you know Peter.  He your fader.  He take you, and make you his da’ghter.  His heart is soft to you, Blossom.  But, he nuttin’ but poor Injin, dough a great chief.  What he know?  Pale-face pappoose know more dan Injin chief.  Dat come from Great Spirit too.  He wanted it so, and it is so.  Our chiefs say dat Great Spirit love Injin.  May be so.  T’ink he love ebbery body; but he can’t love Injin as much as he love pale-face, or he wouldn’t let red man know so little.  Don’t count wigwams, and canoes, and powder, and lead, as proof of Great Spirit’s love.  Pale-face got more of dese dan Injin.  Dat I see and know, and dat I feel.  But it no matter.  Injin used to be poor, and don’t care.  When used to be poor, den used to it.  When used to be rich, den it hard not to be rich.  All use.  Injin don’t care.  But it bad not to know.  I’m warrior—­I’m hunter—­I’m great chief.  You squaw—­you young—­you know so much as squaw of chief.  But you know most.  I feel ashamed to know so little.  Want to know more.  Want to know most how ’e Son of Great Spirit die for all tribe, and pray to his fader to bless ’em dat kill him.  Dat what Peter now want most to know!”

“I wish I was better able to teach you, Peter, from the bottom of my heart; but the little I do know you shall hear.  I would not deny you for a thousand worlds, for I believe the Holy Spirit has touched your heart, and that you will become a new man.  Christians believe that all must become new men, who are to live in the other world, in the presence of God.”

“How can dat be?  Peter soon be ole—­how can ole man grow young ag’in?”

“The meaning of this is that we must so change in feelings, as no longer to be the same persons.  The things that we loved we must hate, and the things that we hated, or at least neglected, we must love.  When we feel this change in our hearts, then may we hope that we love and reverence the Great Spirit, and are living under his holy care.”

Peter listened with the attention of an obedient and respectful child.  If meekness, humility, a wish to learn the truth, and a devout sentiment toward the Creator, are so many indications of the “new birth,” then might this savage be said to have been truly “born again.”  Certainly he was no longer the same man, in a moral point of view, and of this he was himself entirely conscious.  To him the wonder was what had produced so great and so sudden a change!  But the reply he made to Margery will, of itself, sufficiently express his views of his own case.

“An Injin like a child,” he said, meekly; “nebber know.  Even pale-face squaw know more dan great chief, Nebber feel as do now.  Heart soft as young squaw’s.  Don’t hate any body, no more.  Wish well to all tribe, and color, and nation.  Don’t hate Bri’sh, don’t hate Yankee; don’t hate Cherokee, even.  Wish ’em all well.  Don’t know dat heart is strong enough to ask Great Spirit to do ’em all good, if dey want my scalp—­p’rap dat too much for poor Injin; but don’t want nobody’s scalp, myself.  Dat somet’in’, I hope, for me.”