[Rolf In The Woods by Ernest Thompson Seton]@TWC D-Link bookRolf In The Woods CHAPTER 10 4/5
Failing to move Parson Peck and Elder Knapp in the matter, and despairing of an early answer to her personal prayers, she resolved on a bold move, "An' it was only after many a sleepless, prayerful night," namely, to carry the Bible into the heathen's stronghold. Thus it was that one bright morning in June she might have been seen, prim and proper--almost glorified, she felt, as she set her lips just right in the mirror--making for the Pipestave Pond, Bible in hand and spectacles clear wiped, ready to read appropriate selections to the unregenerate. She was full of the missionary spirit when she left Myanos, and partly full when she reached the Orchard Street Trail; but the spirit was leaking badly, and the woods did appear so wild and lonely that she wondered if women had any right to be missionaries.
When she came in sight of the pond, the place seemed unpleasantly different from Myanos and where was the Indian camp? She did not dare to shout; indeed, she began to wish she were home again, but the sense of duty carried her fully fifty yards along the pond, and then she came to an impassable rock, a sheer bank that plainly said, "Stop!" Now she must go back or up the bank.
Her Yankee pertinacity said, "Try first up the bank," and she began a long, toilsome ascent, that did not end until she came out on a high, open rock which, on its farther side, had a sheer drop and gave a view of the village and of the sea. Whatever joy she had on again seeing her home was speedily quelled in the fearsome discovery that she was right over the Indian camp, and the two inmates looked so utterly, dreadfully savage that she was thankful they had not seen her.
At once she shrank back; but on recovering sufficiently to again peer down, she saw something roasting before the fire--"a tiny arm with a hand that bore five fingers," as she afterward said, and "a sickening horror came over her." Yes, she had heard of such things.
If she could only get home in safety! Why had she tempted Providence thus? She backed softly and prayed only to escape.
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