Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,188 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works.

Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,188 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works.
and hunters and their dusky brides.  The Indians who visited the neighborhood recognized something of their own race in her dark eyes, as the reader may remember they told the persons who were searching after her.  It had almost frightened her sometimes to find how like a wild creature she felt when alone in the woods.  Her senses had much of that delicacy for which the red people are noted, and she often thought she could follow the trail of an enemy, if she wished to track one through the forest, as unerringly as if she were a Pequot or a Mohegan.

It was a strange feeling that came over Myrtle, as they dressed her for the part she was to take.  Had she never worn that painted robe before?  Was it the first time that these strings of wampum had ever rattled upon her neck and arms?  And could it be that the plume of eagle’s feathers with which they crowned her dark, fast-lengthening locks had never shadowed her forehead until now?  She felt herself carried back into the dim ages when the wilderness was yet untrodden save by the feet of its native lords.  Think of her wild fancy as we may, she felt as if that dusky woman of her midnight vision on the river were breathing for one hour through her lips.  If this belief had lasted, it is plain enough where it would have carried her.  But it came into her imagination and vivifying consciousness with the putting on of her unwonted costume, and might well leave her when she put it off.  It is not for us, who tell only what happened, to solve these mysteries of the seeming admission of unhoused souls into the fleshly tenements belonging to air-breathing personalities.  A very little more, and from that evening forward the question would have been treated in full in all the works on medical jurisprudence published throughout the limits of Christendom.  The story must be told or we should not be honest with the reader.

Tableau 1.  Captain John Smith (Miss Euphrosyne de Lacy) was to be represented prostrate and bound, ready for execution; Powhatan (Miss Florence Smythe) sitting upon a log; savages with clubs (Misses Clara Browne, A. Van Boodle, E. Van Boodle, Heister, Booster, etc., etc.) standing around; Pocahontas holding the knife in her hand, ready to cut the cords with which Captain John Smith is bound.—­Curtain.

Tableau 2.  Captain John Smith released and kneeling before Pocahontas, whose hand is extended in the act of raising him and presenting him to her father.  Savages in various attitudes of surprise.  Clubs fallen from their hands.  Strontian flame to be kindled.—­Curtain.

This was a portion of the programme for the evening, as arranged behind the scenes.  The first part went off with wonderful eclat, and at its close there were loud cries for Pocahontas.  She appeared for a moment.  Bouquets were flung to her; and a wreath, which one of the young ladies had expected for herself in another part, was tossed upon the stage, and laid at her feet.  The curtain fell.

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