Père Le Clercq stepped forward.

“We will hear no more of this, Simone,” he said sternly. “I have already written a letter for the sloop Fairness to take back. In this letter, I have promised to return you to the father and mother that God gave you.”

“Then you will have to tie me up like a lynx on a pole,” Simone told him. “And like you I make a promise that I will bite and scratch all the way.”

Madame Corbusier rebuked her but Stone Girl, peering in from the other room, saw her and Père Le Clercq exchange glances. They talked together privately in the Huron tongue.

“Simone,” the lady announced. “I am as loath to lose you as you are to leave. Winter is almost upon us. Ice will soon stop the boats. We have decided to wait until spring. That will give you time to grow accustomed to the idea.”

“Madame Corbusier, next spring my teeth and fingernails will be just as sharp,” Simone promised.

Next spring came and it was plain that Madame had not given up her resolve. She had Simone show Stone Girl all the Plantscheman dishes that Madame Corbusier had taught Simone to prepare. And to make Stone Girl more fluent in Plantscheman words, she said that the girls must speak no longer in their Indian tongue, not even in the privacy of their sleeping room. They would have no need of Lenni Lenape words where they were going anyhow. It was not easy for the two girls to shut off the beloved language. When they felt they had to say something to each other in Indian now, they said it to Otter Boy in the other’s hearing. To keep Indian words alive in their breasts they told Otter Boy long stories in the same tongue.

“This happened a long time ago when the whole world was dark” one story began. “The darkness was very unhandy. Woakus, the gray fox, could not tell if he was gray or black, and Wulalow, the One with the Beautiful Tail, could not see if he had a tail at all. Tshimalus, the bluebird, had never looked on his bright blue wings, and Skaak, the polecat, could not admire his handsome white stripe. Many accidents happened. Memeu, the woodcock, flew into a tree and broke his wing so he had to go on the ground and drag it like Pachquachus, the mouse, his tail. Hunja, the bull that butts with his head, bumped into Nunscheach, the she-bear, and that was a mighty snarling and roaring. The only one that didn’t have an accident was Ssappis, the lightning bug, for he carried his torch in his breast.”

She stopped as she always did at this point and asked if she should tell more.

“Bischi!” Otter Boy gurgled, which meant yes, surely, and was the nearest the Indian tongue came to the Plantscheman s’il vous plaît, if you please, or je vous en prie, I beg of you, for the Indian would not even beg for his life and had no begging word in his language.