Exhumed [pp. 333-337]

EXIt UMED.
to think them more than half right; and,
although we did not come here to disturb your quiet and happy communityfor our business is that of surveying a
route for a great State-road-yet we
think we can interest, and perhaps benefit, you by telling of the outside world,
of which you must necessarily now be
ignorant; and we would like to hear from
you something of your history-the place
whence, and the reason why, you came
here."
' You speak so kindly," replied the old
man, "that, although the story is painful,
and only wholly known to two of us, after
you have rested, and have seen and conversed with some of our people, and satisfied your evident curiosity, I will tell it to
you."
We were not long in overcoming their
shyness, and soon found them obliging,
and willing to show and explain their
modes of living, their houses and households. Among their culinary utensils
were drinking-cups of horn, bowls and
plates, with a variety of articles of baked
clay of considerable ingenuity and beau ty; mats of straw, grasses, and pine
bark, woven or plaited, ornamented the
floors; and swinging cradles of willow,
artistically interwoven with variegated
barks, were cozy resting-places for the
tiny occupants, who were robed in a sin gle garment, made of the finest skin of
the fawn. An accurate description of
the costume of the female portion of this
community, would require a more inti mate knowledge of the feminine toilet
than the writer possesses; but, certain ly, no one could fail to admire the bloom ing cheek, the elastic step, the well-pro portioned forms of these bright- eyed
maidens, as they here met our admiring
gaze. One article of dress-a reminis cence of home and by-gone years- at tracted our attention. It was a little
cloak, with the hood thrown back, and
dotted with tufts of feathers-the sacred ly cherished property of the Chief's aged
companion. But strange and crude as
were their outward appearance and surroundings, we found that their ideas of
conventional life-its privileges, duties,
and obligations-were much more so;
and, to our questions as to their history,
genealogy, marital, parental, and filial
relations, they seemed utterly at a loss,
and to regard it all as a very tangled
skein. They were all brothers and sisters; some brothers first cousins to their
own sisters; others, step-relations-with
very short steps at that-to their own
wives, and some almost their own grandfathers.
The Patriarch, in compliance with his
promise, proceeded to give us a sketch
of the origin, and cause of the seclusion,
of the community:
Soon after the middle of the last century, and subsequent to the old French
war and Braddock's defeat, two little
children-Karl Beuhler, aged seven, son
of Philip Beuhler, and Susan, aged sev en, only daughter of the widow Stearns,
of Germantown, Pennsylvania, then the
very border of Western frontier settle ments- went, one afternoon, with other
children, to gather berries. Having
strayed some distance from their com panions into the woods, they wandered
on, regardless of their course or the flight
of time, until, to their surprise, they were
overtaken by the shades of night. Be wildered and frightened, they endeavor ed to retrace their steps, until the dark ness, and their utter exhaustion, left them
no alternative but to lie down and wait
for morning.
How long they slept they never knew.
The boy was suddenly awakened by a
grip upon his arm; and, opening his
eyes, he saw bending over him, with a
fiendish scowl, an Indian, decorated with
paint and feathers. His cry of terror
aroused his little companion, whose wild
shrieks woke the echoes of the forest,
as her gaze encountered the savage.
Their first impulse was to run; but the
I872.]
335