How to Be Soft Hearted Again
Publication: American Indian Stories by Zitkala-Sa. Washington: Hayworth Publishing House, 1921. pp. 109-125.
The Soft-Hearted Sioux
I.
Beside the open burn I saturday within our tepee. With my carmine blanket wrapped tightly about my crossed legs, I was thinking of the coming season, my sixteenth winter. On either side of the wigwam were my parents. My father was whistling a tune betwixt his teeth while polishing with his bare hand a scarlet stone pipe he had recently carved. Nigh in forepart of me, across the middle fire, my erstwhile grandmother sat near the entranceway.
She turned her face toward her correct and addressed most of her words to my mother. Now and then she spoke to me, merely never did she permit her eyes to rest upon her daughter'southward husband, my father. It was just upon rare occasions that my grandmother said anything to him. Thus his ears were open and ready to catch the smallest wish she might express. Sometimes when my grandmother had been maxim things which pleased him, my father used to comment upon them. At other times, when he could not approve of what was spoken, he used to work or smoke silently.
On this night my one-time grandmother began her talk well-nigh me. Filling the basin of her red stone pipe with dry willow bark, she looked across at me.
"My grandchild, you are tall and are no longer a piddling boy." Narrowing her old eyes, she asked, "My grandchild, when are you going to bring here a handsome young adult female?" I stared into the fire rather than see her gaze. Waiting for my answer, she stooped forrad and through the long stem drew a flame into the red stone pipe.
I smiled while my optics were nevertheless fixed upon the bright fire, only I said nix in answer. Turning to my mother, she offered her the pipe. I glanced at my grandmother. The loose buckskin sleeve fell off at her elbow and showed a wrist covered with silvery bracelets. Holding up the fingers of her left hand, she named off the desirable immature women of our village.
"Which i, my grandchild, which one?" she questioned.
"Hoh!" I said, pulling at my blanket in defoliation. "Not notwithstanding!" Here my mother passed the pipe over the burn to my father. Then she too began speaking of what I should practise.
"My son, exist ever active. Do not dislike a long hunt. Learn to provide much buffalo meat and many buckskins before you bring home a married woman." Presently my father gave the piping to my grandmother, and he took his plough in the exhortations.
"Ho, my son, I accept been counting in my heart the bravest warriors of our people. There is not one of them who won his title in his sixteenth winter. My son, it is a great affair for some brave of sixteen winters to do."
Not a word had I to give in answer. I knew well the fame of my warrior father. He had earned the right of speaking such words, though fifty-fifty he himself was a dauntless only at my age. Refusing to smoke my grandmother'south pipe considering my heart was too much stirred by their words, and sorely troubled with a fear lest I should disappoint them, I arose to go. Drawing my blanket over my shoulders, I said, as I stepped toward the entranceway: "I go to hobble my pony. It is at present late in the night."
II.
Ix winters' snows had buried deep that night when my old grandmother, together with my father and mother, designed my time to come with the glow of a camp fire upon information technology.
Nevertheless I did not abound up the warrior, huntsman, and married man I was to have been. At the mission school I learned it was incorrect to kill. Nine winters I hunted for the soft heart of Christ, and prayed for the huntsmen who chased the buffalo on the plains.
In the autumn of the tenth twelvemonth I was sent back to my tribe to preach Christianity to them. With the white man'southward Bible in my hand, and the white man's tender centre in my chest, I returned to my own people.
Wearing a greenhorn's dress, I walked, a stranger, into my male parent'southward village.
Request my fashion, for I had not forgotten my native tongue, an old human being led me toward the tepee where my father lay. From my old companion I learned that my father had been ill many moons. As we drew nigh the tepee, I heard the chanting of a medicine-man within it. At once I wished to enter in and drive from my home the sorcerer of the plains, but the erstwhile warrior checked me. "Ho, wait exterior until the medicine-man leaves your father," he said. While talking he scanned me from head to anxiety. Then he retraced his steps toward the middle of the camping-ground.
My male parent's dwelling was on the outer limits of the round-faced village. With every heart-throb I grew more than impatient to enter the wigwam.
While I turned the leaves of my Bible with nervous fingers, the medicine-man came forth from the dwelling and walked hurriedly away. His caput and confront were closely covered with the loose robe which draped his unabridged figure.
He was alpine and large. His long strides I accept never forgot. They seemed to me then the uncanny gait of eternal expiry. Quickly pocketing my Bible, I went into the tepee.
Upon a mat lay my father, with furrowed face up and gray hair. His eyes and cheeks were sunken far into his caput. His sallow skin lay thin upon his pinched nose and loftier cheek-bones. Stooping over him, I took his fevered hand. "How, Ate?" I greeted him. A lite flashed from his listless optics and his dried lips parted. "My son!" he murmured, in a feeble voice. And so again the wave of joy and recognition receded. He airtight his eyes, and his paw dropped from my open up palm to the ground.
