I turned to my father. The desolation of being cut off and left with nothing but the guesses of strangers overcame me. I sobbed so the hoarse choke echoed in the cabin. Skenedonk opened his arms, and my father and mother let me lean on the Oneida's shoulder.
I have thought since that they resented with stoical pain his taking their white son from them. They both stood severely reserved, passively loosening the filial bond.
All the business of life was suspended, as when there is death in the lodge. Skenedonk and I sat down together on a bunk.
"Lazarre," my father spoke, "do you want to be educated?"
The things we pine for in this world are often thrust upon us in a way to choke us. I had tramped miles, storming for the privileges that had made George Croghan what he was. Fate instantly picked me up from unendurable conditions to set me down where I could grow, and I squirmed with recoil from the shock.
I felt crowded over the edge of a cliff and about to drop into a valley of rainbows.
"Do you want to live in De Chaumont's house and learn his ways?"
My father and mother had been silent when I questioned them. It was my turn to be silent.
"No, father," I answered, "I want to go."
The camp had never been dearer. I walked among the Indian children when the evening fires were lighted, and the children looked at me curiously as at an alien. Already my people had cut me off from them.
"What I learn I will come back and teach you," I told the young men and women of my own age. They laughed.
"You are a fool, Lazarre. There is a good home for you at St. Regis. If you fall sick in De Chaumont's house who will care?"
"Skenedonk would not stay where he is tying you. When the lake freezes you will be mad for snowshoes and a sight of the St. Lawrence."
"Perhaps so. But we are not made alike. Do not forget me."
They gave me belts and garters, and I distributed among them all my Indian property. Then, as if to work a charm which should keep me from breaking through the circle, they joined hands and danced around me. I went to every cabin, half ashamed of my desertion, yet unspeakably craving a blessing. The old people variously commented on the measure, their wise eyes seeing the change in one who had been a child rather than a young man among them.