“Guka, Mamma, she stopped by the stable today when you were in the kitchen. She asked my name. Was it weak or brave that I told her?”

“It is right that you tell her when she asks.”

“She did not say go away or be quiet. She talked like she knew me. Does she know me, Guka, Mamma?”

“Otter Boy. Perhaps she knows you. She is Ohum, the grandmother of your Guka, mamma. But you must never tell her that. She would not believe. She would be angry.”

“Why must I never tell her?”

Stone Girl lay silent a while.

“Otter Boy. It is because she is a white person. Surely you have seen by this time how unaccountable white persons are. Sometimes when the morning is bad and stormy, they will say good morning, and sometimes when the morning is very good and the sun smiles, they will say nothing. You have heard them call you Johnny or Indian Charley or something else that is not your name. An old man of the Chippeways told me once the white man does this because inside of him he feels guilty and afraid. He knows he is a trespasser on Indian land and that Indians fight and kill those who steal their land. So he calls you Indian Johnny to make you seem little and harmless and himself big and victorious. He is like Andahammie, the great green bullfrog, who bellows fearfully at you like Gisilija, the wild bull, but dives in the mud to hide himself when you come by.”

“Guka, Mamma, why doesn’t the white man want a brave Indian like me in the house?”

“Otter Boy. You are little and would get into mischief.”

“There is a little girl in the house and she can get into mischief, too.”

“She belongs to the house. She is not Indian.”

“Guka, Mamma, why does the white man think he is better than the Indian?”

“Ehih! Otter Boy. That is a puzzle. Your great-grandfather, Machilek, said it was because the white man has talking books and the talking books tell him he is better than other men. The Indian does not need talking books to lie like the bird who sings a sweet story and then flies away. From the time he is little the Indian’s father and grandfather teach him the truth that all men and beasts and living things are brothers and cousins and must be treated with respect.”

“Guka, Mamma. But the white men on the boat had no talking books and they thought themselves better than us.”

“Otter Boy. There is more than one reason. I heard your father, Espan, once say that the white man thinks himself better because he alone knows how to make a gun. If the Indian needs a gun, he must pay the white man many furs. If he has no furs, he must take his bow and arrow and tramp a whole winter in the forest. His feet must go silent like Long Tail, the panther. He must always go into the wind. He must crawl like a snake to get close enough for his arrows. Now the white man with a gun need not do this. His gun kills the deer a long way off. In war he even has a bigger gun he calls a cannon that kills more than one man with a single shot. All this makes the white man’s nose very high and proud.”