Looking about, I saw an quondam woman sitting with bowed caput. Shaking hands with her, I recognized my female parent. I sabbatum downwards between my begetter and mother as I used to do, but I did non feel at abode. The place where my old grandmother used to sit down was now unoccupied. With my mother I bowed my head. Akin our throats were choked and tears were streaming from our eyes; but far apart in spirit our ideas and faiths separated usa. My grief was for the soul unsaved; and I thought my mother wept to see a brave man's body broken past sickness.
Useless was my endeavour to change the faith in the medicine-man to that abstruse power named God. Then one twenty-four hours I became righteously mad with anger that the medicine-man should thus ensnare my father's soul. And when he came to chant his sacred songs I pointed toward the door and bade him go! The human being's eyes glared upon me for an instant. Slowly gathering his robe about him, he turned his back upon the sick man and stepped out of our wigwam. "Ha, ha, ha! my son, I cannot alive without the medicine-man!" I heard my father cry when the sacred man was gone.
Three.
On a brilliant mean solar day, when the winged seeds of the prairie-grass were flying hither and thither, I walked solemnly toward the centre of the camping-ground. My middle crush hard and irregularly at my side. Tighter I grasped the sacred book I carried under my arm. At present was the kickoff of life'southward piece of work.
Though I knew it would be hard, I did not one time feel that failure was to be my advantage. As I stepped unevenly on the rolling ground, I thought of the warriors before long to wash off their war-paints and follow me.
At length I reached the place where the people had assembled to hear me preach. In a big circle men and women sat upon the dry red grass. Inside the ring I stood, with the white man's Bible in my hand. I tried to tell them of the soft heart of Christ.
In silence the vast circle of bareheaded warriors sat under an afternoon sun. At last, wiping the wet from my brow, I took my identify in the ring. The hush of the assembly filled me with dandy promise.
I was turning my thoughts upward to the sky in gratitude, when a stir called me to earth again.
A tall, potent man arose. His loose robe hung in folds over his right shoulder. A pair of snapping black optics attached themselves similar the poisonous fangs of a serpent upon me. He was the medicine-homo. A tremor played nigh my middle and a chill cooled the burn down in my veins.
Scornfully he pointed a long forefinger in my direction and asked,
"What loyal son is he who, returning to his begetter's people, wears a foreigner'south clothes?" He paused a moment, and and so continued: "The clothes of that foreigner of whom a story says he bound a native of our state, and heaping dry out sticks around him, kindled a fire at his feet!" Waving his hand toward me, he exclaimed, "Here is the traitor to his people!"
I was helpless. Before the eyes of the crowd the cunning magician turned my honest heart into a vile nest of treachery. Alas! the people frowned every bit they looked upon me.
"Heed!" he went on. "Which 1 of you who have eyed the boyfriend tin meet through his bosom and warn the people of the nest of immature snakes hatching in that location? Whose ear was so astute that he caught the hissing of snakes whenever the fellow opened his mouth? This i has not only proven false to you, but fifty-fifty to the Cracking Spirit who fabricated him. He is a fool! Why practise you lot sit hither giving ear to a foolish man who could not defend his people because he fears to kill, who could not bring venison to renew the life of his sick male parent? With his prayers, let him drive away the enemy! With his soft heart, let him keep off starvation! Nosotros shall become elsewhere to dwell upon an untainted basis."
With this he disbanded the people. When the sun lowered in the west and the winds were placidity, the village of cone-shaped tepees was gone. The medicine-homo had won the hearts of the people.
Only my begetter'south dwelling house was left to marker the fighting-footing.
Four.
From a long night at my father'due south bedside I came out to look upon the morning. The yellow sunday hung every bit between the snow-covered land and the cloudless blue sky. The lite of the new day was cold. The stiff breath of winter crusted the snowfall and fitted crystal shells over the rivers and lakes. As I stood in front end of the tepee, thinking of the vast prairies which separated u.s.a. from our tribe, and wondering if the loftier sky too separated the soft-hearted Son of God from us, the icy boom from the N blew through my hair and skull. My neglected hair had grown long and cruel upon my neck.
My father had not risen from his bed since the day the medicine-man led the people away. Though I read from the Bible and prayed beside him upon my knees, my father would not heed. All the same I believed my prayers were not unheeded in heaven.
"Ha, ha, ha! my son," my male parent groaned upon the get-go snow. "My son, our nutrient is gone. There is no one to bring me meat! My son, your soft heart has unfitted you for everything!" Then covering his confront with the buffalo-robe, he said no more than. Now while I stood out in that common cold wintertime morning, I was starving. For 2 days I had not seen any food. Merely my own cold and hunger did non harass my soul as did the whining cry of the sick old human being.
