The Trial Path, Impressions of an Indian Childhood and Why I am a Pagan
Zitkala-Sa
9781465559432
pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
IT was an autumn night on the plain. The smoke-lapels of the cone-shaped tepee flapped gently in the breeze. From the low night sky, with its myriad fire points, a large bright star peeped in at the smoke-hole of the wigwam between its fluttering lapels, down upon two Dakotas talking in the dark. The mellow stream from the star above, a maid of twenty summers, on a bed of sweet-grass, drank in with her wakeful eyes. On the opposite side of the tepee, beyond the centre fireplace, the grandmother spread her rug. Though once she had lain down, the telling of a story has aroused her to a sitting posture. Her eyes are tight closed. With a thin palm she strokes her wind-shorn hair. “Yes, my grandchild, the legend says the large bright stars are wise old warriors, and the small dim ones are handsome young braves,” she reiterates, in a high, tremulous voice. “Then this one peeping in at the smoke-hole yonder is my dear old grandfather,” muses the young woman, in long-drawn-out words
