, in the spring, the violet grows,
And black birds to their sweethearts call.

The trumpet vine clings to the tree,
The dogwood wears its mantle, white.
The butterfly flits fancy free,
And weds the flowers in its flight.

I know a lane-'tis far away-
Where grows the wild sweetbrier.
And what to me are orchids gay,
Or Jacqueminot's dull fire?

I'd rather be a milkmaid, free,

My bare feet in the dew.

Than wear the gold that's driven me
Far from that lane and--you.

By Mary R. P. Hatch

[Mrs. Hatch, who is a novelist and play- er studying on't, Mandy," they wright now living in Massachusetts, here presents in fictional form a bit of history which she first heard from the older generation when she resided many years ago in northern New Hampshire. The tale of the Indian Stream Territory reads almost like fiction even in the historical records. Mrs. Hatch gives it the reality of the personal touch.]