Stepping once again into the tepee, I untied my snow-shoes, which were fastened to the tent-poles.
My poor mother, watching past the sick one, and faithfully heaping wood upon the centre fire, spoke to me:
"My son, do not neglect again to bring your father meat, or he volition starve to death."
"How, Ina," I answered, sorrowfully. From the tepee I started forth again to chase nutrient for my aged parents. All twenty-four hours I tracked the white level lands in vain. Nowhere, nowhere were there any other footprints but my own! In the evening of this third fast-day I came back without meat. Only a bundle of sticks for the fire I brought on my dorsum. Dropping the wood outside, I lifted the door-flap and gear up 1 human foot within the tepee.
There I grew giddy and numb. My eyes swam in tears. Before me lay my old gray-haired father sobbing like a child. In his horny hands he clutched the buffalo-robe, and with his teeth he was gnawing off the edges. Chewing the dry out stiff hair and buffalo-skin, my father'due south optics sought my hands. Upon seeing them empty, he cried out:
"My son, your soft center will allow me starve before you bring me meat! Two hills eastward stand a herd of cattle. All the same you will see me die before you bring me food!"
Leaving my mother lying with covered head upon her mat, I rushed out into the nighttime.
With a strange warmth in my heart and swiftness in my feet, I climbed over the first hill, and soon the second one. The moonlight upon the white country showed me a articulate path to the white man'south cattle. With my hand upon the knife in my chugalug, I leaned heavily against the fence while counting the herd.
20 in all I numbered. From amongst them I chose the best-fattened animal. Leaping over the argue, I plunged my knife into it.
My long pocketknife was precipitous, and my easily, no more than fearful and slow, slashed off choice chunks of warm flesh. Angle nether the meat I had taken for my starving father, I hurried across the prairie.
Toward home I adequately ran with the life-giving food I carried upon my dorsum. Hardly had I climbed the 2d hill when I heard sounds coming after me. Faster and faster I ran with my load for my father, just the sounds were gaining upon me. I heard the clicking of snowshoes and the squeaking of the leather straps at my heels; however I did non plow to see what pursued me, for I was intent upon reaching my father. Suddenly like thunder an angry voice shouted curses and threats into my ear! A rough hand wrenched my shoulder and took the meat from me! I stopped struggling to run. A deafening whir filled my head. The moon and stars began to move. Now the white prairie was heaven, and the stars lay under my anxiety. At present again they were turning. At last the starry blue rose up into place. The noise in my ears was yet. A keen tranquility filled the air. In my mitt I constitute my long knife dripping with blood. At my feet a man's figure lay prone in blood-ruby snow. The horrible scene about me seemed a trick of my senses, for I could not understand it was real. Looking long upon the blood-stained snow, the load of meat for my starving father reached my recognition at last. Quickly I tossed information technology over my shoulder and started again homeward.
Tired and haunted I reached the door of the wigwam. Carrying the nutrient before me, I entered with information technology into the tepee.
"Father, here is food!" I cried, as I dropped the meat near my mother. No answer came. Turning about, I beheld my gray-haired male parent dead! I saw by the unsteady firelight an old gray-haired skeleton lying rigid and stiff.
Out into the open up I started, merely the snowfall at my feet became bloody.
V.
On the solar day later on my father's expiry, having led my mother to the military camp of the medicine-homo, I gave myself up to those who were searching for the murderer of the paleface.
They bound me hand and foot. Here in this jail cell I was placed four days agone.
The shrieking winter winds take followed me hither. Rattling the bars, they howl unceasingly: "Your soft heart! your soft heart will see me dice before you bring me food!" Hark! something is clanking the chain on the door. It is being opened. From the dark night without a blackness effigy crosses the threshold. * * * It is the guard. He comes to warn me of my fate. He tells me that tomorrow I must dice. In his stern face I express joy aloud. I practise not fearfulness expiry.
Notwithstanding I wonder who shall come to welcome me in the realm of foreign sight. Will the loving Jesus grant me pardon and give my soul a soothing sleep? or will my warrior begetter greet me and receive me equally his son? Will my spirit fly upward to a happy heaven? or shall I sink into the abysmal pit, an outcast from a God of infinite beloved?
Presently, before long I shall know, for at present I see the east is growing red. My heart is strong. My face is calm. My eyes are dry and eager for new scenes. My easily hang quietly at my side. Serene and brave, my soul awaits the men to perch me on the gallows for another flight. I go.
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Source: https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/zitkala-sa/stories/soft.html
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