"
"I know your history, then, for Hurry Harry talks considerable,
and he is free of speech when he can find other people's consarns
to dwell on. You pass most of your life on the lake, Hetty."
"Certainly. Mother is dead; father is gone a-trapping, and Judith
and I stay at home. What's your name?"
"That's a question more easily asked than it is answered, young
woman, seeing that I'm so young, and yet have borne more names than
some of the greatest chiefs in all America."
"But you've got a name- you don't throw away one name, before you
come honestly by another?"
"I hope not, gal- I hope not. My names have come nat'rally, and I
suppose the one I bear now will be of no great lasting, since the
Delawares seldom settle on a man's ra'al title, until such time as
he has an opportunity of showing his true natur', in the council,
or on the warpath; which has never behappened me; seeing firstly,
because I'm not born a red-skin and have no right to sit in their
councillings, and am much too humble to be called on for opinions
from the great of my own colour; and, secondly, because this is
the first war that has befallen in my time, and no inimy has yet
inroaded far enough into the colony, to be reached by an arm even
longer than mine.
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