Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/41

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æt. 20.]
TO JOHN THOREAU.
17

listen like squaws to the council of old men,—they understand not his words. But, Brother, he never danced the war-dance, nor heard the warwhoop of his enemies. He was a squaw; he stayed by the wigwam when the braves were out, and tended the tame buffaloes.

Fear not; the Dundees have faint hearts and much wampum. When the grass is green on the great fields, and the small titmouse returns again, we will hunt the buffalo together.

Our old men say they will send the young chief of the Karlisles, who lives in the green wigwam and is a great Medicine, that his word may be heard in the long talk which the wise men are going to hold at Shawmut, by the salt lake. He is a great talk, and will not forget the enemies of his tribe.

14th Sun. The fire has gone out in the council-house. The words of our old men have been like the vaunts of the Dundees. The Eagle-Beak was moved to talk like a silly Pale-Face, and not as becomes a great war-chief in a council of braves. The young Peacock is a woman among braves; he heard not the words of the old men,—like a squaw he looked at his medicine-paper.[1] The young chief of the green wig-

  1. A delicate sarcasm on young B., who could not finish his speech in town-meeting without looking at his notes. The allusion to the "Medicine whose words are like the music of the